"adventures" contents

My first painting demonstration at the League.
Here I'm the summer substitute for the ailing Isaac Soyer. I had never before taught anywhere. Terrified, I announced a summer-long series of painting demonstrations. My model here is the beautiful Rosa Goldfine, one of the students. The bald man at the far left is Harry Helprin, a brilliant painter who, in addition to attending my class, was the monitor in the Everett Raymond Kinstler class. I admired Harry tremendously, and treasure a painting of his which he gave to me.

		Me in 1972. I took myself very seriously.

n the spring of 1972, after I had been studying with Mr. Oppenheim for a little more than a year, he surprised us with the announcement that he intended to retire and move to Florida. To my astonishment, he informed me that he intended to recommend to the League that I be appointed instructor in his place.

First, we had to go for an interview with Stewart Klonis, Executive Director of the Art Students League. It turned out to be surely one of the briefest employment interviews ever held. Mr. Klonis was seated at his desk in the middle of the League office (he did not use a private office.) He was reading the Wall Street Journal as Mr. Oppenheim and I approached his desk. He did not put the newspaper down, but continued to hold it as he listened to Mr. Oppenheim's announcement that he would retire at the close of the school year, and his recommendation was that the young man accompanying him should take his place.

I had been told to bring a painting. I had with me a large portrait of a young woman which I had framed with an expensive gilded frame. Still holding the Wall Street Journal, Klonis, without saying another word, looked from Oppenheim to me to the painting. Turning in his chair, Klonis called out to Herman Espada, the League's longtime building superintendent, who was across the room, one word: "Window!" Herman came to where we were standing, took my painting from me, and proceeded to hang it in one of the show windows facing on Fifty-Seventh Street. The interview was over, and I was in.

My appointment was in the spring of 1972, and I intended to devote the summer to planning and study, to be ready to teach the Oppenheim class when it reconvened in September. I had told no one, including Stewart Klonis, that I had never taught anything to anyone. But I was not to have the summer free for study. Mr. Klonis called just two days after my appointment to tell me that the great Isaac Soyer - one of the League's most popular instructors and a nationally-known artist - was ailing, and I was to substitute for him in his huge summer class.



Stewart Klonis
Executive Director of the Art Students League, Stewart Klonis appears (standing, far left) in this famous painting Homage to Sargent (1956) by Robert Philipp from the League collection. Mr. Klonis hired me as an instructor at the League in a remarkable one-word interview (see above). Well-known League instructors shown in the painting are, standing, John Carroll, Sidney Dickinson and Robert Philipp. Seated are Louis Kronberg, Ivan Olinsky, Robert Brackman, and Shelley Post (Mrs. Robert Philipp).

I somehow survived the challenge of that summer, and in September I began my duties as instructor of the Oppenheim class. The class went from a one-night-a-week event to five nights a week. I was at the league Tuesday and Friday evenings, so I began classes in my own studio on Fifty-Seventh Street on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings.

But it wasn't enough, so the next September I added a lecture/demonstration course at the League on Monday evenings, which ran for ten weeks, from early September into November. It's amazing what you can do when you're young! The five-night-week class continued for eleven years, and the lecture class for twenty-five, (though after a few years I reduced the number of lectures from ten to three, and finally to two).

An Important Demonstration in Studio 14 In September 1972, I began to teach the former Oppenheim class, now the Sanden class. I continued my practice of frequent demonstrations, perhaps more to overcome my terror than anything else. The crowds got bigger and bigger, with students coming from other classes. On this particular evening, my wife-to-be, Elizabeth (arrow), is seated for the demonstration. I had not yet met her. Rosa Goldfine is again the model. Elizabeth In this remarkable picture, my wife-to-be is present for the demonstration, though we had yet to meet.

The biggest excitement was that I had met a beautiful young woman. Elizabeth Schneider had joined the League class, quickly became monitor, and, eventually - after a whirlwind courtship of a few weeks - my wife. (The full story is in the next chapter.) This past year we celebrated our thirty-second wedding anniversary.

The Art Students League is a magic place where miracles can happen. Countless thousands have experienced there the great discovery of what art is, and what it can mean in your life. For me, everything happened at the League. I discovered the joy of painting, I became a portrait painter and a teacher, and I found my life's companion. Thirty-five years have passed since the summer of 1969 when I first came to the League. I love it now as I did then, and I still go there expecting a miracle.

"adventures" contents