I guess I can't wait for other people's comments and will comment myself. There is something fundamentally different from the midwestern scenes and the New York and the East coast scene. In the midewest, nearly everyone who went to art school who continued as a knowledgeable modern figurative painter studied at KCAI. Although Wilbur, Lester and others were important, Stanley seems to have been a requirement for everyone who continued to paint figuratively. So, having almost all of those who are in the midwest and went to school out there as former students at KCAI makes absolute sense. The same is not true in New York. Neither the Studio School nor the Parsons program in which Leland and Resika taught were essential. Other schools where the requisite knowledge could be found were Queens College, Boston University [when James Weeks taught in the graduate program and don't forget, both George Rose and Langdon Quin were teaching undergraduates for a number of the same years], The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, with Larry Day, and some of his students; Goddard College, with Jim Gahagan, and Yale to some degree[especially because of Andrew Forge, Lester Johnson's drawing course, and seminar teachers like me].
Despite news from elsewhere, I did a good bit of teaching at the Studio School. I also taught in the Parsons program regularly after Leland got too sick to do so, taught with some regularity at Yale, and full time at Queens where other faculty included Cajori, Rosemary Beck, Louis Finkelstein and Marvin [Buddy] Bileck. All of these schools produced active, exhibiting figurative painters. None from Queens or Phila. are included, and few from BU and elsewhere. Some of those from Parsons have not been exhibiting, whereas several of those not included have reputations based on a dozen shows or more. So, I think the NY grouping is cliquish, but not the Midwest grouping.
By the way, none of this is a qualitative judgment. The large standing nude by Donald Beal who is one of the Parsons people unknown to me seems to me work I should know. The torso is particularly well realized, and the painting flows. It looks good across from Bob Brock's landscape.
Still, I believe that Simon and John have purposefully misrepresented the New York scene to make their friends and special colleagues seem much more important and singular in New York, than they are. There are people across the board whose work fits, and who have laid their own trail to get where they are, such as Peter Heineman, Richard LaPresti, [with a wonderful recent show, probably his 12th], Barbara Goodstein, John Dubrow. These are not necessarily friends of mine. I hardly know two of them. I have not always liked Heineman's work. He is an independent, self made artist. We should encourage more of these.
Love,
Gabriel
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