David Padworny Art

The artist constructs his spirit animal through mixed media. 48" x 60" Spray Paint, Oil, Construction Paper, Acrylic, Pastel, Marker

Shortly before Walt Esslinger died a few years ago, we talked in his small yellow painted studio in Bakersfield. Sixteen years my senior, he’d been my close friend, mentor and running mate since 1960. “You still writing?” he asked. “Yes,” I answered, taking in the space’s renovations he’d recently sub-contracted. Ninety one years old, and he was thinking ahead. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Write the Andy Warhol story.” Walt was a Central Valley guy, an L.A. guy, a Las Vegas guy. A man who knew his way around. “I want you to put on record what happened back then when I bought the soup can painting.” Back then was the fall of 1962. The two of us had been exhibiting our paintings in the L.A. Art Institute’s gallery for locals only. Walt had given legendary Ad Rhinehardt a story about how he and I had been working in both Edward Kienholz’s and John Altoon’s studios (false—we’d only been visiting). One morning, the Institute’s Director, who hadn’t suspected us to be charlatans yet, introduced us to a reed thin, tow headed young man leaning against the main gallery’s wall. “Meet Andy Warhola,” he said. “Andy is from New York.” “Warhol,” the boy/man said. “Painter?” Walt asked him. “Shoe Illustrator.” The director made a snorting noise I took to mean that Warhola or Warhol’s modesty was posed. He mentioned something about Andy having a show on the La Cienega strip of galleries. We exchanged mumbles about how the art world was in flux, nothing more than that, and Walt and I moved on. If this strange cat had anything to look at, we’d see it. It was a Monday, and La Cienega’s twenty some galleries would be opening new shows and serving champagne that evening. North La Cienega Avenue, laid over a network of oil veins decades before, had become the street for the Cool School, a group of artists and gallery people trying to bring Los Angeles’s art scene to life. The galleries were small but proud. Sure, Jazz was born on the Delta and raised in New Orleans, St, Luis and Chicago, but L.A. had fifty-three jazz joints according to Chet Baker, who’d blown with the best. Why then should the West Coast be lagging behind New York in the other truly American expression, abstract art? At the Ferus Gallery that night we found Warhol’s exhibit. “Shit,” I said. Walt grinned. “You no like?” “Not exactly my can of soup,” I said, peeking into the small space, loaded now wall to wall with paintings of Campbell’s Tomato Soup. Walt stepped into the space. “How about the idea of it?” I made my way through spectators looking at once to be confused, amused, enthused and abused. When I came back to Walt he was still smiling. “Why didn’t he silk screen ‘em?” I asked. “That’s probably his next move,” Walt said. “You wanna stay?” Walt’s keen eyes cased the joint. “I see Irving Bloom over there,” he said. “Believe I’ll stick around and talk with him.” Bloom had been operating this popular gallery for some time now. “One hundred a month,” he’d told me. “It’s not like I’m getting rich.” I stood around for a bit, heard a fellow abstract expressionist I’d met tell a young lady who looked to be lost, “Okay that’s the soup. Come with me, baby, and I’ll show you the juice.” Two doors down I stopped at the Primus-Stuart Gallery. A group of people had gathered around a display of soup cans, stacked grocer’s pyramid style in the window. All Campbell’s. All Tomato. A sign leaning against the grouping stated: “Get the real thing. Thirty cents each.” That’s the way it was. Twenty-four galleries forming a gauntlet between La Cienega’s 300 block, all the way up to Barney’s Beanery at the corner of Santa Monica. Hollywood types dressed to the nines, Beats dressed for the times just gone. Champagne popping...

'Agay, le château et le Sémaphore'. Oil on canvas. +/- 1922 Signed lower right Measurements : 60 x 73 cm. This painting will be recorded in the second volume of the Catalogue Raisonn...

In this prototypical oil painting, Walter Launt Palmer's title as "the painter of the American winter" can be vividly and brilliantly seen. As an impressionist painter that emerged at the turn of the 20th century, Palmer took great interest in the picturesque American landscape, though he particularly focused on the rendering of this landscape glistening with snow. His pictures evoke an unreplicable natural serenity, and in this oil painting "The Winter Scene...

Large Italian Landscape circa 1890 painted by a heavily influenced follower of Claude Lorraine (1600-1682). Superb depth and detail. Indistinc...

A good large post impressionist/expressionist Landscape oil circa 1938 oil on canvas 75cmx90cm Gallery frame 87cmx102cm Fields with a small dwelling painted in expressive impastoed b...

A fine mid 20th century Modernist/ Expressionist Still life oil circa 1960 Oil on canvas 47cmx 66cm Gallery frame 50cmx 66cm Wonderful bright expressionist palette painted with bold ...

A fine Modernist/Expressionist oil by listed Swedish artist Sune Blomqvist (1919-1989) 'Meadow Landscape with Wildlife' circa 1950-60. oil on canvas 33cmx41cm gallery frame 40cmx48cm...

This was the flower artist Katherine Rowe had in her wedding bouquet and so they have always had a special place in my heart. Despite being 'white' there is hardly any actual pure white in the painting but multiple blues and yellows and greens. Katharine Rowe is an English painter she graduated in Fine Art and History of Art at the University of Edinburgh in 1999 and spent a year studying at Université de la Sorbonne, Paris. Having spent a decade working in advertising Katharine felt the increasing need to be out of the office and with her paintbrush. The past 9 years have been dedicated to just that. Katharine is strongly motivated by colour and she often spends up to an hour mixing and preparing paints before turning to the canvas. Katharine is always inspired by her surroundings from the varied landscapes of...

Artist: G. Rhumont Title: The Harvest Medium: Oil on Masonite Dimensions: 6.5 x 12" unframed, 18 x 12" Framed G. Rhumont was a turn of the century German landscape artist of romantic style with realistic scenes as seen here in “The Harvest”. This bucolic scene of harvesting hay depicts two farmers working in tandem loading the horse-drawn hay wagon in a field just outside their homestead. This early autumn painting...

Parallel Construction, oil on canvas, 48 x 54 in. Oonju Chun’s large abstract expressionist paintings delightfully employ the basics of good, nonobjective ...

This is a true perfection, an absolute beautiful depiction of a late Fall by Yuriy Savchenko. Oil on canvas, framed, in perfect condition. It was acquired directly from the artist in...