13 september 2015

On the Bowery


John Giorno in his studio, 1971.


Charles Hinman in his studio, 1971.


Robert Indiana in his studio, 1971.


Will Insley in his studio, 1971.


Gerald Laing in front of his Bowery studio building, 1971.


Les Levine in his studio, 1971.


Robert Ryman in his studio, 1971.


Richard Smith's studio building on the Bowery, 1971.


Cy Twombly in front of his studio, 1971.


John Willembecher in his studio, 1971. (foto's: Eliot Elisofon)

"....
It is here amid the anonymous wreckage that several hundred artists live and work. There is no sense of an "artists' community" but artists have been attracted by the area for twenty years. In the late 40's and 50's Clifford Still, Mark Rothko, Léger and Dubuffet, among others, had studios on the Bowery, and deKooning, Franz Kline and Reginald Marsh worked nearby. In the early 60's, Louise Nevelson took a place on Mott Street just off the Bowery and was joined not long after by other artists attracted by the lofts for reasonable rents and the relaxed, small-time quality of the area. Food was cheap and plentiful in the Jewish, Chinese, Italian, Puerto Rican and Ukrainian ghettos. And just on the fringes of all this artist found large open spaces in what had been flop houses (the quarter and fifty cents-a-night hotels which lined the street), factory lofts, schools and even in one case a pre-World War I German bank. Many studios are one hundred feet long and twentyfive or thirty feet wide with twelve foot high ceilings and two dozen windows. Such extravagant space is the primary reason the Bowery has become a haven for artists.
...." (tekst: William Katz)

Foto's en tekst uit de kunstenaars portfolio "On the Bowery" uit 1971. (bron: Westwood Gallery)

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