{"id":97929,"date":"2020-04-09T09:18:52","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T07:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/?p=97929"},"modified":"2020-04-20T11:51:48","modified_gmt":"2020-04-20T09:51:48","slug":"peter-saul-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2020\/04\/09\/peter-saul-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Saul and the importance of having a salary (an interview)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A radical American artist who mixes social issues with pop culture to make trippy, psychological paintings, Peter Saul has been identified with Pop Art, Funk Art and The Hairy Who, simply because his first art dealer, Allan Frumkin, was based in Chicago (as another great art dealer, Richard Feigen \u2013 here is a link to our interview with him<\/a>). Receiving a generous stipend from Frumkin for 30 years, Saul painted whatever he wanted, which is why his work is now so widely embraced. On the even of his New Museum retrospective, the 85-year-old artist sat down with Conceptual Fine Arts to discuss his lucky life and direct, instinctive style for making his highly controversial art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When did you decide that you wanted to\nbe an artist?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Around age 15 to 17,\nwhen I decided that I didn\u2019t want to have to go downtown and work\nin an office.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did you manage to get your career\ngoing in Europe, when you lived in Paris from 1958 to 1962 and then\nin Rome from \u201962 to \u201864?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: It was very difficult. It seemed hopeless. I didn\u2019t know what to do and no one else knew either. I only had contact with five or six Americans and they were completely unknown then and now. I made an effort to look around and saw some of Roberto Matta\u2019s drawings at the Galerie du Dragon in Paris. I thought that if he saw my work he would find some similarity, but I didn\u2019t actually know anything about him as I\u2019d skipped art history. Back in Saint Louis my teacher said if you don\u2019t show up I\u2019ll give you a B because I don\u2019t want anyone smirking in the back of the room. I got Matta\u2019s address and phone number from an American artist who knew him and sent him some drawings, but nothing happened. Finally, I got the courage to phone him and he said go quickly to the Hotel Lutetia and see the art dealer Allan Frumkin, who had galleries in Chicago and New York, and tell him that I sent you. I went there and he looked at my drawings and said, Let\u2019s do business. What do you want for them? I said $15 bucks and he said I can do $25. At that time the monthly wage in Paris was about $200 for a working man, so because he continued to buy and support me I basically had no more problems.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Peter
Peter Saul, Ice Box, 1960. Oil on canvas, 69 x 58 1\/2 in (175.3 x 148.6 cm). Courtesy the artist.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Were you showing often enough to get\nknown and selling enough work to survive?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Yes, within days or weeks of Frumkin buying my work I landed a gallery in Paris. The American artist James Bishop, who had been a roommate in Saint Louis, walked into the Galerie Breteau and the owner asked him what\u2019s new and he said have you seen the American kid who paints iceboxes and suitcases and she said no, where is he? She drove out to see me and arranged for a show right away. Suddenly I had two art galleries, even though I still knew absolutely nothing about the art world.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But you were lucky, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Very lucky\u2014luck played\na role in it. Frumkin soon started giving me a stipend and showed my\nwork for the next 30 years. I\u2019ve been lucky all my life, but I hope\nI\u2019m not going to pay for it with some huge disease, if you know\nwhat I mean.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Peter
Peter Saul, Ice Box #8, 1963. Oil on canvas, 74 3\/4 x 63 in (189.9 x 160 cm). Hall Collection. Courtesy Hall Art Foundation. Photo: Jeffrey Nintzel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How did you start making the Icebox\npaintings, which are some of the earliest works in the New Museum\nshow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: I had seen some icebox\nads in Life Magazine, but when it I decided to use it as a form to\nhold a variety images I couldn\u2019t find any ads to reference so I\njust imagined how it should look, until I found a picture of one. I\nmade about nine of these paintings over the next few years and put\nall kinds of things into them\u2014food and cigarettes and furniture. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These paintings and your paintings from\nthe same period with cartoon characters were later seen as a\nprecursor to Pop Art. Did you see them that way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: No, I didn\u2019t know\nabout Pop Art and I was pretty upset when I read about it because I\nwas hoping that this was only my idea. It turned out that there were\na lot of people around the world that came to it at about the same\ntime, which I guess is normal. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did you get to this place in Paris\nand Rome, while the movement had its start in New York?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: I never paid any\nattention to what was going on in New York. I had a fear of flying\ndue to just missing going on a plane that crashed in 1956\u2014the first\nmid-air collision. But the idea of what you call Pop Art just came to\nme because I wanted something to put into my Abstract Expressionist\npictures. I recognized that I was making a huge compromise, but I had\nto make a living. I only had $300 left when I arrived in Paris. I\nrealized that I needed to hit on something within a matter of two or\nthree months. I needed something to interrupt the Abstract\nExpressionism. First I just put in stuff and then I got this idea\nfrom Mad magazine that you could tell a story with pictures, which no\nart was doing at the time\u2014except for the work being made by really\nbad artists, like Salvador Dali and Norman Rockwell. I sat in the\nDome Caf\u00e9, smoked Gauloise cigarettes and came up with these ideas,\nwith most of it coming from memory.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your work has also been labeled as\nSurrealism, Funk Art and related to the Hairy Who, just because your\ngallery was based in Chicago. Are you comfortable with these labels?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Not really, but I don\u2019t\nmind them as much now. At first I thought, Oh, oh, I won\u2019t get\nanywhere now. I\u2019ll just be forgotten, but it worked out okay. I\ndon\u2019t really care anymore.<\/em> \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Peter
Peter Saul, Target Practice, 1968. Acrylic on canvas, 91 1\/2 x 99 1\/2 in (232.4 x 252.7 cm). Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 2016. Courtesy Venus Over Manhattan, New York.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You often talk about imagination and\npsychology as being key factors in your work. What role do they play\nin the conception and execution of your paintings?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Well, I make the whole\nthing up\u2014zero research. However, I have a pile of photographs,\napproximately a quarter inch thick\u2014Ronald Reagan is in there and\npeople like Bush; there\u2019s some piece of pie and pieces of food;\nsome mountains, the Alps behind the Whiskey bottle\u2014but if I don\u2019t\nfind what I\u2019m looking for a about five minutes I just make it up.\nIn fact, I almost always make it up. I\u2019m almost never actually\nforced to find a photo, and it just irritates me when I am.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what about the psychology?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Oh, that\u2019s\ntremendously important. To me it\u2019s like color and form. By\npsychology I mean content\u2014the story, what\u2019s really happening. I\njust love that. Without it I don\u2019t know how people can stay\ninterested in art but they do, yet I don\u2019t know how they do it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the Icebox series you made a\nnumber of paintings about crime and people being fried in the\nelectric chair. What led you to this gloomy subject matter? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Well, I didn\u2019t think\nit was gloomy. Realistically, I\u2019m making use of these things. The\nperson in the electric chair is more interesting to look at than a\nperson reading the newspaper\u2014so I chose the electric chair. Before\nWorld War II, it was headline news: Joe Fries in Chair.<\/em> \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were you attracted to stories about\ncrime?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Oh, yes, when I went out\nthe door to go to school as a kid in San Francisco I looked out at\nthe bay and Alcatraz was right there, with Al Capone in it, and the\nchildren of the guards went to school with me. Bloodshed was a big\ndeal.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you interested in social injustice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: If I can make use of it\nin my pictures, yeah. I agree one hundred percent with something that\nI read by the art historian Harold Rosenberg: Politics can help art,\nbut art can\u2019t help it. I sort of agree with him. I think anyone\nthat\u2019s influenced by a painting must be insane.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were you protesting against the Vietnam\nWar when you made work about it, like the painting Saigon, which\nportrayed American soldiers torturing and raping Vietnamese women, in\n1967?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: What goes into\nthat\u2014first of all\u2014is the urge for exaggeration. I had no idea of\nwhat was going on in Vietnam. I was living in a 100% liberal\ncommunity in the Bay Area. I never even socialized with anyone who\nwas in favor of the war. I did take part in a protest once, and\npeople were beaten to the ground all around me. No one touched me. I\nmust have looked like an FBI agent, with a necktie and sport coat. I\nwas hoping my paintings would be more leftist than they were. I let\nthe psychology run away with it. If I saw a possibility for something\nreally interesting to occur in the painting I let it happen, no\nmatter if it was fascist or anything else. Just let it happen!\nFrumkin\u2014my sole customer and backer\u2014was probably pleased by that\nattitude. Also I wanted, for reasons of pure egotism, to have this\nkind of art to be as far over the top as Donald Judd and the other\nkind of art was. You had Larry Bell with his glass boxes making a\ndifferent kind of Rodin. Why not? Therefore, I can do the same. I\nwanted it to be over the top. The weak point of politics in art is\nthat it\u2019s toned down so that you can agree with it, which is an\nobvious collapse of the thing. It\u2019s also the reason why I had so\nmuch trouble, but not now. My art is expected to be extreme now.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Peter
Peter Saul, The Government of California, 1969. Oil on canvas, 68 x 96 in (172.7 x 243.8 cm). Courtesy Venus Over Manhattan, New York.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In past interviews you\u2019ve said that\nlack of maturity is your art style and that even though you are in\nyour 80s, when you paint you\u2019re a 15-year-old. How does this\njuvenile approach impact your paintings? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Well, it\u2019s a boast,\nbut I actually am 85. But I hope that approach impacts my work. I\ndon\u2019t want to express a maturity in art. It\u2019s not good for the\nkind of work I\u2019m making. The kind of thing I\u2019m doing is better\noff if it\u2019s immature.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does it keep your work edgy and\ninteresting?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: To me it does, yes. To\nbe interesting is one of my goals; it\u2019s a big one. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you see yourself as a rebel? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Hopefully, yes.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you have a cause? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: No, my cause is my own\nwell being.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you find joy in portraying angst?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Yeah, it\u2019s a more\nnoticeable psychology than being happy. There\u2019s happy all over the\nplace, but the amount of visual angst is less, so I go for it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like a Wall Street guy blowing his\nbrains out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Yeah, that\u2019s good. His\nhappiness is less interesting to look at. It\u2019s more interesting\nwhen his life falls apart.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What role has ridicule played in your\npsychotic pictures of celebrities and politicians?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Gee, well I just\nshamelessly put the psychology on to these people without knowing\nthem. I\u2019m not out to ridicule them; I\u2019m out to use them for my\nart style. My art style says: Need a celebrity, who do we have today?\nSomeone who heads a museum or someone who has an army\u2014a human being\nwho is well known. I avoid anonymous people, unless they\u2019re doing\nsomething sensational. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you a fan boy of these celebrities\nor a hater? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Neither one, really.\nThey\u2019re just there as subject matter, like a still life. I\u2019m not\na fan of things in still lives. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if you depict Reagan as a villain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Oh, he\u2019s my favorite.\nHe\u2019s so good because he suits my art style\u2014his shape, his hair,\neverything about him suits my art style. He\u2019s a good guy for\nart\u2014terrible otherwise.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Peter
Peter Saul, Ronald Reagan in Grenada, 1984. Acrylic on canvas, 82 1\/2 x 71 in (209.6 x 180.3 cm). Hall Collection. Courtesy Hall Art Foundation. Photo: Jeffrey Nintzel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Peter
Peter Saul, Bush at Abu Ghraib, 2006. Acrylic on canvas, 78 x 90 in (198.1 x 228.6 cm). Hall Collection. Courtesy Hall Art Foundation. Photo: Jeffrey Nintzel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve painted Hitler, Stalin, Nixon,\nReagan, Bush, and Trump as demons, villains and lunatics. Why did you\npick on them and not other leaders like Churchill or Obama?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: I don\u2019t seem to have\nthe same urge to paint good guys. It\u2019s just my own fault, but I\u2019ve\ntried to do the right thing once or twice in my 80 years.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2018 painting Abstract\nExpressionist Portrait of Donald Trump, which just shows his orange\ncoif and a bunch of hands wielding paint brushes engaged in\nmark-making, are you mocking this president or the art movement?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Holy Moly! I\u2019m just\ntrying to make use of this art movement. I don\u2019t mind it that much.\nI\u2019ve never thought of myself of a follower of art movements. I just\nuse them like art supplies. Cubism is a useful art movement, too. My\nquestion is always, is it useful to the picture I\u2019m painting? Does\nit help the thing to be drawn? I\u2019m in favor of art movements that\nare helpful. The best one is Surrealism, of course, but not the\nactual art movement itself\u2014just the idea of loony psychology is\nwhat I like. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Peter
Peter Saul, \u201cAbstract Expressionist Portrait of Donald Trump\u201d, 2018. Acrylic on canvas, 78 x 84 inches (198 x 213.5 cm) \u00a9 Peter Saul. Private Collection. Courtesy Michael Werner Gallery, New York and London.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And when you first lived in New York in\nthe late 1970s you made a series of subway paintings that showed\nwhite cops killing blacks and Hispanics and black cops killing white\nfolks. What were you trying to convey about the city in that moment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Chaos and danger\u2014there\nwere huge complaints at that time, just like now. I wanted to freshen\nup the picture, so I tended to have black cops kill white wrong doers\nin the worst ways, and vice-versa. I definitely wanted to avoid any\nyawns, which comes from the usual complaints.<\/em> \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s your attraction to brutality?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Uh, oh. It\u2019s visually\npossible. It\u2019s something people can do. I just finished a painting\ncalled Lip Wrestling, which I had hoped would be about kissing but I\nwasn\u2019t able to draw it very well so it ended up being lip\nwrestling. What a bummer!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you holding up a mirror to our\nculture?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: I didn\u2019t think I was,\nbut if I have it\u2019s okay. I\u2019m flattered at the idea. Frankly, I\ndidn\u2019t think as much as I\u2019m credited as having thought. My main\nthought was to paint the picture. Every time I got an idea for a\npainting I felt lucky and then I got to it. I try not to question it.\nI know from having taught school that most people do too much\nthinking. They often talk themselves out of doing anything\ninteresting. There would be good reasons for not doing it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Peter
Peter Saul, Self, 1987. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 100 in (182.9 x 254 cm). \u00a9 Peter Saul. Private collection, New York. Courtesy George Adams Gallery, New York.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Do you have any taboos?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Yes, I do. Several\ntaboos have been given to me by my wife Sally. One is 9\/11, when the\nairplanes crashed into the towers. I\u2019m not supposed to do anything\non that subject. I promised her that I wouldn\u2019t do it, even though\nI had made a little drawing, but that\u2019s as far as I got.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In nearly all of your works\u2014dating\nback to even the earliest ones\u2014you\u2019ve depicted people and objects\nas morphing figures and things melting into one another, which makes\nme think of something like Max Fleischer animated cartoons of the\n1930s and \u201840s. How did you develop this style and what were the\ninfluences for it? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: The comics Plastic Man\nwas obviously a big influence, and also Crime Does Not Pay comics. I\nnever stopped being influenced by these things. There\u2019s a much more\nrecent comic that fascinates me, called Trailer Trash, out of Boston,\nin the \u201880s or\u201990s. And the underground painter Robert Williams,\nwho never gets enough credit. I met him once for five minutes and\nnever saw him again. He\u2019s very good at picturing stories. I also\nlike Robert Crumb. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You taught in Austin\u2014far from the\ncenter of the art world\u2014for nearly 20 years. Did you feel like you\nwere working in isolation, even though you were showing in New York,\nand did it benefit your work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Actually, it was the\nbest time in my life. I really enjoyed myself, but that was because I\nhad a happy family life and easy work. I never left my house until\nthe class had begun. I never learned anyone\u2019s name; I just said do\nit. I thought the whole picture was to do it by itself and if the\nartist had to show up at all it was a pathetic sign of weakness. If\nyou needed someone to speak, like an art critic it was a no-no. I\nwanted my art to do everything that needs to be done, which is crazy\nnonsense.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the New Museum\u2019s catalog interview\nwith Massimiliano Gioni and Gary Carrion-Murayari you state \u201cOne of\nmy great strengths is that I care little about what people think of\nmy pictures. How has that been a plus in your art making?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: Yes, that\u2019s true. It\u2019s\nbeen a big advantage. You can do anything you want, which I\u2019ve\ntaken full advantage of and show off all the time\u2014kind of like\nbodybuilders who wear really tight clothes so you can see the\nmuscles. I do that, too. I deliberately do things other artists\nwouldn\u2019t do. The biggest weakness of the artists that I\u2019ve met in\nschool is that they worry about selling things. If you are worried\nabout someone putting it in the living room, you can\u2019t do very\nmuch. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you think your isolation had\nanything to do with the greater art world taking so long to catch on\nto your work? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Saul: When I retired from the\njob in Austin and we moved to New York it was a huge plus. I didn\u2019t\nrealize how important it was. I think that teaching is important for\nartists. It helps them learn how to speak about art, but I\u2019m not\ndoing such a great job of it now. However, sometimes I do a good job\nof impersonating myself. When it\u2019s smooth.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you hadn\u2019t become an artist what\ndo you think you might have been or would be doing now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter\nSaul: I don\u2019t know. I probably would have been very\nupset, living in a room somewhere doing practically nothing. I think\nI had to be an artist.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Peter
Peter Saul in his studio, 2019. Courtesy the artist and Venus Over Manhattan, New York.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On occasion of his retrospective exhibition at the New Museum we met with Peter Saul, who told us how freedom made him the artist that he has become.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97937,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1797],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-dialogue-with"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}