Before Rhythm
Long before I started counting my rhythm paintings, I was painting them. At first I was actually trying to transcribe music into a visual pattern. I liked the result, but often it was sort of “tight” and didn’t carry the excitement of what I heard. Nevertheless, I persisted and gradually dropped trying to visualize what I heard and just painted rhythm.
The portfolio begins with my earliest attempt.
Color Shapes and a City
Watercolor and ink on five paper panels, 21X100 inches. Price negotiable. My first attempt at a rhythmic design when I was an art student at Pratt in 1960. Above is only a small section of the piece. The idea of rhythm in painting was suggested by Peter Swan's history of Chinese hand scrolls.
Shapes on Green
Oil on cotton canvas, 8X50 inches, 1971. Sold. After eleven years I returned to rhythm and meticulously painted the sounds I heard in a section of a Handel concerto.
Brown Stripes
Oil on cotton canvas, 10X50 inches, 1971. Sold. Usually I "read " my painting left to right, but this time it's right to left.
After Josquin DesPrez
Acrylic on cotton canvas, 68X18 inches, 1997. $2000.00. The painting was inspired by part of the Kyrie from Josquin DesPrez's "Missa 'ami baudechon" from the late 1400s. I "read" it from the lower left and go across.
Blue Shapes
Oil on cotton canvas, 8X42 inches, 1976. $700.00.. Shapes repeat arrangements and also fade.
Mozart Rondo 1
Acrylic on cotton canvas, 24X18 inches, 1993. $300.00.
Mozart Rondo 2
Acrylic on cotton canvas, 40X19 inches, 1993. $500.00.
After Gershwin
Acrylic on four cotton canvases arranged in a precise order, 24X35, 27X17 and two 24X33 inches, 1997. $3000.00. They were inspired by the Gershwin song, "Drifting Along with the Clouds".
Dark Place
Acrylic on cotton canvas, 32X36 inches, 1997. $1200.00. The landscape is seen as rhythmic forms.
After Gounod's Faust 1
Acrylic on cotton, 16X72 inches, 1998. $1200.00.
After Gounod's Faust 2
Acrylic on cotton canvas, 18X81 inches, 1999. $1200.00
After Gounod's Faust 3
Acrylic on cotton canvas, 20X75 inches, 2000. $1200.00. In this I was freer in interpreting the music.
After Gounod's Faust 4
Acrylic on cotton canvas, 16X85 inches, 2001. $1200.00. Expressing Gounod's Faust Ballet was going to a project of about a dozen paintings, but I left off here and didn't complete the rest.
Tainted Love
Acrylic on six raw linen canvases, each 24X18 inches, the last has a three dimensional piece, 2006. #1200.00. The paintings were inspired by a heavy percussion arrangement of Soft Sell's "Tainted Love".
Dancer Four Times
Acrylic on raw linen glued to papyrus and tacked to a wood board, 18X23.5 inches, 2007. $300.00. The body and poses of the model are here used as shapes in a rhythmic progression.
Dancer in Five Positions
Acrylic on raw cotton canvas tacked to wood canvas stretchers, 18X44 inches, 2007. $400.00.
