Playing Diamonds

Playing Diamonds

2023-2024, oil on linen,19 x 19 inches

The theme of card games has been a recurring narrative in my work for many years. I enjoy the subject and the psychological elements it offers, but - more important to me - on the abstract level the theme also provides many compositional opportunities such as in the arrangement of hands or the play of color notes in the cards.

Here are two of my large paintings that were composed around the narrative of gamblers playing blackjack: 

Twenty-One
1983 - 1984, oil on line, 32 x 70 inches
Private collection

and twenty-eight years later:

Blackjack Players

2012, oil on line, 28 x 42 inches

courtesy of Adelson Galleries

Playing Diamonds, drawing #3

pencil on graph paper with red oxide pastel tone on reverse

10 x 10 inches, 2010

In other news, I will be having a solo exhibition of paintings at the Clark Gallery in Lincoln, Massachusetts: 30 April to 8 June.

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For additional information please contact me or the the Adelson Gallery [New York and Palm Beach]:

mailbox@andrewstevovich.com     or      adam@adelsongalleries.com

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Upcoming Retrospective

A retrospective of my paintings will be at the Greenville County Museum of Art in Greenville, South Carolina, from February 5th to March 29th. 

Link to the GCMA web page about the exhibition

Thirty-seven paintings and two drawings will be shown, dating from 1987 to the present. Among the works:

Betting Windows
1995, oil on linen, 38" x 46"
Private collection, New York

Sophie with Tarot

2001, oil on linen, 30" x 24"

Private collection, Massachusetts

Tortilla Factory
2003, oil on linen, 11" x 20"
Private collection, New York

Kathleen's Heart

Kathleen's Heart

2018, oil on linen, 11" x 8"

I've carried this composition in my head since 1975 ... an image of a lovely woman I once knew who had heart surgery, ever cheerful despite the experience. I have no idea what became of her.

The palette is purposely subdued, her hair and scar the brightest tones, complemented by her blue eyes and the green horizontal stripe on her blouse. The colors suit the narrative, but the palette is also a color study for a larger painting I'm about to begin of two sisters, artists, in their studio.

A drawing for this composition floated around the studio for years - it's now lost - and then four or five years ago I drew it again on an 8" x 6" canvas where it lingered until early this month when I made a larger drawing that was 11" x 8".

My intention was simply to realize an image and composition that was based on a memory. After the painting was finished, standing back and looking at it, I suddenly thought about the many Renaissance paintings of saints, imagined portraits, who are identified by the inclusion of an iconographic symbol: Saint Catherine with a spiked wheel, Saint Ambrose with a beehive, Saint Lucy with her eyes on a plate or on a stalk. The strong influence of the early Italian painters upon my work amuses me at times like this ... how it subconsciously affects me. 

Saint Lucy
Francesco del Cossa (ca. 1430 - ca. 14770
ca. 1473/1474,  30" x 22" tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Here are the two drawings for Kathleen's Heart:

drawing #2

2018, pencil on graph paper with pastel tone on reverse, 11" x 8"

drawing #1

pencil and ink on primed canvas, 7 1/2" x 6"

Game in the Garden

Game in the Garden 

20" x 16"     oil on linen     2015

This composition is a bit unusual for me. I generally prefer working with horizontals and verticals, but here the table and figures form a strong diagonal movement - with smaller diagonals in counterpoint on the card backs. The wall and tree serve to anchor the painting.

To totally contradict that first sentence, two of my last three major paintings - Movie and On the Stairs - were built around diagonals.

Game in the Garden took three drawings to develop; fewer than normal for a painting this size. The original idea came in a doodle a year and a half ago. I returned to the idea in early March of this year. .

initial sketch

7" x 4 1/2"     pencil on paper     January 2014

drawing #2

6 1/2" x 5 3/8"     pencil on graph paper      March 2015

final drawing

20" x 16"     pencil on graph paper w/ pastel tone on reverse     Mach 2015

On a narrative level, the couple was playing a game with round tokens in my drawings. Once I started painting, I decided to go with three cards, partly for abstract reasons, but also because I wanted to reference the con game three-card monte ... a subject I've wanted to use for some time, but whatever the couple is playing is just an invention of mine.

Blackjack Players

Blackjack Players is finished.

Blackjack Players
28" x 42"     oil on linen      2012 

After some of my recent quieter color harmonies, this painting takes a different path with a rich green note amid bright reds and warm deep tones. I started the painting with a vague notion of going to red for the table, but didn't really know where the colors would take me; had no idea the woman's blouse in the center would be green. I never know these things in advance. My work may look premeditated and well-planned, but it's not as it seems; I believe the working process needs to allow the painting to freely go where it wants to go. 

As for the narrative, I'm a bit amused that the expressions of the three main players may perhaps accurately reflect their feelings about the cards they've been dealt. The woman in green has a total of 13 to 16 and little hope of winning with the dealer showing an ace ... she probably should have taken one more card. The man has a 6 or 7 which may or may not turn out OK with an additional card or two. The woman on the right is in good position with a 20. Was definitely not my intention to give a lesson about blackjack and human emotion; the faces were painted before the cards were thought about ... and the individual cards were chosen purely for compositional reasons. Again, paintings have a funny way of living their own life, of knowing what they need and where they want to go. Sometimes my role seems not to create a picture, but rather to bring a picture that already exists to light.

Arnolfini Wedding
ca. 32" x 24"    oil on oak panel     1434
Jan van Eyck
Collection: National Gallery, London

One of my favorite paintings is the van Eyck above ... and maybe the beautiful green of the bride's dress surrounded by the reds and dark warm notes, gave me the subconscious inspiration to give the woman playing blackjack a bright green dress as well. I saw the van Eyck on my first trip to London in 1972 and at the time it hung in a room illuminated with a skylight. The day outside was sunny, though large fair-weather clouds occasionally crossed the sun. When I went up to the painting, the sun was behind a cloud and the light subdued. After a few minutes I'd become totally lost in the picture, when suddenly the cloud passed and the room instantly filled with brilliant light. The color of the woman's dress exploded into the essence of pure green, intense and infinite ... was an incredible experience.

Blackjack Players, in progress

An "in progress" photo of the blackjack painting, upper right quadrant:

detail ca. 14" x 20"

Blackjack Players, final drawing

This is the final drawing for my next large work. I transferred the image to canvas today and will start painting tomorrow. It will take a couple months to complete, though I'll also work on other (smaller) pictures during that time. 

Blackjack Players

28" x 42"    pencil on paper     2012

Women Playing Cards

Women Playing Cards  

diptych     each 7" x 5"    oil on linen       2011

Private Collection, Nevada