Essays

In 1971 I was enrolled at California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC) in Oakland, California, located in the Rockridge neighborhood. I was an art student majoring in painting. I was skeptical as to whether photography was a true art form. I was only 20 years old at the time; when it came to art, music, philosophy, and history, I would describe myself as an iconoclast. I decided to take a history of photography class in order to draw my own conclusions. Jack Welpott taught the class of about 15 students. He was our knowledgeable guide to the history of photography as well as a dedicated fine art photographer himself.

I learned about Matthew Brady, who was a pioneer of the technique of the Daguerreotype and visually chronicled the Civil War — including scenes of the troops, portraits of Lincoln and his generals. I also learned to appreciate the work and artistry of Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Ansel Adams. I had recently camped out at Yosemite National Park for the first time during a summer hitchhiking exploration of the natural wonders of the Golden State. Adams's black-and-white photographs conveyed the magnificent splendor of that awe-inspiring National Park.

After a couple of weeks of listening to Mr. Welpott's lectures and reviewing slides of great photographs, I became convinced of photography's viability as a true art form. There is certainly a vast difference between snapshots taken by amateur photographers and the fine art photography of the masters. A great photographer develops a mastery of composition and light, and their choice of subject matter distinguishes them. The best were as skilled, dedicated, inspired, gifted, eccentric, and idiosyncratic as any good painter.

The highlight of the class was when we got to meet Imogen Cunningham — the great photographer and proto-feminist. She was having a one-woman show at the De Young Museum, located near the band shell in Golden Gate Park. Fortunately, my teacher Jack knew her well enough to ask her if she would accompany our class when we visited her show. I had seen some of Ms. Cunningham's photos in class projected as slides, but otherwise did not know much about her.

We picked her up in our instructor's car at her house on Green Street in San Francisco on Russian Hill. The house was a Victorian set back from the sidewalk with a second-story porch overlooking a wild garden. Miss Cunningham was 87 years old and wore a loose-fitting dress with a bold, colorful print; she had a large peace sign dangling from her neck. Upon entering the car, she inquired if there were any women in the class — there were none in our car. Mr. Welpott reassured her there were women students in the other car, who would meet us at the museum.

In a medium-size gallery, we were surrounded by approximately 20–25 of her photographs. I was able to speak with her personally. First she volunteered that she thought some of the photos were not that good. She said it's terrible that once you become famous, people will no longer tell you the truth about your work. We were standing near a photo of a nude in nature — it exuded sensuality and earthiness, the background misty and expressionist. I asked her who the model was. She said, "That's me." I was shocked that the woman before me was one and the same as the figure in the photograph hanging on the museum gallery wall. It was an early life lesson for me concerning the temporal nature of "this mortal coil," as Shakespeare termed it.

One of the students, who was a photographer, pointed at a portrait of Morris Graves — a well-known painter of the Northwest School — and asked Imogen Cunningham if she had "burned" the image to achieve a marvelous luminous light. She said, "No, the light was coming through the floorboards of the porch above and was cast upon the painter's face, suffusing it with a spiritual glow." She further stated that she never altered any of her photos in the darkroom; she either printed the negatives or disposed of them. This was startling to my photographer classmates, who did a great deal of altering of their work in the darkroom.

These were the highlights of our meeting at the museum in 1971 that I can recall. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to meet this American master. This event left a lasting impression that has inspired me to the present day.

At New Paltz State University in upstate New York, when I first attended college, I decided to major in fine art. One of my earliest and most consequential decisions was enrolling in Figure Drawing I with Alex Minewski. At the time, I had no idea how fateful that choice would prove to be. His uncompromising artistic philosophy and rigorous approach to the fundamental practices of figure drawing left a lasting mark on me. He was truly inspirational — both by personal example and by the principles he lived and taught.

First, something of Mr. Minewski's remarkable background. He served as a combat engineer in World War II with Merrill's Marauders, a legendary long-range penetration unit that fought in the brutal Burma campaign. He was badly wounded in combat. After the war, driven by a passion that survived even the hardships of battle, he studied art in Paris on the GI Bill — bringing to his craft the same discipline and determination that had carried him through the war.

What I remember most about Mr. Minewski's teaching begins with a single guiding principle he impressed upon us early on: "If you can't see it, you can't draw it." For him, the first and most essential discipline was learning to truly see — not merely to look. He understood that the eye and the hand are only as good as the perception behind them, and so he pushed us to develop our vision before anything else.

In the classroom, he was demanding, encouraging, and intense — sometimes all at once. When he walked around and examined the drawings we were working on, he was unflinching in his assessments. If the weight distribution of a figure was off, or the foreshortening wasn't convincing, he would simply hold out his hand and ask for your eraser and pencil. Then, without hesitation, he would erase the problem area and redraw it himself — right there on your paper.

This offended some students, who felt their work was too precious to be touched. But I saw it differently. We were fortunate to have a master teacher willing to instruct us in such a direct, hands-on way. There was no ambiguity in his corrections — only clarity.

Yet for all his exacting standards, Mr. Minewski was equally generous with praise. When your foreshortening was convincing, when the weight of the figure felt grounded and true, when your lines captured the contour of the body and told its story — he would stop, look carefully, and tell you with real enthusiasm just how excellent it was. He would say that it worked, that you were getting the right idea. Coming from him, that kind of encouragement meant everything. It was never empty flattery — it was the recognition of a master who knew precisely what he was looking at.

When I finished Figure Drawing I, I went on the following semester to take Painting 101 — also with Mr. Minewski. However, the experience unfolded quite differently from what I had hoped. As a painter, I was seeking a certain freedom of expression, and I found that his approach and my intentions were not entirely aligned. Ultimately, I made the decision to transfer out of that class. What led me to that decision is a story worth telling.

During the second week of the semester, I was working on a homework assignment in the art building — two still life exercises with very basic parameters focused on form and tonal painting. Mr. Minewski came into the classroom and asked how I was doing. I told him honestly that I wasn't doing well. The exercises felt confining to me, even boring. I had been inspired by so many painters throughout history, and I was burning with the desire to follow my own dictates, to continue my search for my own artistic voice.

His response surprised me. Rather than insisting I conform to the curriculum, he told me simply that I needed to do what was best for me — and that he would be happy to help me transfer into another class. It wasn't too late, he said, and he would gladly sign off on the transfer. There was no ego in his reaction, no offense taken. It was the response of a truly confident teacher who genuinely cared about his students' growth above all else.

I investigated the other professors available and ultimately transferred into the painting class of Ben Bishop — and that is another story.

I was preparing my mind for my annual ten-day visit to New York City to see my parents. Fortunately, I was able to combine my filial duty with a visit to the cultural Mecca that is N.Y.C. I had taken up residence in San Francisco in October 1974. In advance of my trip my mother Vivian mailed me newspaper clippings from the New York Times magazine section containing an article on a big retrospective of the art of Milton Avery — this exhibition would be on at the Whitney Museum during my visit to New York. She told me I must see the exhibit while I was in New York.

A little bit about my mother: she had studied painting at the Brooklyn Museum school in the 50s and early 60s, and although she had given up on her art, she made a habit of going to galleries and museums regularly in Manhattan and reading about the New York City art scene. After I received and perused the article, my Mom and I spoke on the phone. I told her that from what I could see the paintings were not of interest to me. I said the paintings looked simple and flat and Avery's work was not my cup of tea. My aesthetic at that point was rooted and inspired in a passionate, painterly, expressionistic approach utilizing texture and saturated opaque color. I had also just discovered non-figurative or abstract art, especially Pollock, DeKooning, and Kline.

On the free admission night at the museum I arranged to meet my mother and one of her friends there. After spending an afternoon around the various galleries and neighborhoods in Manhattan, I was waiting in the lobby of the Whitney for the time to arrive when I would be admitted to the galleries without paying. A friendly museum guard noticed me waiting on the bench in the lobby. He asked me if I was waiting to see the show. I said yes — and he admitted me twenty minutes before the free time, so I was able to view the art in relative privacy.

I have an acute eye for viewing and analyzing art. I began to take in and absorb the work, starting with Avery's early pieces on a lower floor, and was immediately struck by his unique simplicity of form and composition. I proceeded up to the next floor where the later works were hung. His later works were mainly landscapes of the mountains and the seashore where he and his family summered from their apartment in Midtown Manhattan. These oil paintings were larger and simpler, with fewer elements. My soul was quieted and exhilarated at the same time. Large fields of color were suffused with a spiritual glow. Their simplicity was deceptive. They were powerful and masterful. I entered into an almost religious reverie.

By now the galleries of the Whitney Museum were being filled with the New York City art-going public — mainly a hip, urbane, arty, and fashionable group. Amongst them I spotted my mother and her friend. I had to abandon my reverie to address them. I told my mother to please forget my previous comments about Milton Avery's art. I had viewed the small reproductions she mailed me through the limited prejudices of my artist's ego, which precipitated my ignorant and opinionated pre-judgment of his work.

I had been lucky enough to spend nearly thirty minutes alone with his masterpieces, thanks to the kindness of the museum guard who admitted me early on the free night. I was now a convert. I declared: Avery is one of the great masters of 20th-century American art. However, now that the moneylenders had entered the temple — to extend my grand religious metaphor — I would be exiting the museum. I thanked my mother for telling me about the Milton Avery retrospective. I fled out into the darkness of the Madison Avenue night, newly enriched by my experience. To this day I consider Milton Avery to be a Modern Master.