Artists - Part 15

 Philip Gladstone

I used one of Philip Gladstone's paintings, Tangled (for Samuel Barber), in a previous post about composer Samuel Barber.  Today we'll explore more of Gladstone's work.

After 20 years as the owner of a gallery, Philip Gladstone launched his career as an artist in 2004.  He now lives in the highlands of Maine.  His paintings and drawings tend to tell – or imply – a story.  Even the self-portrait above, Long Way Home, 2017, puts us in the middle of some story.  Many of his works are filled with references to other art.  Almost all of them feature nude men.  And many of them include a dog.

A few of his works are conventional portraits of nude men, like The Descent, 2020.

But far more often, they contain references to something else.  The nude figure in The Workman's New Clothes, 2017, is based on a 19th century painting of the French school at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Gladstone has used the same nude figure, pulling on a rope or chain, in several other paintings as well.

The nude man in A Night Flight for Rosie, 2016, above, is based on Horace Bristol's famous 1944 photo PBY Blister Gunner, Rescue at Rabaul, which I have shown in previous blog posts.  But in this version, the background is filled with colorized fragments of Picasso's painting Guernica, which depicts the horrors of war.  Rosie in the title refers to Rosie the Riveter, a World War II symbol of women working in factories at home while the men went to war.  A poster of Rosie the Riveter is seen at the lower right.

Gladstone has reused the figure of the naked blister gunner in several other paintings.

The figure in Humility, 2017, is based on a Thomas Eakins photo c. 1885 of his student Samuel Murray.  But the Eakins photo was taken inside a studio, and there was no dog.

Another theme of many of Gladstone's works is a fantasy of museum paintings coming to life, like Eakins and his Students Raise Hell, 2011, in which the figures in Eakins' famous painting The Swimming Hole are escaping into the museum.  The figure at left is Eakins himself, based on an 1883 photo of Eakins, nude, playing the pipes.  The inevitable dog is adding to the chaos by taking a dump on the museum floor, while the museum guard appears to be praying for help.

Another painting coming to life is depicted in Stop, 2012.  A nude figure is stepping out of Picasso's Guernica, which is odd because there is no nude figure in Guernica to begin with.  There's another unexplained naked man on the floor, and here the museum guard is oblivious.

Roy Lichtenstein's painting Whaam has no nude figures, but that didn't stop Gladstone.  In American Wing, 2011, the naked man has appeared out of nowhere, ripping through the painting, again with another naked man nearby.  The explosion in the painting has also escaped in the form of a fire on the floor. 

For something completely different, The Wandered, Lost, 2015, resembles a painting of artist Bev Doolittle that depict a Native American on a pinto horse perfectly camouflaged among birch trees.  Except here, the camouflaged pinto figures are naked men. 

We end with The Magic Mirror, 2016, which combines realism with fantasy.  But we have only scratched the surface of Gladstone's work.  To see much more, visit the artist's website www.philipgladstonestudio.com.