How Producing Broadway Shows Drove Me To A Painting Career

Building Bridges

2009-05-05T14:30:00.003-04:00

When I walked into the Bouabana Art Space on the rue de Marseille in Tunis last October there were paintings on the walls that looked like mine. When I took a closer look I discovered they were mine. Someone had painted new versions of my work! If I had been in America I would have called my lawyer. The Tunisian artists who were waiting to attend my workshops had downloaded photographs of my paintings from my website and used them to inspire new paintings as a welcoming gift. I do not speak French or Arabic and the artists did not speak English so we hugged each other.

That was six months ago. I have just returned from a second visit with my Tunisian artist friends. We are still hugging and also laughing and singing. When I asked the artists why they paint, one of them said, “To exhaust my disappointment.” As artists we have the same hopes and dreams, and anxieties. And the same excitement when something appears on canvas which has just sprung from our soul.

I want to return the hospitality of my Tunisian artist friends, so I have invited them to America. I want my fellow American artists to experience making art in a group where all that matters is the wonder of creating with other human beings. Our traveling exhibition will be called Building Bridges: An Exhibition of Paintings Created Collaboratively by American and Tunisian Artists.

Just before I left Tunis I collaborated on a painting with Mourad Zerai, one of the artists who will participate in the tour. We called it “Building Bridges.” The painting measures 10 feet by 8 feet, just big enough to bridge the gap between America and Tunisia.

A NIGHT IN TUNISA

2009-04-04T12:10:00.004-04:00

My last words to you, dear readers, were “You will find me in the nearest bar.” That was May 6th, 2008. You might think I am still waiting for you. Not so. Four of my paintings are hanging in the official Residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia thanks to the ART in Embassies Program of our State Department. Last October the Ambassador invited me to Tunis to conduct workshops with Tunisian artists. The artists invited me to do a Group Painting according to Tunisian rules:

One person is given the honor of starting the painting. (That’s me).

Anyone can paint at any time and anyone can erase anyone else’s work.

I was also given the honor of deciding when the painting was finished which I did after three hours. Our painting looked like it had been done by a single artist. We called it "A Night in Tunisia."

"A Night in Tunisia" appeared on the front pages of the French and Arabic newspapers next to the election of Obama. The State Department was pleased. They told me, “The universal language of artists helps to bridge gaps in understanding as no treaty or aid package can.”

The Tunisian artists have invited me back for more painting. I leave next week. I will let you know what happens next.

THE NEAREST BAR

2008-05-06T08:41:00.003-04:00

When I was producing Broadway shows I spent opening night in the nearest bar. I was afraid to watch in case the actors forgot their lines. Afterwards at the opening night party everyone was excited. Then the press agent whispered the reviews were no good and it was up to me to tell the investors. The party became a wake. Opening night for an art exhibition is more fun. My paintings don’t forget their lines and if I get nervous I don’t have to go anywhere. The gallery is the nearest bar! Best of all if a critic doesn’t like my paintings they don’t get destroyed like the set of a Broadway flop. I can take them home and hang them on my walls and show them again in the next exhibition. So please come, dear friends, to opening night for my New York Paintings on Thursday May 8th from six to nine at Denise Bibro Fine Art, 529 West 20th street in Chelsea. You will find me in the nearest bar.

NEW YORK! NEW YORK!

2008-03-29T10:01:00.009-04:00

Forgive me, dear friends, for my silence. I have been out looking for a New York gallery, and guess what? I found one! I am having a solo exhibition at Denise Bibro Fine Art at 529 West 20th Street in Chelsea. The opening reception is Thursday May 8th. The exhibition is called David Black New York Paintings and it runs through May 31st.

My show is called David Black New York Paintings. Denise’s gallery is on West 20th Street and when I was born my parents were living on East 20th Street. They were too far east to be entitled to a key to Gramercy Park. My earliest childhood memory is staring through the railings at the other children playing in the park. I wondered why I wasn’t
allowed to play with them.

See you opening night!

Less Is More

2007-12-26T08:48:00.000-05:00

When I was seven I put on a show in my grandfather’s living room. I called it The Greatest Show Off Earth! In the first act I played the violin. In the second I sang a song, and in the third I made a speech about saving the world. The title came from The Greatest Show On Earth! which was (and is) the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. I was in love with the circus and that love affair is still going on.

I recently did a painting called Trapeze where the audience was reduced to a primordial state which I suppose a therapist would say represented my childhood. I repeated this treatment of the audience in paintings of baseball, basketball and football games. Yankee Stadium was reproduced in Connecticut Magazine and then I received an offer to have reproductions of my sports paintings in a major motion picture! It was a great way to end this year and it all goes to prove what I have always suspected: Less is more.

How Producing Broadway Shows Drove Me To A Painting Career

2007-08-03T05:54:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago The Men’s Group of Stonington invited me to perform How Producing Broadway Shows Drove Me To A Painting Career (the story of my life which I keep updating). Act One involves growing up with a father who did not believe in God and a mother who laughed whenever I tried to accomplish anything. Act Two deals with well known stars and directors who helped me lose money and my mind while producing eighteen Broadway shows; and Act Three tells the story of a painting I threw in the garbage that was later sold to the vice president of Lloyds of London.

I needed to find a new ending and I thought of a painting of mine called The Backer’s Audition which combined painting and producing. The painting shows how I raised money for a Broadway show. Singers are performing excerpts from the show for would be angels. I remembered that The New York Times had reviewed the painting and had written “the bilious crowd in The Backer’s Audition...” Curious about the word “bilious,” I checked the dictionary and it said: “experiencing gastric distress, especially in color,” a perfect description of my days as a Broadway producer.”

The Path

2007-04-06T12:45:00.000-04:00

At a recent exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art I heard a teacher say to her students, “Art is a language which helps us understand the world.”

The next day I was looking at my paintings. There was a path down the middle of one of the landscapes. In Shopping the floor of the store narrowed and disappeared in the distance. In The Wedding the view was from behind the bride and groom. In front of them was a path leading to the altar. Why all these paths?

I thought of The Ethical Culture Society where my father used to preach. “Most religions promise hell or heaven if you’re bad or good,” said my father, “but the truth is there is no after life! Man makes his own hell or heaven right here on earth. There is no God with a long white beard who will solve the problems of the world!” I was seven years old and I sat at the back of the church. In front of me the center aisle led between the pews to a raised platform where my father stood. There were flowers at his feet and over his head letters in gold said, “The Place Where Men Meet To Seek The Highest Is Holy Ground.”

The path to my father was long and difficult. I traveled it many times but I never reached my destination. The teacher in the museum might also have said, “Art is a language which helps us understand ourselves.”

The Path will be auctioned Saturday, April 14, at Art for Life, The Alliance for Living benefit at The Mystic Arts Center in Mystic, CT. For details go to www.Allianceforliving.org

THE LUCK OF THE IRISH

2007-03-17T14:57:00.000-04:00

When I paint I lose track of time. I must have been painting a lot because I just lost track of three months! Yesterday it was December 17th and I was Santa Claus at a kid’s party. Today it’s March 17th, Saint Patrick’s Day, and instead of watching the parade I am waiting in my studio for a truck which will take twenty-one of my paintings to Atlanta! Catherine Kelleghan McGee has invited me to be the first artist at her new gallery on “Gallery Row” in Buckhead, the heart of the art district in Atlanta. The truck driver just arrived and I watched him pack up the paintings. He took great care putting them into bins. As I watched them disappear they became children getting into a bus before leaving for camp. When the driver disappeared with the bins there was an empty space in my studio. I felt sad as if the silence had been filled with the voices of the paintings.

The Catherine Kelleghan Gallery is located at 309 East Paces Ferry Road in Buckhead, Atlanta. The exhibition opens April 27th and runs until June 1st. So come dear friends and invite everyone you know who lives in Atlanta to the opening reception on Friday April 27th. I look forward to seeing you and I will introduce you to Catherine, a glorious combination of Southern charm and Irish magic.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

2006-12-17T19:04:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it's Christmas! Seems like yesterday my latest exhibition was about to open in Woodbury, CT. Although the show has closed you can see the paintings and read a review by going to my website and clicking on the home page where you see P.H. Miller Gallery. Much has happened, but I will save my news until after the Holidays. This is my first Christmas as a blogger and I want to thank all of you for reading How Producing Broadway Shows Drove me to a Painting Career. I value your questions and comments and look forward to more of them.

Happy Holidays and a glorious and artistic New Year!

Another Opening Another Show!

2006-10-27T09:32:00.000-04:00

Another opening another show
A chance for stage folks to say hello
The curtain’s up and away we go
Another opening of another show!

Whenever I catch myself humming a tune I sing it in order to hear the lyrics. Then I discover what my brain has on its’ mind. The other day I caught myself humming Another Opening Another Show! from Cole Porter’s Kiss Me Kate! - a backstage musical based on Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona. Yes, friends it’s true! Another exhibition of my work is about to open. This time at PHMiller Gallery in Woodbury, Ct, snugly situated in beautiful Litchfield County, twenty minutes from Danbury and one hour and 10 minutes from New York! Peter Miller and daughter Sydney saw some of my recent paintings and invited me to exhibit with them. The exhibition opens this Thursday, October 26th and runs through November 30th. There is an Artist’s Reception on Saturday, November 4th from 5 to 7pm and I expect to see all of you there so we can meet face to face! Sydney Miller who runs the gallery picked thirty two of my paintings - most of them scenes of life in New York.

While I was writing this I started humming another tune. When I started singing, the lyrics went -

I’ll build a stairway to paradise
With a new step every day
I’m going to get there at any price!
Step aside I’m on my way!

Substitute New York for paradise and you will discover the latest thought my brain has on its’ mind.

The People Game

2006-09-26T22:20:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid my father and I played a game. We looked at people on the subway and made up stories about where they came from, what they did for a living, and whether they were happily married. We called it The People Game. As a Broadway producer I continued playing The People Game. I watched actors audition and tried to imagine them as one of the characters in a play. Now I am playing The People Game as an artist. I paint people in restaurants, concerts, theaters, markets, parties and casinos. While I am painting a story emerges.

When I played The People Game on the subway I never found out if the story I made up was true. If I picked the wrong actor when I played The People Game on Broadway I lost money. Playing The People Game as an artist is less dangerous than Broadway. And best of all the stories are true.

CAP DAY

2006-09-26T22:12:00.000-04:00

Some paintings take a few hours and some take a few days. I have been locked in mortal combat with Cap Day for six weeks and the end is not yet in sight. This painting which portrays the agonies and ecstasies of spectators at Yankee Stadium is the largest vertical canvas I have done. The spectators appeared on their own out of nowhere without much effort on my part. Making decisions about colors has been the problem. Red and yellow are prominent but there is also green which reminds us of what the game is played on and of course blue, the color of the Yankee caps which have just been handed out. Whenever I change one small bit of color there is a ripple effect on the rest of the painting which has to be attended to.

I am hoping Cap Day will be finished in time for The World Series. It won’t matter if the Yankees win or lose. The agonies and ecstasies look the same.

THE LITERARY GATHERING

2006-08-08T11:52:00.000-04:00

Over 700 visitors came to the Open Studios at the Velvet Mill and I received my share of questions: “Where do you get your ideas? Do you sketch or take photographs first? Do you paint a scene while it is happening? How do you know when a painting is finished?”

Here is the story of my painting The Literary Gathering which may answer these questions: I saw a photograph of some people sitting around a table in deep conversation. It reminded me of a literary club where I had been invited to speak about my book The Magic of Theater. When I asked the head of the club how long I should speak she said, “Five minutes. The group has a short attention span and they prefer to ask questions.” After my five minute synopsis of The Magic of Theater the members of the literary club talked with each other and never asked me any questions.

I began the painting with the black and white photograph in my left hand and a brush in my right. First came the table which I made orange with a scattering of candles and wine. Then came the club members, one after the other. While I was painting them I felt as if I knew each of them personally. I added some book cases in the background and stopped for lunch. After the break I looked at the painting and decided it needed more people. I outlined them in black and was about to flesh them out when the phone rang. After the conversation ended I was eager to get back to the painting and bring the newcomers to life. I was about to start when I noticed the fully painted people looked like they were talking to ghosts.

“How do you know when a painting is finished?”
When the telephone rings.

BACKSTAGE AT THE VELVET MILL STUDIOS JULY 14TH

2006-07-09T12:23:00.000-04:00

In theater the audience never gets to see the actor put on his makeup. It’s a magic moment when the actor becomes someone else and it happens backstage before the curtain goes up. The actor performs his magic for a live audience. The artist performs his magic alone. The studio is the artist’s theater where he brings his characters to life with paint instead of makeup.

On Friday, July 14th the artists’ studios at The Velvet Mill in Stonington will be open to the public. It’s a chance to go backstage and learn something about each artist’s creative process. My studio will be open along with my exhibition at The Four Starr Gallery. Although I have been painting for twenty three years I moved into my first studio at The Velvet Mill three years ago. Before that I painted in the living rooms and dining rooms of the apartments we lived in. I was afraid to have a studio because it might seem like an office where I had to go to work every day. My studio at The Velvet Mill does not seem like an office.

Come and see for yourself.

Velvet Mill Studios
22 Bayview Avenue, Stonington, CT 06378
OPEN STUDIOS AND EXHIBITION
Friday July 14th
5:00 to 8:00 PM

Directions:
I-95 Exit 91, South to North Main St.
to Stonington Borough, Left onto Cutler St.,
Left onto Elm St., Right onto Bayview

THE BEST PAINTERS

2006-07-07T09:30:00.000-04:00

The opening night crowd at my exhibition included kids. They asked questions and told me they loved painting. I invited Charis 8, and Ross Henry 12, to paint in my studio the next day. Charis asked for brown, red, and black and white paint. She went to work immediately and painted a red and white lighthouse in a black and white storm. When the sun appeared through the window of my studio it reflected a beam on to Charis’s painting which looked like it was coming from the lighthouse. Charis asked for yellow paint and put the sun’s rays into her painting. Ross Henry’s painting was thick with paint and had a nose, big eyes and a wide open mouth smiling. He said it was Anne but then he changed the name to Janet when the painting was finished.

THE MORNING AFTER

2006-07-01T09:47:00.000-04:00

I woke up this morning in a happy daze after last night’s opening. Transmitting my thoughts and feelings to canvas is an exhilarating experience. When others respond it becomes magical.

My exhibition at The Four Starr Gallery consists of engravings, landscapes, and peoplescapes. The engravings were made from line drawings, the landscapes were done in Provence, The West, Stonington and Central Park, and the peoplescapes are from everywhere. My high school English teacher came up with “peoplescapes.” He said the word “scape” originally meant “a segment of an insect’s antenna” and it reminded him of my “unique antennae which pick up what people are thinking and feeling.”

A woman in last night’s crowd asked me if the frowning lady in Baseball was my mother. Someone else said she looked like his mother. Last night I gave birth to thirtytuplets. Baseball, Central Park, Café Last Chance and their brothers and sisters will lead happy lives.

I was pleased.

COME TO MY OPENING NIGHT PARTY!

2006-06-19T16:48:00.000-04:00

When I was a Broadway producer one out of every four of my shows made money. That meant my batting average was .250. Fine for professional baseball but on Broadway it meant that every time I produced a new show the odds were four to one it would be a flop. With each new production I became more nervous. I spent opening nights in the nearest bar. Afterwards at the opening night party the investors were happy and drunk. Then the press agent arrived with early copies of the reviews. The party became a wake. The next morning there was a deathly silence in my office. I called it "The Four Wall Disease." The phone did not ring. I sat staring at the walls wondering what to do next.

As an artist I look forward to opening nights. My paintings don’t get sick or forget their lines and no press agent shows up to spoil the fun. And best of all the nearest bar is right in the gallery!

Come Dear Friends And Join Me
at
The Opening Night Party
for my
Paintings and Engravings
June 30th 2006
5-9 pm
at
The Four Starr Gallery
22 Bayview Avenue
Stonington, Connecticut
860 535 1844

OUTSIDER ART

2006-06-17T18:03:00.000-04:00

After the exhibition of my paintings in London in 1990 I started looking for a gallery in New York. I showed my work to a gallery in Soho. “You’re too painterly for Soho,” said the owner. “You belong on Madison Avenue.” I went to a gallery on Madison Avenue. “You know what pays my rent?” asked the owner. “I’ll tell you. Classical Realism! Classical Realism pays my rent! You’re an Impressionist. You belong on Fifty-seventh Street.” “You know what you are doing?” asked a gallery owner on Fifty-seventh Street.” “No. What am I doing?” “You’re doing Outsider Art! Outsider artists are self taught, they are emotionally disturbed, and they’ve been in prison.” He gave me the address of an Outsider Art Gallery in Soho. I never went because I was only two-thirds qualified.

“I LOVE YOUR WORK AND I WANT GEORGE TO HAVE ONE OF YOUR PAINTINGS IN THE WHITE HOUSE.”

2006-05-26T13:43:00.000-04:00

In 2004 I received my second invitation to The White House. This time it was Laura Bush who invited me for breakfast because my paintings were included in “The Art In Embassies Program.” When she shook my hand she said, “I love your work and I want George to have one of your paintings in The White House.”

When I got home I sent a thank you letter to Laura Bush with a CD of paintings. I received a letter back from Laura Bush’s Chief of Staff telling me that “…works by living artists are not considered for acquisition.”

I would have been better off with a knighthood.

ROYAL THINGS

2006-05-25T14:13:00.000-04:00

While in London I managed to squeeze in The Royal Ballet (La Fille Mal Gardée), The Royal Shakespeare Company (Breakfast With Mugabe), The Royal Opera (Götterdämmrung), The Royal Haymarket Theatre (Dame Judi Dench in Hayfever) and The Royal Academy of Art. The only thing I missed was The Royal Horseguards.

In England theatrical producers and artists are treated like royalty. They are knighted by The Queen! In America they get invited to The White House. In 1968 Richard Nixon saw my Broadway show "GEORGE M!" with Joel Grey and Bernadette Peters. He invited me to bring it to the White House and to produce his inaugural gala. I produced a show in The Washington Armory on the Saturday night before the Monday inauguration. There were ten thousand people in the audience including members of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, members of Congress, members of the Supreme Court, leaders from around the world, and president-elect Richard Nixon.

The show lasted nine hours and included some of the biggest names in the entertainment business. For the finale Buddy Epson, the cowboy movie star, stepped forward to speak the closing words: "I am delighted and honored to have been invited here to the inauguration. And I think I'll stick around for the impeachment."

“WE DON’T DO THIS BUSINESS. IT DOES US.”

2006-05-24T13:37:00.000-04:00

Dear Friends. I am back in the U.S. of A, looking the wrong way crossing the street and suffering withdrawal symptoms for English breakfasts while eating my organic granola. In London I hung out with some of England’s best known artists, many of whom are abstract painters. When John Hoyland said: “I try to make the pictures paint themselves. You can’t force a painting: you have to coax it,” it made me think of something Joel Grey once told me: “We don’t do this business it does us.” Could it be that the creative process is the same in all the arts?

PRIVATE VIEWS

2006-05-04T12:41:00.000-04:00

I am still in London! I was supposed to return to New York a week ago but my friends are having exhibitions. John Hoyland is having five. I caught his first Private View at Neville Keating Contemporary Gallery, and if I stay into next week I can catch his second at Beaux Arts. Freddie Gore and Janet Nathan are in the Summer Exhibition at The Royal Academy. Gwyther Irwin is at Redfern, and Tony Whishaw is at The Arts Club.

Maybe if I stay long enough I can have a Private View of my own…

SOME PEOPLE MIGHT LIKE IT

2006-05-02T12:29:00.000-04:00

In 1990 Frederick Gore, C.B.E. Chairman of the Exhibitions Committee of The Royal Academy was visiting New York and came to look at my paintings. He selected forty for my first exhibition in London and he arranged for two of them to be on the front and back cover of Arts Review, Britain’s art magazine. Freddie invited many of Britain’s leading artists to my Private View, and he bought my painting At the Circus.

Freddie and I became friends. I was a frequent guest of Freddie and his wife Connie in their house in the hill village of Bonnieux in Provence. Freddie and I painted Van Gogh’s orchards, sunflower fields, and olive groves. In the evenings we talked of life and death, religion, and the history of art not necessarily in that order. In the early morning I wrote down everything that Freddie had said the night before. I considered myself his apprentice.

Freddie was strict when it came to critiquing my paintings. One day we were painting the olive orchard of Stephen Spender, the English poet. We had pitched our easels on a high rise so we could look down on the orchard. In the distance were the white Les Alpilles, the mountains where Dante wrote The Inferno.

When we stopped to look at each other’s paintings, I saw that Freddie had created a masterful work with color, depth, size of tree trunks, etc. I, on the other hand, had concentrated on the color of the earth and mountains leaving the olive tree trunks spindly. Freddie spoke in a serious voice: “The trunks of the trees look like crow’s feet! If you did more drawing you wouldn’t make this kind of mistake.” I started to thicken the trunks of the olive trees. “What are you doing?” asked Freddie. “I’m doing what you suggested.” “Leave it exactly as it is,” said Freddie. “Some people might like it.”

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!

2006-04-21T14:46:00.000-04:00

When the attendant at Kennedy tagged my luggage with LHR (London Heathrow) I was excited, and while the plane flew over the pond I kept track of its progress on the map. Soon I would be eating English sausages and drinking English ale in a comfortable chair in my favorite pub! Then I would sit on upholstered cushions in the tube on my way to Kensington Gardens where I would stroll among the trees and flowers. London is so civilized!

I first came to London in 1953 for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. I spent the night in a sleeping bag in front of Buckingham Palace. People from every country in the world were my companions. At midnight newspapers announced the successful ascent of Mount Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Then Kings and Queens in carriages rode by in the morning sun followed by presidents and prime ministers. Trumpets announced the Queen’s entourage. Her guards were mounted on proud black horses; their hoofs clicking on the pavement. The guards were dressed in red and gold and carried swords. A roar from the crowd announced the Queen and there she was riding in a golden coach! She was smiling and waving at me! I waved back.

Today is the Queen’s eightieth birthday. I won’t have time to see her. I am in London on a mission: to find a gallery for my new paintings.

THE DEAD TULIP TELLS THE STORY

2006-04-20T21:50:00.000-04:00

I began painting and hanging out in pubs with my British artist friend Patrick Caulfield. Going anywhere with Patrick was an adventure. When we walked down the street he would stop when a shape or a color caught his eye. Then passers-by would try to figure out what Patrick was looking at. When it came to talking about paintings Patrick was a man of few words. After a few minutes at an exhibition he would wink which meant it was time to leave. Then it was back to the pub. Years later when Patrick came to New York I persuaded him to look at my paintings. He lingered over Benefit Dinner. “I really like this painting because it’s evocative, not explicit. The treatment of the woman’s dress is like Vuillard and I like the way the man seems to be looking at her looking. I also like the background and the still life of the tulips.” I was excited that Patrick had so much to say, and I asked him for a quote. Patrick looked at the painting again. Then he said, “The dead tulip tells the story.”