There
are many ways to react when we are in front of a painting. In
front of the "Gioconda" by Leonardo we are astonished
and incredulous. If we look at Grunewald, terrified by the length
of the thorns and frightened by the audacity of the first
authentic painted martyrdom. What reactions do we have looking at
a painting by the American, Joseph Sheppard? Amazement. Because
his skill arouses admiration. He is almost excessively skilled,
hence... wonder and perplexity.
Joseph Sheppard, born in Owing Mills, Maryland in 1930, exhibits
at the St. Agostino church in Pietrasanta starting September 29
this year. I had never seen a contemporary artist paint, draw,
sculpt marble or bronze, bringing such inspiration to the
composition, the form and the perspective of classical art, as
Sheppard does.
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The
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I
remember seeing, in the '40's in Italy, the work of Gregorio
Sciltian, loved and admired even by Giorgio de Chirico for the
perfection with which he reproduced in painting, the truth of a
face or of those details, fingernails, hands, eyes: without
forgetting the famous "expression" which, in those
years, represented the inner truth very much requested by those
sitting or buying a painting. What is new is that Sheppard belongs
to this school, and gives you the certainty that the person
portrayed is actually that, and physically true: to which he adds,
when he feels like it, the unpredictable ironical variation of the
"heroicalness or impudence of our time". This exhibition
commemorating his 50 years of work reminds us of these antique
masters, but seen through his personal narration.
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Sheppard
displays twenty large paintings, twenty large drawings, twelve
portraits of Pietrasanta craftsmen, an homage which has never before
been dedicated to their skill, to close with fifteen sculptures. Who
are the protagonists of his sensational skill? To tell the truth,
looking at his inventions I feel thrown out of my time, because I
have been accustomed, for years, to write on the loved contemporary:
Alberto Giacometti, Bacon, Balthus, de Chirico. The art of Joseph
Sheppard takes me back a lifetime, as if the time of school readings
or the reproductions of the ancient art masterpieces were about to
reemerge. Their memory is here. And the painting, the drawing, and
the sculpture of this American make me believe in the existence of
this way of working: his.
It
captures me through persuasion. The people we meet in bars,
supermarkets, in big cities, in sport centers at the end of a boxing
fight, are his subjects: they are so real and recognizable with our
time, to the point we exclaim: "but I've just seen these
guys". His "Icarus" which I want to take as an
example of a classical spirit close to us, in fact has the face of a
teenager who could be walking around wearing a T-shirt and jeans.
The same aspect applies to the "Two Girls" or to the
terrific gang of hoods wearing dark glasses in the
"Provincetown Bar" which seems taken from a shot of a
popular movie. Am I paying a compliment to the challenge of his way
of working? Or is it my certainty that his theatre is necessary in
order to keep afloat, astonished or incapable of finding another
solution that can match his? I asked about Sheppard in Pietrasanta,
a city of foreign artists and craftsmen unique in the world for
their skill. Everybody knows him, him and his life. And I want to
repeat my admiration for the homage he pays in the paintings
dedicated to the famous Pietrasanta craftsmen: I will mention only
the one which he made of one of the most famous, Enzo Pasquini:
"terrific" as you say in America for the skill in treating
the marble of the Apuane mountains as a kin, a close relative.
In the
bust "Woman with Flowers in her hair" I recognize that
Sheppard's hand is at home in Pietrasanta. The air is there, no
doubt about it. It's enough to leave you breathless, because all the
subjects that are in a Sheppard character, have the identity card of
truth: they are our contemporaries invented by. nature, but painted
by Sheppard. The beauty of his paintings is the sum total of
beauties. And Sheppard, a devil of our time, with the face of a
popular actor, has not backed out from this confrontation that makes
him range, as if the entire figurative system had burst open, when
he portrays the boys under the shower as well as when he paints the
American "rock & roll", or the beautiful nude girl
with a sheet. Sheppard seems to have a kinship with the other world:
antiquity presses him, but seen with eyes of the year 2000. His is a
battle won by a virtuoso who entertains us with anything he wants. I
am tempted to believe in anything he invents.
Giorgio
Soavi
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