A Choice Between Two Styles
A Spontaneous Decision That Changes My
Life Forever
The choice between these two
paintings dramatically alters
the course of my life.
Robert Brackman
Junior
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Samuel Edmund
Oppenheim
Lady in Black |
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S.E. Oppenheim, 1901-1992.
The Art Students League
of New York
This famous institution
— the best-known art school in America — has stood
on West 57th Street in Manhattan since 1880. In the fall of
1969 I arrived here to enroll in the Robert Brackman class.
What happened in the next hour turned out to be the most influential
decision of my life. The instructor's exhibition was in progress
in the second floor gallery (the three arched windows). |
 I
went to the Art Students League to enroll in the Robert Brackman
evening class. The great portrait artist was then the most famous
teacher of painting in America, and he was now approaching the end
of his long teaching career at the League. I could not wait to join
his crowded class. But just before going in to the League office
to enroll, something cosmic happened.
The annual League instructors' exhibition was open that evening
in the second floor gallery. Each instructor showed one painting.
On the opposite wall as I entered was a monumental Brackman painting
of a young boy (pictured on this page). I made directly for it.
Hanging beside it was a small painting by another instructor —
and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. The painting
was a portrait of a lovely older lady in a black dress and hat.
Her gloved right hand held a white rose. The colors and tones seemed
to float and shift with a palpable aliveness. The brush strokes
were bold, flowing and dramatic. The edges of the forms shimmered
and melted, one into another. I had never seen such sheer loveliness
in all my life.
Bending close to catch the signature, I saw for the first time the
flowing script that read one word: Oppenheim. Thoughts raced through
my mind: could I learn to paint like that? Was it in fact painted,
or did that image just somehow exist in a romantic, mysterious world
of its own? Yes, it was oil paint all right — and it was a
miracle. And who was this Oppenheim, after all, and what would he
be like? I dashed downstairs, my heart pounding, and signed for
the Oppenheim class!
In a transforming instant, I made one of the pivotal decisions of
my life. Brackman was a great artist as well as a great teacher.
But I sensed suddenly that, in the Brackman class, my already tight
and careful style would only get tighter and more careful. In contrast
to the classic solidity of the Brackman approach, the Oppenheim
style seemed to offer exciting qualities heretofore foreign to me.
The romantic and poetic freedom in Oppenheim's work excited me.
To go with Oppenheim would be a 180-degree about-face for me —
an adventure into new and unknown realms.
In the Oppenheim class, my excitement was realized. Immediately
I left behind the old painful precision in favor of a heart-lifting
freedom and casualness. My edges became soft, the brushstrokes flowing.
Fifty tiny strokes were replaced by three broad, sweeping ones.
It was a whole new way of working. I was excited beyond words. For
reasons that I could not fully comprehend at the time, doors were
being thrown wide open for me.
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