The Desk in My Studio with My Great-Grandfather Over It

The center of interest in this print is the artist’s interpretation of an old photograph of his great-grandfather Edwin Francis Pond, a cabinet maker. This painting is an example of the artist’s challenge to the art rule that says: “Never put the focal point of your composition directly in the center”. Even though the portrait is placed in the center of the image the artist deliberately creates an active tension between it and the other areas of the composition. There is so much going on in the painting around the portrait that the viewer’s eye is continuously pulled in directions away from the center. 

About the artist’s Broome Street Studio period: In 1966, fresh out of graduate school, the artist moved to his first real working studio in an industrial loft building at 389 Broome Street in New York City. After living on the second floor for a year, he then moved up to the third floor. Make-shift living in an industrial loft space was a new and fascinating experience and his immediate interior environment became the subject matter for much of his artwork during this period. Paintings done in and about his studio environment were shown in his first major solo New York exhibition at the Martha Jackson Gallery in 1968.