As a young child in France I was fascinated with cowboys. They were an important subject in my drawings, along with war imagery. When I started painting, I made Abstract Expressionist works, as was the custom in the late Fifties. At Rutgers I saw a show of paintings featuring cowboys and firemen, the early work of Red Grooms that Alan Kaprow had put up in the art building on campus. This gave me the idea of using cowboy images in my work. Coming to America from France, I had seen America as the land of cowboys.
By 1963 I had moved into a loft in New York and begun painting seriously and spending time visiting art galleries and the Met. On one visit to the Met I noticed a small medallion in the Byzantine collection, the torso of a saint. The background was dark blue, and the saint wore a white robe with black crosses. I was immediately attracted to it. The rendering of the figure was somewhat simple, and I thought the pattern of the crosses activated the figure.
I did a number of paintings using imagery of cowboys with coats covered with crosses. Unfortunately, most have been lost through moving, gifts and neglect. The“Absurd Bill” painting is the only one I have left from that period.
I have used the crosses pattern at different times in my work over the years. initially I thought it was a way of activating the surfaces. Later I realized that the crosses had a different meaning that originated in my unconscious.
