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About
Michael Newberry

 


Michael Newberry, 2011.

Coming from a representational art background, I seek to innovate visual language and concepts, and illumination is one of my main themes.

Biography - Places, Points, and Works

Formative Years 1956-79

La Jolla was a sleepy, wealthy, easy going beach town when I was born there. Growing up as a beach urchin with my brothers and sisters, I would regularly ditch school, body surf, and play tennis ... and make art.


Warwick's Book Store, 1960's, La Jolla, California.

As an 11 year old I stood with my grandmother in front of Warwick's bookstore, pictured above, looking at a portrait of a woman on the cover of a huge book. Her eyes were expressive with deep feeling; and I remember my eye following the curves of her mouth, chin, and neck, gently moving around her earlobes, and stopping at the glints of light of her earrings. The present was left behind. After a lapse of a quarter of an hour or so, I looked over at my grandmother and she gave me an odd expression - it seemed to say "It's okay, you keep looking." I continued to observe the painting.

Some months later on my 12th birthday, my grandmother gave me a present of that book, The Complete Works of Rembrandt.


Hendrickje Stoffels, 1645, oil on canvas, 30 x 25 inches. Louvre.
This painting was the first artwork that spoke to me, as an 11 year old.

In the evenings I religiously studied Rembrandt's paintings, absorbing their light, shadow, feeling, and human depth. This ongoing experience sparked my visual creation, and I have painted or drawn almost every day since then.

There is one aspect of my upbringing that, though not an art thing, had an important influence. The world's greatest tennis players passed through the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club. As a 10 year I asked my tennis hero Rod Laver to hit a few balls with me, and he did. And a few years later, I witnessed the birth of woman's professional tennis from the perspective of my sister Janet, who turned pro on her eighteenth birthday.

The lessons I learned from tennis were never to whine, always improve your weaknesses, be your best, know your abilities, never give up, and always honor greatness in others.

At 17 I had my first art show in a local bank, started selling, and had my first commissioned paintings.  There was a problem with commissions - the collectors' impressions of the persons in the portraits were not mine. From that experience, I decided to paint for myself, and never did another commission. If I am going to be an artist, I am going to paint what interests me, and nothing else.

Edgar Ewing, an early American modernist, was my art teacher and mentor at U.S.C..  He taught me composition, spatial relationships, and the dynamic play between objects, and gave me just the right amount of knowledge to further my progress. Unfortunately, there was no formal figure drawing or technical training. The other teachers focused on conceptual art, installation art, and repetitive mark making, which gave me a thorough grounding in postmodern art. Figurative art and realism would come later, being hard won developments that I would have to learn on my own.


Edgar Ewing, (1913 - 2006), American Engine, oil on canvas, 40 x 45 inches

During college and summer breaks I visited museums such as: The Norton Simon (Van Gogh), LACMA (Rodin sculptures), Guggenheim (Picasso), Ringling Museum of Art (Monet), The Rijksmuseum (Rembrandt), Kroller Muller (Van Gogh), The Louvre. And I visited historic and archeological sites in England, Greece, Holland, and France.

At this period, I read Dostoevsky, Nabokov, Plato, and Mary Renault. And I read about the Minoan discoveries of Sir Arthur Evans and Heinrich Schliemann.

In the early 70's the art climate of Los Angeles was about installations, minimalism, pop, abstract painting, and concept art. These fields had nothing to offer me in terms of the kind of depth, passion, authenticity, and mastery which I was looking for in painting. To grow and to try new things I moved to Holland in hopes of finding a mentor and supportive art community.


Newberry, Self-Portrait (19 years old), 1975, oil on linen, 14 x 10 inches.
Collection of the artist.

Holland was fun. Initially, I lived in rooms, and ended up in a Scheveningen fisherman's house where tram #11 meets the North Sea. In The Hague I spent two intense years at the Free Academy Psychopolis, drawing from live model 6 days a week; morning, afternoon, and evening, resulting in thousands of figure drawings in conte, pastel, and ink. There was no instruction there, just the opportunity to observe/draw live models.


Newberry, Girl Reclining, 1979, mixed media, 18 x 24 inches.
Tenney Family collection.

In my free time I painted life size nudes in oil. My style then was gestural, energetic, transparent, colorful, and bold. This is where I met a lifelong friend and spiritual sounding board, Robert Mechielsen, an innovative architectural designer. 


Newberry, Rob II, 1978, oil on canvas primed with rabbit's skin glue, 36 x 56 inches.
Geir Friis collection, Nesconset, New York.


Newberry, Jette, 1977, oil on canvas primed with rabbit's skin glue, 69 x 40 inches.
Grant Barnes collection, Los Angeles, California.

This is also the time I researched, from scant information, how to prime linen canvases with dried rabbits' skin double boiled, making a disgusting smelling liquid which I applied to the canvas warm. When dried, it served as a protective barrier between the linen and oil medium, preventing the linen from rotting. Thank god, modern gessoes improved upon that 15th century process.

At this time I read Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Her intensity, seriousness, and respect for creators matched how I felt about my art heroes. 

Commuting between New York and The Hague, I would roll up my unfinished canvases and take them with me. Robert Mechielsen and Lynia Zaaijer posed for a few of my paintings, along with Dutch television star Jette van der Meij.

The late 70's period was horrible for figurative artists. Figurative art wasn't to be found in contemporary galleries or museums. It was considered a dead art. But how could such a powerful expression really be dead? How was that possible? Screw the contemporary art scene. Figurative art was unbounded by ideological, and emotional states, indeed it is as open and unique as individuals. I opted to push the limits of my art knowledge including the figure. This is when the influence of tennis, past great artists, and confidence in my own abilities came together supporting me through some difficult years.

Figurative Realism - Between New York and Holland, 1979-84

The challenge of realism was appealing to me, and for the next few years I honed my skills, developing several life sized figurative paintings. Fantasy and imagination are awesome things in art, but realism holds a special place - it is a life line. Without that connection my imagination would fly away, spiral out of control, and out of sanity, and I might never come back. 


Newberry, Lynia Wearing a Hat, 1981, oil on linen, 48 x 36 inches.
Private Collection

 

Newberry, Woman's Head (Lynia Zaaijer), 1979, life size, bronze.
Lynia Zaaijer collection. The Hague, Holland

In 1979 I tried my hand at sculpture, making a portrait of my friend Lynia Zaaijer. This is my only sculpture, but for a tiny clay Venus I did as an 11 year old. A difficult problem was how to end the bust at the shoulder/neck line; I solved this by cutting off where a necklace might fall.

In New York I lived in a rotted building in the lower eastside, and continued figure drawing studies in a nearby, grungy studio that hosted uninstructed figure drawing. In my place there was no furniture, just a mattress on wood crates, and my art stuff. There I met my great friend and model, Jennifer Trainer Thompson. She went on to be a very successful writer and fundraiser for MASS MoCA.  

New York has great museums which I regularly visited: The Frick, Whitney, MOMA, and the Met. Also, I spent some time visiting New York's contemporary art galleries, but the installation works, negativity and gross view of life, disgusted me so intensely that afterwards I couldn't paint for days, and couldn't shower long enough to get the feeling of shit off of me. To keep my spirit up I stopped visiting these types of galleries.

Around this time I took a reality check. Slumming it was a long way from La Jollan life - how good of a painter was I? Was this sad lifestyle worth it? Did I have enough talent to wow myself like how I felt about my heroes Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh, and Michelangelo? At this point I wasn't there. I studied the time lines of the great artists that I loved. With two or three exceptions in which the artists' education and times were in sync, they didn't dial in until their late 20's. After this research I gave myself till I was 28 or 30 to make a work that would totally blow me away. Until then I would keep pushing my limits.

Vermeer was a big influence in my early work. I lived close by the Maurits House, where The Girl with Pearl Earring is. Time to time, like many young artists, I was flustered with my portrait work. So I would hop on a tram, and drop in to the museum to see how Vermeer did it.


Newberry, Woman in Blue, 1981, oil on linen, 55 x 36 inches.
Private Collection

Narratives

Painting observations are difficult enough, but when you add concepts, emotional themes, or a story, they open up intensely difficult tasks to paint. Every mark, every gesture, every nuance either enhances the theme, or defeats it. Narrative paintings answer questions like: Why are they in that pose? Why that setting? What is this story about? Is there a moral?

In 1981, at 25 years old, I completed Promethia, which combined the backgrounds of a Palm Springs desert, La Jolla's UCSD's Library, and my painterly invention of the sculpture. Promethia shows my vision for the synergy of figurative art, modern architecture, and clean environment. 


Newberry, Promethia, 1982, oil on linen, 78 x 58 inches.
Private Collection

During this period, I formed my goal to merge the influence of Rembrandt's realism and light, with the French Impressionists' (mostly Monet) color theory, and with my special outlook on life.


Newberry, Pursuit, 1984, oil on linen, 84 x 60 inches.
Private Collection of Geir Friis.

Breakthrough

This period culminated in the creation of Pursuit. The painting took me 16 hours a day, every day for 6 months. This painting was the culmination of everything I knew about color theory, light and shadow, anatomy, depth, gesture. It also expresses my belief that great visions are not strolls in the park, or politically correct parties, rather they are challenges that demand the very best of you, yet don't guarantee success. The tension creating this was almost unbearable, and at the same time every moment of those 6 months felt glorious.

The intensity was kind of frightening; I had a fear that I might be going crazy. One time I had worked until 3 am, and awoke at 5 am, bright eyed, and decided to catch the Staten Island Ferry to take breakfast in Manhattan. On the ride, the colors of sunrise were spread out over the water towards the Statue of Liberty. I was studying the subtle shifts of the hues and tones, and how they diminished and intensified depending on were the objects where in space. At that moment I understood as long as I was connected to reality through observing it, art wasn't taking me away from reality, or making me crazy, I was simply going further and further into how vision works. With that as my foundation I was free to drive as far as my art vision could take me.

Working for months or years on one painting is not very practical from a business or pragmatic point of view, but it is from a point of view of confidence in humanity. In a healthy world we all will pursue the things we love, and have faith that with fortitude and vision we can make creativity the norm.

End of Part I


Michael Newberry
MTNewberry@gmail.com
310-913-8986


Michael Newberry in the Santa Monica studio, 2010.

 

Biography - Places, Points, and Works, Part II

Ascension Years 1984-1990

The section of Staten Island near the ferry dock was fairly run down, with cheap housing and dusty convenience stores. The local laundry mat was across the street from some government housing projects, and it had "out of service" signs scratched on the enamel of the washer and dryer lids.

Once a group of six or so young black guys were gathered on a side walk in front of me as I was walking home with my finished laundry. It occurred to me to cross the street to avoid them, but I thought better of it, and continued walking towards them. There was a momentary tension as they stood without moving, blocking the sidewalk. I walked up to them and said "pardon" and a couple of them moved aside and let me pass. For the remainder of that walk I thought about how it was my choice to live in that miserable place; it was cheap, close to Manhattan, and afforded me time to paint full-time. But for those guys, it was what they knew, and they probably also knew that I and the other artists, actors, dancers were just passing through.

After finishing Pursuit in Staten Island I tried to market my work to art magazines and Manhattan galleries. American Artist magazine then had a section on up and coming artists, and they rejected to do a feature on me because I was "white, male, and living in New York City." Alan Frumkin (Frumkin Gallery) thought my paintings were too "lyrical." Sherry French spent 10 minutes with her nose up against the surface of Pursuit; I realized that she wasn't looking but stalling because she didn't know what to say me. An art dealer asked me to come in for an appointment after seeing an art invitation of mine. She gave my athletic frame a look over, and said I didn't look like an artist. Another art dealer said about Pursuit that "New York is not ready for this kind of art."

Undoubtedly marketing and savvy self pitching skills were not part of my repertoire, but I thought it would be obvious to anyone, and especially art experts, that all my time and energy went into my complex and audacious works. There is very little you can do when all the doors you try don't open. Not seeing a future in New York, I rented a big car, rolled up all my works and drove home to La Jolla and started looking for a job.

Tennis was my best bet for well paid part-time work and I soon got a job teaching it at the Jack Kramer Club in Palos Verdes. One of the highlights there is that I gave about 30 playing lessons to a young Pete Sampras, never losing. I also coached Nicole London to a 12 and under national title. Far from feeling relief with this kind of quality job, I was fearful the successes at the Kramer Club would wipe out my life as an artist.

So in-between lessons and every free moment I had I spent working on the life sized portrait of Puccini.

To be continued ...