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3..

When I started to paint in oil, I simply wanted to extend what I

had done in watercolor. To do so, I had the initial sketch enlarged

as a photostat, traced it onto a gessoed panel and with thinned

color completed the oil as if it were indeed a water color.

Later on I ([[strikethrough]] became absorbed with painting and exhibiting, but this

was true for a whole group of American artists who were establishing

the basis for what would be a new surge of abstract art. About

1949, I [[/strikethrough]]) read Delacroix's "Journal" and felt that I too could profit

by systematically copying the old masters. Not wanting to work in

museums, I again used photostats, enlarging works by Giotto, Duccio,

Veronese, Grunewald, Rembrandt, De Hooch, Manet and Matisse. I did

reasonable free copies of each work substituting my own color for

that of the older artists, except, of course, for the Manet and

Matisse when I was guided by color reproductions. The Rembrandt I

chose, "Pilate Washing His Hands" gave me the most difficulty. While

studying this masterpiece, I found so may subtle rhythms and careful

relationships that I finally surrended the work having learned

there are hidden, mysterious relationships which defy analysis.

After about a year of this, I went to Paris on the G. I. Bill, for

18 months. During that time, however, I was much too busy visiting

museums, galleries, and studios to get any actual painting

done. But I was undergoing a change nevertheless, and when I returned

to New York I began experimenting in a radically different

way. I started to play with pigments, as such, in marks and patches,

distorting natural colors and representational objects. I spent

the next several years doing this, until I gradually realized the

tracks of color tended to fragment my compositions. That was when

I went back to the Dutch masters, to Vermeer and De Hooch, in particular