After several millennia, movies, television, the cell-phone camera, and Jackson Pollock, you’d think serious figurative painting would have had it. And as far as a large segment of the international contemporary art business is concerned, it has. Even the work of an ace like John Currin isn’t so much in the figurative tradition as it is an extraordinarily accomplished joke about it.
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The image is joshing, yet that Long chooses to play it out across 48 square feet bespeaks his ambition. And that he sustains it so beautifully bespeaks his mastery. Like the other two large canvases in the show, The Painter and His Family advertises Long’s chops with its nearly photographic depiction of a Fiestaware pitcher, a wicker laundry basket, daisies, fruit, people, and all manner of textiles from quilted blanket to terry cloth towel.
The strength of this painting goes well beyond Long’s ability to nail a piece of crockery, however. There’s an immanence underlying the perfect craftsmanship in The Painter and His Family. A sense of another, less tangible perfection that I felt as joy.
When: Through Sat 10/29: Tue-Sat 11-5
When: Through Fri 10/14: Tue-Fri 10-5:30, Sat 11-5
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Tom Foley.
