Ep: 48 - Philip Pearlstein - Painting is a Visual Experience

We can all make an impact on the art world, but imagine living long enough to see that impact for yourself.  We were lucky enough to speak with 96 year old realist painting legend, Philip Pearlstein.  Pearlstein has been part of a significant moment in history, when America took the art world by storm in the 50s and 60s with Abstract Expressionism leading the way.

We contemporary artists are now so overly saturated with rapidly evolving and competing mass information, that it is hard to see what even matters these days, let alone think ourselves to be part of an “ art movement”.  First, the photograph, Disney, then Google, high speed internet, and now instagram have changed the way we make it, the way we view it and even the way we think about art.  We have become obsessed with what it means”  says Philip.”  But, painting, is a visual experience."  Join us, as Marshall and Sophia are re-contextualized in real time with Philip Pearlstein’s magnificent meanderings through the past.

Show Notes:

0:40 Intro

2:28: The beginning 

6:20: Drawing lessons in the army

9:44: Infantry causality replacements for the Battle of Monte Cassino  

16:30: Mercedes Matter’s Sunday drawing class  

19:50: Andy Warhol and 15 mins of fame

24:20: Will Burtin’s influence

34:20: Buck Minster Fuller drawings  

38:55: Teaching at Pratt Institute

42:50: Willem de Kooning’s secret career

46:40: Mondrian’s forces of the rectangles

1:01:00: The Alliance of Figurative Art   

1:19:15: Martha Mayer Erlebacher      

1:23:40: How do you know when a painting is finished?

1:28:27: Duplicating vision

1:31:42: The history of the art of the human race

1:34:18: What makes a great painting?

1:37:56: Advice for this generation of figurative painters

1:41:46: Advice on starting a new body of paintings

1:46:40: End credits

Philip Pearlstein’s website

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