The Landscape of Painting

Karma for Shapinsky and Herrera, Humility for Me

Way back in the late 1970′s and early 80′s I sold my artwork at The Kathryn Markel Gallery in New York. This was my hand-carved rubber stamp period.

Evolution | Stephen Springer Davis | 1980

My work sold really well at that time, and I would bring a new batch up every month or two to replenish Kathryn’s stock. I have to say I was feeling pretty good about having a successful time at a New York Gallery. I was down-right chuffed.

One day in the fall of 1980 I arrived with my portfolio of new stuff to find a much older man, maybe in his late 60′s, there to show Kathryn Markel slides of his artwork. I was just standing around with him, waiting, because she was on the phone. We chatted and I asked if I could take a look at his slides. The work was colorful abstracts, quite lovely. He told me that Mondays were his day to visit galleries and show his work. He said he had never had a show, in 40 years of trying. I was amazed – his paintings were so wonderful. No one had ever shown them? That was impossible. I was humbled. Here I was, the self-satisfied 20-something, and I’d shown my work several times already. I thought that clever and accessible as they were, my punny rubber stamp prints on paper were pretty lightweight compared tohis more serious and bold oil paintings. I was embarrassed that I’d been more successful then he after only a few years of trying.

After that encounter I started to think differently about my work, and ultimately I changed to a more serious (I guess) direction.

Fragment No. 21 | Stephen Springer Davis | 1982

I’ve often thought about that artist, and I’ve wondered if he died without ever showing his beautiful paintings to the world.

In 1985 I read an article in the New Yorker by Lawrence Weschler called Shapinsky’s Karma. The story is involved and affecting. I’ve often wondered why it’s never been made into a movie. Here’s my precis:

The author was contacted by an Indian reporter and agricultural college teacher, Akumal Ramachander, about an artist he’d met in New York called Harold Shapinsky. Mr. Weschler had no clue who this artist was, but Mr. Ramachander insisted that it was his karmic duty, his destiny, to make the world aware of the artwork of Shapinsky. His spiritual calling was not to make money from success for Mr. Shapinsky, but rather to help him because the art world needed to know this unknown artist.

While Mr. Ramachander had good karma, Shapinsky’s was not so great. He had been a contemporary of all the big names in the New York art scene in the late 40′s: Motherwell, deKooning, Rothko, Pollock, all of whom would go on to be rich and famous. In 1949 Shapinsky was living in a cold-water flat, struggling to get the money together for canvas and paint. He became seriously ill, and his brother took him out to Long Island to recover. Unfortunately, this same generous brother forgot to pay Shapinsky’s $12 rent for the apartment. As a result, the landlord cleared out the apartment and threw away several years’ worth of Shapinsky’s paintings. Only a few were recovered.

Untitled | Harold Shapinsky |1950

Shapinsky’s next setback was that, unlike the other artists in the group, he was drafted in 1949. He didn’t get out of the army till 1952. As a result, he effectively missed the boat of New York Abstract Expressionism, and was forever more out of sync with the art world. Shapinsky struggled for decades, painting in his one-room apartment shared with his wife, keeping his paintings under their bed. A chance meeting in Chicago by Mr. Ramachander with Shapinsky’s son David started him on his journey to let the world know about this man who painted “like an angel”

Against all possible odds, Mr. Ramachander kept up his spirtual quest and ultimately got Shapinsky a show at the Mayor Gallery in London, where his paintings sold for $15 to $30,000. Other big shows and notoriety followed. The world finally knew about Harold Shapinsky.

In a related story, on December 20, 2009 The New York Times had a story about a painter aged 94 who was accidentally discovered after she had painted in obscurity for six decades. It happened that in 2004 The Latin Collective in New York was putting together a show of geometric paintings by women. One of the artists pulled out of the show at the last minute, and a friend of Carmen Herrera suggested that the owner include her. The owner said “Who the hell is Carmen Herrera?” Several of Herrera’s painting were delivered to the gallery, and the owner mistakenly thought that they were the paintings of the Brazilian artist Lygia Clark. He was amazed to find instead from dates on the paintings that they were completed ten years before anyone had heard of Ms. Clark.

Shocking Pink #20 |Carmen Herrera | 1949

Collectors immediately bought up her paintings, and since then she has had her work shown in England and Germany. As her friend, the painter Tony Bechara told her,
“The bus always comes for those who wait.”

Was the man I met at the Markel Gallery Harold Shapinsky? Probably not. But I’m still humbled by his story and those of Harold Shapinsky and Carmen Herrera. These three artists painted in obscurity for years. I’m going to continue to sit at this bus stop, working on my paintings when I can.

Tags: artists who matter, oil painting, rubber-stamp prints

This entry was posted on Monday, January 11th, 2010 at 12:47 pm and is filed under About my artwork, Influential artists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.