The moment I saw Demuth’s Futurist Masterpiece – The Figure Five in Gold, my life changed. This symphony of red and gold graphically carved into a piece of cardboard represented everything a picture should be. Simply put, I had to have it.
A quick glance at my bank receipt showed a total savings of $54.12, which I estimated to be approximately $19,999,945.88 short of a possible sale price. Realizing it would take me at least three weeks to save up the difference, I set out to recreate Charles Demuth’s picture and make it my own.
To share the process with you, I have included a step-by-step pictorial of my journey. While it is a thrill to share my morning coffee with a bastardized version, the feeling pales in comparison to mere a glimpse at the real masterpiece.
My Figure Five journey began while I was an employee working at The Trump Organization. At the time, I was clocking 60-70 hour weeks, and the Figure Five became my insomniatic night-time passion.
While Demuth’s image is linear and calculated, I decided to begin with a loose interpretation – focusing on the feel.
The composition slowly began to take form; at this stage, 100% of what you see will eventually be covered.
As you can tell from this Flashed-out snapshot, the linear elements began to find their way.
Now, beginning to understand what this image was trying to do, large portions of red and yellow are masked with tape to create straight lines.
When I painted this image, I was living in a 5th floor walk-up railroad apartment on East 93rd Street with my good friend Pat Leavy. My “studio” was a green room next to my bedroom – for the record, a terrible wall color choice for a semi-colorblind artist.
Now, it was all about creating the horizon point, and converging all lines in the same place. A good portion of what you see here will make the final image.
People tell me all the time, I should do 10 paintings of the same image, stopping at different states throughout. In retrospect, this stage was an image I would like to have as a stand alone piece.
When you tend to be a non-precise artist, painting straight lines and accurate curves can be painful. I was literally turning the canvas on each side to stroke curves in my favorable direction, as set forth by my hand-eye coordination.
Continued exploration, trying to find the path towards completion.
Headlights on full blast.
The final piece, mounted on the red wall of my 93rd Street Apartment. This image was featured on Apartment Therapy.
My Figured Five in Gold, shot on the rooftop of my old 93rd street apartment by a guy named Blaize.
I believe i slept in the room of the ‘studio shot’ phase for a few glorious days
Why Carl, I do believe you are correct. Mmmm…green walled room with holes in the floor and mice. Now that’s New York City Livin’!