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Luc Legendre, Artist
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# : |
19281 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1991 |
2,060 Words |
| Author
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Gary Lee
Gary Lee is a Washington-based journalist who occasionally
writes on the arts. |
When Paris-born Luc Legendre opened an exhibition of his color-splashed body portraits in Washington, D.C., last autumn, he became part of one of the most venerable of art traditions: the European painter's American debut. It all started in 1913, when a little-known French painter named Marcel Duchamp opened a show of works at the New York armory and threw the city's gallery scene into a tizzy.
Ever since then, artists from the Continent have regarded the first exhibition on this side of the Atlantic as a rite of passage. From French Impressionists in the beginning of the century to Italian abstract painters in the 1980s, they have arrived, easels in hand, hopes as high as the Statue of Liberty.
Legendre's exhibition may have lacked the scandal of Duchamp's, but it was no less of an event for the painter. Organized by the Washington-based Wetherholt Gallery, it was an instant success. Champagne flowed. The crowd piled on accolades. Even the press was pleased. In a resounding endorsement, the Washington Post described Legendre's work as "muscular, phosphorescent-colored figures of oil and plaster that seem to be struggling to burn through to the surface of the canvas."
Critical Attention
It was enough to make any artist blush. In Paris, London, and other European capitals, Legendre's work had already attracted critical attention. But to be serenaded in America was quite another thing. "There is something magic about showing your works before a crowd here," Legendre said after the Washington show. "Part of it is the enthusiasm of Americans. They have a natural curiosity and naïveté that makes them great fans of the new and different. Coming from Europe, you have to be moved by that."
In Paris, Legendre--now twenty-eight--had taken something of a different approach to painting. At an early age, he had settled on the human figure as his subject of choice and acrylics as his media. Compared with the paintings he would come to do in the United States, however, the Paris works were more cerebral, introspective, and abstract.
This is the story of how Legendre was touched by American life. It is a glimpse into his journey through life in the United States and the way his impressions of it emerged in his paintings.
If exhibiting before Americans was a
...
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