Action Jackson Pollock
The Springs, Long Island, New York
1950
Photo: Rudy Burckhardt
It's an interesting thing: the site where something creative happened. Was the place, a la ancient Delphi, the source of inspiration? Or did the sheer act of creation leave an aura, a faint scent of genius that we all can inhale in hopes of it seeping into our own desperate attempts to pull something from non-existence into existence.
William De Kooning
85 Fourth Avenue
NYC
1952
Photo: Kay Bell Reynal
In a lot of ways it's similar to visiting a reliquary to be able to touch (or at least see) the finger of a saint. Half in desire to see for ourselves and half in the hopes of being infected by the seeds of a greater existence.
I would imagine for painters it would be different. It would be a bit of cross-temporal visual conversation: shop talk.
Are there artists studios you'd most like to see (either in person or in photos)?
Marky Mark Rothko
West 53rd Street
NYC
1952
Photo: Kay Bell Reynal
Andrew Warhola
231 East 47th Street
NYC
Photo: Ugo Mulas
(Assistants Philip Fagan and Gerard Malanga
are the goofs in the background.)