Joseph Solman : gouaches

Solman started working in gouaches in the early 1930’s, many painted on black paper on the scene. From an interview with the artist himself…..

“And I would say about 1931 when I was still living in Jamaica, Long Island, I think I found my own road, or partially at least. I did a lot of the streets and back alleys of Jamaica, Long Island, a suburban little rickety town. And though I'm sure one can trace some influences there, I thought I fused some elements of cubism, some elements of Rouault, my own feeling for locale into something that I could honestly call my own.

They were small gouaches, maybe six by nine inches in size; but they were easy to do outside because of the small size. I'd take my watercolors and gouache - I'd carry everything. And I was very prolific. I did the railroad yards, the bridges, the alleys, the streets, and so on. And I felt a great satisfaction in coming back with something I felt was in step with my own feeling, my own forms, my own colors, and so on. I then began to try to do oils based on these streets, but I found that when I did an oil from an elevated station or from a stoop or something, I'd have much better results than if I did them from a gouache which I wanted to enlarge. Realizing that the picture was much more alive that way, I ceased to try to enlarge any of the gouaches. I did but I kicked my foot through many of them later on. I had my first one-man show in April of 1934 in a gallery called Contemporary Arts which also gave first one-man shows to people who never had had a show - gave a first one-man show to people like Rothko, I believe to Schanker. I know it gave the first show to people like Mark Tobey, Kerkam, and many future well-known artists. The pictures were very, very dark in that first show of mine and I destroyed many of them later on because I could hardly see them myself. Although I got rather nice reviews in a few papers.

But the next step in my development was, living in New York and being married, I'd go out on the East Side streets, park scenes, and so on, and make drawings and gouaches. When I was excited about a scene, I'd just make a pencil drawing and when I came back - since I had done so many gouaches on the scene, I was able to transform the pencil drawing into an oil much more successfully than when I tried to enlarge a gouache. Once I discovered that, that led to a new period (and that's a perfect example of it). If I showed you the pencil drawing, it might be on the back of an envelope, you know, three by four inches. But I came home directly with the scene still vividly in my mind and laid out the canvas. And that was, I would say, the second important phase in my development. I had a show in 1937 at a place called "Another Place" of those particular streets. By that time, I had already been exhibiting in many places, you know, in group shows; and it was already after the formation of our group called The Ten in 1935 in my studio on East 15th Street. I was also on the WPA project. I think I got on in 1935. So I was young, free, and full of all kinds of energy so I produced quite a bit of the streets, both in gouache and in oil at that period.”