Freelance writing by Lisa Mikulski

INK Publications – April 2007
David Black - The Path of An Artist
BY: Lisa Mikulski
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Sometimes it is when we are most down on our luck that the universe provides us with unforeseen opportunities that can change our lives. Such was the case, when Tony Award winning Broadway Producer, David Black lost a bundle of money on a Broadway production which closed in one night. Christmas of 1983 found Black depressed and disheartened, so he took pen to paper and dashed off a series of line drawings. He bound the drawings in a little paper cover book, made several copies and sent them off to family and friends as an expression of his feelings after the Broadway flop. The funny thing about life is one never knows where fate might lead you after a devastating blow or which muse might now stand by your side… but to take advantage of the door that opens, one must have the tenacity to walk down a hellish hallway.

It had been four months since my last meeting with artist, David Black. He was happy and jolly and looking forward to his new exhibition in Atlanta, Georgia when he arrived at Jack’s American Bistro, Main Street, Old Saybrook. He presented me with a handpicked bouquet of daffodils and it was there that we drank cocktails, ate Gravadlax and reflected on the path that brought him to a career in painting.

Black has had a colorful life and he has worn many hats. Previous careers included opera singer, stockbroker, author, acting teacher, Broadway producer and director and for the last 23 years, artist. He has traveled throughout Europe and India. In 1968, president-elect Richard Nixon saw David Black’s production of George M! and invited Black to produce his Inaugural Gala. Black produced 18 Broadway shows and employed many of the theater’s best known stars and directors (Joel Grey, John Gielgud, Julie Harris, Alan King, Bette Midler, Gene Hackman, Burt Reynolds just to name a few.) But as fate would have it, the aforementioned paper book of drawings came to the attention of more than just Black’s family and friends. Black’s drawings found their way into the hands of well known British painters, John Hoyland and Patrick Caulfield. It was Hoyland and Caulfield, who upon seeing the line work of Black’s drawings noted the hand of an artist and encouraged Black toward an artistic career.

The possibility of an artistic career was not only a surprise to Black, but it was intriguing. While in the past, the accolades were many on Broadway, Black was not happy. “As a producer I was not a part of the creative process.” He tells me. “I wanted to make my own mistakes. I wanted to be personally responsible for my own failure or success. On Broadway, when things were good everyone was having fun. When things were bad no one was having fun and I still had to pay the bill.”eryone was having fun. When things were bad no one was having fun and I still had to pay the bill.”

“My life has always been in search of the arts.” says Black and so he seized the new opportunity presented to him and embarked on an artistic path. He studied dry point etching with Bill Hall at The Printmaking Workshop in New York City. But when Black inquired among his artist friends if he should study painting formally, Hoyland replied with “an emphatic NO. I felt that it might inhibit him. He would probably get a bad teacher, as there are plenty of them around, and he might lose his natural confidence. He should stick to his own bad habits.”

As a self taught artist some would refer to Black’s work as outsider art. The drawings include portraits and scenes from the theater – a pianist, the audience, a cellist; and scenes around the city – people in diners, pubs, and restaurants. But self taught or not, it is Black’s economy of line that reflects the eye and hand of an artist and contrasts the complexity of his depictions. Who is the pianist and why does it appear he’s frowning? I believe Hoyland would agree on this point as the abstractionist noted in regard to Black’s drawings, “What made them really interesting was his economical and incisive use of line. His line had a life of its own regardless of the subject and that is what real drawing is all about.”

A turning point came when Black’s work was seen by Frederick Gore, C.B.E., Head of the Selection Committee for The Royal Academy in London. Gore chose 40 paintings for a solo exhibition in London and Black’s new career was off and running.

“It’s hard to find words to describe what I experience when I look at David’s paintings. Somehow David transforms his love of music and drama onto canvas. His spectacular colors reverberate like a Wagnerian opera,” says wife Anne Rivers. Black has exhibited several times in such places as London, England; New York City: Suffolk England; Kent Connecticut; Stonington Connecticut; Cincinnati, Ohio; Lufkin, TX; and most recently in Woodbury, Connecticut; Mystic, Connecticut and Atlanta, GA. His paintings are in private collections nationally and internationally and he was recently honored as one of the 45 artists participating in the Art In Embassies Program which exhibits original works of art by U.S. citizens in the public rooms of approximately 180 American diplomatic residences worldwide. He is a member of The National Arts Club in New York City.

The artist has painted lush, colorful scenes and situations that have been compared to the work of Van Gogh. He has painted people and landscapes from Morocco, Provence, Rome, New Orleans, Las Vegas, and locally in Stonington, CT but it is his paintings of New York City that one glimpses the heart of the artist.

It is in Black’s New York City paintings, backgrounds sometimes sketchy and blurred, which reflect the energy and blur of the artist’s birthplace. There is a touching sensitive quality to these works in both tone and execution. There is the lack of conversation in The Conversation, the lonely aspect of Central Park, the redirected gazes in Rockefeller Center and yes it is even apparent in Garbage Cans. Grace Glueck of The New York Times wrote of David’s work “These cartoony, untutored oils, bubbling with color, unabashedly tackle everything from landscape to social mores… The smug couple seated at a table in Benefit Dinner, the two old men playing chess beneath a stuffed deer’s head in At the Club, the bilious crowd in The Backer’s Audition are nicely observed New York vignettes.”

Black’s paintings, like his life, are colorful, vivid, and populated with people. I asked David about his paintings from New York City and remarked that it is interesting that one who never had formal training was able to create works which have come to be known as “peoplescapes.” Black recalls “When I was a kid my father and I would ride the subway together. Doing this we played a game that we called ‘the people game.’ We’d try and guess where these people lived, what they did for a living, were they happily married or divorced? At an early age I started looking at people and I never stopped.”

One gets the feeling that David Black is always somewhat amazed by and grateful for his artistic career. Each success, of which there have been many, is a new gift to him. “Let’s go see my painting The Path. It’s right here on Main Street” he says to me. And so off we went to take a look at The Path after having discussed this artist’s very impressive personal path.

Black’s art work has come to the attention of and favorably reviewed or written about by such notable figures as Anthony Haden-Guest, New York; Ray Rushton, Arts Review, London; Will Barnet, New York; Frederick Gore, Artist and Head of the Exhibition Committee of The Royal Academy; and Grace Glueck, The New York Times.

David resides in Stonington CT, and maintains an apartment in Manhattan. His studio is at The Velvet Mill, 22 Bayview Avenue, Stonington, CT.

Visit his website at www.davidblacknyc.com