Harold Garde. Painting. 50 Years
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Harold Garde. painting. 50 years. museum of florida art an appreciation. he popular stereotype requires artists to be iconoclasts, concerned not with Tmoney or material reward, but with Art, going where it and an individual vision lead, often unappreciated, defiant, fearless. Cowboys of the garret. Always measured against the great ear slicer. Of course, most artists are more like other people, finding caution to be the better part of valor, struggling to make pictures that the market will bear because they would love to be able to make a living from their art. And most would prefer to be associated with, but not be of, the artist myth, admiring those few who are courageous, who make no concessions to prettiness or fashion, whose singleness of purpose inspires us all to tell more truth, to examine more deeply and honestly our own lives for what is personally and profoundly human. Harold Garde, though, is the real thing, far more than the stereotype, but lending credence to it—an artist of passion, integrity, commitment, unafraid of failure, unable to compromise his vision. He personifies the myth, believing totally in the personal and social necessity of art. He gives other artists courage. —robert SHetterly “What makes Garde’s paintings work is the forceful handling of paint, the abrasive color and brushstroke ultimately dominating the jarring subject matter.” — Carl Little, Art New England, Boston, Massachuesetts “Be On ‘GArde’ for BriLLiAnCe. Garde peels back the membrane of the daily life. What he finds is the pulsing sense of consciousness itself.” —Laura Stewart, fine art writer, The Daytona Beach News-Journal, daytona, florida HArold GArde. painting. 50 years. museum of florida art c o n t e n t s . All images herein © Harold Garde 2008 a r t i s t s t a t e m e n t . 6 Publisher: Museum of florida Art © 2008 All rights reserved. l e x i c o n . 10 This publication was produced in conjunction with the j eanne m. dowis touring exhibition: Harold Garde: Painting. 50 years. on exhibition december 4, 2008 — february 15, 2009 l e g a c y . 9 0 at the Museum of florida Art, deLand, florida j eanne m. dowis no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval w o r k i n m a i n e . 92 system, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic, s uzette lane m c a v o y mechanical, photocopying, recording or other method without prior written consent of the publisher. w o r k i n f l o r i d a . 9 6 essay © 2008: Jeanne M. dowis, Curator, j e n n i f e r m c i n n e s c o o l i d g e Red Sweater Portrait, 1998 Harold Garde: Painting. 50 years. exhibition acrylic on paper, 29½" x 22" essay © 1994, 2007: Suzette Lane McAvoy, b i o g r a p h y . 99 former chief curator, farnsworth Art Museum, rockland, Maine essay © 2008: Jennifer Mcinnes Coolidge, executive director, e x h i b i t i o n s . 10 0 Museum of florida Art, deLand, florida essay © 2008: Gay Hanna, Phd MfA, executive director, c r e a t i v i t y m a t t e r s . 103 National Center for Creative Aging An Affiliate of George Washington University g a y h a n n a front flap © 1998: robert Shetterly editor: Todd Kiefer a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s . 10 4 Photography: Tariq Gibran, Penny McKenna, Steve Morrison, Liv Kristen robinson, nicolas dowis Harold Garde Portrait Photography: Bill Kerr, Jack Mitchell design and Production: Harrah Lord, www.yellowhousestudio.info Printing: Progressive Communications, Lake Mary, florida iSBn 978-0-9822093-0-1 Library of Congress Control number: 2008940811 front and back cover: Kimono Against Red (detail), 1997, acrylic on canvas, 54" x 58" front flap: Harold Garde, robert Shetterly, 2006, acrylic on canvas, 35" x 30" frontispiece: Samurai Kimono, 1997, acrylic on canvas, 56" x 45" page 44: Green Tie from the collection of the farnsworth Art Museum, museum purchase, 1994 page 93: Blue Shadow from the collection of the farnsworth Art Museum, Self Portrait: Artist as a Blind Man, 2007 dedicated to the memory of Barbara J. Kramer, 1998 acrylic on canvas, 44" x 55" artist statement. ine is an Abstract expressionist background. MGiven that history, beginning a painting without a preconceived image and subsequently developing a recognizable subject, feels like a natural progression. While discovering, uncovering and exploring what i find vital in the imagery, i am first concerned with the formal values before i allow myself to become fully involved with the resulting evocative and emotional components. i teach and demonstrate the technique of dry acrylic image transfer which i developed and named “Strappo.” it is a dry image technique that allows time to study, alter and develop images, balancing themes and formal elements. i always demand of myself that i have tight control, but that the work must look as fresh as if it were arrived at spontaneously. Strappo serves well that need within a monotype format. Through the years i enjoyed learning sophisticated techniques, however my delight in developing Strappo is that it requires no special tools and equipment. The result is an appealingly unique smooth surface. This method of creating and transferring images can encourage spontaneity of application while it gives me the time to enjoy Harold Garde as a young man, 1952 Photograph by Bill Kerr ultimate control. i have learned to admire and rely on the skills of curators. i have been fortunate that when they select from my work, they have done significant jobs. This allows me to continue to challenge myself in the studio, free to explore, and i continue to add to the body of work from which selection can be made. Harold Garde, 1999 Photograph by Jack Mitchell 6 : harold garde. painting. 50 years. artist statement : “When the subject matter is easily identified I know that it takes care of the initial focus. Subsequently, abstract qualities can be explored.” “I have an abstract expressionist background. That historical period was the most exciting new development when I was a young painter. Much that excited then still energizes my work.” “It is presentation that should be distinctive, not the delineation Self Portrait as of a particular object.” a Stranger, 1987 acrylic on canvas 66" x 44" : harold garde. painting. 50 years. l e x i c o n . jeanne m. dowis arold Garde is a painter’s painter. This term, evident, yet Garde empathizes with the modern era’s illustrations born from the act of painting itself. diumistic exploration in paint and the subject matter Hfavored by those involved in the visual arts, viewer’s dilemma of finding recognizable shapes Though emerging from Garde’s original need for it bears are essential to Garde’s process and the crux means that he loves the act of painting so much and items within non-objective and abstract works. a line or block of color or gesture within the forma- of his reason for continuing to work in many series that he is compelled to do it, and that only people After years of quelling the urge, he now renders into tive compositional process, throughout series and the simultaneously and over periods of years. who also paint or understand painting from a subject the images he discovers in the early stages course of his career, key objects have become sym- His successes, Garde states, come when differ- painter’s perspective can truly appreciate his style of of the painting process and faces appear, a swirl bolic through judicious but repetitious use. Often, ent viewers respond to the same work, both formally composition, brushwork and use of color. for viewers becomes a saucer, a line transforms into a flower their forms (vases, cups, chairs…) take on a narrative and emotively, in similar fashion but with highly who are not painters, or are not Garde himself, further stem — thus, narrative is born from nothingness. representation of more complex emotional content personalized accounts of what they believe is hap- explanation may be necessary as to why he chooses The works stand alone as solid compositions by a than their more common usage and still-life setup pening within the scene portrayed. When discussing to paint the seemingly disparate objects, contorted contemporary artist of note, but since they also speak would imply; and more often than not, the meaning a particular work’s more esoteric or psycho-dramatic chunks of color and strange-faced portraits that to the viewer on many levels aside from technique one attaches to an object changes from work to work. qualities, Garde deliberately leaves the final “reading” predominate his works. and artistic sensibility, it would be an error to look at in Garde’s case, this means that a rose is not that rose of the work up to the viewer. While many of his still His background in Abstract expressionism is the subjects and objects that populate them as mere and it most certainly is not that other rose. This me- lifes are as fraught with tension as his portraits, he Myth Symbols, 1957, oil on board, 15" x 12" Torso of a Modest Person, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 40" x 67" 10 : harold garde. painting. 50 years. lexicon : 11 Why does smelling apple blossoms remind one Garde’s need to flesh out barely tangible yet man of a spring 42 years ago when he picnicked specific states so they convey a universal emotional on the grass in Central Park with a sweetheart, yet message is the basis of his abstracted narrative style.