The Kitchen In My Studio On Broome Street

About this print: In the make-shift kitchen area of his studio in an old commercial loft building on Broome Street everything showed: wires, pipes, hot water heater, gas space heater, vent pipes and raw brick walls. The artist delighted in playing with this particular subject matter. During this period of time marijuana and LSD were increasing in use as recreational drugs, and some artists considered their use as necessary to enhance the creative process. A fellow artist, standing in front of the original painting of this subject commented, “you must have been on drugs when you made this painting”. The artist laughed and replied that he didn’t have to use drugs to get high from making his art.

About the Broome Street Series: 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 New York exhibition at the Martha Jackson Gallery in 1968. The prints in this series were based on those early paintings and were made by the artist shortly after he moved to his studio at 130 Greene Street.