PAUL JENKINS

Veloy Vigil

Hyman Bloom

Willem de Kooning

Observations by Paul Henrickson, Ph.D. tm. © 2008

“The paintings of Paul Jenkins have come to represent the spirit, vitality, and invention of post World War II American abstraction. Employing an unorthodox approach to paint application, Jenkins' fame is as much identified with the process of controlled paint-pouring and canvas manipulation as with the gem-like veils of transparent and translucent color which have characterized his work since the late 1950s. Born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1923, Jenkins was raised near Youngstown, Ohio. Drawn to New York, he became a student of Yasuo Kuniyoshi at the Art Students League and ultimately became associated with the Abstract Expressionists, inspired in part by the "cataclysmic challenge of Pollock and the total metaphysical consumption of Mark Tobey." An ongoing interest in Eastern religions and philosophy, the study of the I Ching, along with the writings of Carl Jung prompted Jenkins' turn toward inward reflection and mysticism which have dominated his aesthetic as well as his life. “

Dr. Louis A. Zona, DirectorThe Butler Institute of American Art

1. 2.

3 4. 5.

6. 7.

Three works by the New Mexican painter Veloy Vigil

To begin with to establish clarity, I should point out that number 3, above is by myself. Periodically, to clarify my approach to work I will purposefully disengage myself from any subject matter whatsoever and concentrate on developing, or rather, discovering , new combinations of forms, colors, or approaches. At other times I purposefully limit the medium, the physical action and attempt to work within those limitations in the hope, and expectation, that I will discover alternative solutions to pictorial needs. It happened that number 3 (three), above, was executed quite a long while before I was at all familiar with the work of Paul Jenkins to which it bears a strong, superficial , resemblance. I mention this as a fact, in part , to clarify the distinctions between the function of a museum director such as Dr. Zona above and myself, as I am now, acting in the capacity of a critic. The responsibility of a museum director is to present the art work in such a fashion as to make it easier for it to be studied. This implies, I believe, that the museum director also has some notion as to the works importance in some way or another to the society which the museum serves. Very often the museum director reveals his understanding of the work he displays by the way he displays it. But the elucidation of the meaning of the work is the critic’s responsibility.

There are resemblances also between the Jenkins works and the Vigil works in that both appear to be working with “accidents of the paint on canvas”, that is the apparent ‘casual’ laying on of the paint, but, at least in the works pictured above, Jenkins never seems to leave that particular focus….all the works bear that characteristic. Vigil, on the other hand allows the viewer to catch a glimpse of something that might be an allusion to mundane reality…a person, for example. Now, whether Vigil decided that this approach was an appropriate acquiescence to the majority opinion that a work of art has to be a picture OF something as opposed to being a painting, that is, an event on canvas which is what I suspect Jenkins had in mind.one cannot be certain. Even if we ask the artists involved we might not be able to certain for artists, after all, are continuing changing their minds about events. This is not

a fault, it is a characteristic, for they happen, perhaps, ,more than others, to be able to see an event or a thing from more than one perspective and their minds could well jump from one to another perspective without, at all, intending to deceive.

Hyman Bloom, “Rabbi”

If there is anything that is a constant with Hyman Bloom it is his attachment to tradition. I do not mean, in this instance, his religious attachment to the torah, the rabbi , the glorious chandeliers in the synagogue, although this also seems to be true, but rather to teaching, and to the teacher, and to the acceptance, as truth, of what is taught. Now, in his case, I suspect, it is the teaching as taught in medieval Eastern Europe. Bloom is a draughtsman is an academic. Bloom as a painter is, I suspect, an absolute devotee to Rembrandt, just as, Rembrandt, in his time, was fascinated by Jewry. I would hazard a guess that there is as much Jewry in Rembrandt as there is Rembrandt in Bloom. But, in Bloom’s case, the costume that one wears is only a modern adaptation, that is, where the laying on of paint is merely an assumed theatrical accent overlaying Bloom’s enduring respect for 17th century draughtsmanship and

with all of that in mind I feel quite secure in maintaining that Willem de Kooning, is, therefore, a more inventive painter than any of those mentioned above for, in him, the vision and the means, the final aspects of the work, and the means of getting there have grown together, have matured as a team and one does not overlay the other in what amounts to a vain attempt to appear modern.

Willem de Kooning, “Woman”