This series of five oil paintings was created by Jerry Garcia as part of his training at the San Francisco Art Institute in the later 1950s, studying under Elmer Bischoff, one of the Masters of the Bay Area Figurative Art Period (1950 - 1964).
Though his visual art impulse was overtaken by his later musical career, Garcia produced drawings and cartoons throughout his life (see The Collected Art). These paintings, and his teacher, offer a clue to the wellsprings of Garcia's later computer graphic work, and to the tension between abstract and figurative expression present in his whole creative output.
Elmer Bischoff (1916-1991) was one of the leaders among the post-WWII generation of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area, along with Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, who, after contributing to the local emergence of Abstract Expressionism during the 1940s and 1950s, shifted the terms of their spectacularly sensuous brushwork to recognizable imagery.
"...[Bischoff] deacon of west coast painters, justly celebrated for his lifelong navigation of the 'tightrope' between abstract painting's sensual materiality and the ethical implications of a figurative art." - Caroline Jones, Associate Professor of the History of Art, Stanford University
"He [Bischoff] lays on the paint thickly, an often assertive impasto that lends vigorous energy and movement, even to a scene of relative stillness. The figures here are distinct, and the landscape is broadly defined, but with a sketchy, real / unreal quality. there's a palpable tension between the representational and the abstract, between stillness and movement. And it is all in counterpoint to the sensuous colors and dappling light that fill the canvas." - Arthur Lazere, Writer & Art Critic
"The colors and techniques that Jerry Garcia has used remind me of the work of the great and historic French artist Georges Rouault (1871 - 1958). Rouault painted in dark heavy colors. He then used wild strong brush slashes, presenting his figures in somber, but vivid glowing colors with darkly (blacked) outlined faces and figures. Garcia's early works are similar to Rouault's best artworks in important areas." - Jack Solomon, Fine Art Printer & Collector
THE PROVENANCE In 1958 or 1959, at the end of Jerry's time in art school, Clifford (Tiff) Garcia was given the five oil paintings of this series by his brother, "if he wanted them." They have been with him ever since. Three of the oils were reproduced in the collected Art of Jerry Garcia, published in 2005.
The Collection ......
http://www.jerryfineart.com/collection.html
Garcia Pong
How cool is this? I log into Free Republic and see this thread while listening to 12-26-79 set II..
Well, at least he has his music.
I have a bunch of JG Neckties, and some of them are pretty cool...
Art Ping
If you want on or off the list get a hold Of Sam Cree Republicanprofessor or me
Critic Jack Solomon wrote, "The colors and techniques that Jerry Garcia has used remind me of the work of the great and historic French artist Georges Rouault (1871 - 1958)."
The comparison is unfair to Rouault, a master invoked to lend Garcia's work an air of professionalism and serious intent the paintings themselves don't justify, at least from what I can see. Does every artist working with thick, darkly toned impasto beg a comparison to Rouault? Evidently.