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John Greenwald

Contact the artist

http://www.johngreenwald.com

I drew my first nude as a 16-year-old high schooler in New York City in 1959. A classmate took a small group of us to open life drawing at the famous Art Students League in Manhattan. There, for less than a dollar, we drew the figure for two hours with a few dozen other artists. I had never seen a live nude model before, but after a minute or so of trepidation, I began to draw. And immediately I was hooked. There was something about the abstract beauty of the figure — plus the model's inherent humanness, sensuality and personality — that I wanted to capture. In time, I saw the figure as a template for experiments in color, expression, abstraction and playfulness. That's where I am now, using the figure to explore a wide visual vocabulary. People have called me an abstract painter, an expressionist, a fauve, a colorist and Matisse-like. Who knows?