Join Mark Golden in this week’s Paint Stories podcast as he talks with good friend and brilliant painter, John Griefen. They take a walk down memory lane reminiscing about studio visits early on in Golden Artist Colors’ history.
Hi everyone, and welcome to my podcast I call Paint Stories. I'm Mark Golden, Co-founder of Golden Artist Colors, with my father and mother, Sam and Adele Golden, and my wife, Barbara. My family has had the delight and privilege to be working with some of the most amazing artists since my Great Uncle, Leonard Bocour, began hand-grinding oil colors in Manhattan in 1933. Paint Stories is just this: through personal recollections and interviews with family, colleagues, and the artists I have had the pleasure to work with and come to know, I hope to be able to share some of this wonderful journey with you.
Today I am delighted to be joined by my good friend, and a brilliant painter, John Griefen. John is joining me today from his home in Saint-Avit-Sénieur, France. Did I pronounce this correctly, John?
John Griefen: Absolutely. Right on. You can come over.
Mark: John has retained his New York accent no matter what language he's speaking. And while his partner, Nancy Dawson, speaks perfect French, John and Nancy have been enjoying the Bordeaux region of France for now close to ten years. John, I can assume you've already poured yourself a wonderful Bergerac wine?
John: Maybe I should go get it.
Mark: Before we begin, I would like to share a brief bio. John Adams Griefen studied at Bennington College, the Art Institute of Chicago, Hunter College, and Williams College. He is a Manhattan native, living in the city for over 40 years. John had his first solo show in 1969, and in 1970 was one of 28 artists with a show at the Whitney representing lyrical abstraction, and with over a couple of dozen New York and international solo shows. John has also exhibited in over 60 group shows. His work is at the Met, the Whitney, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, Portland Museum, as well as dozens of other institutions. John, thank you so much for agreeing to share our paint stories together.
I know we'll go back to earlier history, but do you remember how or when we first met?
John: I heard that there was some new paint around. Paula Poons – she wasn't Poons then – I think either she contacted me or I contacted her 'cause I heard about the paint. And because of the relationship with your father and stuff like that – and obviously this was exciting. There were a bunch of really good painters in New York but we were using paint in a way that was sort of not typical so we were using it in fairly good-sized volume. Before getting it from Sam. So this was an opportunity to really get to what we wanted. And I think – I don't know if we talked before you came. That I can't remember. And something somewhat seamless between you and Sam in that we started out talking about what you could do with paint, and it just continued. So there's some points in there where you guys melt together, whether you were the one that said this or Sam said this or that. But it was pretty much that – I think after you started delivering I talked mostly to you.
Mark: You were using water-based acrylic paint pretty early on. Do you remember who introduced you to the materials?
John: It was at Williams College and Bennington was down the road. And to me, Williams College at that time was all male and Bennington was mostly women so there's no point in staying at Williams much. I had been painting all my life. Williams didn't have a painting studio but here was art history. But Bennington was an art school and so I went down the road. It's funny you say that. I can't remember whether I was using acrylics before that. At the time, Jules Olitskiwas there. I was taking a class with him. Ken Noland was up the road and we got friendly. I taught with Larry Poons there a little later. And it was just – no, it we used acrylic paint, that was it. I don't even remember not – I've always used the oil paint for doing landscapes but I remember trying to do large paintings with turpentine and it was aluminum paint and I felt that I was gonna die. So [laughs].
Mark: Good to switch. Did you ever work with Magna?
John: Never. '64, '65 – everybody I knew was using water-based. I don't remember anybody using Magna.
Mark: Ken was still doing some of the Targets with Magna in the early '60s.
John: Louis was the one that I realized – about Magna – he was one of the first.
Mark: Yeah. Absolutely. Ken was using it. Louis was using it. Actually quite a few folks were using it. Barney Newman was experimenting a little bit with it. Rothko. There were a few folks experimenting with the material. Some because they could mix it with the oil paint. When you were up at Bennington, was it a fairly collegial environment with Jules and Ken?
John: Extremely. Tony Caro was around. So there was a Greenberg era around. There's a lot of ego in the art world and painters and stuff like that. And I think somehow if you were sort of more on the student level it was very collegial. You got a chance to listen. And Ken and Jules and Tony were particularly talkative. You could kinda be a fly on the wall actually. And with Ken they used to go out to dinner and it would be the assistants and friends. So probably be ten people. Not a huge amount. But they would vie to pay the check because they wanted to prove who was the most successful at the moment [laughs].
Mark: Why did you end up at the Art Institute of Chicago?
John: Well, it looked like I was gonna fail outta college. And I had recent girlfriend at Bennington who was on her work term in Chicago. And I had a wonderful philosophy professor and I went in to see him and he said, "John, you're not great at this philosophy business but you're pretty good at that drawing business. Why don't you go do that?" One thing led to another and I went out there for a semester and it was very interesting. It was strange because everybody said, "This is as good as New York." And so I thought, "It doesn't make much sense to stay here. Might as well go to New York." It was good though. It was a good experience.
Mark: Right. And then you spent some time at Hunter College.
John: I did graduate work at Hunter College. Fool that I was at 25, 26, I had my first show in New York and said, "I don't need this degree." I could've used it afterwards [laughs].
Mark: Do you remember who was there at Hunter College at the time?
John: Oh yeah. Tony Smith, Ad Reinhardt, Ray Parker, Bob Morris – Bob Morris, oddly enough – and I worked for him too – after Bennington – Bennington was sorta Greenburg stuff. I agree - most of the work I liked a lot. But I actually got a chance to have a first-hand connection with a lot of the other people – Rauschenberg and Morris. And we hung out with you know, Andre. So I got a chance to compare it and I think I still thought it was good. But it was interesting. I was studying with Ad Reinhardt and he had a wonderful oriental art class that he photographed all the work for and it was great. But Tony Smith was a really interesting, good teacher. Ray Parker was a really nice guy. It was a good time at Hunter. It was good.
Mark: So at the time going to Hunter you had your first solo show.
John: Was in a group show and it was coming up. It was a wonderful time. There was one place that everybody hung out. It was Max's. And everybody – all the different kinds of painters – God knows everybody else went through this place. It seemed in retrospect that there was a little bit of money for everybody. Shows did okay. We made some money. It wasn't the art of the moment nearly as much. And, yeah, Clem once said that it was like Paris in the '20s. It was a great time to be there. And it was easy. All the abstract expressionists would grumble around and say, "Back in the old days there were only 200 of us." People talked. The competition was friendly, and also formative.
Mark: Right. It was so great speaking to artists who had actually visited Sam and Leonard at the Bocour shop. Can you share how you met those guys at the shop on 52nd Street?
John: Well, I was working for Larry Poons at the time. I was working for as many people as I could in many galleries. And I had a car. Chevy II station wagon. It was the cheapest car but it was just a big space. Nothing extra except the radio. I think Larry figured, "John's got a car. We'll drive up and see what we can get from Bocour's." Larry's a spontaneous guy. One day I said “let’s go up there” and Lenny had an office, as I best remember, that actually you could see the river. I talked with him. And then Sam was downstairs. I remember cabinets and stuff like that all painted different colors in the place. Larry and I – we'd just chat. At the time I was doing paintings that worked for me. It was flooding a stretched canvas with water and then putting paint on it and kind of manipulating the whole canvas – big ones – and floating it around so that it would kinda get to a place, and at the same time it was drying and settling in.
When you mentioned this before I was thinking: I didn't get that much paint. But then I guess I wasn't using…I was using so much medium. But I do remember your father gave me a whole gallon of cadmium pigment that wasn't mixed and it was beautiful and I loved looking at it. I just had no idea what to do with it. And I carried it around with me for years and years. But I think both you and him sometimes assumed that I was a little more knowledgeable than might be [laughing].
Mark: Well, you were incredibly experimental. That's always been the case in terms of working style and working materials.
John: Sometimes I think the less you know, the less you're afraid to do something. I told you – we'd talk and I'd say, "Geez, this is great. I really wanna do this." And then you'd say, "Well, you just take a little of this and you mix it with a little of this and you put a little of this in" – I said, "Come on, no. That's your job" [laughs]. "I can paint the picture but I can't figure out how to do it."
Mark: We took that to heart. It was recognizing that we could provide that kinda support and assistance. What a joy that was to be vicariously involved in the painting of so many artists' lives. So that was a real thrill.
John: I might as well say this because it's the thing that’s probably most important. In a lotta ways – I was actually reading something that Ken was talking about the other day, and how important – he didn't think that the painting could be dealt with until he started working with the materials. And I do feel that a lot of my inspiration going to the studio is actually looking at the paint. You've seen my studio. There's the wall with the row of colors. Not the neatest place in the world. And whether it's there or seeing something that I've put down that's drying, it's really an – it gets me into working. So definitely, you guys have been an inspiration all along. I'd always ask you for new toys.
I remember that for some reason at the time I wanted to have an incredibly flat surface. And you kept making your matte more matte. And I'm very disappointed too because at one point you made this super matte and you said you were gonna call it Griefen's Matte but I think you decided that it wasn't gonna make money [laughs]. 'Cause I wanted to be like Paul Jenkins and have a Jenkins Green.
Mark: Did you ever visit the shop again with Sam and Leonard or that wasn't too frequent?
John: Lenny would be at Openings. I think he liked Openings.
Mark: He rarely missed Openings of his friends. That was something that – he really enjoyed being part of that world. A lot of artists that I got to meet were working and purchasing 55-gallon drums of acrylic – or either they would call it Rhoplex – directly from Rohm and Haas. Were you making your own paint for some time?
John: No. I never made my own paint. I told you I can't do that stuff. I was just happy with medium. It was just using it to thin down the paint and stuff like that. In fact, I bought some with various artists. 'Cause that's an awful lot. And I think it was Al Loving. And unfortunately we found out that roaches love it. And we ended up with like a 50-gallon drum of roach shit[laughs]. It also ended up smelling kind of like –
Mark: Old socks. Acrylic could really smell pretty bad. I got a list of artists when we first started in 1980 from Paula DeLuccia, now Paula Poons, and Larry, who shared a list of about 16 artists I needed to go visit. And one of 'em was Larry Zox.
John: He was the most generous. And he was probably the artist that I worked most regularly with from day to day. I remember too because he was a real stickler for – he did hard edge so there's a lotta tape involved. And I remember getting my fingers bloody [laughing] trying to get it down hard. He was so kind. And he introduced me to Jill Kornblee, his dealer at the time, and she liked the work and put me in a group show. And then I had several individual shows after that. I thought all artists were like that with everybody. And he's just such a kind guy.
And throughout, till he died, he was just a wonderful, really good painter. Like we did – we always would be talking about what paints and how it worked and canvas. At the time there was a lot of interesting stuff. Going from one studio to another, we'd say, "What's this guy doing? What's he coming up with?" We were all kind of pushing painting. And Larry was a good painter and really right up there. Very funny too.
Mark: I think that was what I experienced as a 26, 27-year-old being able to visit these studios of painters that I knew about that I've heard about and be invited in with such generosity and to be able to see the kind of work that was being done. What a thrill it was to be invited. And Larry was one of those persons that was just incredibly generous. And I think that's what made it so easy also to visit with you, John. It was trying to visit all these studios in the city trying to figure out how to make this business survive to go to places where you felt really safe and felt like a colleague. And I really always appreciated that.
John: I think you were good. You needed somebody to bounce things off, and you were there. And also it was good that you weren't a painter. You were sharing what else was going on. And you sent me some things often which gave me a lotta pleasure, stuff you were thinking about using, what might do it, and send me a little bit. Oh, I remember. Yeah, you'd send me something and it'd be like in a little pint. And I'd sorta think, "What am I gonna do with a pint?" But the funny thing is – and you have this painting – I don't know whether it went to the Foundation – a small painting. And you sent me some colors that were fantastic. They were weird, over-the-top kind of interference stuff. And they were little bottles. So I did this little painting. It was a oval. Came out pretty well. Called you up and I said, "This stuff is great. Send me a gallon of this and a gallon of that." And I think you said to me, "This is $75.00 an ounce for me."
Mark: Those Panspectra pigments – we had sent it to a few artists to try 'em out and they were just gorgeous in ways that I never imagined how they were gonna be used. So, yeah, we had to buy back all of the Panspectra paint that we sold because it was the same pigments that were being used in printing money.
John: Would that I had known [laughs].
Mark: Yeah. "Forget this painting thing. Let me start making some money." But then we got a call from the company saying we had to purchase back all the paint. It is a unique painting now, and it is definitely a one of a kind.
John: Also the other story was the one where we were working with different mediums. You were trying out stuff and you sent me some stuff. And I can even see the painting in my eye. I spread it out and everything and it dried really nice, kinda thick in some, thin in others. And where it was thick it had this beautiful cracking effect. And I said, "Mark, I love this stuff. Send me more. I love the way it cracks." And [laughs] you were dead silent on the other end of the line. And I think you kinda said, "Well, I'm not sure that it's supposed to do that."
Mark: Yeah. I think that's the kind of permission you gave us that it made it feel okay to be experimental, to be able to send things, knowing that we wouldn't discover all the uses or the potential misuse of the material until it got into the hands of artists trying different things. So it was really a permission to allow us to experiment and to share these things as soon as we could that we felt: "Okay, these are stable. These are gonna work. Let's make sure you get material to test out."
John: I think that the idea of trust with you and your father – just without any doubt: this paint is gonna do what it was supposed to do. The paint you made would last as well as anything ever made by anybody. And that gives you confidence in working.
Mark: The stuff wasn't supposed to crack, John.
John: I know that [laughs]. Did you ever make a medium that did crack on purpose?
Mark: Yeah, we did. You know, it's all of those things that you asked us to make. I remember sending you some of the paints with glitter. We thought, "Oh, no one's gonna want glitter. It's too glitzy." Then we recognized: "Just get these things in the hands of artists. We don't have to be the arbiter of what is good taste or not. You'll figure out how to use it or not use it."
John: I wonder if there's something similar as – painters, and the painters that I respect throughout history, are always trying to push kind of the boundaries of what is known and what can be done, whether it's Rembrandt or Cezanne. Their paintings look different because they're more personal. And I think that you and Sam also were pushing: what can paint do? And I think the facility of working with someone like you makes it a lot easier. I've always felt – I had a wonderful time working with other artists in clay or prints or making paper. They're sort of two kinds of places: a place that goes in and says, "You can't do that," and another place that the people are there saying, "Oh, let's try that." And I think that you come into the "Let's try that." And it helps us. Because not only do you give us inspiration but it's courage.
Mark: I remember visiting your studio at first in my pick-up truck. Corner of Collister and Laight? Is that right?
John: Yeah.
Mark: But the elevator was on Collister.
John: The alleyway.
Mark: I remember two visits. One is: I was with Jim Walsh. We passed by the alleyway and he said, "Keep going." I said, "No, John's studio's right here. I gotta go to the elevator." He said, "Keep going." I said, "But the studio is right here." He said, "Keep going. They're doing a deal on the side of the street and I don't wanna be messed up with that so just drive around the block and we'll come back later to John."
And the second visit was: I was alone in the new van delivering to you and I remember you came down in the elevator and you were with Karen Wilkin, and Karen was saying goodbye, and we were just briefly chatting on the corner, and Karen said, "I think someone's in your van." I glanced briefly and said, "We're okay." And then you shared: "Someone's going down the street with your cart and all the paints on it." So I started running after him. And, not being a city boy, you shouted at me.
John: "Idiot!" [laughing]. What was that guy gonna do with a hand truck full of GOLDEN paints? You know?
Mark: Maybe he was gonna do the deliveries. That would've been good. I remember seeing in the studio – and it was something that – I'm not sure how you have exhibited these or presented these, but these beautiful landscape oil paintings. It seemed to be something that was very personal to you, working in oil.
John: I think at a certain point probably around the Bennington thing, my work kind of evolved slowly. I mean, I remember – it was quite a while before I was in New York, knowing Clem, knowing all these people. There was one day at the Met that I finally saw "Autumn Rhythm" by Pollock and got it. And as my work developed, I really didn't like art that was sort of abstract landscapes. I liked abstract art and I liked doing landscapes. And, to me, I think whatever makes good art is the same in whatever you do. But with the landscapes – were portable. You do 'em when you're sometimes in different places and different things like that. So I haven't done any for quite a while. Every now and then I do some drawings around here.
But it's interesting. The landscapes – I think it worked for me. I really think. There are some painters – like Hofmann could do that were quite landscape and quite abstract and worked pretty well. Something about the process was similar. Because it's interesting: I found that the same thing went on with the landscapes. If I start fussing about with either the abstract paintings or the landscapes, I kinda lose it.
Mark: When I saw those in the studio, I thought, "Oh, he's really so easy with the oil paint and with the acrylic paint." When we developed the OPEN Acrylic, which is a acrylic that really stays wet longer, I thought it would be a great product for you to work with. And that's when you gave us a lesson on why you use acrylic paint.
John: A story on the landscape. I was doing a landscape in Williamstown with acrylic and I was thinking over what I was doing and looking at the landscape and suddenly realized my brush was glued to the canvas. And I think you let me help you think about the OPEN Acrylics when you were making them and that was really exciting.
Mark: You gave us great insight, that the OPEN Acrylic is not for an acrylic painter. An acrylic painter really wants the material to dry quickly. And if you can make the stuff dry faster, that would be better. But for a person who's steeped in acrylic and understands its use and how it can be bent and moved and shaped and do all the things that you wanna do, drying slowly was not one of the things. So it allowed us to kind of alter the kind of audience that we were looking for really, which was either someone who was starting a painting in acrylic and then wanted to finish it in oil paint 'cause they wanted more of a blending of material, or someone who was just frustrated with acrylic to begin with, that it just dried too quickly.
John: When you were here last you brought the new watercolors. And I don't know why the colors look so good. They just look fantastic.
Mark: Yeah, they are beautiful. That was a whole new learning experience too. It's been great working with watercolors. They are probably the most alert to materials, to pigment choices, to color change, to subtle undertones, et cetera. More so than any other artist that we've worked with.
John: I've mostly taught figurative painters in the long run over the years, a few abstract painters. So it's something that I like to do too.
Mark: When I was touring Japan and doing lectures at various art colleges, I showed a clip of you working on a large canvas pouring huge amounts of acrylic gel and color. And then as you began to move the color with a large push broom, the entire classroom erupted in to shout, "This is amazing." They were so used to material – like someone might use watercolor. It opened up whole new ideas. But I think the gels and the mediums really did open up a whole new avenue of exploration for artists working in acrylic. But I do think some of it really began with you guys experimenting with those large drums of acrylic. Having that vast quantity of material to be able to play with.
John: I wrote you that – this is a quote from David Smith, who was in New York Central I think or someplace like this, and he bought a ream of expensive paper. Another artist said to him, "How can you afford that?" And he said, "I can't. Art is a luxury." And I think that Ken Noland said that David taught him: you need the stuff available. To have that there is so important. I may use this much of it but it is a luxury and a wonderful luxury, and I like to have 100 yards of canvas.
Mark: When I look at your work I know there's a lot of experimenting with material. But you've also experimented with more than material; you've created a whole series of work, a genre of work on unique surfaces as well. Can you share a bit about that work and what intrigued you about working on these various kinds of supports?
John: Over the years, working with clay people and working with print people and so forth, I had done some work on some acrylic sheets that were probably two by three feet in New York.
Mark: When was this, John?
John: Early '90s. And I found that you can actually bend them after you paint them. And so I started making these acrylic pieces. Some of them are freestanding. Some of them – I don't really think of the difference between sculpture and painting. The GOLDEN Acrylics just – I don't know why, 'cause it's such a slick surface.
Mark: Yeah, the acrylic does bind beautifully to Plexiglas, to the acrylic itself. It really is fabulous. Just works pretty well. Also on polycarbonate if you get a material that's not made as slip-resistant. It sticks really well.
John: When I moved to France, here they don't have two-by-fours and wood the same way. You buy slabs of the wood and most carpenters have planers and grinders and they make whatever size. So these slabs – they're beautiful. And I've always had trouble figuring out what shapes and kinda things works. And these were like – "Hey, the edges are already done. All I have to do is put some paint on them." And they're big, beautiful sheets of oak. So I did that. And I think the show that I'm proudest of is the show that I had at Saint Bavo, which is the largest church in Haarlem, and these big oak pieces in bright colors in a wonderful gothic church.
After that I realized there's a guy in town here nearby the mills made paper since the 13th century, and one of the mills had made paper for all the French artists, and I bought it. And I went down. It's thick. It's like cardboard. So it's like you can just stick it on the wall, glue some string to it and hang it up. You don't have to stretch it. You don't have to frame it. You just do it. And I started shaping it a little bit with the man who made the paper himself. And so that was the next material that really worked.
Mark: So, last year Barbara and I took the plunge and we had a chance to visit you and Nancy in your home in the south of France, southwestern France. And the place is as charming as you described it. The whole area is like out of a picture postcard. So can you share a little bit about this move to the Bordeaux region and your home and studio?
John: Well, I was making lithographs in Paris. I had done a talk in Berlin and then met somebody who had a wonderful atelier, one of the best ateliers, in lithographs in Paris. I did stones that were three feet by four feet. And when I met Nancy, my present wife, Nancy Dawson, I decided that I'd like to kinda firm this up, and said, "Would you like to go to Paris for New Year's?" She thought that she wouldn't mind doing that because she'd spent a lotta time here as an exchange student. Anyway. And when we got to Paris, my friend who had introduced me to the lithographer – said we were going down to Jack's castle. And I don't know from castle, and they said it was the Dordogne. I'd never heard of the Dordogne, which the French call Périgord. We got down there and 13th-century castle with a drawbridge and a moat [laughs]. So that was the introduction.
Always felt that Romanesque architecture has an awful lot in common with abstract painting. It's clear. It's straightforward. There's not a lot of doodads. So that – in this area and the castle and all of this.
And then when I was talking to them they said, "Well, you can go to see caves." And I thought Moscow was the only cave. And this is a chance to see the first painters that ever were. So those two elements fit right in. And we came back several times. I brought some students over to paint and look at caves. So we just slowly – I think the two of us – this is a good place to start a new life. And we've been really happy. And I never really expected to do much here but I have had a chance to exhibit around here. French people – they say, "Where do you live?" And we say, "The Dordogne, the Périgord." Or they say Peridese. We have a stone house and stone barn. And the house was – we finally found out it was one of the first farmhouses built outside of the city, 1720. So that's nice, that kind of thing. We're extremely happy here.
Mark: That's wonderful. John, I wanted to close this up to first say thank you. And thank you so much for sharing the kind of encouragement to keep doing the things that we've done all these years, and all these years now together.
I wanna invite anyone who'd like to see John's work to JohnGriefen.com, to go look at his website. John, thank you.
John: It's so good to see you. But there's enough of you in Sam to bring back a lotta good things too.
Mark: If you’d like more information about Golden Artist Colors, just sign up for our newsletter by going to JustPaint.org and you can subscribe for free and you can learn more about our brands: GOLDEN Acrylics, Williamsburg Oils and our new QoR Watercolors. Hope to see you there!
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