February
01, 2005
Modern Master
Again, my favorite living artist.
By
Robert Tracy
Gold Diggers
Marvin Steel
Oils on linen canvas
19 1/2 x 25 1/2"
2004
What is it about Steel's Art that I love? Everything. In particular, his
unbounded imagination that touches me personally. And his mastery of technique
is a pleasure to behold. There's a lot in his work. Just look around his
paintings, and see what he sees. (Yes, that's a lightning strike in the
sky in this one.) See, his symbols are realistic, not symbolism for the
sake of symbolism, like much that one sees in say Dali's work. The overwhelming
feeling I get from Steel's work is a world that holds one's interest.
Beyond his overall skill in composition, color harmony, human anatomy--he
knows all this, but he goes beyond technical skill. He deals in details.
Imagine "The Gold Diggers" without the lightning strike. He
knows what to include, and I happen to know from conversations with him,
what to omit--this toughness of knowing what to omit is, in my own experience,
the hardest thing an artist has to choose. Marvin Steel's paintings exhibit
the mark of all the greatness of a real artist.