Larry Hill Art
Out the Gate
2016

Name: Out the Gate
Brand: Larry Hill Art
Price: 3000 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

It’s 1963. I’ve quit my teaching job ($4,000 a year) at Fresno High to try working full time as a commercial artist. Got a new home (Trend Homes by Spano, $12,000). Decide my birthday party needs a bottle of red wine (about a half gallon of Gallo Chianti, the kind in a husk basket because I think it will look good with my books on their plank and cinderblock book case. I drive a couple blocks to Jackson Jones Liquor on the corner of Shields and West, park an old gray Chevy sedan I’ve named Moby, walk in, head straight for the wine display. Wow. Only one left down there on the bottom shelf. Just about to grab its dusty neck, when a huge hairy-knuckled hand beats me to it. Really it’s a tie, but I give in. “All yours,” I say, “Mr. Saroyan.” For I’m looking straight into the fire and ashes of the legend’s face. First encounter with the man I’ve chased, spotted and missed in the Mecca Pool Hall, Blackstone Billiards, Ryan’s Arena, The Fresno Public Library. At The Big Fresno Fair, the Stockton, Pleasanton and Del Mar Race Tracks. Duke’s Place, Janofsky’s Pub, The Old Fresno, Duggan’s Yack and Snack, Darby’s Tavern, the Greyhound Bus Terminal, the Bike Shop on Shields and Wishon, The Fresno YMCA (the day Abe Davidian was shot to death down the block), and twice in San Francisco on what proved to be bogus leads. He’s off to another display. No smile or thank you. Off before I can thank him for his body of work. Off before I can share a story about one of the bookies we have shared. One who’d cheated us. One we busted. One like Papa Joe who forgave us the juice when we were busted. God knows I’ve been told the stories. But, man, it would be great to hear one from him. No such luck. I choose another bottle of wine. Unadorned. Probably not even a cork. Fuck it. I don’t care any more. “Can I see some I.D.?” It’s a new girl behind the counter, checking me out. “You’re kidding, right?” I spread my wallet out in front of her. “I’m thirty-one, for Christ’s sake.” I hold the proof up for her and a few gawking patrons. “Five. Five. Thirty-two.” From one of the people in line waiting behind me. Big voice. Like thunder. “Cinco de Mayo.” I find him easy. “Right,” I say, “Cinco de Mayo, Mr. Saroyan.” “Happy birthday,” he says. Driving Moby back home, I must have been thinking how I would tell about meeting the Big One someday. I must have put a hundred strokes to it, giving it a little English here, a little follow-through there. Making sure I didn’t scratch. No worry though. I can pass for younger than I am. Saroyan’s so strong he’s scary. No one can kill us.

Creator:

Larry Hill Art (1932, American)

Creation Year:

2016

Dimensions:

Height: 40 in (101.6 cm)Width: 30 in (76.2 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)

Medium:

Oil

Movement & Style:

Abstract Expressionist

Period:

2010-

Condition:

Gallery Location:

Fresno, CA

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU1823210911012

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Larry Hill Art

Discharged from the Army in 1955, and having been exposed to what had become the renowned New York School of Painting, I was desperate to paint. It wasn’t until I’d graduated from Fresno State and had accepted a high school teaching contract that I set goals toward becoming an abstract expressionist. Simply put, I’d seen the work of Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning, and my life had changed. While opening Art Trio, a commercial art business, I tried to raise the level of graphic art and illustration in Central California and at the same time pursue my love of painting. That meant buying canvas at Pacific Tent and Awning, stretching and prepping it myself, and hauling the final products to exhibit areas where nothing of their size and ilk had ever been seen before. In 1959, my large black-and-white painting “Madrid” won best oil in the first San Joaquin Art Fair and the newspaper columnist asked me to act surprised in the photo celebrating my victory. At that time, Fresno had no venues where artists could show their work. In 1961, claiming to live in Southern California, I had three paintings accepted for viewing in the Los Angeles Art Institute. Martin Janis, a respected Los Angeles art dealer, invited me to hang another four pieces in his contemporary gallery, and I felt like I had an avenue upon which I could pursue my dream. Then real life came thundering into the picture. The Institute found out that I resided in the San Joaquin Valley, a place far from any dreams, and Martin Janis called to tell me he hadn’t sold any of my paintings. However, his brother, the famed Sidney Janis in New York, had visited Martin, taken all four and sold them in his Manhattan gallery, where he’d hung them along with Kline, deKooning, and Pollock. Sidney Janis and a select number of art dealers, writers and critics had convinced the world that this group of wild men with brushes had taken the New York school from nothing to an explosive phenomenon that gave the world a new art expression that was truly American. I have always painted, sometimes more than others, sometimes, in spite of the uncertainty that plagues all artists, finding encouragement at the time I most needed it. One such time was at an Ikebana Society show where author/playwright William Saroyan left me a note describing my work as “heroic”. My one-artist shows include a 35-painting, full-gallery show in the Fresno Art Museum in 1979. My bio contains many fractures, full-out breaks, and a couple of miraculous reparations. I believe a painting (story) must have an initial dramatic impact and at second glance should include tantalizing nuances of drawing (plotting) and gestures (conflict) to stay alive.