Carolina Nitsch Gallery.  January 20, 2010. 3:00pm.

David Behringer:  So I guess my first question was why YOU curated the show – did you know him? Were you familiar with the work?… what’s the…

Richard Dupont:  Well I met him actually in the early to mid 90’s by chance. We both happened to be included in a group exhibition in a gallery in Soho that’s no longer there. And we just struck up a relationship. He invited me by to see his paintings - went by his apartment where he was painting. He had a studio but he rarely visited... He didn’t like to go there – brought back a lot of bad memories of things that had happened earlier on in his life. But I was one of his only friends really. I was in my mid 20’s, he was in his mid 80’s and totally reclusive – married – his wife is still alive, she’s almost 100 years old. And in many ways she’s the last witness to that period of “10th Street galleries” and the birth of New York school of painting. So over a period of a decade – maybe more – I visited him quite regularly and watched him work, and he was continually reworking the same paintings.  Many of them he had begun in the 50’s.  Early on he had quite a bit of success - in the early 50’s - and he was showing in a noteworthy - actually quite a prestigious gallery on 57^th street… it’s…

DB:  (interrupting) Was he doing this style in the 50’s or…?

RD:  He was just beginning to work like this in the early 50’s but he was also painting slightly larger more muscular abstract gestural paintings. But he was moving away from that as everybody else was moving into that, so there’s paintings that are still around that were being painted when de Kooning was painting “excavation”… and Roy was painting these other paintings that are gone now… that he destroyed. But he was very much involved with the entire art world back then - it was a small group.  He had met de Kooning by chance in the New York Public Library in the 40’s when he would – I guess a lot of artists spent time at the New York Public Library in the 40’s. It was cheap, you could go there and read – look at art books. Roy was entirely self-taught. That’s how he learned about painting and about art. He was influenced heavily early on by Mondrian obviously, also by Albert Pinkham Ryder and by the Nabis school: Vuillard, Bonnard... He was interested in color. So he had this big start. But then as he gravitated towards his mature style his paintings shrunk, the dialog became more hermetic and personalized. He was totally unfashionable. And he also had a big drinking problem. I mean everyone was drinking heavily back then - he drank heavily with de Kooning. There are a number of stories of those two getting into trouble together that he told me over the years. So… his path was difficult.  He grew up on the Lower East Side, his father was an abusive character and abandoned the family, and he was raised by his mother who was illiterate and worked odd jobs to feed the kids – there were four of them, or five of them, I think.  He was in the Civilian Conservation Core - the CCC, which was something that was enacted as part of the New Deal during The Great Depression, as a way of putting young men to work - rebuilding roads, infrastructure, this kind of thing. So initially he was drawn to painting, and to poetry. He didn’t have any money to buy art supplies so he started out really as a poet and would make little drawings - and write poems. And then he started to paint. So then in the 40’s he met de Kooning and de Kooning introduced him to everybody in the art world, and then he started showing, and then he started having a lot of success. He was in the Whitney Annual in 1953. You can see some of the things here. (points to a small table with photos, catalogs, and letters) These are some of the original…

DB:  Yeah I was just reading those – I like that letter… (referring to a handwritten letter to Roy from Bill and Elaine de Kooning)

RD:  Bill and Elaine de Kooning supported him all the way through, they gave a painting (of Roy's) to the Guggenheim museum in 1987 I think it was. But they were big fans, they bought his work and supported him all the way through - but one of the few. Agnes Gund was also a big supporter - she’s purchased paintings through the years. He was very visible in the early 50s and then he moved into this style - that became his mature style and he went underground basically, and he had a long bout with alcohol – really 2 decades long he was just in the bottle, increasingly withdrawn from the world.

DB:  Still painting throughout that time?

RD:  Still painting throughout that whole period – just not so much…

DB:  Social?

RD:  Yeah.  Completely private. Just being supported by his wife who as I said is still alive. She was a teacher - she worked several different jobs to pay the bills. She supported him. He was working in an after hours club as an elevator operator and was stabbed in the stomach one night – like at 3 in the morning – and he nearly died. And that caused him to reevaluate everything and turn his life around, and got sober -eventually in the 80’s became sober. And then he started to exhibit again. Of course he had built up quite a body of work at that point. There are maybe 120 painting in total. The ones you see here are the ones he had in his apartment surrounding him on the walls that he was constantly re-working over and over and over again. Other’s he had put aside or in a closet. So there are paintings that he had painted in the 50’s, 60’s, 70s that he didn’t continue to rework but it was really only because they weren’t out. Everything was always fair game with him. So things were constantly not only being overpainted but the orientation was changing - so he’s like moving things around. If you look on the back of these you can see this one.. up… up… up.. (referring to the back of a painting where Roy has marked “up” on 3 different sides as he changed his mind over the years)

DB: So when you hung the show, how did you know which way was up?

RD: Well this is how they were in his living room…  oh and there’s a hanging wire he attached on the back…

DB: and the dates are what? (referring to the multiple dates written on the back of that one) When he felt he was finished?

RD:  No…

DB:  (interrupting) so whenever he felt like dating it?

RD:  Pretty much.. yeah.  It’s arbitrary. He would date them whenever he kinda felt like it, but he was not keeping anywhere near an accurate record of time spent or worked on - for example this one I know he painted on this up until 2005-2006 but the last date is 1998.

DB:  Gotcha. And also the titles have multiple dates (referring to the titles listed on the gallery checklist, for example “untitled 1991-98/1964”)… is that him? Or is that the gallery?

RD:  The gallery list just includes the dates on the verso – so just whatever’s on back is just on there… But what he was doing early early on – just in terms of some of the formal devices, and the aesthetic and pictorial strategies in the work was way ahead of his time. So first of all he’s going small and introspective when everybody else in art galleries was going big and gestural and expansive.  He’s making frames around panels and incorporating the frame into the painted surface. So the painted surface extends out onto the painted frame in instances: picture as object, object as picture. This is way before Howard Hodgkin, this is before the post-minimals. If you look at these panels - the shapes of the panels – the whole idea of construction of the support can be a form itself, so (pointing at the frame) that’s a shape - a sculpture shape in addition to being a painted surface. These were things that were to be heavily developed much later on. If you look at Blinky Palermo, Brice Marden, Robert Mangold, Robert Ryman… Roy was a precursor to all that.

DB:   I mean besides that – just right now with Karen Kilimnik and Peyton… Tomma Abts – painting has shrunk within the last - even 5, 10 years…

RD:  Yeah and it’s also a return to abstract painting right now. But this is more about the ebb and flow of fashion.

DB:  Is there any rhyme or reason to the frames? Are they earlier or later? Or just whenever he felt like framing?

RD:  Whenever he felt like framing them… And then in this case – a pretty interesting one - the back of here this is 1957 marked on there, so this one started in 1957 and ended when he died… and this is an interesting one because its got this inverted situation, so the frame is negative space to the picture… (there is a border on the painting where the paint is about 1/4 of an inch "less thick" - so it looks like a sunken frame)

DB: Do you know if that’s paint? Or wood? (referring to the entire raised portion of the painting)

RD: I believe that this is just paint - so that’s the paint literally built up that far… but at a certain point it becomes consciously….  And that’s the only one that’s really like that but it’s interesting in relation to the framed ones.

DB:  I was in here – I think you were here – last weekend.  And there was a woman in a wheelchair…

RD:  Yeah that’s his wife!

DB:  Yeah you were talking like you knew each other…

RD: Yeah absolutely. Well as I said I got to know him over a long period of time and was really one of his only friends…. Cuz everyone had either died.. or..

DB: (me interrupting again) That’s awesome! Because I was thinking I really hope he didn’t curate this because he just had a show here and then just picked someone he liked…

RD:  No no. not at all. I actually was trying to get people to show his work for a long time. I took it to a few different people - not too many…a few.. and nobody really got it. Most of the dealers that appreciated his work, because there are a lot that appreciate his work very much – and the critics love Roy’s work, he always gets a good note there – but he was so hard to deal with… such a difficult personality. He was impossible frankly. He would do everything that a dealer despises. He was arguing constantly, he would second-guess them constantly, he would hound them about pricing and about payment, he would come in and rehang things after a show had been hung. He would go to collector’s homes and take things off the wall and take them away and rework them. All these things were done by him.  I mean he was impossible.. and very argumentative, kinda confrontational.

DB:  So in the same way that like Degas’ sculptures were cast and shown after his death, would he (Roy) be okay with this? Were some of these never intended to be shown?

RD:  He wouldn’t of hung it the way we hung it. That’s for sure. (laughter) It’s funny because when we were hanging it Carolina and Brian and I… I started laughing because it just popped into my head -  like what if Roy were here… he’d be so difficult… he’d be “what are you doing!?” everything you would do.. It would’ve been impossible. And in a way it’s good that he wasn’t.  I always felt that the work needed – first of all it needed the right context – like a serious context, and the right kind of space. And then it needed the right treatment, so you have not too many pictures - so you can see them… make it look fresh… just work with the best pieces and really develop the relationship piece to piece to piece. All of that would have been impossible with Roy because he would have had all these different crazy ideas that he would want to do but then he would have changed his mind about them the next day. A lot of times it can be hard to show an artist’s work properly if they’re input is involved.. now that’s like.. coming from an artist (laughter) it’s kind of a bizarre statement.. and I would not want anyone to do that with my work, but I do think from my experience – and I’ve done a lot of hanging of shows over the years – that a lot of times you have to trust the people who you’re working with because they have tremendous insight. He would never do that; he wouldn’t want to give up control.

DB:  I read about the situation you mentioned where he came back and reworked a painting at a collectors home – and it’s almost as if these are not done until he dies.

RD:  Yeah absolutely.

DB:  So if in 2000 I saw the work and loved it I would say "you know what I’m going to wait 10 years" OR I’m going to buy it and then invite him over to my house to continue to work on it. – because the most interesting ones are the really thick ones.

RD:  Yeah not only that but I think that as he was running out of time he began to really think about… that he wasn’t going to be working on them anymore. And I think that towards the end he was aware of that and was trying to make them as good as they could be. He was trying to make them as good as they could be all the way along. He was really fine tuning them. The reason I think that that’s true – and I know it’s true – is because I spent so much time with him, but you can see it in the paintings in this room - more so than in a lot of the other ones.  They have a very contemporary pallet and there’s incredibly sophisticated interrelationship of space and colors and pictures. These are things that took a very very long time to get the way they are now. They’re not improvised you know. He’s a special case though because unlike most artists that kind of finish something and then move on to something else and … there was a neurosis that I think came from his childhood that manifested itself in this working method that allowed for continual reworking, continual changing with no fixed finishing point.

DB:  Well I was thinking that if someone is an artist – assuming you don’t need to support yourself - you have a wife or a night job or whatever… why do you sell anything? Or why do you sell six things that look all the same. I think there’s this quest to find whatever idea you’re looking for but why not throw away the 9 before that – or rework the same canvas over and over?

RD:  Well first of all it depends on the personality. Second of all because you want to get your work out there. I mean most artists I know including Roy… Roy was desperate for recognition, really wanted to sell paintings, make money, have success and get good reviews… all this kind of thing but at the same time couldn’t help himself. It was like this biological thing - or neurological thing. It was that he couldn’t let it stop, he couldn’t help himself. It was a quest for perfection I guess.

DB:  Oh! Ok so here’s a good question: did he ever “nail it” on the first try? Or the second try?

RD:  Well there’s one back here that he painted in the 50s and he didn’t touch afterwards.  I’ll show it to you and you tell me.

(we walk to back room)

RD: Here.

DB: (me just looking at it with quiet admiration)

RD:  That’s pretty solid.

DB: (nodding)

RD: That’s an amazing painting– it’s got a little damage in the upper right hand corner but..

DB:  It’s good…

RD:  Yeah. That was one he had not worked on…. This is another one (pointing to a different one) that was unchanged from a number of years ago – probably from the 1980’s or 70s?  See the pallet on some of these ones that he didn’t work on is different, - you know it’s a little more dated… the pallet is a little more of a certain period.   Colors have a… there’s a whole contemporary pallet that’s going on.

DB:  Right – on my website I wrote that the paint…. ( I had written that the supports looked 60 years old while the paint looked new)

RD:  Yeah I read that -  the paint feels like it was painted…

DB:  Not just because it’s new, but because the colors look new, so you get this weird “Did he find boards that were from 100 years ago and paint on them?”… and no….

RD:  Yeah he made the boards way back when, out of stuff he found on the street.

DB:  You’re right. (pointing at the painting that he left unchanged from the 70’s/80’s) This one looks very 70’s.

RD:  Exactly. But see then this one here he added this crazy green and that’s very recent. That’s a very contemporary looking pallet, more so than these. So he did have paintings that he painted that he didn’t rework, but there were a main group that he had in a very small little living room.  He had a bed in the middle of the living room, and he would just roll out of bed, eat breakfast, and sit in this little chair with another chair across from him where he put the painting and he would just paint on it right there… the ones that were out in the living room hung up on the wall salon style around his bed -he had all this fishing gear and tackle and everything… the room was a mess actually - those are ones he was just constantly reworking. There were a number of them in a storage closet that he was just ignoring or had forgotten about or didn’t want to work on anymore..

DB:  But he didn’t destroy…

RD:  No

DB:  But his earlier stuff he did destroy?

RD:  He destroyed a ton over the years. There’s a lot over the years that were destroyed, a lot that were stored improperly and exist now that are almost beyond repair. And then there’s a handful that he didn’t go back into but that were held onto at the same time. But the thing about Roy is that if you would go down - He was so old -  I would go by his little storage closet in the building sometimes and I’d pull something out and be like “this is amazing!” and he’d go “ohhh I don’t know”, and I’d say “no this is really great!” and he’d say “aww bring it up to the apartment”. You know he’d completely forgotten about it. So you’d pull this old dusty thing out, and I’d get up to the apartment. I’d prop it up and say “see isn’t that amazing”.. and then I’d come back like 3 weeks later and he would have added.  So if it was in front of him - if it was there - it was fair game. And that’s pretty much the way it worked. He hated looking at old things, he’d go “awww no well that’s all wrong”.  He couldn’t stand it. He’d have to go back in and fix it.  And then once he started he couldn’t stop - it’d go through all these different permutations..

(Gallery director Brian Rumbolo is introduced and we all have a long discussion about my website, the gallery mission, and multiples/editions.. before getting back into it)

DB: (remembering why we’re in the back office of the gallery) …that’s why I wanted to know if one wasn’t layered, if he was honestly trying to find a visually awesome thing or just layering as a gimmick or “style”.

RD:  Because the thing is – for one thing he worked with a tiny little brush and so these surfaces are accumulated up to that point of looking like tree bark almost -  over a really long period of time.  It’s not like he was laying it in really thick or textured quickly or something…

DB:  With some of these I’m not sure if the depth is intentional – like in that anti-frame one we were looking at - where the depth is determined not by his intention of depth but by how many times he wanted to change the color.

RD:  Well the layering of colors - the density of the pigment to the point where the surface becomes architectural is a bi-product of the working method.

DB:  But did he intend for this shape to be raised or…

RD:  Well at a certain point then the shape becomes part of the picture and then it has to be…

DB:  Like the brown one. (referring to a painting with multiple depth layers that has been almost entirely painted brown but you can still see various levels of depth).

RD:  Absolutely.  So at some point, ten to fifteen years into working on these things that he began in the 50’s he would begin to build up these – enough texture so that he would have these areas that were higher then others, so of course that became part of the whole thing. But what’s fascinating is that in many ways - certainly consciously part of it- but also just a bi-product of the amount of pigment and the amount of changes that are underneath… that are built up.

DB:  Someone told me to look for the density of cracking in old paintings which is the amount of paint they put on to correct something…

RD:  There’s a lot of the paintings that have been damaged or cracked..

DB:  Are these oil?

RD:  Yeah.

DB: So they will crack severely in 200 years?

RD:  Oh no.. well if they’re not stored properly in extremely hot situations… or extreme temperature shifts -just like anything - but they’re extremely durable these paintings.

DB:  I guess that’s right, because thick oil paint cracks. The outside dries first… but if you did these over 50 years…

RD:  Well exactly. If you take a big pallet knife and just scoop it out and go “FLUPH” and then subject that to radical temperature shifts you’re going to get some cracking because what’s underneath will remain wet for a long period of time.

DB:  And finally – I read an interview with you (about Richard’s work as a sculptor)  where you were talking about how the body constantly changes so when you’re casting yourself you have to make sure you are the same weight and in the same position - which is interesting in comparing that to these. These are not figurative obviously, but they changed daily. So any comments comparing this work to your work? Or any possible influence?

RD:  Well I guess one of the things that drew me – draws me in to Roy’s work is this sort of single mindedness to it. I’ve always admire that very much and whether it’s On Kawara or Giacometti or Morandi or Roy - there’s this sort of intense single-mindedness. And a lot of what I’ve done is basically just taken one idea and reiterated it many many many many times over - and it gets mistaken for all kinds of things but I think what really motivates me is this idea of isolating one kind of thing and then reworking that idea over and over and over again. So I guess that’s why in some ways I was drawn to this idea of continually distilling and reworking… That’s what I was really trying to get with this installation was to present something that had kind of a crystalline effect… clarity... a distillation of things down to an essential element.