Three-Card Monte

Three-Card Monte

24 x 30 inches, oil on linen, 2026

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The narrative of this new painting centers on a classic confidence game known as Three-Card Monte, designed to deceive players into believing they have a fair chance of winning. Three cards are shuffled, two alike and one different, and the player bets money on identifying the unique card.  However, the outcome is predetermined. The player rarely wins, and money is inevitably lost.

The game is often played in public parks, and dealers work with an accomplice who appears to win repeatedly, enticing bystanders to try their luck. 

On an abstract level the arc formed by the three primary colors, the yellow, red, and blue hats, frames the composition and contrasts with the cool blues and greens that flow from the player, ultimately to the woman on the right. This movement of color reinforces both the visual structure of the painting and the narrative tension at its center.

Variations of color within the clothing, particularly the striped garments, help create direction and visual interest.

The hands also play a critical role in both the visual and narrative structure of the painting, guiding the viewer's eye through the composition while echoing the misdirection at the heart of Three-Card Monte.

The final composition evolved through several studies and revisions before the painting stage began.

drawing #1, initial work study

2 - 4 May 2026
11 x 14 inches, pencil and colored pencil on paper

The initial drawing used one-point perspective with all lines converging on a single vanishing point. The three cards were placed exactly on the center line. Once work started on the painting, I shifted the cards slightly off center to the right to create a more dynamic composition. I also relocated the man's hand on the table to a better angle, pointing directly to the cards and the woman.

The next and final drawing was used to transfer the image to the linen canvas.

Drawing #2, final drawing
6 May 2026
24 x 30 inches, pencil on paper with green oxide pastel tone on reverse
 

The Conjurer

Hieronymus Bosch and workshop
ca. 1502, oil on wood, 21 x 26 inches
Musée Municipal, St.-Germain-en-Laye, France

The theme of confidence games has often appeared in paintings, and The Conjurer by Hieronymus Bosch is among my favorites. The coupling of an almost cartoonish scene with a pointed warning about deception and gullibility amuses me. On an abstract level, the composition feels surprisingly modern for its period: a dense cluster of spectators is balanced by the isolated figure of the dealer, while a series of circular forms around the tabletop, echoed by the hoop near the dog in the foreground, subtly guides the eye through the painting.

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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

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