Contents
- 1. Transcript
- 1.1. TAPE NUMBER: I, SIDE ONE JANUARY 15, 2003
- 1.2. TAPE NUMBER: I, SIDE TWO JANUARY 15, 2003
- 1.3. TAPE NUMBER: II, SIDE ONE JANUARY 15, 2003
- 1.4. TAPE NUMBER: II, SIDE TWO JANUARY 15, 2003
- 1.5. TAPE NUMBER: III, SIDE ONE JANUARY 15, 2003
- 1.6. TAPE NUMBER: III, SIDE TWO JANUARY 15, 2003
- 1.7. TAPE NUMBER: IV, SIDE ONE JANUARY 15, 2003 and JANUARY 16, 2003
- 1.8. TAPE NUMBER: IV, SIDE TWO JANUARY 16, 2003
- 1.9. TAPE NUMBER: V, SIDE ONE JANUARY 16, 2003
1. Transcript
1.1. TAPE NUMBER: I, SIDE ONE JANUARY 15, 2003
- WESCHLER
- Fred, let’s start, I suppose, obviously, at the beginning, and even in
your case the beginning goes back to your parents. Where do your parents
come from and where did they meet and so forth?
- HAMMERSLEY
- My father [Harold Frederick Hammersley] was born in England, Silverton,
I think, near London, and my mother [Anna Westberg Hammersley] was born
in Stockholm.
- WESCHLER
- Do you have any idea what years they were born?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Gee, I don’t remember. That’s very interesting, I don’t remember. As a
matter of fact, I was asking Susie [Susie H. Stone] when they died. I
think they died in ’66. One was eighty-six, and one was eighty-seven
when they died.
- WESCHLER
- They died in ’66. We can work it back. But anyway, so they met, you told
me yesterday, on the boat.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. And so my father worked as a clerk in my grandfather’s— He was
the head of the Robinson Soap Works in London, and he was a “clark”
[clerk] as they say, and a friend of his got very excited about the
United States, gold on the streets, etc. So Dad became interested. “Yes,
that’d be nice.” So they planned to go, and at the last minute the
friend backed out, and Dad, he decided to go. And when he got on the
ship—
- WESCHLER
- Do you have any idea what year that was, roughly?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, I don’t. [1906]
- WESCHLER
- How old was he?
- HAMMERSLEY
- That I don’t know either. But that picture of the Indian was like 1912,
and that was in Montana, so it was the early 1900s. Now, let’s see.
When—
- WESCHLER
- Don’t worry about it. We can figure it out. So he was on the boat.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. Now, my mother had two brothers. Uncle Eric [Eric Westberg] was
the oldest, and Uncle Sven [Sven Westberg] was— He stayed home and he
was a writer, and Uncle Eric had been to the United States, and he was a
party man. He was a social man. So when he came back— I have a feeling
Grandma [Amanda] Westberg was rather a tyrant. She was a dress designer
and had six—
- WESCHLER
- What city in Sweden you told me?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Stockholm. And she had six seamstresses, and she would design clothes
for the theater and for royalty. And there was one, Princess Susie, that
mother worked on, and she was so— This princess was so kind to mother
that mother said, “If I ever have a child, a girl, it’s going to be
called Susie. And that’s how that came about.But anyway, when Uncle Eric came back— Oh. Mother had to deliver the
garment and then get paid, and so there can be difficulty when they’re
not paid. Grandma Westberg was a very dynamic woman, evidently. And when
the pressure got too great and these girls would cry, Grandmother would
send out for coffee and French pastry, and then tell them their fortunes
with cards. So every time I’d come home from art school, I’d say,
“Mother, tell me my fortune.” So she’d lay out this thing and then lay
out this thing.So I have a feeling the pressure was a little much, and then Uncle Eric
was so pleased about the United States that I’m wondering if he talked
to Mother, and Mother was ripe to go back to the United States together.
So they went, and Mother was on the same boat as Dad, and they happened
to meet each other, and they talked with a Swedish-English dictionary,
which I have, and which—
- WESCHLER
- You to this day have the Swedish-English dictionary that they courted
with?
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s right. That book in that case. And Susie has a small watercolor—
There was a painter on the ship that was looking down on these two
people in deck chairs, holding a book, and that was the two of them
talking.So anyway, I was surprised that mother ended up— Oh. There was some
cousin in— New York? I visited him while I was in the army. I forget his
name. And I don’t know what— I think Mother did kind of maid work or
things like that, and Dad ended up, oddly enough, in Montana, and this
was wild country. I mean, this is the opposite of—
- WESCHLER
- What was he doing there?
- HAMMERSLEY
- He was driving surveyors out in the field. And he said, “I didn’t know
how to harness a horse.” And he said, “There was this kind man in the
barn that showed me how to.” So then he learned to ride, and he would
ride— He loved to ride the horse—he gave me the name—to the city for the
mail. But they corresponded with each other. I have a love letter that
my father wrote Mother. I don’t know if I showed you in my dictionary.
He lettered rather than script. And then they were married in San
Francisco, and I have the wedding picture.
- WESCHLER
- So how long was it before they were married?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Like eight years.
- WESCHLER
- It took eight years between—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, they were corresponding. And how they got together, I have no idea.
You know, I would ask them things, and they would say, “Oh, I don’t
remember.” They were not too interested in talking.
- WESCHLER
- We are. So we’ll keep talking. Anyway, so they were married, and where
did they settle?
- HAMMERSLEY
- My father was in Washington, the state of Washington, I think, but I
don’t know why he was there. But they were married in San Francisco [in
1914]. Mother had a very fancy wedding dress, and my father was all
dressed up. And then they ended up in a tent in Washington, and Mother
would serve six-course dinners in this tent with the workers.And he was with the government, Department of Interior. He ended up with
what’s called the U.S. Indian Irrigation Service, which is a peculiar—
For the Ninth Core Area, and that means the nine western states. He was
like a special disbursing agent. He would write the checks and etc.
- WESCHLER
- How long after they were married were you born, roughly?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Susie was born [in 1915]. But Susie was the first.
- WESCHLER
- And then she was how much older than you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Three and a half years.
- WESCHLER
- And you were born in Salt Lake City. How did that happen?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, now, evidently his office moved to Salt Lake City. And I remember we
were— I was thinking about what you said last night, that I should
prepare this. I’ll go backwards. The earliest thing I remember in Salt
Lake City was some footprints, lightly snow on the ground, on the steps,
some footprints coming in. Susie always tells the story that Dad said,
“Now, see, that’s where Santa Claus came in,” and Susie was very
impressed, but then later she thought, “But I never saw the footprints
go out.” [mutual laughter] At this time I was about three and a half.
That’s the only thing I remember. The first thing I remember was those
footprints.My father took a six months’ leave from his job. They wanted to go home
and see their parents. See, they’re married and they have two children.
I was three and a half. Oh yes, I have a picture. Oh, here. Here’s the
picture in London where Mother, Susie, and I were riding the elephant in
the London Zoo.
- WESCHLER
- It says here in 1922.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. See, I was born in 1919, so I was—
- WESCHLER
- So you’re three years old.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. So I was three and a half. I don’t remember the ship. We went to
Sweden first, and the only thing I remember about Sweden is these
old-fashioned train engines with the funnel— The smokestack was a funnel
shape.
- WESCHLER
- It’s very funny that a child remembers the trains and Santa Claus.
That’s basically what you remember.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes.
- WESCHLER
- That’s a very child thing to remember.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And then I remember Grandma Westberg coming in from the garden, and
she would take off her wooden shoes and then walk up the steps, come in.
And my father, he didn’t understand Swedish, but he loved the coffee
cake and the cooking. The Swedish people are marvelous for decoration
and for decorating the home and the food— What do they call the—
- WESCHLER
- Domestic virtues and domestic [unclear].
- HAMMERSLEY
- What’s that meal? Smörgåsbord.
- WESCHLER
-
Smörgåsbord.
- HAMMERSLEY
- They’re great for that. Love food. Well, every race loves food. So
that’s the only thing I remember about Sweden. And then we went to
England, and I could show you the big house.
- WESCHLER
- Looking at your photo album here.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. This is Grandfather. This is Grandma. Here’s Grandpa Hammersley,
and this is Grandma Hammersley. And this is the house.
- WESCHLER
- So they were well-to-do. Not well-to-do, but they were middle-class.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Good, solid middle-class.
- HAMMERSLEY
- The carriage met us at the docking place. The photograph of the carriage
I have in the back room. Jack was the coachman, and they had two of
these white horses, and I’ll never forget the sound of the gravel on the
driveway driving out. I thought that was marvelous.Well, this is beside the point. I saw the movie of Finney last night or the other night, an Englishman, and he
drove a small horse and a wagon, and I said, “We’re missing out on a
lot.” What an ancient tradition, to have an animal pull your vehicle, or
you get on the animal and you ride someplace. We’re being surrounded by
adult toys, and the humanness is being pressed down.
- WESCHLER
- Oddly enough, the humanness is expressed in the horsiness and not
through the mechanical automobile, in other words.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes. Gosh.
- WESCHLER
- Well, let’s bring things forward. Tell me stories, when you look back,
that give you any sense of anticipation that you were going to be an
artist.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. I had no idea what I wanted to be. I had no idea—
- WESCHLER
- By the way, your childhood takes place all in Salt Lake City, or what
happens? You move at some point?
- HAMMERSLEY
- When we came back to Salt Lake City— I was going to ask Susie. We were
there maybe a couple of years, because I think I was like five or six,
and we went to Blackfoot, Idaho. Now, this is a town of five thousand
people, between Pocatello and Idaho Falls.
- WESCHLER
- Again, because of your father’s work?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. Our family never had a car. He would always walk to work. And
Sundays, the whole family would go for a walk, and we would walk across
the Snake River to see a farm family we knew. And there’s a picture of
the horse. The first time I touched a horse, I was amazed how warm it
was.But anyway, the household was very attractive. There were always flowers
in the house. And one time Mother went away for a couple of days. She
said, “Now, you be sure and cut the stems and change the water.” Well,
it took me all morning. There were twelve vases. And I thought, “How did
she have time to do this and then cook?” But anyway.
- WESCHLER
- Well, that suggests, by the way, that your mother had a whole aesthetic
sense.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- You say your father did as well or more your mother—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, my father had an aesthetic sense as far as the photographs, and
the shoes were always polished. And he insisted on a solid-color tie,
and we would give him a spotted tie or a striped tie for Christmas. That
just annoyed the hell out of me. He was very particular in his dress. We
couldn’t come to dinner without dressing. In other words, if we were
playing in the mud or playing in funny clothes, then you’d have to
get—
- WESCHLER
- Properly dressed.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- By the way, your father’s job, he was map-making in some sense?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no. He was more like checking out expenses, disbursing—
- WESCHLER
- I see. It was mathematical.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Disbursing agent.
- WESCHLER
- But coming back to you, so you were there in that town for the rest of
your childhood?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. Let’s see. Five— Yes. And by the way, when I was there, I remember
someone came, some friends, and he was a ham operator— Well, I don’t
know if they used that term. You know the crystal set years ago, radio?
He had a crystal set, and he said, “I’m hearing some things from
Hollywood, California.” And so Mother and Susie went over to this little
shack in the middle of a field and heard our cousins talk. What a
curious coincidence.
- WESCHLER
- What do you mean, your cousins?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, I mean, on the radio.
- WESCHLER
- Right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Uncle Eric had a family in Los Angeles. Uncle Eric had four children.
You know, we had no radio, and I remember going to— There was really no
motion picture theater, but I saw one in a hall. The first time I saw
Lon Chaney in Phantom of the Opera, I was
a small child, and I got so scared I had to sit in my mother’s lap.
- WESCHLER
- So on the radio you heard your cousins who were in radio? Or how did you
hear them?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, I don’t know what they were doing there. I mean, this man had a
radio. He said, “Would you like to broadcast?” Well, what are they going
to do? And they’d do it.
- WESCHLER
- So it was a ham radio, in other words, or it was—
- HAMMERSLEY
- A crystal set. And I remember making one in high school, and I could get
it to work a little bit. Mechanical things, that sort of thing, is not
me.
- WESCHLER
- But anyway, coming back, did you stay in that town till you were
eighteen or—
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, I stayed in the town. I’d finished grade school, and I went into the
sixth grade, which was junior high, and I was very pleased. And then my
father’s office moved to Salt Lake City.
- WESCHLER
- Back to Salt Lake City.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Back to Salt Lake City. And here I was in the sixth grade in grammar
school. So we were in Salt Lake City— I finished high school there.
Oddly enough, as I remember, junior high was two years. West High School
I went to, and that was two years, and after graduation everyone took
what they called a postgraduate course. And so I took machine shop and
copperware and descriptive geometry and typing, things I wanted to know.
But there were no art classes.
- WESCHLER
- That question I was asking you before. What kind of anticipations that
you would become an artist would you describe in your first eighteen
years? Anything?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Nothing, nothing. I remember doing occasionally something, but—
- WESCHLER
- Did you enjoy drawing?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No.
- WESCHLER
- Did you enjoy making puzzles? Did you enjoy geometric— You said you took
a class in descriptive geometry.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, the block is this way. What does it look like three-quarter view.
And I learned to do that.
- WESCHLER
- Did you enjoy that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, I enjoyed that, because it was precise and neat, and it was fun to—
What does that look like from the other view? Then the lettering, there
was no problem for me with lettering. I was brought up looking at
lettering.
- WESCHLER
- How so?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, my father always lettered. Have you ever seen an example? Would
you like me to show you an example? It’s that dictionary behind you.
- WESCHLER
- Sure.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I’ll show it to you.
- WESCHLER
- I see. So it’s just very beautifully lettered, nicely— Your father was
clearly very precise.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes, it was. And then he was so surprised. When he was
seventy-five, he started to paint, and he’d ask me, “How do I get that
pergola to look like it’s going that way?” And I’d do it, and he’d say,
“Well, that’s jolly good.” And then when he made a painting of his
living room with my painting on the wall, I mean, with all this big
bouquet of flowers from his garden, I took it back to Los Angeles, and I
said, “I’ll frame it and watch when there’s an exhibition, and you enter
it.” And I said, “Be sure you get the initials correct.”
- WESCHLER
- You say you didn’t have any particular artistic tendencies. Let me ask
you some other questions. Were you a messy kid? Were you a neat kid?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I was obliged to be neat.
- WESCHLER
- You were obliged to be neat.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Oh, Christ. Mother was a very difficult lady. She was a very
nervous lady. She was the head of the house. She ran the house, and I
don’t quite— She’d get very tired and nervous, and she’d have to go away
for a couple of days someplace to rest. When I got older, I realized she
didn’t really like me very much.
- WESCHLER
- Oh, dear.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. She never asked— Let’s stay with when I was young. We had some good
times. There’s places like in the summer we’d walk out across the
farmer’s fields, and end up at, not a river, a small stream, and there
were trees. And we’d have a picnic there. And that’s where this one
picture is. Well, I can’t find it. Sorry. And so there were some good
times, and the food was marvelous. The food was just marvelous.But I had to be very careful not slamming the screen door. “Where are you
going?” That sort of thing. Terrible.
- WESCHLER
- But coming back to that, I mean, the thing that’s interesting about the
neatness is this is going to eventually be a boy who grows into a young
artist, who at the time of Abstract Expressionism, when people are being
wonderfully messy, you instead go a different direction. You go very
neat and very clean lines.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And what is interesting, you see—I think this sort of thing is the
opposite of the geometric in one sense. The character of the shape is
opposite.
- WESCHLER
- The more recent work.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. The gesture is freer. But it’s still neat. Well, I don’t complain
about that.
- WESCHLER
- I’m just asking you to what extent do you think that that neatness grows
out of that childhood, that childhood leads to it? Have you thought
about that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, I haven’t thought about that.
- WESCHLER
- Does that seem sensible to you to think about that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I’ll tell you something else that happened. When— Let’s see. How
did this work? Oh yes. When I finished high school— Susie was on the
honor class in West High, and I wasn’t. Oh, I was in the ROTC [Reserve
Officers Training Corps] in high school, and I used the uniform of World
War I. Do you remember the wrapped legs? Have you ever seen that?
- WESCHLER
- Sure.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And the collar was high.
- WESCHLER
- Right, right, right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And I was the sergeant on the right side and I went in parades.
- WESCHLER
- What year was this? This would’ve been—
- HAMMERSLEY
- 1935. I graduated in ’35, and I came back for ’36. And then the family
went to—
- WESCHLER
- Let’s stay with that. So you were in the ROTC, and you are talking about
in terms of the neatness—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. So the army, I mean, that was no problem. And I loved shooting that
Springfield rifle. Oh yes, and then the family went to Fort Hall, which
is between Pocatello and Blackfoot.
- WESCHLER
- Again because of your father’s work?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, an Indian reservation, two hundred fifty white people, with stone
houses, marvelous. And Susie and I played tennis, and the jail would be
there, and you’d hear this chanting, as you’re saying, “Thirty-love.”
This guy would be chanting. And the buckskin gloves that they would sell
for a dollar. God, they’d last forever, and they’d smell like a
campfire. Oh, it was delicious.
- WESCHLER
- Did you have much influence— Were you interested in the Indians, in the
Indian culture?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. No, it’s very odd. My father would go fishing with this half-breed,
and they’d put this boat on the car. By Fort Hall it was called the
“bottoms.” It just looked like green trees, low trees, but there was a
stream that would run through this, and for a long time the Indian would
bring back fish, and Dad didn’t. It was so interesting. And then after a
while he could fish; he would bring in fish. But he went out like once a
week with this half-breed, and he really enjoyed that.
- WESCHLER
- But were you at all entranced by the Indian art, the Indian artifacts,
things like that at all?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no.
- WESCHLER
- Nothing special?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. I admired their beadwork. Oh yes. At this farm, at this ranch, at
the Shoemakers’, they had a marvelous peony garden, and they’d sell
peonies, and sell chicken dinners on Sunday, and she had an Indian squaw
helping her. When I was in Salt Lake City, I went to the Shoemakers’
place for a week or something, just for a vacation, and this Indian
squaw taught me how to sew beads on buckskin, and I was very impressed
with that. And we were playing tag in the Whitney crab apple trees,
playing tag, and I fell off, fell into the chicken yard, broke my arm,
and I was so disappointed Mother never came out from Salt Lake City to
see me. I was there I don’t know how long.
- WESCHLER
- What age were you then, roughly?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, that was before high school, as a matter of fact.
- WESCHLER
- I see. Okay, but let me get this right, now. So you graduate high
school, and then your father moves back to Idaho, and you go with the
family. You’re still with the family at that point.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I went back. Now I had to decide— I didn’t want to go to college.
Oh, I wanted to—
- WESCHLER
- What did you like in school, by the way? Did you like anything in
school?
- HAMMERSLEY
- School was frightening. See, when Susie and I were children, my father
would write out division numbers, multiplication problems, and I would
have to do these, and there were chores to do, and I did that every day
in the summer, and every time there was a game— My father loved chess.
The first football he gave me was a soccer ball. I didn’t know what the
hell that was. And he treated it with fat, and he went out in the
garden, and I couldn’t go past him with it. And he was a very strange
man in that respect. He played tennis, and when he played anything, he
was going to win. “To hell with it. If it’s my son or Susie, I’m going
to win.” I mean, that was the result. He didn’t say it or his attitude
was not that. He just enjoyed games. Oh, he played soccer when he was a
young man in England. That’s right. He was a goalkeeper, and he was
known as a good one.Oh yes. And then I didn’t want to go to the university. I was frightened
of school. So I went to the southern branch of the University of Idaho
in Pocatello, and I took again the descriptive geometry, and I remember
this English teacher, if you made a comma fault, you’d get an F. And I
admired her very much.Oh, and then, oh yes, and my friend—Raymond Lowe was his name—he was
running for freshman president. And I looked at the signs, I said, “Ray,
for Christ’s sake, I can paint better signs than that, because I grew up
with lettering.” So I had a campaign, “Shift to Lowe,” for freshman
president.And then I went down to the theaters. Oh yes. I took a class in sign
painting at the university. Isn’t that peculiar? Painted on shirt
cardboards. And that’s where the shaky hands started.
- WESCHLER
- What do you mean?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, when someone would watch me do something, my hands would shake,
and it’s been with me ever since. Terrible, terrible.
- WESCHLER
- When you do it for yourself, it doesn’t shake, but when somebody—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Sometimes it does. Now it’s unpredictable. But I remember holding the
glass of milk, and the girl said, “What’s the matter?” I said, “Oh, I
guess—” I gave some excuse.So I knew how to paint signs, so I went to the theaters in Pocatello to
see if I could get a job painting their signs. So I got a job. I would
go to school in the morning, work in the afternoon, get a dollar a day.
It was marvelous.
- WESCHLER
- Now, coming back, first of all, how do you paint signs when you’ve got a
shaky hand?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, but if I’m by myself, then it’s all right. If you’re watching me, I
have to key up and overcome that. See, it’s not like there’s a shaky
hand where it shakes all the time. I don’t have that, happily.
- WESCHLER
- I just wonder because you are about to become a hard-edge painter.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, of course, I paint now with both hands. I mean, I have to hold the
palette knife with both hands.
- WESCHLER
- But that’s it. Sign painting is the beginning of— I can see that leading
in the direction that you’re going to go to eventually.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right. And, see, if I worked on the chemistry class, the math class
would suffer, and conversely. And I almost got thrown out. What did
happen? What did happen? They didn’t throw me out. The grades were
bad.
- WESCHLER
- This was in high school?
- HAMMERSLEY
- [No, the University of Idaho.( Added by Hammersley during his review.)]
So I went to— Because I was painting the signs, I went to the art
department. I have one painting someplace that I did at the university,
the southern branch [of the University of Idaho] in Pocatello. And,
“Well, hell, this is not difficult,” that sort of thing. So we were
there about two years.
- WESCHLER
- It was not difficult, but was it enjoyable?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes.
- WESCHLER
- Did you like art class?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes.
- WESCHLER
- Talk about that.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I wasn’t too fond of the— Oh. The Chief Theater opened in downtown
Pocatello, and there were some murals, and this instructor painted them.
But I thought, “He’s not very good.” Isn’t that funny? We didn’t look at
pictures. I don’t remember looking at pictures especially. But then
when—
- WESCHLER
- If I had met you at eighteen, nineteen, would you have known who Vermeer
was? Would you have known who Chardin was?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. No, I don’t think so.
- WESCHLER
- Would you have known Whistler? Or anything?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I probably would have known Michelangelo and some of the old-timers, the
Renaissance people.
- WESCHLER
- From having seen pictures in books or what?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, having seen pictures in books.
- WESCHLER
- Did your parents have art books in the house?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, but there were magazines, you see. And when Susie subscribed to—this
was later—subscribed to—I had a morgue. I’d cut out these marvelous
reproductions in Vogue for my file, of
Chardin or whoever. I loved images.
- WESCHLER
- And that’s when? Roughly three or four years later, you’re twenty or
something?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, that was later. Now, let’s see. Yes, I was at the university two
years, and then the family moved to San Francisco, and Mother was
delighted.
- WESCHLER
- And you’re still with the family at that point?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- Living with the family.
- HAMMERSLEY
- But I had to finish up Idaho, and they were in San Francisco.
- WESCHLER
- Because of your father’s job again?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. And after I was finished, I remember they met me at the ferry
in San Francisco, and we took the streetcar home to just below— My
memory—There’s a peak—
- WESCHLER
- Coit Tower?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. With a cross on top. [Mount Davidson] We lived on Valdez Avenue.
Anyway. So I had this art thing, so then I went to a cheesy— Well,
that’s not fair. I went to an art school in San Francisco.
- WESCHLER
- What was it called?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Academy of Advertising Art. Oh, my hero then was— I forget how I saw
that. Cassandre, the poster man. Do you know Cassandre?
- WESCHLER
- No.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, Christ. Remember the Dubonnet man pouring wine?
- WESCHLER
- Right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s Cassandre.
- WESCHLER
- I see.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, the Museum of Modern Art has a small version of a poster I used to
go by when I was going to art school on Wilshire Boulevard. If you can
imagine a large human eye, you’re the audience, and here’s the eye. In
the pupil there was a V-8, and it said, “Watch the Fords go by.” And I
thought, “Boy, this guy—” He says it twice. And without— The pretty girl
by the Chevrolet, hell, that doesn’t mean anything.
- WESCHLER
- This has an eye and has the word “watch” both together, and that excited
you.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Yes. God, I just— So I wanted to be a poster man.
- WESCHLER
- So let’s go back. You’re first in San Francisco— And now, by the way,
this must be 1938, ’39, something like that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, ’39.
- WESCHLER
- And you go to a place of advertising art. Was that what you were
thinking of doing, advertising art or—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. And then for some reason, maybe the money— Pierre Vitier,
Dulfer’s Printing Company. I started to work with this Frenchman
designing letterheads, and that was no problem. I enjoyed that. I didn’t
enjoy learning how to do the airbrush thing, but I enjoyed that. And
then his wife was responsible for finding the house that my parents
bought in Burlingame [California].Oh. In the meantime, when we were at Fort Hall— Susie had gone to
Chouinard [Art Institute] one year. I didn’t get along with Susie, but
when she brought back the folio, I was very impressed.
- WESCHLER
- So this is when you were still in Idaho, your sister has gone to
Chouinard.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- She’s three and a half years older than you, so she spent a year in Los
Angeles, came back to Idaho to show you this portfolio.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Show the family, see. I was incidental. So that summer of ’39, I think
it was, Susie was staying with Uncle Eric, this home on Franklin Avenue,
near Vermont.
- WESCHLER
- In Los Angeles.
- HAMMERSLEY
- In Los Angeles. So I came down to see the school.
- WESCHLER
- Where was Chouinard in those days?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Grand View Avenue, a block from Westlake Park. Do you remember? Do you
remember where the State Theater— Oh, hell. Seventh Street this way, and
the Art Center [School, later Art Center College of Design] was up here,
and Westlake Park was here. Alvarado was there. One block away there was
Grand View, and that was the Chouinard— It was built as an art school.
Have you ever seen the building?
- WESCHLER
- Not that one.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I designed an alphabet. They used my alphabet for the brass “Chouinard”
thing [on front of the building], and then one letter’s fallen off. It’s
a church now.
- WESCHLER
- So this is 1939 or something. You go to visit—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Visit Susie and see the art school, and when I walk into the painting
studio, there’s Keye Luke. Now, that’s before your time. He was son
number one of [Charlie Chan] in the motion pictures. He was a Chinese
detective, but [Warner Oland, the actor who played Charlie Chan] was
Swedish, which was odd. Also, the early radio programs were wonderful,
you know, Orphan Annie or— There are
several others which I can’t think of. But I was so impressed with this
bit player painting, and he was very serious. I mean, goddamn it, he
was— So I looked around the school, and it was heaven.
- WESCHLER
- What was heaven about it? What I’m trying to get a sense of is what made
you become an artist. What spoke to you when you walked in, in 1939, and
you were just entranced?
- HAMMERSLEY
- As a matter of fact, whenever I see something lovely, I start to cry,
like now. Of course, I did cry when I was younger. When I’m older now, I
cry more often. If I see something just gorgeous, it just knocks me
over.
- WESCHLER
- I should say you’re crying now at the memory of what it was like to walk
in then.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well—
- WESCHLER
- What has you crying right now?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Because I’m thinking of looking at wonderful things and what it does to
you. The stuff was very good, and it was done by people like Susie, a
kid, an older kid. And I thought, hell, I— So I was at this art school
in San Francisco. So I made a folio. My grandfather died, and my father
and I went to the bank, and I got $99 from his estate. The tuition for
Chouinard was $350 a year. That was a lot of money. So I gave the $99,
and Dad did the rest.So I sent this folio. I wanted to get a scholarship at Chouinard. I did
not get one, and I worked like hell, but it’s all right. [I did get one
the next year. (Added by Hammersley during his review)] So I went the
first year, and I was on the exhibition crew.Pruett Carter, an illustrator, had a studio there. You’ve probably not
heard of him. But I have a couple of his slashed paintings. I was on the
sweep-up crew the first year, exhibition crew the second.
- WESCHLER
- The first year was what?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Sweep-up.
- WESCHLER
- Sweep-up crew.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And this janitor taught me how to wash windows, and you had to sweep
things, and you earned your scholarship that way.Have you ever heard of Henry Lee McFee?
- WESCHLER
- Just in reading about you, that he was a teacher of yours.
- HAMMERSLEY
- See, there’s no reason you should. It was so long ago. But he was a
marvelous— There’s a painting in the [Los Angeles] County Museum, Sleeping Black Girl, lovely, just lovely. And
he said, “You should be able to look at a painting through your hand,
and every part should be rich.”
- WESCHLER
- Just now you curled your hand into a circle like a telescope, and you
were looking at it through—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, and that’s very true. All the parts must be doing something. I
mean, they must— What’s the Nude Descending a
Stair[case] man? What’s his name?
- WESCHLER
- Duchamp.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Duchamp. He shocked me one time on TV. He said he liked the glass things
that he had done because he didn’t have to worry about the background.
He didn’t know what to do with the background. I couldn’t believe that.
The background is just another part of the real estate of that canvas,
and it’s as important as the foreground. As a matter of fact, when I
teach my painting class, I put up a stool against a red ground or a
bright-colored wall and a bright-colored floor, and I say, “You’re not
allowed to draw the stool, just the red pieces and the yellow pieces
that you see. You just draw those.” And that’s the beginning of
abstraction in one sense. And it’s constructed. It’s marvelous.
Circulation improves, and, well, it’s great.
- WESCHLER
- Tell me a little bit about your teachers and about the process of you
becoming— Your first few years at Chouinard. First of all, describe
Chouinard. You said where it was. What kind of place was it? How many
students?
- HAMMERSLEY
- It was designed for an art school. You’d have to check in. You know, you
just couldn’t wander around. You’d check in, and they would check off
Weschler and then check off Jones and check off Hammersley, and then
you’d come in the gate. And then you find out or you’ve already known
what classes you’re going to, and you went to [Herbert] Jepson’s. He
taught drawing. This marvelous Laurence Murphy taught composition. And
you could take fashion, etc.Design class was crucial. It was interesting. We didn’t know that or use
the word, but this gay man, [William] Moore, he’d studied with the
[Rudolph Schaeffer] School [of Design] in San Francisco, and he was very
good. He didn’t like girls, see. He was very pleased if he could get
them to cry. I didn’t like that, but the son of a bitch, I mean, he had
an eye, and you knew where you were wrong, and it was very helpful. It
was money in the bank. Boy.
- WESCHLER
- So tell me about the other teachers who you had who you liked. You said
McFee— What was his name?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Henry Lee McFee. Owings-Dewey [Fine Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico] has one
of his paintings or had—
- WESCHLER
- Well, tell me about him as a teacher. He taught painting or what—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, he taught painting, and he was a very fine painter. It’s
interesting in those days there were very few painters. As I told you
last night, there was only three galleries that I knew of, and—
- WESCHLER
- In Los Angeles?
- HAMMERSLEY
- In Los Angeles, I’m speaking, yes.
- WESCHLER
- Which were they?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Dalzell Hatfield [Gallery] and two others which I don’t remember, and
then the L.A. County Museum. So we could see some paintings.
- WESCHLER
- And that was almost all figurative work?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes, exactly. Oh. At the Dalzell Hatfield, when Paul Klee came,
that was kind of a shock.
- WESCHLER
- There was a Paul Klee show at that gallery?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, at one of these three galleries. And then Kandinsky was there. That
was also a shock. But it felt all right. I mean, damn it, “I’d like to
do— I don’t understand how— What’s he doing?”
- WESCHLER
- And this was ’39, ’40, something like that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. ’40, ’41. I went two years. ’40-’41, and ’41-’42.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. Let’s go back to— I want to have both a sense of the kind of stuff
you’re doing in school, who your teachers are, and then I want to talk
about what kind of impression Klee and Kandinsky would make. First let’s
go back and talk about what you’re learning in school.
- HAMMERSLEY
- All right. Drawing was crucial, and I had trouble with drawing.
- WESCHLER
- Who was your drawing teacher?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Herbert Jepson, and then there was a beginning drawing class, [James]
Patrick. Bless his heart, he died. I remember seeing a painting of his
of grapes. God, what a daring thing to do.
- WESCHLER
- Jepson’s a quite famous figure in L.A. art. What was he like?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, he was— It was so annoying. I mean, he’d just sit down and draw a
hand, and it was just lovely, and we would sweat or I would sweat to
draw. This advanced student—I was a beginning student—[Roger]
Hollenbeck, he was right next to the model and was drawing with one
line. “Goddamn, that’s marvelous.”
- WESCHLER
- Tell me more about Jepson. He was older? How old was Jepson when you
were studying with him?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, he was probably in his thirties, forties. You know, when one is
twenty, and someone’s thirty, oh, bless their heart, that’s too bad, you
know. [mutual laughter] I mean, he had a family, and two boys, I
think.
- WESCHLER
- Was he a generous teacher? Was he a rigorous teacher?
- HAMMERSLEY
- He was very casual. It was comme ci, comme ça.
He could care less. He just had money in the bank, but he didn’t
know where the hell the bankbook was. It was a shame. And Rico Lebrun
screwed him up. You must excuse me. Jepson was of the illustration
school, marvelous draftsman. Rico was a marvelous draftsman, true, but
he had a dynamic, and he was very strong, and marvelous drawings.
- WESCHLER
- Rico was also at Chouinard in those days?
- HAMMERSLEY
- He was there when Susie was there. Susie never took him, in ’39, but no,
he never came back to Chouinard until after the war, when he came to
Jepson.So there was Jepson. I was very impressed with Laurence Murphy. He taught
me about teaching because he was very kind with a student. I’m going to
cry again. This girl’s work was just terrible. He’d look at it, pause,
and he’d say, “This is very nice paper.” Bless his heart.Oh, and I’ll show you this drawing. I was drawing, and then he showed me
how to draw a bucket. He said, “Now, invariably the bucket will be to
the right of you or to the left of you, and there’s the axis,” and he
drew this bucket. And then he said, “Then you put something in front of
it, and you put something behind it so there’s air.” And I had this
marvelous little stage set of a bucket, simple, simple, simple, just
“pffft.” So Laurence Murphy was a drawing and composition instructor.Oh. And then I took a lettering class, a commercial art class. Oh yes,
Northridge, a very shrewd businessman, he had an art service or an art—
What do you call them? Organization that sells artwork. You say, “I want
an ad for my car.” Whatever. So he would get students, and they’d
eventually work for him, you see. And he didn’t like— My problem was an
ad for a microphone, and all the other kids had an idea, and I was— I
didn’t have an idea— I was thinking. He said, “You should start working,
get it done.” I said, “But I can’t do anything unless I have a decent
idea.”So I was very slow, but I was very good. I mean, I can show you some
photographs of my commercial artwork. I was very pleased with my
commercial artwork. But they were not strong on color. I would ask him,
“What about—? What about—?” And then I knew a good friend of mine just
wanted lettering. He didn’t do anything but lettering. I said, “Damn,
that’s nice. I mean, that’s nice. You know what you want to do.” And he
did letterings for the motion picture theater, the credits, lovely
calligraphy. Oh, lovely.McFee said, “Every painting student should take lettering. Every
painting—” He did say that, but I realized when I was drawing this
alphabet, it’s an abstraction. And I remember talking to a ballet
dancer. There’s certain things that you’ve got to be clear about, and in
lettering you’ve got to be very clear that it’s legible, for Christ’s
sake. Jazz can just kill the designer. I mean, you have all the
nonsense— Like you say, you have too many baubles and no theme.
- WESCHLER
- No arc.
- HAMMERSLEY
- You just have a bunch of stuff.
- WESCHLER
- Legibility is a very important thing for you, and very early on it
became important for you.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes, yes. And that started with the lettering and the commercial art. Now, let’s see. Oh yes. The first year, the war was on, and people were
being drafted, and I got a notice to get examined. So I went to this
doctor, and he said, “Do you want to go in the army?”I said, “No, I’ve got a scholarship now for the second year.”He said, “Okay. I’ll give you 4-F.” He was a gynecologist. [mutual
laughter] So the second year I finished, and I went back home to
Burlingame, and I wrote letters to try to get in the camouflage. You
know, that had something to do with image making. And nothing happened.
And then I eventually went to San Francisco with my little suitcase and
was shipped to— Oh, someplace in California.
- WESCHLER
- Well, let me stay in Los Angeles before we do that for a second.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, sure.
- WESCHLER
- Some other questions. I want to get a sense of what it was to be an art
student and to be in the art scene of Los Angeles in 1940. One question
that arises to me is, I mean, 1940 is a little bit late in the day.
Cubism has happened. Surrealism has happened. Things like that have
happened.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Not in Los Angeles.
- WESCHLER
- That’s my question. I mean, when you’re studying at an art school in Los
Angeles, is there any reference to Cubism? Is there a discussion of
Picasso? Is he a presence?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, there is— I didn’t get Cubism. I didn’t know what the hell they
were doing.
- WESCHLER
- But did people at Chouinard think it was important, or—
- HAMMERSLEY
- They didn’t pay much attention.WESCHLER. What you should be doing is nudes that looked like nudes?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. The point is, if you signed up for a figure-painting class, that’s
what you got, those are very important. I’m very pleased to have that
background, because I call it a measuring stick, as I mentioned
yesterday. The Abstract Expressionists and hard-edge— You have no
measuring stick. The observer, he doesn’t— And the dealer can sell you
that it’s a good thing, but the disadvantage of the student, this time,
these times—
- WESCHLER
- Nowadays?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, they’re kind of hanging loose. See, we had things, like I walked
into L.A. County Museum, and I would see people I never heard of before.
I walked in— Edvard Munch. For god’s sake, where— A Norwegian. And the
older he got, the stronger and wilder he became. Christ.
- WESCHLER
- And that impressed you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I felt marvelous.
- WESCHLER
- Even though it was more and more Expressionist, but that was
exciting?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, it makes no difference. A lot of people influence me if a lot of
those people are great. I don’t care what the image is. You know very
well when it’s great, and you just— Wow. It just feels wonderful.
- WESCHLER
- Did you have that feeling when you saw Paul Klee?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, not that great, but I was very impressed.
- WESCHLER
- Tell me about walking in, Klee and Kandinsky in 1940 in Los Angeles.
What was that like?
- HAMMERSLEY
- We would take books out of the Chouinard library. Now, here I go around
the bush. I admired it, but it was left— No, not left field. It was out
of my league. It was not my taste.
- WESCHLER
- Out of your point of reference.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. It was an oddball situation, but it felt good. Someplace in my
books here I have a [a book by Paul Klee on the] language of image
making, and he would say what a line was and say what a shape was. It
was almost too complicated, the way he would say it.And Kandinsky, it was very interesting, but it didn’t move me or make me
feel as good as a giant, looking at a giant. And there’s a little
[Charles] Despiau head at the L.A. County Museum. Oh, Christ, it’s like
Brancusi’s sister did it. It just— Oh. You could look and look and look,
and it still feeds you. It’s just marvelous.[Telephone rings. Tape recorder turned off.]
- WESCHLER
- We were just interrupted for a second, but what I want to ask you is,
you welled up easily now, which is lovely. You well up when you talk
about things that are beautiful. Did you well up in those days?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. Just as I got older.
- WESCHLER
- Did you have—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, excuse me. Excuse me. It’s because—
1.2. TAPE NUMBER: I, SIDE TWO JANUARY 15, 2003
- WESCHLER
- I asked you a second ago— We were talking about how you have this lovely
welling-up at beauty and achievement and so forth, and I was asking you
whether you did that when you were young. I don’t mean so much of it
when you were a child, but when you saw things at the L.A. County Museum
in 1940 that impressed you, did you get overwhelmed by them?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, I wasn’t, because I was taught to keep my mouth shut, and my father
was very proud in never getting angry: Oh, shit, that’s terrible. You
know, he’d hit his thumb, and he’d say, “God—bless the Queen.” [Weschler
laughs.] Big deal. And Mother, oh, to get angry, that would upset her
very much. And so I just—
- WESCHLER
- But tell me the things at the L.A. County Museum when you would go, what
impressed you, even if it didn’t overwhelm you? What excited you at the
L.A. County, in 1940, when you would go?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Isn’t that funny? I can’t remember a show outside of—
- WESCHLER
- Or just things in the museum. Was it Renaissance work? Was it—
- HAMMERSLEY
- The Renaissance things, yes. The local people, Phil Paradise, bless
their heart, I don’t mean to— He was a former Chouinard [teacher, maybe
an early student (Added by Hammersley during his review.)], Phil
Paradise, and two or three others. I can show you some catalogues.
They’re top average people, top average paintings. Rico was above
that.
- WESCHLER
- And you were aware of that in 1940 already?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes, yes. And when we were at Chouinard, we’d walk over to the Art
Center over on Seventh Street. See, that was a commercial art school,
industrial art. Some motor company would pay them money to be able to
design cars. And [Lorser] Feitelson was teaching painting there, and we
felt above all that, because their painting, Christ, didn’t equal what
they were doing at Chouinard. Chouinard had a gallery you could come in
off the street and see what the students are doing.
- WESCHLER
- Was Feitelson a presence?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No.
- WESCHLER
- Who were the big artists in Los Angeles in those days? If you were an
art student, who were you looking up to?
- HAMMERSLEY
- [Francis] deErdely was a big— I didn’t care for him. He taught at
Jepson’s later. I didn’t care for his things. Henry McFee was the big
man that I knew of as a painter. See, Rico wasn’t there yet in the
forties.
- WESCHLER
- What did McFee paint?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Still lifes. Oh, god, some complicated things. But it was clear. And
this black lady in the L.A. County Museum, I wish you’d see that
sometime. Oh, he liked Cezanne. So the area was rich, rich. It wasn’t
just “pffft.”
- WESCHLER
- Cezanne was somebody who was talked about at Chouinard?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, it’s a funny thing. I don’t respond to Cezanne, hardly at all,
except I went to the— What’s that Fort Worth— Kimbell [Art] Museum? And
there’s the Man with a Blue Smock.
Goddamn, that was heaven. I mean, it looked like it was painted
Wednesday. And I thought, “That is remarkable.”
- WESCHLER
- When did you see that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- A few years ago.
- WESCHLER
- But I want to keep you back in the 1940s right now.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, as I mentioned, the annual shows are very important, because you
see what your friends and your instructors—
- WESCHLER
- What were those? That was at the L.A. County Museum?
- HAMMERSLEY
- L.A. County Museum.
- WESCHLER
- And how did that work?
- HAMMERSLEY
- How do you mean?
- WESCHLER
- What happened? You submitted things?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. Oh, I would submit things. I wanted to get in shows. I wanted
stuff— I wanted to— See that painting behind you? [Red, Yellow, Black and White, fourteenth in series,
1948]
- WESCHLER
- Right, the—
- HAMMERSLEY
- That was the fourteenth painting in a series. I made a straight still
life first. [Red, Yellow, Black and White,
first in series, 1948; Red, Yellow, Black and
White, 1948, second in series; Red,
Yellow, Black and White, 1948, seventh in series]
- WESCHLER
- What year is that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- 1948.
- WESCHLER
- That’s too far ahead. Let’s wait a second. I still want to be back in
1940 right now.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Okay. I’m sorry.
- WESCHLER
- Were you already submitting things in 1940 to the L.A. County?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes, because that got in a show in 1948, and it took me— I said,
“Hell, this is easy.” I didn’t get a show until five years after
that.
- WESCHLER
- That’s 1948.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- But in 1940, were you submitting things to the—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Did I ask you if you— You didn’t know who Brugger’s was. Brugger’s
was a shipping company. If you had some paintings— There was a woman
sculptor [Pegot Waring] near La Cienega that would teach a drawing class
to Fred MacMurray and motion picture people, and she charged five
dollars a session. Goddamn, that’s ridiculous. You can go to a painting
class for fifty cents. She said she refused to send to shows because she
didn’t want to have a painting next to a student. I said, “Well, that’s
too bad.” But anyway, it was good to hang your work and see the
instructor’s.
- WESCHLER
- And you were saying Brugger’s was a shipping place.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- So all the artists— This is 1940 still, or this is later?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, in the forties to the fifties, and probably the sixties.
- WESCHLER
- And you described how all the artists would gather because they were
shipping their stuff up to San Francisco for the invitationals up
there?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. You know, you’d get a postcard in the mail, there’s a portrait
show so-and-so. And I don’t have any portraits, so I couldn’t send
anything. The landscapes. And it has to be here by— Within this week,
and it has— So that was very stimulating. It was a lot of fun.
- WESCHLER
- And you would go to the shipping place, and all the other artists would
be there as well, doing the same thing?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Each day, I mean, a different group would come. Discouragement can be
devastating. You know, you get what you think is a good painting, and
you don’t get in, but then you turn around and give it to another show,
and you get in and you get twenty-five dollars. And you say, “Well, what
the hell’s going on?” Now, if God were judging, it’d be fair. [laughs] I
think. [Weschler laughs.] But it was very exciting, and it didn’t cost
much money.
- WESCHLER
- Now, before we send you off to the army, describe what kind of an artist
you were and what you thought you would be doing with your life in 1941,
’42, before you got into the army. What were you thinking?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I was picturing myself being in the advertising business, even though—
That’s right, because I was taking lettering and commercial art at
Chouinard, and I was figuring what I’d do with my door in my studio when
I had this design business. Oh. And then when I was stationed in Paris,
I tried to find Cassandre, and I couldn’t find him, but I find [Paul]
Colin, who is an advertising man, very nice, but— I saw a lot of
painters.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. Well, let’s get you there. When do you enter the army?[Doorbell rings. Tape recorder turned off.]
- WESCHLER
- I was asking you to tell me how you got into the army.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. So I was drafted. See, after—
- WESCHLER
- What year, now?
- HAMMERSLEY
- ’42, the end of ’42. And then we went to someplace in—
- WESCHLER
- You wanted to do camouflage, but they didn’t accept you for that.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I couldn’t make any contact. Some camp in California. And then I
was shipped to Camp Crowder, Missouri, a Signal Corps outfit, Signal
Corps.
- WESCHLER
- What does that mean, in practice, for people who don’t know about the
army? Signal Corps are the messenger service, basically?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Morse code, decoding, truck driving, cooking, so on and so on. So I came
to be interviewed, and there are seven or eight guys interviewing. One
was Sarley, the head man, and one from Harvard, one an art student from
Minnesota. And when I was through, they said, “Would you like to be an
interviewer?” I said, “I sure would. Better than cooking or truck
driving.”So I was an interviewer for a few months. And that’s my first experience
of New Yorkers. They just walked right over me. [mutual laughter] I
never experienced anything like that in my life.I said, “I’m sorry, Mac.”He said, “I’m a doctor in so-and-so.”I said, “Yes, I know, but there’s cooking and truck drivers left. If
you’d come earlier, you could’ve got a code clerk or whatever.”So what happened after that? Then I— I was in the same camp, and I worked
for a lieutenant doing some experiments with signs, black lettering on
white at night with light, or white lettering on black.
- WESCHLER
- Really?
- HAMMERSLEY
- And then designing the dummy tank and that sort of things. He saw my
background [on the G.I. record]: “art school.” And I think he was from
the Campbell Soup Company. That’s a lieutenant. Now, wait a minute. How
the hell did I get from this— Gee, whiz, that’s amazing. I can’t think
of your name. I want to say Lawrence.
- WESCHLER
- You’re allowed to call me Lawrence. Go ahead.
- HAMMERSLEY
- So eventually, I was in the Signal Corps. Where the hell were we?
Battalion headquarters of the Signal Corps, and these four or five New
Yorkers had the good spots. This smart young man was in charge. I
forget— He was the sergeant. And they were well placed in the supply,
etc. And they would wake up in the morning in the dorm arguing. I didn’t
understand that at all. Then we were—
- WESCHLER
- That’s New York for you, you mean?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- People arguing with each other, that’s your sense of New York?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. So then we were shipped overseas, and I was seasick for three days
on this bloody ship.
- WESCHLER
- What year is this, now?
- HAMMERSLEY
- This was ’43, ’44.
- WESCHLER
- Before Normandy?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. Oh yes.
- WESCHLER
- And you’re being shipped to England?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, we ended up in Scotland. And then we ended up in Bury St. Edmunds,
where I guess they did— And the first night you’d hear— The food, we
were hungry. Oh. And it was interesting, on ship, the first time we came
down to breakfast, this steamy, wet smell came up of prepared kidneys.
Americans didn’t eat kidneys. And I was sick. The boys who were good
drinkers, they didn’t get sick. And I thought, “I must remember that.”
[laughs]And they played cards, and the army is marvelous. What a life. They knew
where the gambling was; they knew where the girls were; they knew where
the cigarettes were; they knew how to get these things. Marvelous.
Everyone has an innate talent.
- WESCHLER
- So you’re in Bury St. Edmunds , and what were you doing there?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Waiting to be assigned. And then we were eventually— This Signal Corps
battalion was sent to Plymouth, England in an underground installation,
and I was a draftsman then, and I designed— They said, “Give me a— Make
a pass card so that it’s hard to duplicate.” We lived in the city or in
the dormitory someplace— Oh yes, Ragland Barracks. I was very impressed
with that. It was a British thing. And the building of the gate was
marvelous, and there was a jail, too. And this enormous cement parade
ground where they would march. And then the dormitories or whatever you
call were here. We had three-decker bunks. What did they call that? Oh,
Christ, what’s this funny name? They give you a burlap bag you fill with
straw. That was your mattress.But that’s the first time I heard the expression “live entertainment” in
town. That was the vaudeville. English vaudeville is wonderful. I mean,
any vaudeville is— And French vaudeville is wonderful. Oh. I remember if
you rode a train when you’re young, the smell of the cooking done by
Negroes—we called them Negroes then—was delicious. This oatmeal smell.
And the mess hall here had the same smell. These black men were cooking,
and the food was very good.So we’d leave after breakfast and walk downstairs to this underground
installation which would open up to what they called the Hoe, which is
level with the English Channel. And the Hoe is where— Above the Hoe is a
lawn. That’s where Sir Francis Drake was bowling when the armada came
by, and he said, “Oh, hell. Well, you can finish the game. And we can
attend to that later." So we’d take a break, and we’d walk out and have
a cigarette and just stand by the ocean or the—
- WESCHLER
- This is in the months before D-Day?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exactly.
- WESCHLER
- And you were aware that there was an invasion in preparation?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. And I’ll never forget being in that office when they said— What
was it? June 4?
- WESCHLER
- June 6, I think, right?
- HAMMERSLEY
- June something. That it had been done. And oh, Christ, I mean, we
were—
- WESCHLER
- You knew it was coming, but you didn’t know when it was going to
happen?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And then the day that it did happen, and then it was a— Seemed like
just a week later, we were shipped over, and everything was calm then. I
mean, no fighting where we landed. We landed by some lovely French
chateau, and these drinkers, the G.I.’s, would get the French cider, and
it’d go right through them. [laughs] I’ll never forget it. God, I didn’t
like it.But I walked by this house, and there was this one little window in the
basement, and this lovely fragrance of the wine would come out. Oh, god,
it was heaven.
- WESCHLER
- What were you doing there? Basically the American Army is on its way to
Berlin, and what are you doing?
- HAMMERSLEY
- We’re doing nothing. We’re just waiting to be assigned.
- WESCHLER
- You’re still waiting?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Oh, you get very good at that.Okay. Because of my— Jeez, I’m kind of mixed up here. Oh, that’s right.
So I was shipped— The people were being assigned, and because of my art
school background, I was shipped to Paris to be with long lines control,
which was French, British, and American.
- WESCHLER
- What does “long lines control” mean?
- HAMMERSLEY
- To know the communications of the three armies as they would advance.
And I would have to prepare this diagram every week to show this corps
or that, doing what.
- WESCHLER
- So, again, you’re involved in legibility, basically.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s right, and when I had nothing to do, I’d draw a map of France and
work on the lettering, that sort of thing. And we were in this lovely
French telephone building. It was a gorgeous building with a brass
balustrade.
- WESCHLER
- So this is the fall of ’44, basically?
- HAMMERSLEY
- ’44. And when we got there, you’d hear small-arms fire. It had to be
open all night long, this office. And you’d hear small-arms fire, and
then you’d come out in the morning and some car was burning. We were
isolated. It was very strange. And I was there three weeks before it
dawned on me I was in Paris, because I’d hear the G.I.’s talking about
the Folies-Bergère. And I said, “For Christ’s sake, Hammersley, what are
you doing?”So I went to the Folies-Bergère, and it was— The comedians and the pretty
ladies are just—
- WESCHLER
- Would you describe yourself at that point as a naïve virginal type, or
were you a—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. That’s enough. I was a professional naïve man. Oh boy, I was
from no place. Now I’m in no place. [laughs]
- WESCHLER
- "From No Place to No Place: The Hammersley Story."
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, amazing.
- WESCHLER
- Were you shocked? Were you charmed? Were you—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, it was lovely. It was lovely. I really enjoyed all this. And then
Boulevard Haussmann.
- WESCHLER
- Let me, by the way—I've just got you in the Folies-Bergère. Had you been
doing studies from the nude at Chouinard?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- So it wasn’t a shock from way back?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no. The first time I saw a nude [in Patrick’s beginning drawing
class (Added by Hammersley during his review.)], it was just
unbelievable. I didn’t know what— I still have that drawing because it
was just so funny. You know, in those days, the word pregnant was not used. You look at the Cosmopolitan magazine. It’s like a feminine
Playboy. It’s unbelievable, the
language. Well, anyway. [I was beating around the bush here because I
was so flustered seeing a nude woman for the first time.( Added by
Hammersley during his review.)]
- WESCHLER
- You were starting to say the first time you saw a nude model.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It was very— I was in this class, and these other G.I.’s— My friend was
a marine, and he would go up to the model afterward and talk with
her.
- WESCHLER
- But this is after the war.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Excuse me. This is before the war, the first time I saw a nude. But when
in Paris—Where in the hell did we stay? Some hotel, I think. And
Boulevard Haussmann was the USO Club. Eglise de la Madeleine was here.
Rue Royale goes into Eglise de la Madeleine. You know that. And then
Haussmann. And they would serve coffee and doughnuts downstairs, and all
these G.I.’s from the front would come out. Oh, Christ, the poor
bastards. They looked like hell. And there was a little notice on the
bulletin board saying, “Visit Picasso's studio Wednesday at three
o’clock.”
- WESCHLER
- What do you mean? In other words, it was a USO offering? Or Picasso had
invited the USO?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. Well, evidently Picasso had okayed it, but I saw this notice that it
was possible to visit his studio, so this Red Phalen was in charge of
the G.I.’s in this Long Lines Control, and he also loved his wife. I
mean, there were two or three men that spoke highly of their wife. And
he had a bar in Chicago, redheaded, deadpan man, he’d go to SHAEF
[Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, Eisenhower’s
headquarters] and win all the money from the sergeants playing poker.I said, “Red, I have a chance to see Picasso’s studio.”He said, “Who’s that?”I said, “Well, so-and-so.”He said, “That’s all right. Take off.”So I took the afternoon off, and I went to the USO, and there were four
of us, four G.I.’s and a French lady, and we got on the Metro. It was
across the river. We ended up across the river, and then we came to this
place. Picasso’s assistant was kind of a cranky guy. I’ve seen the name
written someplace. But he opened the door.Oh, and previous to that, I’d seen a show of his, Picasso’s show at Salon
d’Automne, and all the Parisian students, children and adults three-deep
and the gendarmes around to keep them— They were laughing and making fun
of these terrible paintings, they said. Those paintings were in the
studio when we came in.
- WESCHLER
- Now, were you impressed with those paintings?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I was impressed because it was Picasso, like you are obliged to like
it.
- WESCHLER
- Picasso— Even in L.A., Picasso was a name you knew?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- But not something you had been taught to appreciate?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I had heard of Picasso. I visited Brancusi.
- WESCHLER
- I want to hear about all of that, but let’s stick with Picasso right
now.
- HAMMERSLEY
- The painting studio was downstairs. By the window there was this easel,
and his palette was a newspaper, for Christ’s sake. What in the hell?
And then there was a glass case of things that he had selected or he
liked or bought or something, little sculptures. And then upstairs was
the sculpture studio. And that’s where we eventually saw him. Yes, he
came out, and the French lady talked to him. “Bonjour, monsieur.” That’s
my extent of conversation. And then we went past his bedroom, and this
skinny Afghan dog was by the bed. And I was impressed because the bed
had a black and white cow-skin cover. See, this is how he influenced me.
I got some cow-skin-covered pillows later. And then we went by the
bathtub, and all these bottles on the shelf. It was amazing. So we’re
standing in the bathroom. He was talking to the lady, and we were just
standing, looking at him, and he went out into the balcony and brought
back the dove. He smiled, and he showed us this little dove. It was
sweet. And then after a while—
- WESCHLER
- A live dove that he had?
- HAMMERSLEY
- A live dove. Oh yes. It was in the cage outside. And we walked around a
little bit, and then we left.I went back there about four or five times. And the last time, there was
a big group from England, and they took a picture of us, but he wasn’t
there that time.
- WESCHLER
- Why did you go back?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I wanted to see more.
- WESCHLER
- In other words, what excited you about Picasso, or was it just that that
was—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, I wanted to see more of his things.
- WESCHLER
- What was exciting to a boy from nowhere about Picasso?
- HAMMERSLEY
- It was a rare opportunity. I mean, my god.
- WESCHLER
- But you were beginning to appreciate it? On the third or fourth time,
did you begin to appreciate something about Picasso?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I appreciated it the first time because he was a great man. I mean,
he was thought of as a great man. I was puzzled by his work. The Guernica and the Demoiselles— What’s that called?
- WESCHLER
- [Les Demoiselles] d’Avignon.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I still don’t like it. Do you like it, by the way?
- WESCHLER
- I like Guernica.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I saw a small version of the Guernica, and I said to Susie, “Susie, I really don’t care for
this.” I bought a couple of posters from [MusEe de] l’Orangerie, the
period where he was doing girls, the sweet— It was nice. Fat figures,
that sort of thing. But he was a remarkable man.
- WESCHLER
- What was on the walls? The things that had been at l’Orangerie, the
things that had been at the museum that were now back at his studio?
What was there?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t remember a single thing. There was some long figure. Oh, I
remember that was hanging there. You know, it’s amazing. If I don’t talk
about it or think about it, it disappears. I’m sorry.
- WESCHLER
- But what’s interesting to me is you didn’t think about it. It wasn’t
that important to you.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- Was there anything in Paris that was important to you as a young artist?
You said you went to Brancusi. What else did you see? What about
Brancusi? Was that interesting?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, he was the best. What’s Picasso’s friend?
- WESCHLER
- Braque?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Braque. He was right— Oh. I lived in the Les Etats-Unis building.
- WESCHLER
- Right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- You know, there’s a Spanish building, the German building, and a few
blocks away was Braque’s studio, and there was the same notice. “Meet
so-and-so. Come to Braque’s studio.” His house was immaculate. I
remember the blue carpet on the way up to the studio, and in the studio
there’s several easels with brushes in small jars of water, it looked
like. And then there was a desk by the window, and the corrugated
cardboard had been opened up so you could see the corrugations, and his
pencils were in there. So I was sitting there looking at his notebooks,
and he was talking to these other G.I.’s and this French lady, and the
dining room table was polished and dark and this lovely ceramic woven
bowl holding apples. I mean, everything was very attractive.Then when we left, I looked up and looked at the studio, and then I
realized, “Oh, there’s another studio here. That’s the one probably he
shows to people.” But nevertheless, he was working there. But I went
there twice, but—
- WESCHLER
- Was his art more impressive to you or less impressive?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t care for Braque.
- WESCHLER
- He himself, was he—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Charming, charming man. Kind and—
- WESCHLER
- Would you describe Picasso as charming?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Dynamic.
- WESCHLER
- Dynamic. I see.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Those eyes are like drills. He’s a strong son of a bitch. I mean, boy.
And that book, that [Françoise] Gilot book [Life
with Picasso], he was a bastard with people. But when he
talked about his own things— Use one brush and then you’ll have
consistency in your painting. That makes sense. That’s very interesting.
I thought that was very interesting. The composition of some of these
art students or art teachers, so convoluted and so— Oh, Jesus Christ,
just tell me what’s going on.
- WESCHLER
- You had mentioned that Brancusi was the best.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, he looked like a short Santa Claus in gray corduroy. And he came to
the door.
- WESCHLER
- Another one of these things with the little notes on the door?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- “Come on such-and-such an afternoon”?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I asked you the name of that man who did the glass thing, and you
told me, and I forgot.
- WESCHLER
- Duchamp.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Duchamp. What’s his brother’s name?
- WESCHLER
- There were several. François, Raymond Villon—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Villon, I think. Well, he was an image maker. There was that funny
little house in the middle of a plowed field, and I just remember it was
so odd, walking over these rows of tilled earth, and I don’t remember—
They were small things, and it was a small cottage. And then—
- WESCHLER
- You’re saying Brancusi. Talk about him.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. There were like six of us, getting more now. And the room was
filled with things, and he would bend down, and then after a while you
realized the whole room was moving because this sculpture stand was
slowly revolving.
- WESCHLER
- A mechanical revolving thing?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. The Fish. I could show you a picture
here, The Crowing Cock. I didn’t see that
for twenty-five years later. I took a picture of that. And so all these
things were moving, and god, it was— Bird in
Space was there.The lady said, “He’s going to show us some capitals he’s working on for a
Turkish client.” So they went in a room nearby. So I took some pictures,
and then when the lady came out, I said, “Would you ask him if it’s okay
to take some pictures?”He got red in the face. “No pictures.”So, I’m sorry. I’m glad he didn’t see me take them, but they’re in here.
I only saw that once, but those— Now, see, when I first saw the Bird in Space, it was kind of a shock, but
nevertheless, it fed your eyes all the time. It kept on feeding. It was
not like— Well, all the big people, they feed you. They feed you.
- WESCHLER
- Talk about that some more. What do you mean?
- HAMMERSLEY
- All right. I’ll go backwards. I taught children eight to twelve, and
they can go anyplace, and it’s very fascinating. I have a folio. You can
only have a child’s painting up for a couple of days. It’s boring. It’s
charming and sweet and stupid and wild, but there’s no life, no length
to it.
- WESCHLER
- No duration.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Duration. But you look at a giant’s, a quality thing— And McFee said,
“When you go to a show, don’t feel obliged to look at every painting.
Just go to the show and look at things, and some will stop you and some
won’t. And then you rest a while and come back and look again.”So I’d go out and have a cigarette, and come back and say, “I don’t
remember that. See, I remember the nose. I don’t remember that part of
the side.” And then I’d come back and look at it again. I found I’d have
to see a show six times. Then I felt comfortable with it. I was fed.
- WESCHLER
- And you had a sense of that with some of these Parisian artists, that
they were feeding you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, especially Brancusi.
- WESCHLER
- And talk about how Bird in Space feeds
you.
- HAMMERSLEY
- The title doesn’t quite match but— Well, you look at an amateur, you can
tell he’s an amateur when he draws a curve. A curve is a very difficult
thing to draw. And those curves, there’s a variation of curves, and
they’re all one piece. It was a real feast.
- WESCHLER
- And you knew that right away, looking at it?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, you kept on— I found myself looking. Oh. And then when he went to
the studio to show this thing, there was this round head, and he pressed
it. He said, “I’ll show you this thing.” I looked at this. It was called
The Unborn Child, and it was slowly
rocking. Oh. And the face was hardly there, you see. Goddamn. It was
wonderful.
- WESCHLER
- So you were in Paris for how long?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, until the Battle of the Bulge. I don’t know when that was.
- WESCHLER
- The winter of 1944.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, is that it?
- WESCHLER
- Right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- These two G.I.’s in the office said, “Marvin, let’s take our glasses.”
We had to get a physical. And he said, “Let’s take our glasses.” I would
wear glasses if I was doing small things. I left them at the office, and
as a result I got drafted to the infantry, and because of the Battle of
the Bulge, more bodies. So we were sent to Saint-Cyr. This was the
French West Point. Talk about a dull point. I mean, it was unattractive.
Enormous cement buildings with big, three-layer bunks, a palliasse. Have
you ever heard of a palliasse?
- WESCHLER
- Those are those burlap—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Burlap bags that you fill with straw. And our teacher was a sergeant
from the line. No teeth in front. And he said, “Well, the manual says
something, but you got to use your goddamn head." I remember walking at
four thirty in the morning to some exercise, and ever since I’ve had
chilblain, my hands got so cold. It was a marvelous experience. I was so
impressed by the time we were through, the last time over the obstacle
course, I felt like a million dollars. And then we’d go to the woods and
shoot things that would flip up. And that was with live ammunition.The thing I admired most about the G.I.’s is the one that had the combat
badge. It’s a rifle on a blue field. That’s the only thing that counts.
I don’t care for all this other salad. And this guy with no teeth, I
mean— And so when I was shooting these things, I dreaded the idea of
fighting, but I was very curious to see what it would feel like to have
that man shoot at me, and I’ve got to shoot him first or— I’ve got to do
something. I just would wonder what would happen. I would have an
advantage to take a big step in my development. I would learn a lot. I
never did.
- WESCHLER
- I was going to say, did you face combat yourself?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. So after we were through with this six weeks’ training, oh, then the
guy who wrote the manual came from the States, so, you know, had all the
answers. “We’ve given you all the comforts. You’ve got to go now.” The
comfort was they put straw in the bottom of these forty-by-eights.
Remember the French boxcars called forty-by-eights? They had four
wheels, by the way. They looked like a big toy. And forty-by-eights mean
they’ll take forty men or eight horses.So I was with some officers. So we, the G.I.’s, weren’t as crowded as the
other G.I.’s, and we traveled for three or four days going through
France, Belgium, Holland, and we ended up in some mine, on top of some
mine in Germany, and then we would shoot the German weapons. I was so
impressed with this. And some of the adventuresome G.I.’s would go down
in the mine. You weren’t supposed to, and the village nearby had hidden
or— Yes, hidden their supply of shoes or their supply of drafting
instruments, etc., because this one G.I. brought me back a compass with
an ivory handle on it.And what I found fascinating was an enormous room with many parallel
waist-high partitions, and that would be attached to a chain going to
the ceiling, and at the end of this chain there’d be a hook. So the
miner would undress and hook his clothes on the hook and roll his
clothes up to the ceiling and then lock it down here.And in this room, well, it felt like the size of these two rooms. That
was the shower room. And that’s where we’d have our showers.
- WESCHLER
- Meanwhile, the front is several hundred miles forward at that point?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t know where it was, but we were waiting to—
- WESCHLER
- And at that point you’re infantry? You’re no longer Signal Corps?
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s right. I was in the infantry. Well, there’s nothing you can do.
The army was the best thing that could’ve happened to me.
- WESCHLER
- How come?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I was in Europe, and to see these marvelous, beautiful things. Old, old.
Grandma was knitting, taking care of her cows. The grass looked old. The
three of them. Everything was— It was so unlike America. I just—
- WESCHLER
- Did you see a lot of destruction in Germany?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, Christ. When we first got to Britain, the planes would come over,
and you’d hear the shrapnel fall in the trees, and it would hit you
sometimes, and I saved some pieces, but what the hell. But I didn’t
really see anything. Now, let’s see—
- WESCHLER
- I don't mean did you see combat, but did you see the aftereffects of
combat?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, especially in Berlin.
- WESCHLER
- So at what point did you get to Berlin?
- HAMMERSLEY
- All right. Now, let’s see.
- WESCHLER
- You’re in that mine, and then what happens?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. Then the German war stopped, ended, and so we were sitting
there, like a lot of the other companies, you know, we were just sitting
there. So everyone had to be reassigned, and then the Japanese war was
still going on. So we were going to be shipped to France, and eventually
go over home and then to Japan. But my company ended up in the Hôtel de
Golfe on the coast of the English Channel, I guess, this lovely, big
hotel that was posh, and the dining room was lovely, and we were living
in this place.We were there about a week, and I got a cold or something that really, I
couldn’t move, so I signed up on sick call. So to go to sick call, you
had to get a jeep and go several miles to the village to where the G.I.
doctors were. So I went there, and by the time I came back, it was six
or something, seven o’clock, and my outfit had been assigned to go to
Japan. But I wasn’t there, so I wasn’t on the list. Unbelievable.So I was there a couple of days, and so I was shipped back to Paris
simply because I was an art student. And then— I forget what I did in
Paris or how long I was there. Then I was shipped to Frankfurt, Germany
to head a small art department. There were three other G.I.’s and
myself, and I remember this WAC [member of the Women’s Army Corps]. She
lives in Cambria now. And they were nervous. They didn’t know what the
hell to do. They were ordered to make a painting for a poster. “We just
don’t know what to do.”I said, “Well, I’ll make a poster with a bulldog.” I remember Rico Lebrun
saying, “You should be able to draw a rabbit.” And then, “You should be
able to draw a turtle. I mean, you’ve seen a turtle.”I said, “Well, I’ve seen a bulldog.” So I made one up. “That’s damn good,
Hammersley.”So I was in Frankfurt for a while, and then that office moved to OMGUS,
Office of Military Government, USA, in Berlin. Still another art— The
same art department. And that’s when I visited Berlin. I was looking for
art supplies.
- WESCHLER
- So, now, this would’ve been into ’45.
- HAMMERSLEY
- ’45, yes.
- WESCHLER
- What was Berlin like? Berlin had been destroyed.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, god, it was marvelous. The feeling of— The smell when you came in,
that was terrible, when we first came in.
- WESCHLER
- Terrible because of—
- HAMMERSLEY
- The dead people. They were invisible, I mean, but there was a terrible
stench. Later, I think that’s the first time I felt greed, at the— Unter
den Linden, that's the street. There’s a park on the other side of
Brandenburg Gate. I can’t remember that—
- WESCHLER
- Starts with a T.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Tiergarten. That’s where the black market was. And talk about making
money— A bar of soap you could buy in the PX for five cents or a package
of cigarettes for five cents, one could sell the cigarettes for twenty
dollars. And some people were writing home, “Sell my Chevrolet and send
me some money.” [laughs] And you weren’t allowed to be on the black
market, but you could get away with murder. And then there were AWOL
Russians, dirty and smoking cigarettes. The paper was newspaper.
- WESCHLER
- So you were saying, though, that when you first arrived, there was this
stench. The town itself had been pretty much obliterated.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes, yes, but it still felt marvelous.
- WESCHLER
- How so? How could a destroyed city feel marvelous?
- HAMMERSLEY
- It still had an attitude of greatness, of a great metropolis. I would
have loved to see it in the twenties. And I would love to see it— Did
you say you’ve been to Berlin?
- WESCHLER
- I was there last week.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I wonder what it must be like now. It must be wonderful.Let’s see. How did this happen? We were living by a subway station which
had shopping areas and theaters. Jack Benny and a lot of the movie stars
put on shows for us. God almighty. I’m kind of mixed up here on the
order of things.
- WESCHLER
- But when you say— Help me again. A destroyed city, and yet it had a
feeling of greatness. How did that feeling express itself?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Because it was so large, and the streets were wide. Oh. I’m reversing
myself. You asked me what impressed me about Paris. The thing that
really impressed me about Paris, you’d look down the street, and you’d
see a monument. And then I’d turn around, and I’d see the Arc de
Triomphe. The same way with Berlin. There were things planned—
- WESCHLER
- The Brandenburg Gate.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- The columns.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And at the other end of Unter den Linden— Was it Frederick the
Great’s museum on the left side? And then I went here, and there was a
marvelous statue, enormous statue. And I took a picture of a G.I.
sitting on the legs of the statue, and he was standing here, and I was
across the street, and they looked like toys, they were so small. And
then there was small-arms fire. The step had been chewed with small-arms
fire. So I walked up behind this, and I took a picture of the head. It
was a classic head. Then I was looking at this palace across the street
with the arch, and a carriage went by, so I got these three things in,
and I was very pleased with that.
- WESCHLER
- You mentioned sometimes that you were doing a lot of photography.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- As a hobby? Did you think you might become a photographer at that point?
What was that about?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. When I was in Idaho— How did I— I bought an Argus camera for twelve
dollars and fifty cents, and I was taking pictures of Fort Hall and
Pocatello, and then San Francisco. [Fort Hall was an Indian reservation.
Pocatello was the town nearby where I went to the southern branch of the
University of Idaho for two years. (Added by Hammersley during his
review.)] They’re in there. So I took that with me. I don’t know why I
bought this. Oh. A Voigtlander. I got rid of that. I have a German
camera now. So I was using both of them. I was brought up with my father taking pictures. I mean, he didn’t say
anything about composition. He didn’t say anything, that he liked this
or that. He just took pictures and would send them to friends or family.
My father was a record keeper, you know. If you bought that sweater,
he’d write the date on it. [laughs] And I do the same thing.
- WESCHLER
- I know you do. But in terms of photography, was that a discipline for
improving your sense of composition?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no. It was record making.
- WESCHLER
- And yet you do have— I have seen your photographs. They do have a fine
sense of composition.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. It became more focused when I came here and I
knew the photography department and the head.
- WESCHLER
- In New Mexico.
- HAMMERSLEY
- In New Mexico, University of New Mexico, when I was teaching painting
here. So I signed up to take the beginning photo class for the lab, how
to make a print, and I was very impressed how difficult it is to make a
decent print. My admiration went up more.
- WESCHLER
- That’s later. So anyway, you’re in Berlin. How long were you in
Berlin?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I don’t know, but it seemed like a few months. Oh yes. Well, yes, it
was an overlapping of the German war being over, and I had these various
things to do, and then this WAC and I were looking for art supplies.
Here I’m not answering your question.When I was in this gallery that had art supplies and books, I saw some
George Grosz drawings I could’ve got for cigarettes. I didn’t like them.
What an ass! But I bought three gorgeous Dűrer books that are just
heaven, and when Laurence Murphy saw that, he looked at this head, and
he said, “I could do that.” And I said to myself, “I’ll bet you could.”
But anyway.
- WESCHLER
- You also, as I recall, bought the woman artist with her [colored steel
engravings (Added by Hammersley during his review)].
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- What’s her name?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Merian, [Maria] Sibylla Merian. I’ll show you— Well, I have a clipping
from Smithsonian magazine. I’ve seen
several references.
- WESCHLER
- These are 1600s, right?
- HAMMERSLEY
- 1690.
- WESCHLER
- And these are images of still lifes?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, insects and plants.
- WESCHLER
- And they are etchings?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I have a feeling steel engraving, don’t you think?
- WESCHLER
- Steel engraving with watercolor.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And then I also have a costume thing that’s Italian. And that’s
1500-something. That was from the same studio.
- WESCHLER
- Now, were there museums up and operating at that point in Berlin, or
were they—
- HAMMERSLEY
- No.
- WESCHLER
- They were still—
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t—
- WESCHLER
- You didn’t do that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No.
- WESCHLER
- But you saw bookstores? You saw art supply stores?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I went to one bookstore, and we were lucky to find that. It was near
that photograph in the entry was very hard to get supplies.Oh. In the meantime G.I.’s were acquiring enough points to be discharged,
how long you had been in the army. I don’t know if action would increase
your points. I think it would. And so I would see these records that
three G.I.’s are going to law school in London, and so-and-so are going
to architectural school or music, etc., etc., etc. And then one came in,
"Two of them leave for the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.” I looked at
that. I said, “I’ll be damned.” So I went to the lieutenant, and I said,
“Can I take one of those?”He said, “Sure.” [laughs] God. So I signed up, went to Paris. I forget
where I was living. I was living in the Grand Palais. Do you remember
the Petit Palais and the Grand Palais? This enormous glass door, and the
guys would come in drunk and slam that door.
- WESCHLER
- Oh my god. Oh my god.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It was terrible. I forget the hotel I was living in, and there were
several G.I.’s that we got together at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts,
wherever we signed up, and then we found a studio. It was like a little
amphitheater. And then we’d visit the painting studios. We’d go there.
But I mean, it was raucous . I mean, these were children. They were
teenagers, and they were having a ball.I remember this delicious plump nude posing, and the French boy was
standing, holding a piece of long wood, and it was burning on the end,
and he was holding it by her back so she’d get warm. Oh, Christ. It was
hard to get coal. We’d hire models and draw or paint. And once a week a
painting instructor would come in and say, “C’est très bien.” Big deal.Oh, and the thing that impressed me at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts was the
museum of all the plaster casts, Greek and Roman, these gorgeous— Oh
god. And occasionally— "Oh, there’s a student over there," and they
would turn a chair upside down and put the drawing board in it and draw,
and they used the inside of French bread: pressed it together and used
that as the eraser.If you entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts as young student, you’d have to
spend a year in this museum drawing these casts.
1.3. TAPE NUMBER: II, SIDE ONE JANUARY 15, 2003
- WESCHLER
- We just got to the exciting point where we’re in Paris, French students
drawing, erasing with bread.
- HAMMERSLEY
- The students are. We were able to get PX things. But what impressed me,
they’d spent a year in this marvelous museum. It’s an enormous building.
There’s a little drawing or etching in my hallway showing the building.
After the year’s up— You know, you see this old clichE with the
Frenchman, the beret, and the blue smock? These two Frenchmen carrying
the litter with the sculpture, going into the corner atelier for their
test. The student would have to make a drawing. They’d spend one day on
making a drawing, and the painting instructor would come in and say oui or non, and the poor
bastard, if it was no, he would have to go back to the museum for
another year. Or, if he got yes, then he gets in the painting studio.There was a small, seemed like a small room, filled with paintings
twenty-four by thirty of all the Prix de Rome winners from the Ecole des
Beaux-Arts. Very talented, marvelous paintings. I mean, they were so
accurately done.
- WESCHLER
- Academic?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Academic, yes. And then you wondered, you know— I don’t quite
understand. I’m unable to do this, make the step from a still life to
what [Giorgio] Morandi’s doing. You see, it’s a still life, but it’s
Morandi and the still life. I do a still life, and it’s a still life.
Hammersley is not there much. I mean, I can’t— Or a Modigliani. I mean,
it’s a nude plus Modigliani. I don’t understand. I’m not able to do that
yet. And I admire it very much.
- WESCHLER
- "Yet" you say at the age of eighty-five. [laughs]
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- But one of the things that’s interesting is compared to Los Angeles, the
level of education you’re receiving is a quantum leap, it seems like,
don’t you think? Or would you say you were getting as good an education
in Los Angeles?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no, because I was right in the middle of history, and seeing the
streets and the buildings—
- WESCHLER
- Did you spend much time in the Louvre?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. I have a picture of the Mona Lisa.
I mean, you could walk up and touch it in those days. When I was first
there, all the paintings were gone, and only the sculpture was there,
and I have always wanted to see the back of Venus de Milo, so I have a
picture. The WAC was down the hall, this long passageway, and this
Venus, the back view of her, and I took the picture, and the guard is
standing by the window. But I love the sculpture.
- WESCHLER
- Did the paintings come back while you were still there?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, because that’s when I saw the—
- WESCHLER
- What did you like? Here you are, a boy from nowhere—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Isn’t that funny? I don’t remember a particular thing. I’m just
impressed with this David or these— The size. It whetted my appetite.
I’d love to see Velázquez. I’ve never seen him. And I was so impressed
at Picasso taking four months off to copy Velázquez, and he ended up
doing an abstract thing of this hand. I said, “I wish I’d done that.”
Oh, god, it was abstract, of a hand.I don’t really remember— There was an article in the Smithsonian about the people whose profession
is copyist. “I would like this Gericault, and it has to be—" The Louvre,
you have to have it slightly smaller. It can’t be the same size. Clever.
And these people are very accomplished, and this breathtaking— Goddamn
it, when we were in Jepson’s [Jepson Art Institute], we would copy El
Greco or some people, and this one boy, it was a very good copy. I said,
“I’m going to try that.” And it’s very hard. [Watching El Greco, 1974; Copy of El
Greco, 1950s]
- WESCHLER
- So eventually how long were you in Paris? When did you leave?
- HAMMERSLEY
- The early part of ’46.
- WESCHLER
- Did you come back to America?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Come back to America.
- WESCHLER
- To Los Angeles?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Wait a minute. No, to San Francisco. I took a trainload of— I don’t
know why I was assigned to this trainload of G.I.’s from New York, and
that’s where I realized that we’d see the landscape and that house
looked like it’d been put up last week, and everything was brand-new. I
mean, it was not Paris. I mean, not Europe. And I just envy these
people. Well, it’s in another world, and we’re not in that world, and I
envy them, but I wouldn’t want to live in Europe.All right. So the train would stop in these various places.
- WESCHLER
- In the new world.
- HAMMERSLEY
- In the new world, and we end up in San Francisco, and I remember
carrying my— Oh. And then we were discharged and all that monkey
business, signing papers. And I carried this enormous duffle bag home to
Burlingame, and I was there until it was time to go to school, to
Chouinard.
- WESCHLER
- So you were reporting back to Chouinard?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- Now, here’s my question for you. Describe how the person reporting back
to Chouinard was different than the person who had left to go to Europe,
in terms of when you left to go to Europe, you were thinking that you
would be an advertising artist. Was that still your thought, reporting
back to Chouinard? How had Europe changed you, or had it?
- HAMMERSLEY
- When I came back, I go to Chouinard— Oh yes, I did take an advertising
class from the lettering man which I’d had previously. But I was
frightened of people. And I made a folio which I was very pleased
with—
- WESCHLER
- Even after all your experience in the war, you were frightened, or
because of your experience in the war?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no, not because of. Because of Mother. Mother.
- WESCHLER
- So you were a shy kind of—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I was not— My family was not outgoing. My father was not
aggressive. He was assertive, but not aggressive. Lawrence, I think of
my cat. My cat will bring in a bird. She’s very excited. She doesn’t
know what to do with it. Bless her heart. Her mother didn’t teach her to
eat the bird. The first cat I had, I would see feathers often where she
had had a meal of a bird. And you’ve got to be around people that— I’ve
been thinking for years I’d like to write a paper about that chestnut
“monkey sees, monkey does.” That is an amazing principle. You’ll become
what you are around. The people that you are around, the things you look
at, you reflect that. And if you’re with crummy things, you do crummy
work.
- WESCHLER
- And if you’re with tongue-tied, shy or anxious people, you become
that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I was a practicing neurotic. I was very good at that.
- WESCHLER
- But coming back to the question I asked you about, how had Europe
changed you— Part of what I want to get to this morning is how you
became an artist as opposed to an advertising copywriter or
whatever.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, I was suspicious of being an artist, because— Did I tell you,
before the war, I was looking at Henry Lee McFee and I said, “This nice
man, three-piece suit and a beard, a tie, isn’t that strange, a grown
man spending his time putting paint on a piece of cloth? That’s
absolutely ridiculous.” I mean, Christ, you don’t make a living— How can
he justify that? That disappeared eventually. When I came back from the
war and seeing all these paintings—
- WESCHLER
- Did that disappear in Europe? Is that where it disappeared?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, I think it disappeared later. Oh, yes, it disappeared. Yes. I had
the folio— I got in Graphis Annual
[1952-53] with some cards I designed, and the folio is now in the
archives. I got on my bike and started on Wilshire Boulevard downtown
and visited the art services all the way up to Beverly Hills, applied
for a job. And, you see, I didn’t want a job, and I was subconsciously—
Subconsciously, I didn’t want a job, so I asked for a part-time job.
That’s ridiculous. Who’s going to give you a part-time job? I mean, are
you going to join the company, or are you going to— So I was let down,
but I was happy. I didn’t have to work with people. With painting, you
don’t have to work with people. [Weschler laughs.]So after the war, I went to Chouinard, and it wasn’t as good as it was.
It was in another place, and then I heard Rico [Lebrun] was—[Telephone rings. Tape recorder turned off.]
- WESCHLER
- First things first. Let’s correct. You’re eighty-four and not
eighty-five. Okay. But you were starting to say that Chouinard, when you
came back, was not as good. They’d moved.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, I know my painting teacher would paint horses on commission for
Texas people. I thought, “That’s a good idea.” I mean, that’s a good way
to make business. Horses are gorgeous. And one drawing instructor, he
wasn’t— A very good mouth, but no protein in his talk.
- WESCHLER
- So you moved over to Jepson [Art Institute]?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- [Herbert] Jepson had started a school at this point?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, he had started a school.
- WESCHLER
- Where was that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- On Seventh Street right near Ted Gibson, the art store. I designed the
first sign for Ted Gibson, bless his heart. He was ninety-two when he
died. Nice guy.But anyway— Oh. What was exciting about Jepson’s, they were mostly
G.I.’s. You know, they knew they wanted a red sweater, I mean, or they
knew—
- WESCHLER
- What do you mean, they knew they wanted a red sweater?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, excuse me. They knew what they wanted to do. They wanted to learn
about drawing. And they wanted some painting, and they wanted
silkscreen.
- WESCHLER
- They had G.I. Bill money.
- HAMMERSLEY
- They had it, and that was sixty-five dollars a month. Hell, that was
freedom. I was paying nineteen dollars a month— Oh. Yes. When I left
home to go to Chouinard to sign up, Gladstone bag, for Christ’s sake, I
took a train down to Los Angeles, got on the streetcar, came up and went
to my— No. I called up from the phone from the train station.[Telephone rings. Tape recorder turned off.]
- WESCHLER
- The question occurred to me, by the way, why did you go to Los Angeles
to study art and not stay in San Francisco? Were there no good art
schools in San Francisco, or you just—
- HAMMERSLEY
- I had been used to Chouinard. I knew Chouinard. I really didn’t think of
going to a San Francisco school. I remember visiting the [California]
School of Fine Arts [now San Francisco Art Institute], that big place,
the one that has the [Diego] Rivera mural.
- WESCHLER
- Right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- You know that? I think that is the cleverest, marvelous, most
imaginative mural, to see the back of him, clever.
- WESCHLER
- But in San Francisco you had [Richard] Diebenkorn and David Park. That
scene wasn’t yet going on, but it was on the verge.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I didn’t care for those people. They were big names. I didn’t know any
of the galleries in San Francisco. Oh, I would always— I would go to the
three museums a lot. I liked the museums. I loved those Ecole des
Beaux-Arts architecture and those old-fashioned buildings. Lovely. This
crap they’re doing today—
- WESCHLER
- But you had no— You’d just go to L.A. If you were going to study art,
L.A. was the place you wanted to be.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct, because I knew it and I expected it to be the same, and it
wasn’t. But when I got to this train station, I called up Mrs. Harris. I
said, “Do you have a room, Mrs. Harris? I’m going to go to Chouinard.”She said, “No, I’m filled up.” But she said, “You could sleep in the
kitchen if you like.”And I said, “All right.”Can you imagine, coming down with no preparation? You write things first.
It’s amazing what’s happened to me.So I got on the streetcar, came up. And it was very hard to do
assignments on an oval table with a drawing board, you know. It’s like
this. And after a week, she said, “Now that little room is available.”
So a tiny little room here overlooking the parking lot.And then the Nuremberg trials were on. They talked about Hess or
something. His jail cell was six by nine feet. So I did this, and it was
six by nine feet, this room. Unbelievable, three dollars a week. And
then I splurged and got a room across the street, second floor, for
nineteen dollars a month out of the sixty-five. See, that was a lot of
money.
- WESCHLER
- And you’re studying at Jepson now?
- HAMMERSLEY
- At Jepson.
- WESCHLER
- What’s that like? Rico Lebrun is there?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And what I liked is that all the G.I.’s were older. I’ve used the
word civilians. There were two or three
civilians that were out of it. They were just in the wrong— They were
children. Here these G.I.’s were old.
- WESCHLER
- Did you feel like you were old?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. No, I didn’t. But I felt how he felt, this young kid. And then there
was a retired colonel.
- WESCHLER
- The G.I.’s you thought of as old were G.I.’s who had seen combat,
basically?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, who were in the army. Not necessarily combat, but had been in the
army.
- WESCHLER
- Well, you had been in the army. You didn’t feel that way?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No.
- WESCHLER
- You still felt a young nobody from nobody?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, I was glad I had the army. I was very pleased to have had that.
But I was not aggressive or assertive.
- WESCHLER
- Monkey not see, monkey not do.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exactly. I was monkeying around for years. [mutual laughter] God,
terrible.Oh. I was very impressed with Rico. He’d come in, and the class would be
there, and he’d give a talk, and it was very strong and great. One
student turned around, he said, “I have a feeling you can be influenced
by this guy too much.” Then he turned around. Then Rico ended up in the
little room and called the first student. “Bring your folio.”So you’d bring your folio, and he’d look at it, and then he’d say to the
student, “What do you want to do? What do you want to do?”And they’d say, “Well, I want to go into fashion,” or, “I want to do
whatever.”When it came to me, he looked at the stuff, and he said, “It’s very nice,
Hammersley. What do you want to do?”I said, “I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t know what I want to do.”He said, “All right.” [laughs]And then this other guy came in, and he said, “What do you want to do?” “I want to make money.”He said, “Okay.” And this guy was in silkscreen. Five years later in the
Saturday Evening Post, he was making
$50,000 a year doing silkscreens for motels: Nice.So I liked that with Rico. “What do you want to do?”Now, toward the end, I started to teach when I was going to school, and
he would sit me down, and the students would be around, and the model
would pose, and he said, “All right, Hammersley, give me the left
contour.” You think of the pencil as a knife. You have to look before
you draw, so when you come to it, you’ll know what you’re going to do.
And when the flesh is going over a bone, it’s a different contour than a
flesh that’s hanging. When a stool is pushing against the buttock, it’s
different than the leg which is down there. These curves had been
influenced by the situation, and you’ve got to be a seismograph. And
it’s very exciting.
- WESCHLER
- This is Lebrun talking or this is you talking?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Me. And you make a mark and you miss. What the hell. You make another
mark. You don’t erase. And the dirty word is “sketch.” You don’t sketch.
You either— Oh. One thing that impressed me about him, he said, “Don’t
try to make a good drawing. Just tell me the facts.” Now, that’s true. I
watched some of the people, and there’s a seductive quality about
brushing, brushing to get— You know, it feels nice, and you listen to
it, and you’re off the track.So anyway, I was teaching there and going to school, and then toward the
end, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.
- WESCHLER
- Now, you’re teaching figure drawing?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Figure drawing and painting. Seems like there was another class.Mrs. [Nelbert] Chouinard said, “Jepson is not a good businessman. He’s
paying his instructors too much.” On the G.I. Bill, if I’m in your
class, the G.I. Bill would give the school a dollar and the instructor a
dollar— No, that’s what Jepson did. The G.I. would give two dollars per
student for this class, but Jepson would turn around— If there were ten
students in my class, I’d get ten dollars and the school would get ten
dollars. When I had fifty students in my class, I got that fifty, and
they got fifty. Mrs. Chouinard said, “He should pay a salary.” So the
school died. He was not a good businessman.
- WESCHLER
- Who else was at the— Rico Lebrun was there.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And Billy [William] Brice and [Howard] Warshaw were teaching there.
- WESCHLER
- Tell me about them.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I was out of their league. I mean, I was not friends with them. I knew
them. I knew Billy Brice at Chouinard before the war. See, most of the
kids would take the streetcar or walk, and there were two rich kids, as
I remember—I think I’m correct—and I think Billy Brice was one of them.
I think it was a Buick. There was a car outside. All the other guys
would bring their lunch and walk and take the streetcar. But Billy Brice
was a nice guy, and he would look at things. He would look at things.
And Warshaw, I didn’t care for his work. There’s a painting in the
County Museum called Golgotha he did. He
was a very energetic man. It seemed to me he was teaching in Santa
Barbara or someplace.But anyway, let’s see. What other teachers— Oh, and F. Tolles Chamberlin.
Have you ever heard that name?
- WESCHLER
- I’ve heard the name.
- HAMMERSLEY
- He was an academic. There’s an enormous book on California painters, and
his painting, to me, is the best painting in the book. It’s
old-fashioned, but it’s rich. Lovely, lovely. Rico got rid of him, the
son of a bitch. I mean, he was a nice old man, and he would hold— Oh.
When I took a painting class from him, all the time was spent in
preliminary studies: we never got to the goddamn painting. I didn’t like
that.Jepson said it was hard to go to lunch with Tolles Chamberlin because he
would stop and look at the cracks in the sidewalk. He looked at
things.
- WESCHLER
- You said that also of Brice. Talk a little bit more about Brice.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, I don’t know much about him, except he came here for the Tamarind
[Lithography Workshop] thing. He came over one evening, and then I would
go over there, and we would talk. I envied him. He had a private tutor
when he was a high school kid, and he’d spend a lot of time in the–
“Louvre” I was going to say. In the Met. And I envied him. I remember
seeing his mother in Frank Perls’ gallery on a [Rufino] Tamayo show, and
later I learned that she had one of Tamayo’s watermelon paintings. I
love Tamayo.
- WESCHLER
- So now describe the art scene in L.A. in ’48, ’49, and that would
include are there new galleries beginning to open at this point?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, now, the [Paul] Kantor [Gallery] came in next to Frank Perls’, and
there must’ve been other galleries. Oh yes, on La Cienega there were all
kinds of galleries.
- WESCHLER
- So [Felix] Landau is in there at some point?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Landau, yes. And Ben [Benjamin] Horowitz. I went with him. And across
the street was the Ferus Gallery.
- WESCHLER
- That’s not yet. That’s going to happen late fifties. But we’re in the
late forties here and into the fifties. Well, let’s begin to orient
ourselves towards the fifties now.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I’m trying to think what happened the latter part of the forties. I was
going to school, started in ’46. Oh yes. When the school died, it so
shocked me, I had no preparation. “How am I going to pay the rent?
Hammersley, what in god’s name are you doing?” So I had an idea to make
some silkscreen greeting cards, and I called them Hand Some cards, and I
had a gadget made where the hand would be pressed into a seal, and that
package ended up in Graphis. And this
young lady was with me, and we tried to sell them. Well, hell, I mean, I
had no business experience, and I spent a lot of time. It was
interesting because I wasn’t involved with people. And then Jimmy
[James] Grant, who was a classmate of mine— Now, he was a shrewd boy. He
was going to Jepson’s, and [Francis] deErdely was teaching at— USC? No.
What’s the school in Los Angeles? Well, anyway, Jimmy Grant went there
to get a degree. Well, no one in Jepson’s— When I went to art school in
Chouinard or Jepson, no one talked about graduating. You just went as
long as the purse lasted. But he was clever enough to get an official
document, and then he got a job teaching painting and drawing at Pomona
College, and there was only one other instructor. That was Charles
Lawler, a sculptor. Jimmy called and asked if I’d like to come out and
teach. And that’s where I first met Seymour Slive. Do you remember
him?
- WESCHLER
- Who’s he?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I was talking to [Louis] Grachos. He knew Slive. Slive was a
Rembrandt man, and he was the chairman of the art department. There were
only three in the studio at that time, and there were two or three
historians— Fuller? Is that her name? And there was a marvelous man.
That’s the first time I saw slides of ancient Greece and things in the
lectures. I’d never had an art lecture, and that was marvelous.
- WESCHLER
- Well, it’s interesting. You describe yourself as this kind of hapless
novice, but you’re obviously good enough to be the one person who they
asked to be the teacher at Pomona. So what did you have going for you at
that point?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I was a good draftsman. I was a good teacher. And I taught children at
the Pasadena [Art] Museum. No, I love to teach. It’s so fascinating. You look at the eyes, and
someone understands— Those eyes, god, no, they don’t get me at all. All
right. It’s not your problem, kid. It’s my problem. So I’ve got to
rearrange the words so they get it.
- WESCHLER
- It’s striking, because you describe yourself also as very awkward with
people, and yet you were a good teacher.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, it’s very funny. I’m very good with conversation, with strangers. I
know how they feel. But I’m not saying, “Let’s go into business
together. Let’s have a date.” It’s that kind of thing.
- WESCHLER
- But in anonymous or routinized relationships, you’re okay?
- HAMMERSLEY
- What does that mean, “routinized”?
- WESCHLER
- Teacher-student.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes, yes. What is interesting, you see, I was copying Mother. I was
in charge, and now that was simple. I was the teacher. One student made
one remark which was worth the whole teaching period. I set up the still
life. It took me a while. I was sweating this thing out. Yes, that’s all
right. This girl said, “Mr. Hammersley, what is so significant about
that still life?” [laughs] I thought that was just marvelous. So I said
to myself, “That’s right, Hammersley. What is so significant about that
still life?”
- WESCHLER
- And what was?
- HAMMERSLEY
- So I looked at it. I had to look at it. Why was I— Why did I feel
comfortable after making that still life? And it was a family of
straights to a family of curves. There are wine bottles which have a
sloping shoulder, wine bottles which have a football shoulder, and
there’s bowls, and then there’s an orange. It was a series of a variety
of contours that were all related. It was all the same family, and
that’s why it fit or came together. That’s what was so significant. But
I’d never had a question like that.That’s the kind of question— As a matter of fact, Dick Saar was the only
one that would ask questions to Rico Lebrun. I was afraid of him. But
this guy, he would say, “Why do you have a beard? What’s the reason
for—?” I thought, “Son of a bitch, that’s great. I wish I’d done that.”
It was nice.So anyway, the teaching was—
- WESCHLER
- So that’s in the early fifties, you’re teaching?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I started to teach in Pomona. It’s ’53, and I taught nine years.
- WESCHLER
- Where were you living during that time?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I was living on Rampart, for goodness sake.
- WESCHLER
- So that was a long drive.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I would take the bus, take the streetcar, take the bus. And then I
bought a Volkswagen and I learned how to drive, and I remember taking
Rico Lebrun out to give a talk. So I enjoyed that driving. The driving
was interesting, because it was a nice interval between the work and
home, that things could settle down and you’d think about things. It’s
like having a nap. A nap or lying down doing nothing is very important
because it gives time for ideas to settle.
- WESCHLER
- Before we leave school— That was the work that you did at school; is
that correct?
- HAMMERSLEY
- That was the end of Jepson’s.
- WESCHLER
- So let’s talk about it. What do you call that work again?
- HAMMERSLEY
-
Red, Yellow, Black, and White. [Odds & Ends (Red, Yellow, Black, and
White), 1947]
- WESCHLER
- And that was part of a series of fourteen?
- HAMMERSLEY
- That was the fourteenth painting.
- WESCHLER
- So talk about that.
- HAMMERSLEY
- When I was teaching at the end of Jepson’s— Oh yes, like I told you, I
didn’t know what I wanted to do. No, I didn’t know what the hell was
going on with painting. I would make a still life, and Mother would
smile. Big deal. But I said, “There must be something more than this.”
So in the alley I found this chunk of wood and a piece of hose and some
things, and I put it together. I said, “That feels rather nice.” I can
show you the painting if you wish. It felt rather nice.
- WESCHLER
- It was a traditional still life where you made it look like—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Traditional still life. Correct. And I looked at it, and I said, “All I
need is red and yellow and black and white.” If I marry yellow and
black, I get greens. Yellow and red, I get oranges; yellow and white, I
get pale yellow. And then I take red and marry them, and have children.
And then if I have all these offspring, and then if I take these
offspring and marry them with other offspring, I get another gray
series, but they’re still black and white, yellow and red. I’ve
influenced more students with those four colors. The gray starts looking
blue, because, see, there’s nothing blue around it, so it looks—
- WESCHLER
- Gray’s an amazing color to work with, anyway.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, it’s lovely. Gray is the diplomat that talks to everyone.[Sueo] Serisawa was a Japanese painter. In one of these annual L.A.
County shows, there was a painting, pistachio green and magentas, these
bright colors. How the hell does that stay on the wall? And then there
was one gray square. I said, “You clever bastard. That’s very good.” If
you have everything, you have nothing. But if I have got everything and
something different, then I have a family.
- WESCHLER
- Talk again about— You started with this relatively figurative image of
this group of objects. In another context, you called them actors, is
that what—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes.
- WESCHLER
- When you were showing me your painting, you called it— What did you say?
You said that has several actors in it?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. The small, like that orange thing— [Checkered
Career, 1949]
- WESCHLER
- Right, right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- There’s an actor with four parts, and then I have four actors that are
doing different— They’re occupying different places on the stage, but
they’re not repeating themselves. And then I would clothe them with
different— Yes, I think of still life objects as actors. Oh. Another
thing—
- WESCHLER
- In a sense, by implication, you think of yourself as the director of a
scene when you’re doing a still life?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I never thought of that, but that’s true. The thing that shocked me when
I left Jepson, and then I didn’t know what the hell to do, so I did a
lot of self-portraits, and that’s where I bumped into hunch painting by
accident, by seeing the shape—
- WESCHLER
- We’ll get to that in a second, but go ahead.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. I rented this little room over a garage, and it dawned on me,
painters only use seven tools. I said, “Why the hell didn’t they say
that in art school?” It would so relax the students—or me.
- WESCHLER
- What do you mean seven tools?
- HAMMERSLEY
- The elements that make up a painting are only seven elements. Line,
shape, value. When I say value, it’s dark and light. Form, and when I
say form, I mean three dimensions. Then there’s pattern and there’s
texture. That is the only seven things there are.
- WESCHLER
- You’ve got six there, but there must be seven.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Color. [mutual laughter] That was so relaxing. Now, these become
actors, and I think of Bette Davis.
- WESCHLER
- Each of those things become actors?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. And you can’t have them all talk at once. It’s chaos. Then it
dawned on me, shape is the daddy of them all, but I can’t have shape—and
the next important thing is value—I can’t have shape unless it has some
value. I can dispense with color and form and all the others, but the
bones is shape and value. And that’s where that other thing I told you
about last evening. [I went to Forest Lawn after reading The Loved One, by Evelyn Waugh. I ended up in
a long marble room, at the end of which was a stained glass image of a
religious scene. As the speaker talked he raised the light to ‘high
noon,’ then slowly dimmed the lights. The first thing I noticed was that
texture left—disappeared. Then small pattern and—I forgot to mention it
to you—form. 3D and color went, and what was left was the bones of the
image—value. White to grays to black. So the end was shape and value! I
was so impressed. I went home and looked at my paintings the same way.
The good ones are good because the structure is clear, though not
usually realized.(Added by Hammersley during his review.)] Now, then color comes. When I have color, I have value automatically, and
then form, that’s something else. But then I started looking at all the
Old Master things and realized they were using all the actors, but
they’re very clever that they are using form— They’re selling that
today. Mondrian, he’s interested in shape and color. He’s not interested
in three dimensions at all. Just forget it. There’s implied three
dimensions, but it’s not intentional.So that was a great awareness, and I was so surprised that no one talked
about that. So I talk about it. Then I’ve embarrassed many graduate
students. I’d say, “Give me a definition of line.” Now, shape is not too
difficult to define. Shape is that which has two dimensions. Line is
that which has length only. Isn’t that clever? And color is a
complicated— I’m never quite satisfied with the dictionary—
- WESCHLER
- Now, let’s come back and tell me the story of those fourteen paintings
as a story.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes.
- WESCHLER
- So you sat down one day, and you drew— You liked a still life that you
created.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And I don’t know quite why I say— Oh. Because the world, I guess, there
were still lifes around me— “Well, I’d like to make a— Maybe I could
boil this down simpler.” And I remember Rico making some drawings. It
didn’t help a great deal because— Anyway, I kept on making drawings. And
then when I got the drawing that was right, I said, “Fine. I’ll just use
black and white and yellow and red.” Well, that’s not very satisfying.
“So I’ll put them in different places.” Well, all right. “How about if I
married them? Then I’ll get— Oh, that’s better.”So it took me a long time to— There’s one painting hanging in the back,
the storeroom, where it’s the thirteenth painting, where the colors are
brighter. So I finally hit upon— It started to look pretty good, and
then it came to the thirteenth painting. That’s not bad, but it still—
It’s not comfortable enough. And I was putting texture, and I was trying
to use all the tools, but that has emphasized shape and value first.
Color is second.
- WESCHLER
- That’s the fourteenth one, the last one you’re looking at right now.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- By the way, one of the things it looks like is somebody who has seen
Cubism in Paris. Is that fair to say?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Give me an example of Cubism painting, the Cubist painting.
- WESCHLER
- Juan Gris or something like that.
- HAMMERSLEY
- As I remember, a definition of Cubism is like the showing— Picasso would
show the side and the front at the same time. That’s Cubism.
- WESCHLER
- Yes, yes. Well, okay. Let’s not say it. But in any case, this is not—
The fourteenth iteration of this series is not a literal-minded still
life.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- Something has happened. One of the things I would say is that shapes
have flattened out.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exactly. Exactly.
- WESCHLER
- And would you say that even though you’d seen things like that in Paris,
you had to kind of do it yourself to get to it or was it influenced by
what you’d seen in Paris, or was it influenced by what people were doing
at Jepson, or where did you get— What is somebody in Los Angeles doing
flattening out shapes in 1950, ’51, whenever this was?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I think that word stuck in my head.
This image, this shape must relate to the canvas shape. There must be a
tie-in. I can’t just put a face in the middle. It has to relate some
way. And that’s where the thirds come in, where the eye would be right
in the middle, and his hand would be under the eye, this Velázquez
thing, so that— So anyway, I was trying to make it simpler, and to make
it just flat, that’s going on, but then I jazz it up by putting texture
and pattern on it. But it doesn’t interfere with the shape-value role.
And as I say, that was the first painting I got in the San Francisco
show [the annual show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art]. And
[Alfred] Frankenstein, the critic, gave me a paragraph, and I was so
pleased. And then I never got in a show for five years after that.
- WESCHLER
- What year was this?
- HAMMERSLEY
- ’48. Isn’t that amazing?
- WESCHLER
- So in terms of your own work, you’ve now reached this— Now, by the way,
by the time you’ve done this painting, are you a painter? Or you still
don’t know what you’re going to do with your life?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, I was painting. I didn’t consciously think that I’m a painter. I was
teaching painting and drawing. Oh, that’s another thing. Yes, that’s
another thing. When— Oh, that’s right. I’ve lived a very strange life.
After nine years at Pomona, I was up to my eyes, and I said, “I’d like
to take a year off.” And this new chairman came in, and he said, “No.”So I said, well, I’d put aside enough money I could live on a year. So I
took a year off, and then Chouinard called me. That was ’64. I started
in ’64, and I taught till ’68 at Chouinard.
- WESCHLER
- So let’s get the dates right. You started teaching at Pomona when?
- HAMMERSLEY
- ’53.
- WESCHLER
- Okay.
- HAMMERSLEY
- ’62, I quit. Nine years I was at Pomona.
- WESCHLER
- Right. So putting these things in order, this painting here that we’re
talking about was 1948.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s right.
- WESCHLER
- Then you started teaching at Pomona in ’53. You teach there nine years,
and then you teach four more years at Chouinard.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. The ’48 period, I guess I was— Yes, I was still teaching and
going to Jepson’s. Yes.
- WESCHLER
- How were you making your living between ’48 and ’53? Part of it at
Jepson’s?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. I worked for a— By god, that’s right. When Jepson’s stopped, I
worked—
- WESCHLER
- Jepson’s stops when?
- HAMMERSLEY
- ’49 or ’50. I had a— "What the heck? What am I going to do? This
business of earning the money is terrible. You’ve either got to select
your parents carefully or how do I do this?" So I got a— How this came
about, I don’t remember. A printing company that did three-dimensional
advertising things, the art director, and I was his next man. I’ll never
forget. It’s amazing. I enjoyed the work, and I was very impressed, and
he would take a brand-new piece of illustration board and cut it up and
make the— Rather than me searching for a piece, you see. I was close
with money. I had to be careful with money. Then I realized he’s saving
time. He’s costing paper, but—And I had— There was a great big flower pot this big, with a post and a
flag. The whirlpool brassiere, remember? He said, “Hammersley, make a
spiral [on the flat area around the pole] that goes all the way out.
Make a spiral a quarter-inch wide.” I was very pleased with this idea,
so I got a brush the right thickness, and I tied a string to the post,
and I started, and I walked around, and I slowly made the whole thing.
Very good.And there would be a half-hour lunch. I’d go across to the high school
lawn, have lunch for ten minutes and sleep for fifteen. In the army, you
could sleep at the drop of a hat. You’re on exercise, and take a
ten-minute break, well, hell, we’d all sleep for ten minutes. So I’d
sleep for ten minutes, come back and work.Oh yes, and then the ’53 job came in.
- WESCHLER
- Now, during that time between ’50 and ’53, did you think of yourself as
a painter who had a day job, or was that job pretty much consuming
you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, I found it very difficult to work five days a week. That didn’t
suit Hammersley, his attitude.
- WESCHLER
- And were you able to keep painting during that time really, on your own
or—
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t remember. Yes, I think so, because I rented a garage, a room
over this little old-fashioned house, two-story house, and there was a
garage. In those days, the garage was very small. The cars were small.
And it must’ve been a maid’s room upstairs. You open the door and walk
up the stairs, and here was this room with a slanting [dormer] ceiling,
and the windows on either side. Oh yes, and when I’d do a portrait, the
light would come horizontally, and I would see the shapes of my face,
and the shapes were clear. I said, “Damn, that’s marvelous.”So I made a drawing— Oh, and I remember being in Paris and seeing the
Modigliani paintings where he’d painted the ground pistachio green, and
then painted on top. But he wouldn’t cover it, so you would see this
green all over on the edges of the shapes, but it was very subdued. So I
thought, “All right. I’ll want to do this portrait on white, on red, and
on some other color,” the same portrait, the same colors, to see what
happens to it. And that was very interesting. But it was an abstract
head I was doing. It was Hammersley, but it was an abstract. Just simply
because of the light coming in the windows horizontally.
- WESCHLER
- And that you’re doing in 1952, ’53, something like that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s right, between the— And then during this time, I think it was ’52
or ’53, where I mentioned this little painting, this time, I mean, it
was a wash. I was thinking of Chouinard. You put sixteen squares, and
then I’m going to draw a head. And I looked at the squares, and I saw
blue. And I had an argument. No, I don’t want to waste a canvas. I was
going to do a head. But let’s put the blue in. So I put the blue in. I
said, “That feels good.” That shape is the yellow ochre. So I painted
yellow ochre, etc. And the whole thing came without me thinking. I said, “My god, if I can
paint without thinking, that’s for me.” [mutual laughter] I mean, it was
just— Flowed through. So that started the whole business. That yellow
folder I gave you, that was one of the last hunch paintings, the one to
the far right.So I had different canvases, and this shape, this canvas felt green. I
painted green, or I’ll leave it white. Then I’d look at this thing, and
that was brown. So instead of spending time mixing the brown— I didn’t
want to do that, so I got all kinds of colors, made color swatches by
each tube, and I’d take the tube and squeeze it on this little palette
knife and paint this round shape. And that round shape in this painting,
that felt good. And then this band is going to go here. So I put that
in. Those two, those three felt— And I thought, “This is great.” I never
made a mistake, because I didn’t make a move until it felt right.This Chinese friend of mine that was in show business— Oh yes, he was in
the radio business, and he came to Jepson because he thought TV would be
important. He wanted to know about the visual, and he would come over
and say, “Fred, aren’t you done yet?”I said, “No, it’s not done.”Then I’d do it, and he’d say, “Oh, yeah, I see what you mean.”But that taught me faith. That taught me faith. Your feelings, you can’t
miss.
- WESCHLER
- What year are we talking about right now, roughly?
- HAMMERSLEY
- ’53, ’54. And then I made this series of hunch paintings. [By Ear, first hunch drawing, 1950; Garden, 1952] God. And I have one that was my
favorite I don’t want to show because I’m so pleased with it.
- WESCHLER
- You know what we should do? We’ve covered a huge swath of information
just now, and we’re right about at the point where I want to stop and
take a break, and then when we start again, we have you right in the
middle of action. You’re in the middle of your hunches. I think that’ll
be a good place for us to take off. Okay?
- HAMMERSLEY
- All right.
- WESCHLER
- We’ll stop for right now.[Tape recorder turned off.]
- WESCHLER
- Well, we both have just taken a little nap, and we’re quite refreshed,
and we’re going to go back. We’ll take a little time travel now back
into the late forties, early fifties, and move forward.Summarizing what we were doing before, we have you leaving the army,
going back to Chouinard and then Jepson, and then having a job for a
while, eventually getting your job at Pomona, where you’ll be teaching.
And we were on the verge of the hunch paintings, and maybe we’ll start
there. But it occurred to me, I’ve been looking around the house, and
I’m in love with this one little drawing, or what is that—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Litho.
- WESCHLER
- Litho. And that’s 1949, so is that something you were still doing in—
What is the name of this, by the way? Does this have a name— On the back
here. It’s a little tiny thing that’s called Understudy, is that right?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right.
- WESCHLER
- Three inches by three inches, a litho, part of a series of them. [Checkered Career, 1949; Understudy, 1949; Scene Two,
1950] I’ve seen them around the house. This one is dated 16 April ’49.
Talk a little about this.
- HAMMERSLEY
- When I was leaving Jepson and puzzling what to do, I’d always been
fascinated by color contrasts, and I remember being a child at
Christmastime and looking up at the tree or looking up at something, and
green and red. Why are they so opposite? And it was fascinating, that
oppositeness.
- WESCHLER
- You realized that already as a child?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. So I thought, "It’s so strong that I think I’ll do some
experiments. I’m going to balance some stripes of black and white with
some stripes of green and red." And I was so disappointed and so
surprised that black and whites always won out visually. I mean, the
black and white, that’s when I mentioned that black and white catalogue.
It’s the longest visually carrying image, black and white, that shock of
the two opposites coming together far outdistances anything you could
do. And I was very disappointed.So anyway, I made different sized lines, different shapes, and I have
these panels still. So I was curious about the color, and then— Oh, I
put it away. Then I did the— Oh, that you saw, part of the color squares
in the back room. What happens if I— So I did the four colors going
around the color wheel, and then I said, “What happens if I just use one
color?” Green is a very— How do I say— It’s interesting that nature’s—
It would drive us crazy if the bushes were red. The wavelength is so
long it would disturb you all the time, but green is very pleasant—
1.4. TAPE NUMBER: II, SIDE TWO JANUARY 15, 2003
- WESCHLER
- We’re talking about the different diplomats and disturbers and less
disturbing colors. So you were saying that blue is quieter, green is
quiet, red is very loud or disturbing.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And so I thought, “What happens if I have just one color, green?”
So I was looking at the color wheel, and green will go toward the yellow
side, and the other side of green goes toward the blue side. So I had a
bluish green to a yellowish green. And then the surprising revelation is
when you look at this green field, you’re not aware of green. You’re
aware of the blue and the yellow, the blueness and the yellowness of the
green. And green, you don’t see green because there’s not a man saying,
“I’m not green.” So that surprised me.
- WESCHLER
- By the way, were you aware of Josef Albers at this time and his color
work?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes. It was too— It was like Max Bill. Do you know Max Bill?
- WESCHLER
- Yes, sure.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It’s too bloody mathematical.
- WESCHLER
- But you were aware of them?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes.
- WESCHLER
- Were they common knowledge, or was that something you had gravitated to
from your—
- HAMMERSLEY
- I didn’t gravitate to them.
- WESCHLER
- But I mean was—
- HAMMERSLEY
- However, Albers looks better to me now than he did.
- WESCHLER
- But was Albers somebody the people in L.A. knew about?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. Oh yes. They were around, and I saw him more then than I do the
last few years.
- WESCHLER
- Where would you see Albers in L.A. in those days?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Various galleries or museums.
- WESCHLER
- They were showing him?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Obviously, the square thing. And Max Bill, someone sent me the
catalogue. Oh. The Max Bill I liked was the half-doughnut sculpture.
Goddamn, that’s marvelous. But other than— It’s too precise. It’s too
mechanical. The lettering people taught me this. We had to do alphabets,
sans serif and serif lettering. Now, if you make the edge with a ruling
pen, that’s very straight. But if you paint that edge by hand, it’s
straight, but it’s alive. It’s very, very odd. So I did lettering with a
ruling pen, and I did lettering by filling it in, and the filling-in one
was the better. So Max Bill is “pffft” done with a laser.
- WESCHLER
- The transcriber is going to have a hard time spelling “pffft,” but okay.So coming back, you were saying that the green and how green, if you do
it by itself, it doesn’t register as anything but blue or yellow.
Right?
- HAMMERSLEY
- You seem to— You’ve got to see contrast. One is impossible to
comprehend. One. I’ve got to have one and thirty before I appreciate
one. One plus something else is what I mean.
- WESCHLER
- Eventually I want you to get to this, but keep going.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, I’m coming to that. The whole point is that it started with color
experiments, and when I had these— Like in the back room, when I had the
four squares, one, two, three, four, dark green to a different green,
and move it to another place— After I finished this sequence [Square Color Trials, 1949], I said, “I wonder
what would happen if I did the same thing in black and white.” [Open, 1950; Shut, 1950]Now, it happened that there was a litho machine at school that no one
knew how to work, and so we kind of figured out what to do with it. A
lot of disappointment. You screw it up and whatever. So I said, “All
right. I’ll make it with lithographs.” Because I can make more than one
image, and I can make several images and not too much— So I had a
delicious stone about this size that—
- WESCHLER
- “This size” being about the size of a—
- HAMMERSLEY
- A business paper, business letter.
- WESCHLER
- Letterhead pad.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, letterhead pad. And I had a lovely blue stone that I would carry
home. I would do two images on one piece of paper. Hardly any room
because I didn’t have much good paper. So it started off with just
having a dark black going to a white, four actors again, and if black
was here— Nothing happened in this row, another black. So the second
row, I moved the black down here, and the end one went over here and so
on. Then I thought, all right, what happens if I cut it in half? This is
cut in half once and this is two, this is three, this is four. That’s
all right. What happens if I do one, two, four, and eight? And I was
aware of these numbers, and then making squares rather than stripes. And
all these variations.In the meantime, I’d done a design just with these two actors on this
field of neutral people. This is neutral. But the variations were
somewhat limited. Maybe it was too easy to see. That’s not quite right.
Anyway, it didn’t seem satisfying enough as opposed to this field of
four people, another group of four, another group of four on the stage.
So that’s how the black and white came. And then I would print the black
and white on a Vogue image of a girl’s
head. I printed it on an orange piece of paper. I’d print it on— What’s
another popular— Different magazines and different text, Japanese text,
regular text, to see what would happen to these actors in a different
field. Some worked out fine. Some, “That’s not very good,
Hammersley.”
- WESCHLER
- By the way, were you a kook doing this, or were there other people doing
similar sorts of things?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no, I was the only one doing this. Because, you see, I was teaching
and going to school, so I would take it home and draw it on the weekend
or the evening, and then come to school on Sunday. Some of the kids
would crawl through the windows to come in. I had the key to the door.
So I could use the press and it was quiet, and I could get a lot of
these things done.
- WESCHLER
- When you showed something like this to Rico Lebrun or to some of those
people, how did they react?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Rico was very impressed. He said that— It’s like the story of painting.
I learned a lot about painting doing these things. Now, if you ask me
what I learned, I can’t tell you, but there is a— And I’m not interested
in the golden— What’s the golden scheme of things?
- WESCHLER
- The Golden Rule? No, the golden mean?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes. That’s perfectly all right. I don’t want to use any rule. A
person is schooled in that. Christ, I don’t want to see their system. I
just want to see an image, and inside there’s a hunch system or there
could be a number system. And I was fascinated by numbers, one,
doubling, a lot of work. But anyway.
- WESCHLER
- Are you synethesiate, by the way? When you hear a sound, do you see an
image?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no.
- WESCHLER
- One of the things that was striking to me when you were describing
yourself already as a child seeing green and red and seeing them as
opposites, that’s kind of like having perfect pitch visually.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I didn’t know that.
- WESCHLER
- I mean, I as a child looking at green and red would not have realized
that they were opposites, but you seemed to have a very rich sense of
that very early on, of just what are opposites, what are complements,
all that kind of stuff.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes.
- WESCHLER
- Not from textbooks. You experienced that. That’s just something you—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right, right. Yes. I would lie in bed and look at these red and green,
and I just was so fascinated.
- WESCHLER
- I mean, my grandfather had perfect pitch, and so as a result, there were
things that he could notice about sound that I couldn’t hear.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I see.
- WESCHLER
- And I think you are similarly gifted in a sense, given a gift visually,
which is interesting. I’m just curious about this particular one.
[Understudy, 1949] This one is just
lines, but what’s interesting is the horizontal lines read as— Well,
were there more lines, I guess, maybe just darker—
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s right. These two have to be darker than the field. This has to be
lighter than the field. That’s why these are two actors, so to speak,
and they’re on this neutral ground. [Two squares are dark with many
lines. One square is pale with very few lines. The field is squares
between-values of the other two.]
- WESCHLER
- There’s one lighter one, and there’s two—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Darker ones.
- WESCHLER
- — darker ones, and otherwise everything else is basically— I see. That’s
fascinating.Again, I mean, for example, when I went to Santa Cruz in 1971, ’72, ’73,
the people who were in the art school were doing things like this.
People like Hardy— Do you know a guy named Hardy who was teaching? They
were color experts, color people. They were doing— Your assignment is to
take a stick and put different things of color.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes.
- WESCHLER
- But that was not the kind of teaching that was going on at Jepson or at
Chouinard?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Then there was Vasarely. Vasarely drives me crazy.
- WESCHLER
- But there were teachers, and they would say, when you asked them, that
they came out of Albers and so forth, but that sort of thing was not a
popular kind of teaching— There wasn’t pure color theory teaching going
on in Los Angeles at that time?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, I don’t think so. We heard about Albers teaching, some mountain,
whatever it was.
- WESCHLER
- Black Mountain College.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. That didn’t interest me at all. I wasn’t interested in doing
abstract things— I mean someone to teach me. Just leave me alone. Let me
do it.
- WESCHLER
- Again, I’m just curious, just to finish that point, when you would show
this to some of your teachers, “That’s kind of interesting,” they would
say?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I didn’t show it to anybody, oddly enough. I don’t know why I showed it
to Rico, but Rico went through a few of them. Oh. Oh no, that was the
[unclear]. I did thirty-two different ones. I spent a year and a half on
this black-and-white series.
- WESCHLER
- The ones that I’m looking at?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. It started with this, and then this faded away, because it had not
enough interest for me. The variables were endless. There’s one in the
bedroom where they’re just values, but instead of a square, I cut a half
of a square, and that’s black, and this is less black until it’s pale.
Then I change it. Instead of putting the half up there, I put the half
down here to see what would happen, and it’s amazing. An entirely
different person, entirely different person.
- WESCHLER
- It’s interesting to hear you describe this, because Robert Irwin, years
later, or a decade later, was doing his line paintings, and he would sit
in a room by himself for sixteen hours a day, and he would take a single
line, and he’d make it slightly longer, make it shorter, have two lines,
raise them and so forth. He says that that’s where he became a painter,
was learning— I mean that self-education of learning, intense absorption
and long-time observing of how moving something from the top to the
bottom changed things.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- That he grew up as a painter doing that.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Would you say a similar thing was happening with you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, I think so. It’s not something someone said— As a matter of fact, I
resisted it, because that’s my mother’s "You should." I can’t stand the
word should. I’m being imposed on. I was just
entering another world, and I just let nature take its course.
- WESCHLER
- So you came out of that. Now we’re talking ’49, ’50, ’51, that general
period, but you didn’t— For a few years you had that job, so you weren’t
as involved in painting as you would’ve been in ’52, ’53, ’54, and you
get your job teaching at Pomona in whatever that—
- HAMMERSLEY
- ’53. And the hunch paintings were on the way then, you see. Then the
show was ’59. So I had quite a body of work for [Jules] Langsner to
select—
- WESCHLER
- Let’s go from this sort of thing, whatever you’re going to call these,
the black-and-white things. We’ll just call them black and white.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, just small lithos.
- WESCHLER
- Small lithos. Let’s go from those to the hunch paintings. How did that
happen?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. The lithos came to an end. Yes. I’d had enough. I’d had enough. I
didn’t want to do any more. It seems to me, “Hammersley, I could do some
more, but—”
- WESCHLER
- Do you talk to yourself like that? “Hammersley”? Is that what you call
yourself when you talk to yourself?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. [Mutual laughter] No, I [unclear]. And then, you see, then I went
to my—quote—“studio,” this room over the garage, and, as I told you, do
some self-portraits, and where the light came in sideways, and I saw
shapes. And I said, “Oh yes. I never thought of that.” It could be that
that shape thing, awareness of doing the portrait, stimulated— No, the
hunch paintings were not deliberate— Well, the hunch paintings were
shapes. First they were rectangles, and then— So, then a
combination.
- WESCHLER
- I want to note here something interesting which we’ll come back to later
on, but the series of self-portraits you did lead gradually to these
hunch paintings, and then in 1980 you’re going to do a self-portrait
that is going to lead to another change in your—
- HAMMERSLEY
- You see, I was not aware of that.
- WESCHLER
- But what’s interesting to me is that in both cases the self-portrait
leads you in a new direction.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. Well, because that head was available all the time.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. Let’s continue.
- HAMMERSLEY
- This Basil Pratt, by the way, that I mentioned, the Australian, that his
family is in the Burke’s Peerage— Bless
his heart, he’d come over sometimes to the studio and sit for me, and I
would draw. I have a very nice— I like this drawing of the man just
sitting down, with a suit and tie. [Basil
Pratt, 1950]
- WESCHLER
- That’s in the garage.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, the room over the garage. And he was very kind. I often wondered
what he thought. But I was like a boy, and he was very understanding. We
both cooked. We were on the second floor, one, two rooms and the
stairway, and then there was the table with the two burners. And he
bought a tin box that he put on top so he could make pork roasts, and
that’s how I made some pork roasts. Turn the gas medium, and you put
whatever, and then you let it stand there, and the roasts were
delicious.
- WESCHLER
- All right. So we’re going from portraits of him, portraits of your own
face toward the hunches.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. So I started doing the hunches, and I felt so wonderful doing these
things, because there was no restriction and no— Well, I was in a
frontier, so to speak. I never thought of that before. So I painted.
- WESCHLER
- Let’s start with there’s an empty canvas in front of you. What do you
do?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I decide, am I going to— Does it feel like an orange field or I’ll leave
it white? Okay. So I prepare first a lot of working areas. Leave it
white, the ground. So then I’m finished with my— It’s interesting. I
work best if my house is orderly. This is Mother. Mother’s place was
orderly, but it felt good. I can’t bear a mess, and I was fascinated—
Here I’m going— Bacon’s cover on an Art
News, it looked like a picture of texture. And then you realized
there was a man standing there, and there was a table filled with partly
used tubes of paint, “lblblblbl,” like that.
- WESCHLER
- Leon Kossoff is like that also.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, is that so?
- WESCHLER
- His studio is just— It’s layers and layers of mess.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. So what the hell is the difference? I mean, I love Bacon. By the
way, Bacon is— He’s crazy good. Oh, wow! And his colors are delicious.
Boy, those pinks. Some of these stupid people, I mean, they couldn’t get
a passing grade in sandbox compared to this man, Bacon.
- WESCHLER
- So you’ve got a white— So you spend your time cleaning the room
first.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, and preparing first. All the canvases are ready to work on. So then
I come in, and I look at this canvas. Oh, goddamn it, put it down.
That’s an orange rectangle. So I squeeze the orange on the palette knife
and put it there.
- WESCHLER
- By the way, always palette knife, not brush?
- HAMMERSLEY
- All of them are palette knife. As a matter of fact, all the paintings
that you see are palette knife.
- WESCHLER
- Okay.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Then if there’s no sensation, I go to another canvas and see if there’s
a sensation.
- WESCHLER
- By the way, when it’s a straight line, is it a palette knife and a
tape?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no, no. I can’t stand a tape.
- WESCHLER
- So all these straight lines I see, you’re able to do that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I remember, [John] McLaughlin said he would paint with a palette
knife, and he would try to split the pencil line by distributing the
paint like this [vertically], like spreading peanut butter. See? And
then after I spread it, I wipe the knife off and wipe it down, because
in the old days if I would do that and it would produce a little bubble
or a little ridge on the edges, and I would come— I was so young and
daring. This shape was finished, and I’d turn it around and paint the
next shape so it would touch the painted shape still wet, and these two
little round beads. Then when I’d take a photograph, it would be a shiny
line. So I had to get rid of that.
- WESCHLER
- So you were not using rulers, and all these incredibly straight lines I
see around here are just—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, excuse me. Those and these were laid out with a ruler.
- WESCHLER
- I see. You lay it out with a ruler, but not with tape.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- But the hunches not? The hunches are laid out with a ruler also?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no, no. There’s no preliminary. There’s no preparation at all. There
was a French color, that brown, I think that circle was the first thing
to come in and the dollop is cobalt blue, straight—
- WESCHLER
- We just happen to have one hunch painting here, and just so we know what
we’re talking about later on, it’s a 1958 painting called Growing Game. But go ahead. You were
saying—
- HAMMERSLEY
- So I was very excited and pleased about this, and I don’t think I’d show
them— I was by myself a lot. So I would have— One time I had fourteen
paintings going, see? And I’ll never forget one day— And I turn away
from the— They face the wall when I’m done, because I don’t want to tire
my eye. If you make a painting, then leave it, and I’m going to the
kitchen and I see it, it destroys something.
- WESCHLER
- So you work on it for a while, turn it away, and then turn it back when
you want to. So you had fourteen paintings facing the wall when one—
- HAMMERSLEY
- I’m coming in to work another day. I took a painting, turned it around,
no sensation. I went through the whole fourteen, and I got no
sensations. So I went home. There was nothing to do.
- WESCHLER
- When you say you got no sensation, you got no idea of what to do next,
or they didn’t excite you, even what they were.
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. Invariably, I would look at something— Oh yes. That’s right. The
rectangle is over here. And I would paint that in. I would decide to put
it there. It just— I could— You see it there.
- WESCHLER
- So, in other words, we’re looking, for example, at this here. You’re
looking at a one-third completed image?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right.
- WESCHLER
- And one day you look at it, and you don’t see what to do next, you have
no sensation. The next day, you come in—
- HAMMERSLEY
- And I might see something.
- WESCHLER
- And you see it before you put it there?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes, yes. It has to be established. But I don’t make a preliminary
drawing to make it— And it taught me— Let’s say I’d finished this thing,
and I said, “Yes, Hammersley, that could’ve been an eighth of an inch
over.” And then I learned a lesson: All right. It doesn’t make any
difference because it’s a slight discrepancy, but the whole thing feels
all right. See? You didn’t measure that three-eighths of an inch, and
it’s only a quarter of an inch? I mean, that’s beside the bloody
point.
- WESCHLER
- So, by the way, this thing here has a lot of action. I mean, there’s how
many different colors? Fifteen, twenty different colors in that
image?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I wouldn’t be surprised.
- WESCHLER
- And would you say that each color thing was a separate moment, or there
would be some where you’d say, “I’ll put this here and this here and
this here,” and those are the three things that show up at once, and you
put them all on at once?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. I don’t remember seeing two things at once, because— Let’s say
there’s one shape, and I put a second shape down. That might stimulate
the third vision, and then I put that down, and I’d be getting excited.
Oh, god, maybe I’ll get another one. A good day was eight shapes.
- WESCHLER
- Really?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Eight shapes. Oh, I felt very pleased. There’s a lot of work done. But
the thing that really impressed me was that I didn’t have to change
anything.
- WESCHLER
- So you never— Once you put something down, you didn’t change it?
- HAMMERSLEY
- There was never any need.
- WESCHLER
- Was that a rule for you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no, no.
- WESCHLER
- You would’ve if you needed to, but you never needed to?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. That was so marvelous. I mean, I wouldn’t make a move until it felt
right. Well, hell’s bells, how could you miss? Now, in this— Oh dear.
The first catalogue, the four of us here— Let’s see. Let me— This one
here. Now.
- WESCHLER
-
Like Unlike. [1959]
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. This is red, and that’s black, and that’s white. See, this is
different than that. [Now, 1961] The stop
of this area of hunch painting— I was driving to Pomona, and I saw this
in my mind’s eye. "Oh, that’s nice." I saw that whole painting in my
mind’s eye. I came home and I put it in the book and I drew it. I said,
“That’s ridiculous. There’s only four shapes. Oh, Christ. What the hell
am I going to do?”So the secret I learned: let both of us age. You’ve got to sleep on it.
So I don’t know how long I waited, and then I woke up one morning and I
said, “I’m going to do that. That feels good. That feels good.”So from then on, the impulse or the painting came to me either altogether
or part of it, and I’d draw it in a book. And then I would see another
shape, and I would add it to that image in the book.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. We’re going to get to that. Let’s stay with the hunch paintings
right now. The conversations you would have with yourself, “Hammersley,
that’s good. Hammersley, that—,” were you friendly to yourself, or were
you an angry person to yourself?
- HAMMERSLEY
- In those days, when I was painting and it was going well, I was
friendly.
- WESCHLER
- And you and yourself were having a good time discovering things
together?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. Oh, it was wonderful. It was just wonderful.
- WESCHLER
- And again, you’re not showing these to too many people, the hunch
paintings, at that point?
- HAMMERSLEY
- After the ’59 show—
- WESCHLER
- Okay. This is before.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. In the process of making— Yes, I showed some of them in the
faculty show at Pomona College. Oh, I almost thought of that woman’s
name. Have you heard of the name Carl— [Telephone rings. Tape recorder turned off.]
- HAMMERSLEY
- I have a painting I could show you, which I showed Rico Lebrun. I forget
where he was living. I was taking it to Pomona College. [Now, 1961] It was an all-white painting with
a yellow disc and two— Off-white background, and then two of them were
white. And it was a very strong, quiet painting. Goddamn. And Rico said,
he said, “Oh, that’s very good.” I don’t think I’ve ever showed that,
because it’s hard to look at. I mean, if you see a Chevrolet or see
something that “pffft,” then they’ll look at it, but if it’s quiet— I
don’t have time for that.
- WESCHLER
- Let me, by the way, ask you— This is— now we’re talking 1954, ’55, ’56.
This is the height of Abstract Expressionism, second generation Abstract
Expressionism in New York, certainly. Is that what’s going on in L.A.
also? Is there some of that Abstract Expressionism stuff happening
there? Or there’s not that much of it going on in Los Angeles?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t think so, but it existed. As I mentioned, Rico, I think, was
disturbed by it, and— I was recently talking to [Louis] Grachos about
that. When I went to the San Francisco School of [Fine] Arts, here this
young girl was mixing something, and she was doing— I said, “How do you
know what to do?” I mean, it disturbed me. What the hell are they doing?
And she said, “Oh, I just do it by how it feels.” Well, I understood
that in one sense, but— The images were unsatisfying. And De Kooning, I
couldn’t stand those women paintings. Jesus Christ, terrible. Then I saw
a big show of his at the L.A. County, and it showed early drawings,
straight academic drawings, and it slowly moved into these— And then I
enjoyed it. It was nice.
- WESCHLER
- When was that? That would’ve been quite a bit later.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Pollock. What did you think?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t care for that.
- WESCHLER
- Adolph Gottlieb, people like that, Barnett Newman? Were you seeing any
of that yet at that point?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, oh yes, we were watching— Is that Barnett Newman who did the MEnil
thing, the Texas building [Rothko Chapel in Houston]?
- WESCHLER
- Mark Rothko did that.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Mark Rothko. I can’t remember the names. I did respond to these people.
And then [Clyfford] Still in San Francisco—
- WESCHLER
- And by the way, were you seeing the paintings or you were seeing
reproductions of the paintings?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Both.
- WESCHLER
- This is during the fifties, and then you obviously have the next
generation, people like Norman Bluhm and [Michael] Goldberg. I mean,
these were younger Abstract Expressionists. And that didn’t interest
you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t know those people.
- WESCHLER
- This wasn’t a— I mean, in the history of art, what you’re doing would be
described as a reaction against that, but that’s not how it was
experienced?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No.
- WESCHLER
- They just weren’t on your horizon, really?
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s right. Someone says, “Well, he got tired of the Abstract
Expressionists, and he was going to the opposite—” Hell’s bells. And
I’ll never forget Maurice Tuchman. Do you remember him?
- WESCHLER
- Sure.
- HAMMERSLEY
- He came out here one time, and then he wanted Karl [Benjamin] and I to
be interviewed at the museum with an audience, and Maurice looked at me,
he said, “What was the people’s reaction after the ’59 show?” I said,
“No reaction.” It was marvelous how consistent it was. Absolutely— I
don’t need to look at these things.
- WESCHLER
- Well, let’s stick with this. By the way, when I’m looking at this
painting here, the one European antecedent— It has a little bit of a
flavor of Miró. Was Miró interesting to you or not?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Five or six in ten. One in ten. I don’t think he was a great
painter.
- WESCHLER
- So this is just really you finding your own way to your—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right.
- WESCHLER
- An interesting question with this sort of painting is, how do you know
it’s finished?
- HAMMERSLEY
- It just feels right. I mean, the last— See, this is where faith comes
in. I was so astonished. I didn’t have to justify anything. I just
listened to the body, listened to me, or the feeling. The mind, I don’t
know what the hell the mind does. Maybe knowing when to pay the gas
bill. There was absolutely no miss whatsoever. The last shape went in, I
was done, and I had to leave the room, I was so excited. That sort of
thing. Goddamn. It was— Or I would make an image in the book, and I’d
have to leave.
- WESCHLER
- And by the way, was there a need for you at that point to share it with
somebody else, or you were sharing it with Hammersley, and that was
enough?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, I wanted to be in shows, but somehow I was very good at not getting
in shows.
- WESCHLER
- I’m struck that you don’t really have that many gallery shows during the
fifties.
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, probably not. I was— Fifties. I was with—
- WESCHLER
- I mean, I was looking just now at this list of selected one-man shows,
and the first one listed here is at the Heritage Gallery in 1961. Was
that your first one-man show?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Evidently. And then—
- WESCHLER
- So, in other words, you had no one-man shows before the ’59 show?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, no, no.
- WESCHLER
- You had no one-man shows before that. Now, did you show these things to
people like Landau and Perls—
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, I never went out to solicit— No, that was too dangerous.
- WESCHLER
- Why was that dangerous?
- HAMMERSLEY
- For a “no,” to get a “no,” to get discouraged. And what I—
- WESCHLER
- So, in other words, if you had shown something to a dealer and he had
not done the show, that would’ve deflated you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. It would be very discouraging, because I thought they were good.
That, by the way, Ben Horowitz got that— He went to San Francisco, and I
got a one-man show at this [California Palace of the] Legion of
Honor.
- WESCHLER
- Yes, because that’s 1962, so that’s later. I want to stay right now—
- HAMMERSLEY
- There was nothing after—
- WESCHLER
- So basically you were— If I had described you in 1958, I would’ve
described you as a teacher at Pomona College, somebody who is doing a
lovely body of work, but kind of privately, secretly, it’s not really
known to the world.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It’s very nice of you to say that.
- WESCHLER
- Is that how I would’ve described you or—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- You had no particular public presence in Los Angeles?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. Correct.
- WESCHLER
- Let’s begin to move toward how that Four Abstract
Classicists show [Los Angeles County Museum of History,
Science, and Art, 1959] happened, and one way to talk about it is, to
what extent were you aware of the other three? The other three are
Lorser Feitelson, McLaughlin, and Karl Benjamin.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It started, I think, with Karl.
- WESCHLER
- How so?
- HAMMERSLEY
- When I had— The first faculty show at Pomona College, the year of which
I don’t remember, it might have been early fifties, there was the
sculptor Jimmy Grant and myself. And I showed some hunch paintings, and
Karl Benjamin, after he had walked around, he said, “I do this kind of
stuff. Come over, and I’ll show you my things.” I said, “Fine.”
- WESCHLER
- Karl was also a faculty member?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no, no. He was teaching some grammar school in another city. He was
married and had three children, liked to garden, had his own studio, and
he would paint fifty paintings a year. I hate stories like that.
[laughs]
- WESCHLER
- Tell me more about Karl Benjamin. What kind of person was he?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I enjoyed talking with him.
- WESCHLER
- He was older than you? Younger than you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, he was younger, five years younger. I think five. When I finished
Pomona College, fourish, I would drive over to his place, and we’d
talk.
- WESCHLER
- Where did he live?
- HAMMERSLEY
- In Claremont, just a few blocks from the school. And I enjoyed talking
to him very much, because we’d talk about— We didn’t talk about— I
didn’t care for his paintings too much. I don’t know what he thought of
mine. I think he said, “Oh, that’s a good one.” That didn’t come up.
- WESCHLER
- What did you talk about?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, we talked about shows that were going on and our friends and the
garden—stuff.
- WESCHLER
- Did you talk about painting itself?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. The paintings we liked, De Kooning or whatever. And then— Oh
yes, Peter Selz— First there was Seymour Slive, and Seymour Slive went
to the Fogg [Art] Museum, because that was the big Rembrandt man. I
don’t know who that is.
- WESCHLER
- Seymour Slive was a teacher at Pomona?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, he was the head of the art department.
- WESCHLER
- Right, and he was a Rembrandt man himself.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And I was so shocked. In ’53, I got $7.50 an hour. It was heaven.
And I would have three hours in the morning, three hours in the
afternoon, whatever that—
- WESCHLER
- Of teaching?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Teaching, yes.
- WESCHLER
- So he went to the—
- HAMMERSLEY
- The Fogg Museum. And I forget. There was an interim director, and he
would have meetings, and this is what really turned me off to
committees. “Should we have the reproduction mounted on chipboard or
should we have it mounted on—” And I thought to myself, “Well, for
Christ’s sake, you’re the director. Why don’t you decide what to do? Why
take my time? I mean, be a dictator.” The painters are a dictator.
There’s no question about that. They dictate their own world. They don’t
involve you. They involve my world. I mean, I involve—
- WESCHLER
- You are the director of your actors.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right. So then Peter Selz came in. Do you know him?
- WESCHLER
- Of course. At Pomona?
- HAMMERSLEY
- He was the chairman of the art department.
- WESCHLER
- Describe him.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Sharp, out for himself. Well, I don’t mean to be unkind, but I mean he
was—
- WESCHLER
- Ambitious?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Ambitious, yes. He wrote a very thick book on German paintings.
Lindbergh— Not Lindbergh. I can’t think of the name. And that was a big
coup for him. Then he went to— Now, stay here.Karl had the idea— Karl knew of Feitelson, and he knew of McLaughlin, and
so I think, if I remember—
- WESCHLER
- What does Peter Selz have to do with that? Just that he was the head of
the program at that point?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Before we leave Peter Selz, I just want to describe his importance to
you. Was it just because he was head of the program or— Was he
supportive of you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes, because I was on the faculty, so he supported the faculty. I
mean, it was not my personality or the way I cut my hair. I mean, that’s
just the way it is.So Karl, he had the idea of going to Peter Selz. He went to Peter Selz
and said, “Why don’t we have a show of four hard-edge painters.” And I
think Peter liked the idea, and then it kind of hung there. And then
either he or— I think it was him, talked to some man at the Long Beach
Museum [of Art]. Is that right? And they were interested, but that kind
of hung there. And this went on for months. And then I don’t know how
Jules Langsner got involved, but he was interested in the idea, and so
all of a sudden we had a meeting at Karl’s. Well, we did have meetings
at Karl’s home, but we also had meetings at Feitelson’s home. It was
formerly a store, and they had their living quarters and painting
quarters. Lundeberg, his wife—
- WESCHLER
- Helen Lundeberg was Feitelson’s wife.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. And we would have meetings there.
- WESCHLER
- Before we go on, an idea had happened, was taken to various people that
there happened to be these different hard-edged painters painting in Los
Angeles. We’ve talked about you and Benjamin. What about you and
Feitelson? To what extent were you aware of Feitelson? To what extent
were you aware of McLaughlin?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, I’d seen McLaughlin, and I didn’t get it at all. I didn’t get his
stuff. I didn’t like it at all. Feitelson, I was not too fond of
that.
- WESCHLER
- Describe, first of all, what they were like.
- HAMMERSLEY
- McLaughlin was very severe, a square something on a white ground, and
then one day, months or some time later, I was looking at McLaughlin,
and it started to change. "Look at that. My god." So then I looked at
more of his—
- WESCHLER
- Where would you see McLaughlin’s—
- HAMMERSLEY
- The County Museum and gallery shows and Landau.
- WESCHLER
- Landau was showing McLaughlin?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t know who was showing— Oh. What’s that lady—I’m trying to think
of her name—on Beverly Boulevard? She handled Clinton Adams’ work. But I
think Feitelson was there. He was not in the big gallery. Oh, and then
he had this TV show. Did you ever—
- WESCHLER
- No, let’s stick with McLaughlin for a second, and then we’ll go to
Feitelson. So McLaughlin, at a certain point you suddenly realized there
was something there.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes. He was good. He looked like a British major, you know. There
was a shot in the Times showing this other
Claremont painter and McLaughlin, and he was playing golf.
- WESCHLER
- McLaughlin almost to me in photographs looks like Arthur Treacher or
something.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes, a cousin of the same wavelength.
- WESCHLER
- Did you know him personally?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- What was he like?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Very good.
- WESCHLER
- He was older than you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. Yes, I think just once Karl and I drove out to Dana Point to see
McLaughlin, you know, just to talk and see where he worked and see his
stuff, right near the beach. Isn’t that funny? I was so impressed with
the beach because it had white stones, and I collected stones. So we’d
look at McLaughlin’s stuff, and I don’t remember a thing he said.
- WESCHLER
- When you two arrived to see him at that point, you were two fellow
artists? You were two young kids? What were you to him?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. We were just two young painters. That’s all. And I don’t think
he gave a damn, cared much one way or the other.
- WESCHLER
- My memory of McLaughlin is that his wife worked, right? And he—
- HAMMERSLEY
- She had a dress shop. The name escapes me. Lerner.
- WESCHLER
- And basically he stayed in the garage and painted, or wherever he
stayed, and she—
- HAMMERSLEY
- And he was in the G-2 [army intelligence]. He was in Japan. He was a
linguist.
- WESCHLER
- And he was very much of an Asianist. There’s a lot of Zen stuff going on
in his painting.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- Was he like that as a person? Was he kind of centered, calm—
- HAMMERSLEY
- I was very impressed when he would write to a critic. And when I saw
him, I asked if I could get copies of some of his letters. I haven’t
looked at them for years, but I was very impressed with his letters.
- WESCHLER
- How so?
- HAMMERSLEY
- They were clear and to the point. He didn’t like something, he liked
something, and he had reasons, etc. I mean, he was a good man.
- WESCHLER
- In person was he clear and composed and centered?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Did he have a kind of— His art has a kind of Zen silence at the heart of
it. Was he like that in person?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, he was slightly on the quiet side. What is your opinion of the Zen
quality?
- WESCHLER
- Just that in McLaughlin’s work, there is a kind of Asiatic— It’s like a
Japanese rock garden, that kind of stillness.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Stillness is correct, yes. I can buy that.
- WESCHLER
- And self-possession, an interiority. It’s a breathing-in. An in-held
breath quality. This is just my own take on McLaughlin. And I just
wonder whether— For one thing, there’s a spiritual austerity also, a
severeness.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s true, yes.
- WESCHLER
- If I were to describe the difference between him and your work, you
know, side by side, his is severe, austere, whereas you have whimsy and
so forth.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, exactly right.
- WESCHLER
- But I’m asking, was he like that in person as well?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I never got that close to him. I did go out to see him. I drove out once
by myself, and I took slides and things. Well, it’s not important. He
looked at this painting, two squares, blue, yellow, and there was a
diagonal. “Hammersley, that diagonal is very seductive.” Now, see, I
didn’t know what the hell that meant, that he didn’t like it. He never
used that term “like.” And I realized later an oblique is very
disturbing. You know, we’re in a place where there’s horizontals and
verticals.
- WESCHLER
- And perpendiculars everywhere.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And if one of those areas became slightly oblique, we would leave. It
would be very stimulating. So that’s the only thing I remember.
- WESCHLER
- So when he said, “That’s very seductive,” that was a criticism?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, I think so. Yes. Yes. See, I was in another ballpark, and it’s not
his game. I do appreciate that business of respecting the real estate
that you’re in, which is— And he didn’t like a square. Now I like a
square, and I was fascinated with the square, because the square
disappears often. And his were always rectangles.There was a big show at one of the beach museums, and there were a couple
of paintings I didn’t understand what the hell he was doing, a big white
painting and two black things. Well, anyway, that’s beside the point.
There’s bound to be things you don’t like. But I admired him very much.
I admired him more than Feitelson.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. Now let’s talk about Feitelson a bit. Also older than you.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- How much older? A generation older than you, basically? Who was the old
man of that group? McLaughlin was older than Feitelson? I’m not
sure.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I’m not sure either.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. Go ahead.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I think they were fairly close together. Feitelson, the one thing I
didn’t like about Feitelson, he had this TV show every week about shows
and paintings, and he said, “Now, this new painter from New York, this
guy called Weschler, he’s the best damn colorist in the world.”Now, I could understand if Weschler liked color and was very good at it,
but please don’t give me those remarks. So I was a little put off by
this. However, I turn it upside down, and he was with— Was it the Art
Association? With this very pleasant lady. This was a marvelous
organization. A young—
- WESCHLER
- The Los Angeles Art Association.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. A young student could give slides— [Helen] Wurdemann was her name,
this lady. The two of them ran this art organization, and you could send
some slides. They’d say, “All right. You can join the club,” so to
speak. It cost you ten dollars a year. I don’t think there was much of a
cost. But the point is, they were always welcoming new people, and then
they would send cards out once a month that said, “At this place we’re
having a show of landscape,” and I said, “I can’t do anything about
that.” On another card, “We’re having a show of abstract paintings,” and
I’d submit something. So he was always encouraging people, and I thought
that was marvelous. It was one place, by god, where there was a
chance.
- WESCHLER
- And you were welcomed?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes, yes.
- WESCHLER
- Tell me more about Feitelson. I’ve never met Feitelson.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Feitelson was like that.
- WESCHLER
- Describe Feitelson to me.
- HAMMERSLEY
- He was a slightly pompous, overtalkative egomaniac.
- WESCHLER
- [laughs] But otherwise you liked him?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, and he taught at Art Center [College of Design], taught painting at
Art Center, this peculiar—
- WESCHLER
- Commercial—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Commercial art school.
- WESCHLER
- Would you describe him as one of the leaders of the L.A. art scene at
that point because of his L.A. Art Association?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, not a leader. He was a participant. I don’t know if there was a
particular leader in that. I’ve never thought of that before, one
person— In the 1940s, there were like two or three painters, and that’s
all we knew about or heard about.
- WESCHLER
- And those would’ve been Rico Lebrun and—
- HAMMERSLEY
- And [Henry Lee] McFee.
- WESCHLER
- Jepson?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, Jepson didn’t participate, bless his heart. There was some guy from
USC [University of Southern California]. I can’t think of his name.
[Edgar Ewing] And we were invited to go to—
- WESCHLER
- Millard Sheets—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, Millard Sheets was hot, but he was commercial. Laurence
Murphy—Sheets went to Chouinard—I mentioned it to him, and he said, “Oh
yes. I remember when he was my student, and his goal was to pay the
highest income tax of any painter in California.”
- WESCHLER
- And he got there.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And he got there.
- WESCHLER
- And inflicted all the Home Savings [and Loan murals] and so forth
on—
- HAMMERSLEY
- What was her name? [Susan] Sue Lautman [later Hertel] was the one that
painted the murals. [Sue Lautman had a gallery in Santa Fe, in the ’70’s
or ’80’s. Her paintings of horses were very good—showed she must have
loved horses. (Added by Hammersley during his review.)] There was what
we called a mural factory in Claremont up on some main highway. I never
saw the building. But he would provide a rough, and Karl said it was
always the wrong proportion. [laughs]But anyway, his landscapes were very— His watercolors were very
attractive.
- WESCHLER
- Sheets?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Sheets. And Don Kingman, do you remember that name? He was like the
eastern Millard Sheets, very lovely watercolors, juicy and clear and
lovely. It’s interesting, the short lifespan. They were slightly—
Millard Sheets was slightly—
1.5. TAPE NUMBER: III, SIDE ONE JANUARY 15, 2003
- WESCHLER
- We were just talking about [Millard] Sheets, and I’d actually pulled you
away from talking about [Lorser] Feitelson. Why don’t you tell me more
about Feitelson.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I really don’t know much— Oh. He was very kind when we had the meetings
at his house on— Was that Beverly Boulevard? I don’t remember, but it
was interesting. It was a storefront, and then behind that there were
living quarters, and the both of them would paint in that place.
- WESCHLER
- What was she like?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Very quiet and hardly said a word, because she wasn’t in the meeting,
you see, had nothing to do with the meeting. I remember that was the
first time I’d tried raw cauliflower, which was unexpected.Coming back to him, he was—
- WESCHLER
- Was there a leader of the four of you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No.
- WESCHLER
- By the way, were you self-selected? [Jules] Langsner didn’t select you
guys; you guys selected yourselves as a foursome?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- You gravitated toward each other?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And it started, I think— Karl [Benjamin], I think, was the one that
started this. And one time we had a— Well, I told it to someone before.
I forget. We had a meeting in Karl’s house at Claremont, and we were
trying to find out what to call us, and that’s a very difficult problem.
It came to this polysyllabic "abstract classicist." Oh. Rico [Lebrun]
made a remark. “A classic work is everything is revealed. A baroque is
revealed, concealed.” And I thought that’s very interesting. Very
Giottoish. Classic. Everything is up there. No shadows.So we came to this name, and as I was walking out with Langsner, going to
the car or bus or whatever, I said, “Langsner, don’t you find this a
little bit pedantic and overly— Karl calls his paintings hard-edge, and
I think that’s simpler." For Christ’s sake, it’s hard-edge. People
understand that. My mother would understand that, too.He said, “No, I don’t think it’s descriptive enough.” After the ’59 show—
Langsner knew this person in London— What’s his name?
- WESCHLER
- [Lawrence] Alloway.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Alloway. And so, see, abstract—
- WESCHLER
- Our title [on the cover of the exhibition catalogue] is small, but it
says “West Coast Hard-Edge” in big letters.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yeah, and that’s where the phrase started. I mean, by the public.
- WESCHLER
- Come back again. Are we finished describing Feitelson? Did you have
anything more you wanted to say about him?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. I mean, he was very kind and generous with the meetings. I mean, he
didn’t lord it over. We had a problem, and so we talked about—
- WESCHLER
- And the problem was how to get this show—
- HAMMERSLEY
- And then how to get money for it. Then he was at Art Center [College of
Design], so he had either one of the instructors or one of his design
students to design the catalogue, and the bastard cut the paintings in
half on the spine, you know. See this? Absolutely ridiculous. What the—
Where is he? What is— And I made a remark about that, “Oh,
bldlbldlbldl,” oh, just disappeared. I was the minor one.
- WESCHLER
- By the way, of the four of you, two of you, Feitelson and [John]
McLaughlin, were shown artists. And Benjamin and you were— Had Benjamin
had shows, one-man shows, at that point?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I think so.
- WESCHLER
- So you’re the one person in that group that had not had a one-man
show.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- You’re the junior varsity person on that spot.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. Karl was very— How shall I say? He was very good at promoting
himself, and I don’t mean this disparagingly. I mean, he was out there—
I forget what gallery— Bergamot Station later [in Santa Monica,
California], he’s in the gallery there, or he was there, and he was
always wanting to sell things.
- WESCHLER
- It’s interesting. I’m looking at this right now. I’m looking at the
catalogue [of the exhibition Four Abstract
Classicists, Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science,
and Art, 1959], and indeed, if I look at the catalogue, Karl Benjamin is
listed as having had, let’s see here, one-man shows— Well, let’s see.
He’s had shows at the University of Redlands, the Jack Carr Gallery, the
Orange Coast Gallery, Pasadena Art Museum, Occidental College, Long
Beach Museum of Art. And Feitelson has just endless numbers of one-man
shows, but in particular at the [Charles] Daniel Gallery in New York.
He’s in a lot of different places.When I look at McLaughlin, he’s had Landau [Gallery], Pasadena Art
Museum, Riverside. And now when I look at you, let’s see. It has no
one-man shows at all for you, and it has various exhibitions that you
have been part of, but not one-man shows.A question I would ask, were you the lesser of the four equals because of
that, or were you received as a co-equal among the four when you were in
that show?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, a co-equal. No, I was very proud of the paintings. They were
substantial, and—
- WESCHLER
- And your colleagues knew that they were substantial?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I think so. And it made no difference that they didn’t. The point is
that I was included.
- WESCHLER
- Now, Jules Langsner, we haven’t talked about him. What was he like?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Excuse me. May I make an interruption? After this catalogue was which I
didn’t quite understand, he worked hard for us, and I gave him a
painting, this decided— Oh. The San Francisco Museum [of Art] put up a
thousand dollars, L.A. County Museum put up a thousand dollars to print
the catalogue. And then this designer said, “Now, if you each put up a
hundred dollars, you’ll get a color reproduction for each of you.” So we
dug up a hundred dollars each, and that’s where that color reproduction
comes from. [A hundred was a lot in those days. We all winced when we
heard the amount. (Added by Hammersley during his review)]
- WESCHLER
- I see.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, what did you say?
- WESCHLER
- I asked about Jules Langsner. What was he like? He was the L.A. Times critic at that point, right?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. He was very— He was very open to everything. So I gave him a
painting, and he said, “Now, I don’t want you to give this painting if
it’s thanks for the show.” Well, it was thanks for the show. What the
hell? I don’t see anything wrong with that.Well, anyway, he took it anyway, and I was glad. Then he would look at my
things. He said, “Oh, that’s nice.” [Touch, 1963] Four constructions—made with illustration board,
painted white. And he’d come over a couple of times. And then he married
a young lady I think who taught high school. God, the name disappeared.
[June Harwood] And she was a hard-edge painter, and she was in the
second hard-edge show. And Karl knew a middle-aged lady, Florence
Arnold, who was painting hard-edge, and she was in the show. And then
that Englishman that you reminded me of that did the hands and body
parts, the photographer.
- WESCHLER
- [John] Coplans?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Coplans, he was in the show. What was I talking about?
- WESCHLER
- Well, let’s talk about the 1959 show. So the show opens. When did it
open? It has a date there.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Did it not start in San Francisco?
- WESCHLER
- It looks like it may have started in San Francisco and then come to L.A.
Let’s say that happened. So how did that work? Did you go up to San
Francisco for the opening?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. You see, I would come home for holidays, etc., and then come home
for the show. And I had the Volkswagen, so I drove Mother and Father and
Susie to San Francisco to see the show.Now, it’s interesting. Mother never asked me what I was doing in art
school, and I didn’t realize this until I got older. When we walked
through, she didn’t say a damn thing. Dad was [unclear], “Oh, that’s
jolly good.” They didn’t understand this kind of painting. You know,
they liked— I had a nude which my father liked. And afterward Mother
said, “Well, nice color,” and that was the best I could get. What
unnerved her was, I was in a legitimate organization, a museum in
downtown San Francisco. That was off-putting for her. She didn’t quite
know what the hell to do with this person—me. All right. Then it went to—
- WESCHLER
- Well, let’s stay in San Francisco. What was it like? Was it a happy
opening? Was it well received?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I didn’t go to the opening. I just went afterwards.
- WESCHLER
- And was it received in San Francisco at all? Was there any kind of press
coverage, or was there any—
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t remember. I don’t remember. But what was interesting, when it
came to L.A., Jim [James] Elliott— Who was the director? Brown? No.
- WESCHLER
- Jim Elliot I think was.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Was the secondary in command. I forget who was the one in command. They
never took photographs of the show.
- WESCHLER
- Richard Brown was.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Richard Brown, right. And he eventually went to Texas.
- WESCHLER
- And Jim Elliot was underneath him.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And I went to the opening with some friends, and, of course, I enjoyed
it very much. I was with— What was his name? I was with a little gallery
on La Cienega [Paul Rivas] and he sold one of the paintings to [David]
Bright, a rich man that had a collection. [The painting was Intro, 24 x 36, 1958, $275. I got $183.33.
(Added by Hammersley during his review)] As a matter of fact, I think I
was the only one that sold of any of the people in that show. It was a
smallish painting. And then I was the only one to sell a painting in
England to Dr. [H. P.] Widdup. [One & One
1/2, 1959]
- WESCHLER
- Were you selling many paintings before that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, hell, no. I didn’t sell— The only way I’d make money is to enter—
The sequence was, you entered a show and got rejected several times, and
then you entered a show, you got honorable mention. You keep on going,
and then you get third prize.
- WESCHLER
- And those are monetary prizes?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. And then you keep on going, and eventually you get a purchase
award, like Barnsdall Park. Do you remember the shows at Barnsdall
Park?
- WESCHLER
- Yes.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I had a painting, I forget what year it was, a yin/yang sort of a thing,
and [Howard] Ahmanson bought it. It was the purchase price, and that was
lovely. I’d saved $450. I could afford to go to New York to see Peter
Selz and [William C.] Seitz, to see if I could get a connection.
Nothing. I was a good collector of lead balloons. [laughs]
- WESCHLER
- What do you mean?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, no response. “Kkkkkkk.” Have you ever made a remark to someone,
and it’s like you’re holding a lead balloon? [mutual laughter] Just no
reaction.
- WESCHLER
- So how was the show received in Los Angeles?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t know. I don’t remember. My friends—
- WESCHLER
- I mean, it’s a legendary show now. Was it a legendary show when it
happened?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, hell, no. I never did understand why. “Oh, that was the show in
’59—” I was impressed that we were the first people to have a hard-edge
show in California. No one had done that before. And I thought that
should mean something, but— They talk about it now, but they haven’t got
my address so they know where to send the money. [mutual laughter]
- WESCHLER
- Was it thought of at the time that this was an L.A. kind of movement as
opposed to the Abstract Expressionism going on in New York? Was that
talked about, that L.A. was kind of cool, hard-edge as opposed to
Expressionist?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I think the hard-edge show was just a fluke, just a bump in the road.
All the other people were painting normal paintings. And it was
interesting, the San Francisco painters would come down to L.A. to sell,
because San Francisco had a history of not selling, and I was so
surprised. I talked to someone recently and they said its still applies.
Is that so?
- WESCHLER
- I’m told—
- HAMMERSLEY
- But, I mean, we were—
- WESCHLER
- So up in San Francisco, there was [Richard] Diebenkorn, [David] Park,
[Elmer] Bischoff, people like that.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And the cake man. What’s his name?
- WESCHLER
- [Wayne] Thiebaud.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Thiebaud.
- WESCHLER
- Do you like his stuff?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Some of his things, yes.
- WESCHLER
- And in Los Angeles, as of ’59, there was what?
- HAMMERSLEY
- There was Feitelson, and what the hell is this UCLA man or USC man? Oh,
dear. I can’t remember his name. [Edgar Ewing] But there were not many—
Or at least I don’t remember many people. There’s bound to be.
- WESCHLER
- Right. We mentioned there was [Howard] Warshaw, and there were people
like that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yeah.
- WESCHLER
- Lebrun and so on.
- HAMMERSLEY
- They had good reputations, and they were written up a lot, those
people.
- WESCHLER
- Now, one of the things that’s about to happen at that point is that
Ferus [Gallery] comes on the scene at that point.
- HAMMERSLEY
- What year?
- WESCHLER
- ’59. [Possibly 1956.]
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. It was ’59. I see.
- WESCHLER
- Did you go to Ferus? Did Ferus sound like something new and exciting, or
was this just another gallery?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, it was avant-garde and new, because they handled [Edward] Kienholz.
No one handled this far-out man. Then Karl was very annoyed at
Bengston.
- WESCHLER
- Billy Al Bengston.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And [Robert] Irwin. They always got the good write-ups. There’d be a big
show, and there’d be a lot of people— They mentioned these people
because that was the favorite— That was the hot gallery.
- WESCHLER
- Did you like to go there?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Oh, I went to all the galleries. I liked to see what was going on.
I enjoyed seeing what was going on.
- WESCHLER
- What did you think of some of those people? What did you think of Billy
Al Bengston?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Terrible. Oh, dear.
- WESCHLER
- And what did you think of Craig Kauffman?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I forget. Did he do those pressed—
- WESCHLER
- Yes, molded things.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. It’s all right, but I mean—
- WESCHLER
- Let me just stop you. John Altoon? Was that somebody—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, he was a very— He was a wild, a free— A free-goer. I mean, he could
go anyplace. That I admired. The pen-and-ink drawings, those are
nice.
- WESCHLER
- Right. Just trying to think off the top of my head. Ken [Kenneth] Price
was a ceramicist.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. They were very fascinating, those funny little cups. And it’s so
interesting what he’s doing now as opposed to then. It’s unbelievable.
These great big amoeba.
- WESCHLER
- Biomorphic.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Just thinking off the top of my head some of the others. Robert Irwin,
obviously.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And Robert Irwin, yes, whatever—those discs with the light on it—and it
was very impressive. It was just a personal preference. I liked
paintings. Paintings. Of course, Irwin did some still life—
- WESCHLER
- He did those line paintings, and he did those hand-held things, the
boxes that were very—
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t remember that.
- WESCHLER
- He started abstract. He was doing Abstract Expressionist work at Landau
and then came over to—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I didn’t know that.
- WESCHLER
- Among the galleries, did you know Walter Hopps?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I know who he was, but I’d never spoken to him. I didn’t know him.
- WESCHLER
- And [Irving] Blum later on?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I knew who he was, but he didn’t know me.
- WESCHLER
- Of the other dealers around at that point— I’m just thinking [Paul]
Kantor, [Felix] Landau—
- HAMMERSLEY
- There was an Englishman that had antique furniture. He was on the second
floor. He was a bit player in the movies. Kind of a portly man.
- WESCHLER
- I don’t know.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I can’t think of his name.
- WESCHLER
- You have Streeter Blair in the antique shop in front of Ferus at one
point.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I don’t remember that.
- WESCHLER
- Anyway, but the other galleries, Landau, Kantor, were those interesting
galleries to you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. Oh yes. I found it necessary to see all these things.
- WESCHLER
- And yet you were not having shows at these places.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. The first time I had a show with— I forget. You mentioned the year.
With Karl— Not Karl Benjamin.
- WESCHLER
- ’61, there’s a Heritage—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Heritage Gallery.
- WESCHLER
- And what’s that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- That was when he had this gallery below Melrose. The galleries were up
on La Cienega, and he was below, and I had my opening—
- WESCHLER
- Who was he?
- HAMMERSLEY
- What?
- WESCHLER
- What was his name? Whoever it was that had the Heritage Gallery.
- HAMMERSLEY
- [Benjamin] Horowitz.
- WESCHLER
- Okay.
- HAMMERSLEY
- On my opening, they had a fire in Beverly Hills, so there was no one on
the street. I thought that was so— And then this happened several times,
and I look at that. Isn’t that interesting? God is putting it off till
later.
- WESCHLER
- What do you mean it happened several times?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I’d have an opening, and some big event would cancel it.
- WESCHLER
- Oh dear.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I mean inadvertently cancel it.
- WESCHLER
- From here the solo exhibitions, you begin having them now. Heritage
Gallery; Pasadena Art Museum in ’61; the California Palace of the Legion
of Honor in San Francisco in ’62; Occidental College in ’62; La Jolla
[Museum of Art] in ’63; another show at Heritage in ’63. So you’re
beginning to have the one-man shows. They come on rather— And what sort
of work were you showing there? These were still hunch paintings, or
they were beginning to move more to these geometric—
- HAMMERSLEY
- I think moving toward the geometric. Because I remember this diagonal
thing was in the Heritage Gallery. I think I showed some hunch paintings
to Heritage Gallery.
- WESCHLER
- Well, let’s talk a little bit about the move toward the geometric, and
that brings us in part to these notebooks, doesn’t it? So talk about it.
How do we get from the hunch paintings—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. What I mentioned, the one painting in the— The four of us—
- WESCHLER
- The four abstract classicists—
- HAMMERSLEY
- The painting where it had these two circles— [Like
Unlike, 1959; Like
Unlike, 1959] That was not a hunch painting, and that was
the—
- WESCHLER
- That was one that had come to you all at once?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. And that was put in a book. I’d never done that before.
- WESCHLER
- So describe what’s involved in doing that [circles drawn by hand].
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, I would see an idea or a corner of an idea, and I’d come home and
think out loud in a book like this—
- WESCHLER
- These are sketchbooks, basically.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. [With several images per page, each] the size of a stamp, let’s
say, and I’d have an idea, and, see, that’s too much. I’d cut it down
eventually, and some of these ideas didn’t work, but I put it down to
see where it would lead.
- WESCHLER
- How many ideas were you putting down a day? I mean, three or four ideas
a day or once in a while?
- HAMMERSLEY
- It would vary. Sometimes I’d get up in the morning and look— Absolutely
blank. And then, "Oh, that feels good," and I would sit there the whole
morning.
- WESCHLER
- Just spewing ideas?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- Did it worry you when you were blank, or were you okay with it? Were you
generous to yourself?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, what worried me is that when all the work stopped. And I didn’t
know it at the time, but I had used up my fund. And no reaction
whatsoever. This goes back to McLaughlin. McLaughlin had come to Los
Angeles, invited to do a lithograph at Tamarind [Lithography Workshop].
He and [his wife] Florence were staying in a motel, so I called him up,
and I went over to ask about this. So we talked. I said, “Now, John—”
I’d gone two months with no painting, and I was nervous, and Karl would
go through the same thing. He would get nervous if he didn’t paint.So I asked McLaughlin, I said, “Do you have an experience where you just
can’t paint or don’t paint at all?”He said, “Oh yes, of course.”I said, “How long does it last?”"Well," he said, “gosh, it might last two or three days.”So I said, “To hell with this,” and so I left early. That guy was so
disappointing. [laughs]
- WESCHLER
- You just said but your fund had been used up. Keep talking about that a
bit. What do you mean?
- HAMMERSLEY
- All right. An idea comes to me to make a painting, and sometimes I can
make another idea that that first idea breeds. It produces this child.
And that child has some brothers and sisters, and two or three of those
sisters I could use. The brothers I don’t care for. Whatever. So these
were done. And then some other things come in, and it seems like ideas
come in a cluster and this group. When I come to the end of the cluster,
I’m done with the ideas. Zero. There’s nothing to do. There’s nothing to
do. And for a while it worried me, and then I realized that was just
part of it. I’d used up that—
- WESCHLER
- That must have been a great thing when you realized that.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I should say. I didn’t worry quite so much. When I came here [to
Santa Fe] in 1968, my paintings had come to a stop, Chouinard [Art
Institute] was dying, and I didn’t know what to do. And then I got an
invitation to teach at the university here. I didn’t know how to spell
“Albuquerque.” So I came in the fall to look at this adobe university
[University of New Mexico], and there was sand in the street. In those
days there were fewer people, and the sand would blow. So it was the
best move I ever made because—
- WESCHLER
- We don’t want to get there yet. Let’s hold that off. But stick with the
point about being at the end of your fund. How does it come back? It
replenishes itself secretly inside of you somehow?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I think so. Because, as I mentioned earlier, if I talked to you, as I
look at that pale head against the chocolate sweater, whatever, and I
look at the flower, I watch my cat, all of this information is being
collected and sorted, and relationships occur. I don’t decide to make
the relationships, but I think all these—
- WESCHLER
- Last night you described a librarian that was inside your head.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, my librarian is—
- WESCHLER
- Male or female?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Lady. And she’s putting this material together, and I have nothing to do
with this, and then when there’s enough material or there’s a long
enough rest of not working— That’s a painting principle. I can’t have
something unless there’s a place where there’s nothing. Then I marry
off— As a matter of fact, I worked one day, looking at my paintings, I
said, “I’ll be damned. I’m painting a marriage of opposites.” And that’s
a rather universal concept. Sometimes they don’t know what they’re
doing, but I can’t have a good unless I have something that’s not so
good. I mean, I don’t appreciate good unless I have something that’s not
so good, or bright or have something— I’ve got to have something dull so
that is bright.
- WESCHLER
- So it begins to percolate again.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Oh. So when I came here, the painting was dead, but in the
meantime, Charles Lawler—
- WESCHLER
- Let’s hold off. I still want to keep you in L.A. for a little bit. I’ll
bring you back here. Talk to me about— Let’s look through this black
notebook. Do you have several notebooks like this?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I have the second one. Oh. This is notebook number— Oh. I have three
others.
- WESCHLER
- And these are even— What year, roughly, would this be, do you
imagine?
- HAMMERSLEY
- ’71.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. So this is going to be later.
- HAMMERSLEY
- This is ’86.
- WESCHLER
- And this was more of your Los Angeles days still?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I think so.
- WESCHLER
- So this is the other one. This is the beige cover, beige clothbound
cover.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. [There are seven notebooks, starting in 1959 and ending in 1998. I
have two small ones for preliminary diagrams the size of a postage
stamp, colored with pencils. The first one starts in the early 1960’s.
Good ideas from those books would go to two larger ones drawn to size,
e.g., 1/16 inch equals one inch. Most of my large paintings are 45
inches square. These are painted with oil paint, same as used for the
actual painting. Then I have four notebooks with a record of first the
diagram of the work, kind of stretcher bars, when the drawing was made
first, coast of what paint and when, etc. I note when finished, when
framed, photographed, and finally the title.]
- WESCHLER
- And so you would, for example— I’m trying to get you from the hunch to
the geometric. Describe that transition.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It goes back to the father of them all was that one with the two
circles. Now, what is interesting, if the painting had one or two
circles— In the old days, I would draw the circle by hand, and it would
be not quite round, but it felt all right. But then if there was four
circles, I had to draw it with a compass. Have you ever heard of a beam
compass?
- WESCHLER
- No.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It’s like an I-beam, and the pencil’s here, and this is the point. It
can be slid or slide down these things. I have one that you can make a
six-foot circle. And when you make the circle on the canvas, it is
gorgeous. It’s going [unclear], but, I mean, the circle is gorgeous. All
right. So if it’s a complicated circle painting, it has to be, for
simplicity and timesaving, I’ve got to do it with a— Mechanically done.
But if it’s one circle— This was drawn by hand. [Like Unlike, 1959]
- WESCHLER
- Really?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Those are two beautiful circles.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- It’s the red and white background with a purple and a blue circle. Those
are beautiful. Now, were you doing these geometric things in Los
Angeles, or you don’t really do them till you get to New Mexico?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh no. No. Wait a minute— The seventies I was here.
- WESCHLER
- What were you showing at the Heritage Gallery?
- HAMMERSLEY
- The early—
- WESCHLER
- Early Heritage would have been that sort of thing.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, and the early— Where would that be? Oh. It’s in here. I’ll show you
one thing. [Paired, 1961].
- WESCHLER
- This sort of thing.
- HAMMERSLEY
- This sort of thing. Now, this is the one that he said was seductive.
Black and white—
- WESCHLER
- Called Paired, from 1961. This is
McLaughlin, right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right. This is blue, and this is yellow. It’s a picture of
opposites.
- WESCHLER
- Right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- The Santa Fe Museum [of Fine Arts] owns this now; and I was very pleased
with that painting.
- WESCHLER
- But this is already what I would call geometrical.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exactly.
- WESCHLER
- And you’re doing this in Los Angeles?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- But it’s primarily rectangles—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, hardly— The circles disappeared.
- WESCHLER
- An occasional diagonal.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- Not so much illusionistic. There isn’t a— Later on, when you start doing
some of these ones I’m looking at, there’s a quality of things punching
forward, punching back and so forth.
- HAMMERSLEY
- See, I’m not aware of that when I do it. Later I say, “Oh, god. I don’t
remember—” I was not aware of that happening, but it felt good, that
group of shapes.
- WESCHLER
- So the shapes, as you do them, are flat?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exactly. They’re all flat. [Up with In,
1958; Fastened Rounds, 1958]
- WESCHLER
- So you’re doing these. Would you describe this as a simplification, a
purification from your hunch paintings or—
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no, no. It’s—
- WESCHLER
- Another direction?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exactly.
- WESCHLER
- And to what extent is it about shape, and to what extent is it about
color, or both, obviously?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I think they’re intertwined. Yes. I’m not pushing one beyond the other.
I’m very fond of color, and I’m very fond of— As I mentioned, people
don’t like brown, but I like brown. The color of an army blanket, it’s a
lovely color. This is not—
- WESCHLER
- That one here is just more of a greenish—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, not a very pretty— Now, this is all black and white and grays. Oh.
Here’s the [image of Now]— [Now, 1961] Now, see, this should be off-white
so you can barely see this.
- WESCHLER
- This is the 1961 of three different circles.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- So this is stuff that you’re showing at Heritage, and you continue doing
this sort of thing— Here’s another one, Match, from 1962. Again, circles, diagonals. I mean, for
example, here there’s an illusionistic thing that this gray, if it were
to go over this blue would be black like that.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- And so you’re playing with those sorts of overlaps and translucencies
and so forth, I suppose.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- [This was shown] at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And that’s where Ben Horowitz got the show for me. So I designed
the catalogue and had it printed in Japanesetown downtown. It cost me
$750 for 750 copies. Can you imagine? And I made all the color
separations. What a hell of a job. Oh, Christ.
- WESCHLER
- Are you selling paintings at this point?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Very seldom. Very seldom. Ben Horowitz sold one to a professor at UCLA.
I’m very pleased with that painting. Oh. He sold one to a black actor,
Sidney Poitier or— No. One of those people. There would be the
occasional sale.
- WESCHLER
- But mainly you’re making a living in those days still teaching at Pomona
[College]?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. And at Pasadena [Art] Museum teaching children that Bob
[Robert] Ellis had.
- WESCHLER
- Right. Oh, really? Was that fun, by the way, teaching children?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes.
- WESCHLER
- How so?
- HAMMERSLEY
- They’re so sweet and so unencumbered with “shoulds” or “should nots.”
And I remember Timothy, he would come in with a drawing of what he
wanted to do. And there were quarts of poster paint, big sheets of
paper, and this shy little girl would use a big brush, god. Timothy
would come in with the drawing, and then he had an idea— Oh. Then he
would spray, but he moved the stick the wrong way so the spray would
come in his face. So he went to the sink, took the thing off, and took
the paper towel, put it under his hat, and felt for his eye, and then
drew a mark, drew a mark, and then he cut a hole, put the paper back in,
put his hat on, and then sprayed so he wasn’t going to get— And he was
marvelous. So he made Big Ears and Her
Daughter, a big whale and a little whale.I said, “Now, Timothy, I want to hang that up.”He said, “I’ll make you another one.”I said, “Okay.”So next week he came back, and he made me another one. [mutual laughter]
I mean, god.And then one girl said, “I want to make a big bug.”I said, “All right. How big?”“But I want that roll of paper. I want to go out on the roof.”So it was like eighteen feet long. And she made this big bug. I said,
“God, that’s amazing.”
- WESCHLER
- Where were you living during this period?
- HAMMERSLEY
- On Sanborn Avenue.
- WESCHLER
- On Sanborn and what?
- HAMMERSLEY
- It was below Hollywood Boulevard and a couple of blocks east of Vermont.
Very quiet street. No smog.
- WESCHLER
- Can I ask you about your personal life? You never married?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No.
- WESCHLER
- And no children?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, unfortunately. Let’s see. Now, that was at Jepson’s. There was a
Polish girl that I went with for a while, and she had a cute little
girl, and I enjoyed knowing them very much. And I took photographs. Oh
yes, I was taking photographs at this time, and I have a picture of this
little girl.There’s a terrible thing that happens. This Russian girl that was in my
art department at Berlin, when she was a child, her mother had hurt her
somehow, and when Tamara had a child, she hurt her. I’d come to
visit—
- WESCHLER
- Tamara is—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Tamara Webster was the WAC in the army at Berlin and Frankfurt. I cycled
out to see her like around Westwood. She’d serve dinner or something,
and then she’d take the plate in to the little girl so she’d eat in the
bedroom. Oh, Christ, terrible. When the girl grew up, she left. Tamara
hasn’t the slightest idea what happened to her.So, Virginia had been hurt, a Polish girl, hurt in Chicago, and I didn’t
realize that she would hurt the piper, the child. The little girl would
dance like a ballet, and the mother would say, “Whoever saw a ballet
dancer like that?” It’s like sticking a knife in her.Now, I took a picture of this little girl, and years later I looked at
it, and I could see the pain. Bless her heart.I have fifty photographs that I was invited to show at California State
University at Northridge, and I was delighted to show these things, of
people and Berlin and Frankfurt and here.So anyway, I knew this Virginia Yost. Let’s see. I was going to Pomona
College. And then I was very fond of a wife of a doctor. She was taking
a drawing class at Pomona, and we had had lunch on the lawn, and she was
a college person, so I could ask her things about literature, and she
always could tell me what that was, and I liked that.
- WESCHLER
- But you basically didn’t have that many relationships?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. I was scared to hell. I was—
- WESCHLER
- Scared and felt bad not to have them, or you were just married to your
work or were you —
- HAMMERSLEY
- I felt bad not to have them. No, no, in those days— See, I didn’t want
to duplicate having a female wearing the pants and controlling me.
Mother was that. So I associated that with— I helped a couple of
psychiatrists through civilian life, and it started with the shaky hand,
but I still have the shaky hand, but— When I first went to this one
doctor in Westwood, the first early sessions, he said, “Tell me about
your parents.”So I told him about Dad, you know, nice things, and my mother, nice
things, and I was almost to the end, and I started to cry. And only
later did I realize I’m showing the good things, but this is the bad
things that hurt.Then when I came here, the psychiatrist told me— That’s the only two
things I remember. He said, “Your parents taught you you couldn’t make
it.” Son of a bitch. Awful.
- WESCHLER
- A second ago you were telling me stories about people who hurt children.
You were hurt in that sense.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s true. That’s true.
- WESCHLER
- And you said that in response to my question of you of your own having
relationships with other people. You basically didn’t have that many
because you were shy and—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Didn’t want to get involved. I marvel at people that marry, to have
another person in the house. I couldn’t work if there was another person
in the house, you see. It’s like I would have to entertain them or take
care of them.As far as my career, I made a mistake in not going to New York, because
that’s where the center is, but I couldn’t— I was afraid of earning
enough money, first to just pay my expenses, much less get enough time
to work. And so to be invisible— Albuquerque is invisible, I think. I
mean, it’s boondocks—
- WESCHLER
- By the way, how does Los Angeles feel in ’60, ’61, ’62, in terms of
being peripheral? If you were successful— You were doing pretty well
once you were having shows. Did you feel like you were a provincial
artist because you weren’t in New York at that time?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. You’d hear talk in the galleries. If the collector had some
money, he would go to New York. And they didn’t like that, the gallery
people, and they felt better than San Francisco, because, assumedly,
they were worse off. And some of my friends that taught at Pomona
College ended up in New York. Richards Ruben? Have you heard of him?
- WESCHLER
- Sure, sure.
- HAMMERSLEY
- He was from Pomona College. A short, dynamic man. I remember he had a
studio at Pomona. Rembrandt Hall was the studio. And he had a show, it
was at Ferus? And the painting was too large. He couldn’t get it out of
the door. [laughs] I thought, god, Ruben, use your head. He had to take
it off the stretcher bar. Oh, dear. But anyway, I’ve never heard of the
man since. I don’t know if he’s all right.
- WESCHLER
- So now I guess we can begin to move toward your move to Albuquerque. Or
actually, we’ve talked a little bit about this with the imagery and how—
Tell me a little bit more about these geometric paintings in terms of
how the imagery would go from a notebook to the painting.
- HAMMERSLEY
- This I could, as I say, think out loud, make many things, with not a
great deal of effort. The coloring with colored pencil, I mean, that
didn’t take much time. And then later I started to use oil paint. It
dawned on me one day, it was so silly to use colored pencil.
- WESCHLER
- Later on, you started using oil itself [in the notebooks].
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Now, like this one I made a painting of, and I made a painting of
this one. And I think I made a painting of this one. And those have been
sold.So when the idea felt good, and I would wait a couple of days to let it—
You know, see if it still rings true. Then I would put it in here. The
proportion of the stretcher bar I had. Now, my favorite shape was—
- WESCHLER
- So you would start by putting it here, and then you would put it in the
black notebook?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. See, this is like for a forty-four- or a forty-five-inch
painting, it’s like forty-five sixteenths of an inch. A sixteenth in
this notebook would be equal to an inch on the canvas.
- WESCHLER
- I see.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Here’s that one that was turned upside down. [Sacred and Pro Fame, 1978] That’s the right size. The
museum downtown has this. This is called Sacred
and Pro Fame. See? "Pro Fame." I was for “pro fame,” not
“profane.”
- WESCHLER
- That reminds me, by the way, that you also have these things of your
titles over here. I mean, I’m looking here at an insane list you have,
and you just went right—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. See, first it has to be framed properly so it’s practically
invisible, but it must protect the painting, but then I couldn’t leave
the house. It’s like your mother wouldn’t allow you to leave unless you
had a name. And I don’t understand, and I resent it, when other people
leave their paintings untitled. It’s like I’m mildly insulted. He spends
time on the work, and it says Untitled Number
475. Well, hell’s bells.
- WESCHLER
- Have you ever made a painting called Hell’s
Bells? [laughs]
- HAMMERSLEY
- No.
- WESCHLER
- Are the titles workings-out of names for a particular painting, or are
they just free-floating titles that are waiting for a painting to be
done that will match?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh no, no, no. The Pro Fame one, I’ve
always thought of that title, and I’d like to get a painting to fit it.
But it usually works that the painting is first. And see, I would draw
the painting, and then I would keep on writing titles down until one
fit.
- WESCHLER
- It’s kind of like a musician, the composer and the lyricist, basically.
There’s a quality that there’s the painting, and then there’s the lyric
of the painting that has to come along, the name.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It’s fascinating how if I let myself alone and just write words, “Santa
Claus,” “gloves,” “two for one,” whatever, and all of a sudden I think,
“Oh, that’s a good title. That’s very good.” See?
- WESCHLER
- For this particular painting or for a painting someday?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no, no. I never do something for some day. It’s for now.
- WESCHLER
- “What am I going to call this painting?”
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes, yes.
- WESCHLER
- You, by the way, like crossword puzzles too, right?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- So you’re a word— One of the things that strikes me about the paintings
and the titles is their whimsy, their wit.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes, yes. That’s unintentional. It’s just the way I’m made. I’m very
fond of jokes. Jokes are like a poetry or a painting where it’s a
two-for-one sale. And jokes can be so clever, so— I just marvel at it.
They’re just—
- WESCHLER
- They can be precise and succinct and move—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, and gives you things to think about. It gives you— Well,
anyway.
- WESCHLER
- It reminds me, there’s a great line of e.e. cummings in the preface to
his book called Is Five. He says that the
poet is somebody who is inordinately fond of that precision which
creates movement, as in the joke, “Would you hit a woman with a child?”
“No, I’d hit her with a brick.” That precision which creates movement,
he says, because the poet knows that two plus two isn’t necessarily
four, but sometimes is five, which is why he called the book Is Five.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I see.
- WESCHLER
- So the thing that happens in a joke— If you use that example—it’s a
sexist joke and so forth—but if you use that example of e.e. cummings,
“Would you hit a woman with a child?” “No, I’d hit her with a brick,”
that little shift that happens in a joke often sometimes happens with
your paintings, too.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes, yes. And that’s what I saw happen with McLaughlin’s paintings,
that unexpected shift, and I was so surprised, because it was just
sitting there. So that’s the delight. That’s the pleasure that is just
wonderful.
- WESCHLER
- Now, do you know it’s going to do that when it’s in this notebook?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh no, I haven’t the slightest idea. The shapes come together, and I’m
watching it happen. And then later, "I’ll be damned, look at that."
- WESCHLER
- After it shows up on the canvas, or even when you’re looking at it here
in the notebook?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. The painting has to be done. It takes me a long time to see what
I’ve done.
- WESCHLER
- Well, let’s bring you to the point where— This crisis where you end up
leaving Los Angeles. You were teaching at Chouinard as well? So you were
teaching at Pomona and Chouinard?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no. I quit at—
- WESCHLER
- That’s right. You quit at Pomona.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And there was— Oh, god. Nordland called to say—
- WESCHLER
- Gerry [Gerald] Nordland.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. “Would you like to come and teach at Chouinard?” I said, “No. I’ve
finished Pomona, and I want to take a year off to work.” And then later
I don’t know if I called or they called, and then I came back in ’64 to
teach painting and drawing.
- WESCHLER
- At Chouinard.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And Jepson had a crazy idea. If you took a class in drawing— That’s
right. You’d sign up for a drawing class. That meant— I forget— I don’t
think it was six weeks, but it might have been six. You’d go to the
drawing class five days a week, morning and afternoon, just drawing.
Well, now, something really happens then, that kind of concentration.
Unbelievable.
- WESCHLER
- Did they do that at Chouinard also?
- HAMMERSLEY
- They did that at Chouinard, and the instructor would show up two of the
days, and the other three days they were working on their own. I was
somewhat puzzled by that. It was good, and it was difficult.
- WESCHLER
- Did you like teaching?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I enjoyed teaching very much.
- WESCHLER
- You were a good teacher?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, I was a good teacher.
- WESCHLER
- Who were some of your students? Did any of them become artists?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. Tom Wudl, handled by Peter [Goulds], and there was a girl. What the
hell—
- WESCHLER
- What was Tom Wudl like?
- HAMMERSLEY
- He was a very inventive young man. His things now, I’ve only seen one
show of spots on violins and kind of kooky things, but what the hell’s
the difference? I mean, if that’s—
- WESCHLER
- But as a student did he stand out?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, I mean, he was always trying something new, and I admired him for
that. Oh. Who’s the one that played Dr. Kildare?
- WESCHLER
- [Richard] Chamberlain?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Chamberlain. He was my student at [Pomona College in the
mid-fifties].
- WESCHLER
- Really? What was he like?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Very nice boy. And he made a remark one time. He loved to paint. I think
I gave him a B. I read someplace that when he was in the dorm or
something and he looked out and saw people, he said, “I don’t want to
spend my life in a studio. I want to be with people,” and that’s when he
went into acting. And I’ve often wondered what happened to him. I think
he bought some property in Hawaii, didn’t he?
- WESCHLER
- Could be. I don’t know.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- But what did you like about—
1.6. TAPE NUMBER: III, SIDE TWO JANUARY 15, 2003
- WESCHLER
- Go ahead. I asked you, what did you like about teaching?
- HAMMERSLEY
- The fascination of knowing something and wanting to give it to a kid,
and to see him understand it and make use of it is marvelous. There was
a daughter of a professor at UCLA. She just didn’t get it at all. It
went for more than half of the term, and toward the end, it suddenly
dawned on her, and she blossomed. I mean, god, she worked, and it was
wonderful.
- WESCHLER
- It’s funny, when something dawns on a student—and I teach also—you are
the sun.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I hadn’t thought of that, yes.
- WESCHLER
- And it dawns.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Oh, yes, yes.
- WESCHLER
- And you have that sense of sunrise.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I never thought of that. Yes. Also, if I were president, I wouldn’t
allow anyone to teach unless he’d worked on his own, after he left art
school, to work on his own for at least five years, because if I leave
art school and start teaching, which I did, as a matter of fact—
- WESCHLER
- I was going to say, you’re guilty.
- HAMMERSLEY
- You’re mouthing what your instructor just told you yesterday. But I was
working on my own, and I was mouthing some of these things which were
very helpful.
- WESCHLER
- What sorts of things were your own things? Not that you were mouthing
that other people told you, but what kinds of things would you tell
people?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No one started with background shapes. See, I dislike the word negative and positive
shapes. That background shape is a background shape. It’s not a
negative. It’s a positive in a sense. So I wanted them to be aware of
the real estate of the rectangle, and those places where the object is
not are crucial. It’s important, too. And that realism has the seeds of
abstraction inside. You don’t know that, but when you do the background
shapes of a stool, you have these funny-shaped windows. And when I’m
through with the windows, I’ve got a stool, and it’s the craziest stool
I’ve ever seen. It’s kind of out of whack, but it feels like a stool.
You don’t get that if I say, “Draw me the stool.” You have to be very
careful.Oh. I wish I could show you. There’s a drawing in one of these women’s
magazines of a woman with black hair and a blouse or something, and the
line is very tentative. Oh, bless her heart. It’s well done, they know
how to draw, but there’s no guts, no passion, no nothing. As a matter of
fact, you must excuse me. [David] Hockney’s drawings of two people,
they’re very charming, but there’s no passion or guts to it. The line is
a line. But goddamn it, a line— Schiele—
- WESCHLER
- Egon Schiele.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Those lines, boy, there’re strong. And— Well, that’s enough.
- WESCHLER
- That’s interesting. Give me some other— You’ve mentioned an example of
teaching people to draw a stool. What are some of your other favorite
exercises you would give?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. I set up things. Now, there are five shapes on that table, right?
Give me five shapes. Just paint those five shapes, or start with
painting the background pieces so you end up with the five shapes.
- WESCHLER
- Those were abstract shapes that you put on the table?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, they’re pitchers and jars and wine bottles, etc. And then they
became more digestible and more agreeable to do. And then they weren’t
allowed to use anything but black and white and red and yellow.I’ll never forget this little girl said, “Yes, when I put the yellow in
the black, I got green, and I got scared, so I quit.” [mutual laughter]
I said, “Yes, I know. The paintings surprise you all the time.” I said,
“It’s all right.”
- WESCHLER
- What other sorts of things did you do as exercises?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I can’t thing of anything more.
- WESCHLER
- Maybe it’ll come to you as we talk.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. Well, that was kind of difficult. I’ll give you an exercise. Rico
[Lebrun] said— A model was sitting there. He said, “Show me the model,
what she looks like on the opposite side from where you’re sitting. And
then show me what the bird’s-eye view would look like. And show me what
the worm’s eye would look like.” She stays the same pose. Now, that
really makes you think. That’s a marvelous exercise. But you couldn’t do
that unless they’d been drawing for a long time. But what else?[Telephone rings.]
- WESCHLER
- You think of them. I’ll answer the phone.[Tape recorder turned off.]
- WESCHLER
- Interruption there, but now we’re continuing. Go ahead. You were
saying?
- HAMMERSLEY
- The French magazine called Leonardo, and I
don’t know how I got involved to write an article about— Oh, when I was
doing computer prints—
- WESCHLER
- And that’s later on when you’re in New Mexico, right?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. You want us to save it for later?
- WESCHLER
- Let’s save that for later. We’re right now still talking about
teaching.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, yes. I thought of something.
- WESCHLER
- Exercises that you would—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exercises. Texture is not a vital part of painting, but some people like
it a great deal. So I would collect objects on a table, and I would put
a piece of fur or a tin can or a variety of objects, and cover it with a
blanket, and they would put their hand under and
feel this object. A requirement was to paint a square of how that
texture felt, not how you think it looks, but how it feels.
So they’d get some strange—
- WESCHLER
- Would they touch it first or just how it—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, no. They have to touch it. They have to touch it, because they have
no information unless they listen to your hand. And that was very
interesting.
- WESCHLER
- “Listen to your hand.”
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. It was very interesting. Oh. I would keep a journal. I have a
journal, what I did every day for the teaching, and sometimes what the
result— And then I have folios of student drawings and work for all my
classes, and I don’t know what the hell to do with them.Oh. There’s one young girl. We correspond. She was in my painting class.
Bardene Allen. But she was a crazy student, very imaginative, and I had
some work, and I sent some drawings, sent it back to her, and I sent
some drawings to another person. But anyway— But I wanted a record of
the students’ work, and so I have a lot of this stuff.
- WESCHLER
- So you were teaching at Chouinard, and gradually Chouinard is running
out of gas. What happened there?
- HAMMERSLEY
- It started, actually, Mrs. [Nelbert] Chouinard would hire bookkeepers
that would—
- WESCHLER
- What was she like, by the way?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, she was— I don’t think she had very good taste, as a matter of fact,
but she was a good salesman. As a matter of fact, she and “Tink”—was
that his name? the head of Art Center [Edward A. "Tink" Adams]—I think
in the twenties were working together. Then there was some disagreement,
and whatever happened, and so they both had their own art school. She
was very good at selling her school. She would visit high schools and
things. When I was on the exhibition crew with Mort Traylor, we would
get together a group of students’ work that she would take and show to
this high school, etc. She was a very dynamic woman.
- WESCHLER
- Was she an older lady by the sixties?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes. She was in her sixties. And then— It’s so funny. When I came
back after the war in ’46, and I went back to Chouinard in the different
building now, and she said, “What did you do?”I said, “Well,” so-and-so, “and I saw Picasso’s studio.”She said, “Oh, did he give you a drawing?”I said, “No, but he said ‘Bonjour.’” [mutual laughter]
- WESCHLER
- So in the late sixties, what was the trouble with Chouinard? What was
happening?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. She ran out of money. The bookkeepers were running off with the
money, but in the meantime, [Walt] Disney had helped her with money. Oh,
long before Disney brought Rico out here to do drawings of animals’
bones for the Bambi thing.
- WESCHLER
- For Fantasia, too, I think. Right?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Maybe that was it. What was this magazine? Fortune? Do you remember something— Rank. A movie producer
called [J. Arthur] Rank. The Englishman. Rico had drawn a picture of
this man sitting like this with these hands clasped. And the drawing was
marvelous. Now, what the hell was my point?
- WESCHLER
- We’re talking about Chouinard.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, right. So Rico worked at the studios doing this, and then he—
- WESCHLER
- And Disney gave money to Chouinard to help make animators, to help—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exactly. And then Chouinard combined with a music school [Los Angeles
Conservatory of Music]. The music school wasn’t in the same building,
but it was like the same organization. And then Mrs. Chandler or someone
put up money that they wanted to be— And they wanted to be in the same
category prestigewise as Caltech [California Institute of Technology],
so they called it CalArts [California Institute of the Arts]. Sounded
like a bloody leather company. Oh, Christ. Terrible. Chouinard, how do
you spell Chouinard and that sort of thing?Anyway, so they were planning to move this school—
- WESCHLER
- To Valencia.
- HAMMERSLEY
- In Valencia. Where the hell is that? So the faculty was, “What the
hell’s going to happen?” Well, the whole faculty would just go out
there. Well, that’s nice. Then it developed no one went out there. And
it’s a miserable school, as far as painting and drawing is
concerned.
- WESCHLER
- It was very much a school for theory, for performance art.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exactly. There’s nothing wrong with that.
- WESCHLER
- Happenings and things like that.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. But I get their mailing pieces, and they couldn’t get in first
grade at Chouinard.
- WESCHLER
- It was because CalArts was on the horizon that there wasn’t an attempt
to save Chouinard, that Chouinard was just allowed to kind of peter
out.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exactly
- WESCHLER
- So that must’ve been a crisis for you, that that’s going on, and your
own work had kind of come to a stillness?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exactly.
- WESCHLER
- What were you doing just before the stillness set in? Geometrical work,
basically?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, yes. I was still painting and I would occasionally go to drawing
groups. It was all right. And then I thought, “Boy, what the hell will I
do?”
- WESCHLER
- By the way, this is also in ’68. ’68, as I recall, was a pretty
turbulent year politically. Were you at all politically involved?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no.
- WESCHLER
- I mean, Robert Kennedy is assassinated. Martin Luther King is
assassinated. The Vietnam War. Did that really have any—
- HAMMERSLEY
- I forget. The sixties— So when I came here [University of New Mexico] in
’68, there was a lot of activity on the campus and stuff. The painting
class started in the afternoon this particular day, and the girl said,
“Well, aren’t we going to talk about the so-and-so and so-and-so?” I
said, “No. This is a painting class. If you want to do that, then you go
someplace else.” Why should I talk about some political thing outside?
I’ve been employed to do this.
- WESCHLER
- Were you engaged politically outside of your work?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no. I could care less.
- WESCHLER
- So we’ve got you at a crisis in 1968, ’67, ’68 in your life. Has Los
Angeles itself gone still for you at that point? Are you getting tired
of L.A.?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, I wasn’t tired of L.A. It’s just that my situation had— I was tired
of being blank.
- WESCHLER
- So what happened?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, because Robert Ellis, the man I knew at the Pasadena Museum, he
was in charge of education at the Pasadena Museum. Oh, and by the way, I
was so impressed—
- WESCHLER
- By the way, stop for a second. I realize we didn’t talk about the
Pasadena Museum. What kind of presence was the Pasadena Museum in those
days, in the sixties in L.A.?
- HAMMERSLEY
- It was very important. It was a long trip out there, but the building
was lovely, and they had The Responsive
Eye show there.
- WESCHLER
- Of which you were a part?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Whoa. Let’s stop the horses. How did that happen?
- HAMMERSLEY
- [William C. Seitz] came to my apartment. I have a reproduction of it, a
white shape like this and two balls, white on black. That’s it. [That, 1964] Called That. I don’t like the title. Well, anyway, it was in the show.
I didn’t care if they hung it in the men’s room so long as I’m in the
museum. That would be nice.Pasadena was well thought of, and there was a gingko tree in the
courtyard, which is a marvelous tree. Oh. When I first had the one-man
show [in 1961], Tom [Thomas] Leavitt was the director, and I brought the
paintings in. I don’t know how I got the show. I walked out, and then I
came back. I said, “Now, you let me know, and I’ll help you hang the
show.”He said, “Oh, no. That’s my business.”And I walked out. I said, “Yeah, that’s right. That’s his area. I have
not a goddamn thing to do with those walls.”So he hung it in relationships I would’ve never done, but that’s fine. So
I’ve always left it to the other person.
- WESCHLER
- Did you like the show there?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes.
- WESCHLER
- Was it well received?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t know.
- WESCHLER
- [laughs] Are you the kind of person, you open the paper every day to see
whether the show has been reviewed, or do you not care?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, if I’m in a show, I’m looking for a review. Oh, you’re damn right. I
have a good circulation in my ego.
- WESCHLER
- Anyway, just finishing up with Pasadena, so that was an important part
of the world of L.A. art in those days, contemporary art?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, a lot of people were there. I mean, a lot of people were in
Pasadena, as a matter of fact, and they were in shows.
- WESCHLER
- Was the Pasadena—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Excuse me. I’m sorry. I was going to say, one time a little boy wanted
to make a funny horse, and we worked on that. He was a Rosicrucian, and
later his father came to pick him up. He said, “Who the hell ever saw a
horse like that?” And he just stuck the knife in the boy. I got so
angry.
- WESCHLER
- This was one of your students at the Pasadena Art School?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, eight to twelve years old, eight to eleven. Bob Ellis afterwards
started a class for the parents so they could experience what these
children were experiencing, and it was frightening. “Oooh. Me, draw? I
don’t know how to—” It was very good. I was very impressed.
- WESCHLER
- Was the Pasadena Art Museum more important than the L.A. County Art
Museum?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no, no, no.
- WESCHLER
- But for contemporary art in L.A.?
- HAMMERSLEY
- It was just another opportunity to look at paintings. They had some
other— Oh. That’s what taught me. Bob Ellis said— Oh, [Jack] Tworkov. I
saw a show of Tworkov there, and I was talking to Bob, and he said, “You
know, like an ass, of all the good shows that have been here, I
should’ve been taking pictures for slides for teaching.” And I said,
“That’s a very good idea.”Oh, yes, it was too expensive hiring Serisawa to take pictures of my work
or slides, so I knew a Frenchman who did commercials on TV. So he took
me to a camera shop, and I bought a 1963 Minolta number one. No
batteries. I mean no light meters. But it’s well thought of still. So
then I started taking pictures of my own work, and when the County
Museum opened on Wilshire Boulevard with Bonnard, a friend of mine went
in, and we could take photographs, because we were teachers, and I took
a lot of details of Bonnard. Bonnard is marvelous. And the little boy
said, “Why does that lady always go to the bathroom with high heels?”
You know that yellow painting? She has black shoes. I said, “I really
don’t know. I wonder why, too.” [laughs]So I started to collect slides of paintings so I could use it to teach,
and you never can buy slides— I can never buy slides that I liked that
would be good to illustrate my point. I have seven examples of my seven
tools that I pin up, and then I show slides. Words are very weak. Vision
is strong.
- WESCHLER
- By the way, one thing I realize also, before we get out of L.A., you
told me a story last night about Forest Lawn [cemetery].
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes, yes. That was a painting lesson that surprised me. I was reading
a lot in those days. I enjoy to read.
- WESCHLER
- What do you like to read?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, I told you about the [Encyclopaedia] Britannica
thing on the Mormons, which I thought was—
- WESCHLER
- The eleventh edition of the Britannica.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, the onionskin thing, and this Bob [Cater]— He was a funny, odd man.
He loved books, and we would exchange things, books. I started to read
[Edith] Sitwell and then the two brothers [Osbert and Sacheverell
Sitwell], and then I came upon— Oh. The Loved
One.
- WESCHLER
- Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One. And I was so
interested, and he was talking about this funeral home which we knew, or
we assumed it was Forest Lawn, and the love affair between the one man
who was an embalmer, but he was very good at making the smile on the
cadaver with a curved piece of cardboard he’d insert. [laughs] And his
girlfriend was in a pet cemetery, so this combination.So I thought, “Well, I’ve never been to the Forest Lawn,” and it was very
famous. So I went there, and all these big halls of all these crypts and
all these men with white overalls taking down flowers. Down in the lower
section, there was more crypts, I guess, where you would put your ashes
or put the body. And the man was giving a talk about the advantages of
being there, and he was standing in front of a cut-glass window that
occupied the entire end of the room, which was like a long hallway.Then he started to talk about this stained-glass window, and he said, “As
in life, there is the sunrise, high noon, and sunset, and I’ll show
you.” So he turned off everything, and then he showed the sunrise where
there was a little light, and then noon and everything. You’d see all
the religious figures and the costumes and the colors and textures. Then
he turned to the dusk, and I was so astonished that the least important
elements of painting disappeared, texture and pattern, and then
eventually color disappeared, and what was left was black and white, and
that was the bones of the painting. And it was still clear what was
going on, and I was very impressed with that.So I came home and looked at some of my paintings in bad light and,
“Yeah, that carries all right. That’s good. Oh, I’m not sure of that
one.”
- WESCHLER
- It’s funny, because a lot of people would take that story as an example
of kitsch, but you really took it as if you could really learn something
from that.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, yes, it seemed very obvious. I mean, the texture disappeared, the
pattern disappeared, and then the color disappeared. I thought, Christ,
that’s— Boy, that’s amazing. And just two important things in the
painting are left, its shape and value.
- WESCHLER
- And they have to read.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Legibility again.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And you could find out whether the thing was done well. My father’s
word, properly.
- WESCHLER
- It’s funny, because it’s often said that to look at whether a piece is
well composed, you should turned it upside down, but in your case, turn
out the lights.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes. Then that ridiculous chestnut, the painting should work upside
down, is absolutely ridiculous. There’s only one way to look at it. You
could get some paintings where— I had a painting with a square in the
middle. There’s no top. All right. That’s something else. But that’s
nonsense. A painting— I mean, you don’t look good upside down.
- WESCHLER
- I guess you don’t like George Baselitz.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, I don’t understand. I’d like to have someone tell me what the
hell’s going on.
- WESCHLER
- It’s not going to be me. [laughs]Anyway, so let’s continue back. We picked up some loose ends, but now we
still have you at the end of your tenure in Los Angeles, and how does
this New Mexico thing happen?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Because Bob Ellis was working now— I was so surprised Bob Ellis left Los
Angeles. He was a commercial artist and a painter. He designed a
marvelous book on McLaughlin, a catalogue. I still have it. Very
tasteful. For the Pasadena Museum. And he was married, and the wife,
Barbara, was a real estate agent, and I think they did very well. I
don’t know how he got into the University of New Mexico. But the point
is, he was there, and he called me up and asked if I’d like to teach
there. And like an ass, I said, “Well, let me think about it a week.”
Come on. That’s so silly.
- WESCHLER
- Why is that so silly?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, I mean, that’s excessive, because then [Van] Deren Coke [head of
art department, University of New Mexico] called a couple of days later.
He said, “Well, I have someone else in mind. I’d like to know what
you’ve decided.” I said, “Hammersley—” So I said, “Yes, I’ll come.” So I
came a few days before the fall session.
- WESCHLER
- Did you come with the intention to move here, or you came with the
intention to just come for a semester?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, it was a full-time job.
- WESCHLER
- You were moving to New Mexico?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, because I had all my paintings and all— I’m very good at collecting
stuff.
- WESCHLER
- Had you ever been here before?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Never. Never.
- WESCHLER
- So you accepted the job before coming here?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no. No, wait a minute. Yes, I think I did. Yes. So I came in August
to look at it, and the hotel room— Oh, Christ, one of the first hotels.
I rented a car. The hotel was nine dollars a night, and I don’t think
they changed the air in the hall.
- WESCHLER
- Los Angeles 1940s prices, basically.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And to see this sandy city and this adobe university really
surprised me. I went to the art department and saw Bob Ellis, and he
invited me to stay at his home a day or so, and I did. So then I flew
back home. That was August, and I was to come in September to start the
term. So I came, and then I looked for a place to live.
- WESCHLER
- By the way, in August, did you think you’d made a mistake? Were you
looking forward to it? Was it out of the way, far from the middle of
things? Did that worry you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, because I’d been in Los Angeles a long time. I’d been in this
apartment nine years. God, that’s a long time, nine years in this
apartment. So it was time for a move, and it was so ridiculous going to
Albuquerque. That is not a wise place to go, for god’s sake. But I had a
job, and I would teach morning, afternoon, and evening, and the altitude
was such that I would teach in the morning, come home, have a nap, and
have lunch, teach afternoon, come home, and have a nap, have dinner, and
come home in the evening and go to bed. I was tired.
- WESCHLER
- What is the altitude here?
- HAMMERSLEY
- A mile high.
- WESCHLER
- A mile high here?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Well, describe some of the features of Albuquerque, the light.
- HAMMERSLEY
- The light is marvelous, and the sky is enormous, and the air is fresh.
Then what was interesting was the three nationalities. The poor Indian
is the low man on the totem pole, the Spaniard is the middle, and then
the—
- WESCHLER
- The Anglo.HAMMERSELY: The Anglo. That’s slightly changed.But it was remarkable to drive out— Oh, and there was a couple of English
instructors that were invited to come here for a term. They traveled all
over the state, and I would ask them things about Tent Rocks or— A city
of rocks. It was like God, before he produced Henry Moore, arranged
these rocks in a blank area, and you could walk between these things,
and they’re big as a sofa, as big as a two-story building, these lovely
sculptured rocks.
- WESCHLER
- Where is that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Between Silver City and Deming, the southwest corner of New Mexico. But
there were so many things to look at here. Have you ever heard of Acoma?
What was this man’s name? He was an Englishman. [Alistair Cooke] He had
a program on the United States [that included the history of Acoma].
Acoma is a city on top of a mesa. It’s the oldest city in the states, I
think. First they were on this mesa, and the thunderstorm had ruined the
way up, and they had to move. Then there was two women left. Then the
Spaniards came, and the Indians were forced to build this church. Then
they got rid of the Spanish after a while. Then there was a window that
has been there for three hundred years, that sort of thing. And the
Acoma pottery is marvelous. Oh boy.
- WESCHLER
- Now, you sound like somebody who just fell in love with New Mexico.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Was it immediate and continuous, or was there a time when you were
going, “What have I done?”
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no. Never, never. It was the best move I ever made, because the
decade of the seventies was the best, most productive decade I’ve ever
had. I started in ’68, and then become seventies. I could be a visiting
professor for three years, and then they wanted me to be on tenure, and
that meant committees. That’s death, committees. I’d put money aside, so
I said, “No, I’m going to quit.” I don’t know how I— Well, anyway.
- WESCHLER
- You told me parenthetically that you’d had a friend who was a good
advisor with mutual funds and so forth.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s right. When I turned sixty, I was aware of dying, and I should
have some income. So I was interested in how to invest some money, so if
I had $5,000, how could I put that someplace so I didn’t have to go out
and earn another five. So that was helpful.
- WESCHLER
- So you quit teaching in ’73?
- HAMMERSLEY
- ’68 to ’71, three years.
- WESCHLER
- I see. I just, again, want to talk a little bit more about the quality
of life here in New Mexico. Compare the light of Los Angeles with the
light of Albuquerque. Compare the quality of light in the two
places.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. Quality of light. Well, it’s simply more intense here. When you
asked me that— See, I’ve never really paid much attention. I know it
felt good. And then the surprising thing, if it’s hot, I stand under a
tree, and it’s cool. That’s not Los Angeles. If it’s hot, it’s hot. And
here it was dry. That was very nice.Then I would visit the towns on the other side of the mountains. Golden,
Madrid, and Cerrillos. That was another world. And when I’d be driving,
I was the only one in the world. There was no one else around. Now,
that’s not Los Angeles. It was very—
- WESCHLER
- Did you go to Santa Fe much?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, occasionally.
- WESCHLER
- Was Santa Fe already fairly chi-chi at that point or not that much?
- HAMMERSLEY
- It’s always been, I think, chi-chi, yes. I would go— You know, “Let’s go
to Santa Fe.” Now I have to think, “Oh, I don’t want to go to Santa Fe.
It’s too much work, driving.” But mainly, I wanted to see the museums
and I wanted to see the galleries. Peter Goulds [of L.A. Louver gallery]
told me that Santa Fe has the second largest income from art sales in
the States, and I questioned that, and he said, “No, that’s true.” New
York being one. Two hundred some-odd galleries on this canyon road. A
lot of the galleries you don’t have to go in, but there’s some that are
good. Early Indian things. Boy, beautiful stuff. Beautiful stuff. Santa
Fe is a very strange city, but it’s very attractive to people. They love
it.
- WESCHLER
- So, coming back— I have a sense of you getting tired. Are you feeling
okay?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Want to go for a little bit longer?
- HAMMERSLEY
- God, it’s almost five. Incredible. No, let’s go as long as you like.
- WESCHLER
- We’ve covered a large swath of life here in one day. But continuing a
bit still, you arrive, having come to the end of your tether
artistically for a while in L.A., and you come here. What jump-started
you? What got you going again?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. In ’69— I was thinking about painting. I made one painting in ’69.
[A gain, 1969]
- WESCHLER
- While you’re here in New Mexico?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. It was a small painting.
- WESCHLER
- Are you scared at that point, that you’re no longer going to paint?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Worried me. Let’s see. That was ’69. What am I talking about? Yes, ’68,
there’s no painting, ’69 there was one painting, but ’69 I was here.
That’s right. ’69, I was here. And then I forget what happened. Oh. I
have a notebook where I start a painting, and I write down what the
stretcher bar is and what the canvas is, and what the first coat of
paint is, and that sort of thing. So that’s somewhere.
- WESCHLER
- You sound like you’re your father’s son.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exactly.
- WESCHLER
- You keep records of everything.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s right. Oh. And then, so I was out of a job, so I looked for
grants. How do I get a grant? So I found out how to apply for a
Guggenheim [Fellowship], and so I prepared material and sent it. This is
1973. Then I got a grant. God, what’s his name? Starts with a “W.” He
was on the committee.Anyway, it paid $8,500 for the year, and that was wonderful. I had to
account for every dime I spent, and I had $200 left at the end of the
year. So I said, “I’d better use it.” So I framed some computer drawings
and sent the report in, etc.
- WESCHLER
- But that’s ’73. Had you started— You said you had painted one painting
in ’69.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, yes. Then so in ’71 I started to paint because, yes, then after ’71,
then the paintings started to come, because I sent a black and white
painting to the Guggenheim. What is the name of this painter that
was—
- WESCHLER
- What kind of painter?
- HAMMERSLEY
- You’d know him if I could think.
- WESCHLER
- Older? Younger?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Older person. He did Spanish something—
- WESCHLER
- Oh. Motherwell.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Motherwell. Right. He was on the committee. My paintings came back in
better condition than they were sent. The wrapping was marvelous.
[Weschler laughs.]So I had this money that lasted for a year, and then there was an
interval, so then I tried for an NEA [National Endowment for the Arts]
grant, and I didn’t get it. Then in ’75 I tried it, and then I got two
NEA grants in that decade.
- WESCHLER
- Now, when do the computer paintings start?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, that was in ’68, the time I actually—
- WESCHLER
- As soon as you arrived here in New Mexico?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- How did that happen?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Charlie Maddox was a sculptor from L.A., by the way, married a rich lady
in L.A., and then came here to teach sculpture. And he knew the computer
engineer. The university, I think, had recently bought a computer, and
[the head, Dick William] was curious to see what could be done with the
computer for people who knew nothing about the computer and it wasn’t
designed to do what they were doing.So someone had written a program, or this person, how to make a
rectangle, how to make an oblique, how to make a circle, and then you
could print one letter on top of another letter. I said, “Yes, I can
picture an ‘I’ on top of an ‘H,’ but how do I know what a ‘Z’ would look
like on top of this, or how would I know—?” So they said, “Well, you’d
just have to—” “All right.” So I made a dictionary putting every letter
on top of every other letter to see what values and what it looked
like.
- WESCHLER
- Were you the only artist who was doing this?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no. There were several on the art faculty that were doing it.
- WESCHLER
- Who were playing with it?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Oh yes. And the show, for goodness’ sake, went all over the States
and went to Moose Jaw, Canada, and part of the things went to England,
the Institute of Contemporary Arts there. I really enjoyed that, and I
made seventy-two different prints. I have a folio showing the
seventy-two. Two or three or half a dozen are very good, and others are
fair. [Reproductions can be found in a book by Frank J. Malina on art
and computers.] But I was very pleased, and oddly enough—
- WESCHLER
- You would program it and it would do it, or you would talk to a
programmer who would say—
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, I knew how to punch— Oh. It was punch cards. I had to punch the
information on a card, and that would be given to the computer man.
- WESCHLER
- And the information was I want this particular dictionary letter that
you’ve created to go diagonally this way?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. And then to be overprinted with so-and-so, and I would spend
the morning writing out or punching— No, not punching the card. I
couldn’t do that. I would write out what I wanted to be done, and then I
would go to the computer center and look at the information and then
type it out, resulting in punched cards. I’d give it to the little man
behind the door, and five minutes later, I’d get this drawing back. I’d
sit down and make a change and give it to him.
- WESCHLER
- How was that different from doing lithography or doing something like
that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, it was like eating peanuts. I mean, one thing would lead to
another, and you just kept on chewing. And the delight was, there was
such a short time between images. I could show you some more but—
- WESCHLER
- I saw that there was one over here. Let me bring it over, and we can
talk about it.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And there’s a box under the chair. I wanted a sequence of values, light to dark. So, see, this has been
printed once on top. See, a “T” is darker than dashes, but then if I put
a dash on top of the “T,” it’s slightly darker. Then if I put an equal
sign, it’s still darker. And this, I forget what’s on top of the
“T.”
- WESCHLER
- This is like parallel vertical lines that go from light to dark and dark
to light.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right. See, and then that would look different if there was no interval
between the columns. The columns help.
- WESCHLER
- Just taking a peek, as an example.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, I was fascinated— See, this is an apostrophe, and that’s a period.
I didn’t jump and down. The machine was just printing this so it does
like a yo-yo.
- WESCHLER
- That’s great.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, what is interesting—[looking at another image] Now, see, that
doesn’t work quite as well. When these traveled, the Jewish university
or Jewish organization somewhere in Santa Monica [the University of
Judaism] bought two of these things. That was the only sale I made.Now, here’s where it’s apostrophe and periods. Seems ain’t is. I mean, it
seems like they’re going up and down, but they’re actually in the same
line.
- WESCHLER
- In the same line. That’s right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, see, that’s yo-yo horizontally. But, still, the up and down, the
periods and the apostrophes.
- WESCHLER
- Have you kept up with computers?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No.
- WESCHLER
- You don’t have one here in the house?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No.
- WESCHLER
- Why not?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I have no need for one.
- WESCHLER
- It’s not that you need them, but I imagine somebody who had fun in the
early days of computers would have fun nowadays, the things that you
could do.
- HAMMERSLEY
- There’s not enough time for me to do what I’d like to do. I never can
get caught up, all the things I would like to do. You know, framing and
taking pictures, and then now the energy has diminished, so I just can’t
do it. It would be too seductive. I mean, it would be like— Well, that’s
enough.
- WESCHLER
- You’re using that the same way as McLaughlin used it.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. [McLaughlin used the word seductive describing an oblique in my
painting. When I used seductive in relation to computers, I meant that
they could take you away from other things—seduce you.] I’m sure it
would be great fun to work and to punch something to see what
such-and-such painter’s doing. I mean, a friend of mine came here and
punched my name in, and it shows the work that [Richard] Levy Gallery
[Albuquerque] has. And that’s fascinating. Or if you have a cold, and
you punch— And you find out about a cold, that’s marvelous. But I don’t
need all that information now. It’s helpful, but I can only absorb so
much or only do so much.
- WESCHLER
- It’s funny. I was talking to Robert Irwin, and he was saying, “The kind
of thing I’m interested is going to take a hundred years to get there.”I said, “Well, are you talking about the kinds of things that computers
can do? Are you talking about like if you were to put goggles on your
face, you’d be able to see through computers?”He said, “No, no, no.” He said, “You don’t see by putting goggles on your
face.”
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes.
- WESCHLER
- Technology is not going to get you there.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Yes, like there was an Englishman here, and he gave a talk, and he
would get ideas from paintings. He’d put some information in the
computer, and then see all kinds of variations, and then he’d select the
third one. Well, I thought, “Hell, come on. Why don’t you use your own
equipment and let your mind and your feelings do that?” Because it’s
slightly synthetic to have a— Now, the business of getting variations,
I’m sure there are situations where it’s appropriate and would save time
and be good, but it’s nothing to do with creativity. Excuse me. I’m not
sure of that. Well, anyway, it doesn’t appeal to me, because there’s too
much— If I had two lives, I think I would spend it in sculpture.
- WESCHLER
- Really?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- I notice there are some sculptures around. [untitled sculptures done in
the 1950s; #160, Ah Youth, drawing, 1951]
When did you start doing some of those?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, when I was teaching at Pomona, the sculptor there, he was a very
interesting man, and the first assignment for the student was to make a
brick, and they would take a handful of clay, and they weren’t allowed
to do more than take a lump the size of a peanut and put it on the
platform, and then put another thing. So they’d slowly build this thing
up. That one in the bedroom? Well, you look at all of them, and you see
little clumps. I could have the radio on, and I could talk to friends,
and the dog could come in, and it would never go out of control, because
it was so slowly developed, and I liked that. So all these were done
that way, and I happened to smooth that out. But previously, I just let
it alone.
- WESCHLER
- Have you ever shown your sculpture?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Never.
- WESCHLER
- What’s the relationship of your sculpture to your painting in terms of
how would I know it was the same person who had done them?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t know. I’d have to sign my name.
Then they'd know. [mutual laughter]
- WESCHLER
- Talk a little bit about the transition from your computer work, which is
what you were doing while you weren’t painting much, and then you’re
beginning to start painting. How did that work?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I really don’t know, but I can just assume— I was satisfied with the
computers. I was sated. I’d had enough. "That’s enough. I mean, I’m full
now." And in the meantime, some ideas had come in. That probably is what
happened. I don’t know for sure. I’d have to look in my notebook.
- WESCHLER
- I often think myself of— In terms of inspiration. You know, there’s that
expression the brainpan—for the skull, a part of the skull is the
brainpan. They even call it that. I have a sense it’s almost like it
collects water. If there’s a drought, it dries out, and then gradually
it just collects water, and then it’s full, and then you can create
again.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I see. I see. The water’s related to creativity.
- WESCHLER
- If you can imagine that, that time is necessary for it to
accumulate.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Yes, I think you’re right.
- WESCHLER
- So when you started again, what kind of work were you doing? Now we’re
coming to ’72, ’73, that general period.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, oh. I have to go back to ’64. Something happened there where the
hard-edge painting stopped. I don’t remember why or how. But the motor
was still running, and I remember reading— And someone knew this. Peter
[Goulds] knew this. I had heard about a Jewish painter [Avigdor Arika]
that would do a painting a day. If he was going to work on a painting,
he’d finish it in a day. And I thought, “That’s very interesting. I
understand restrictions. And if he wants to do it that way, that’s
interesting. I’ll try that.”So, the hard-edge was gone, but I felt like working still, so I had some
panels—sized panels—and I made marks with vine charcoal, erased, made
more marks. One of my favorites was a child’s play. You know how they
make circles, and then they fill in the spaces? I did that.Oh. Oh. Here’s how it happened. Ben Horowitz said, “Would you like to be
a combat artist?” Here we’re out of the war in the sixties. Edgar Ewing.
Edgar Ewing, have you heard of him? At USC [University of Southern
California]. He was a painter. Did saddles. And so the two of us went
out to Point Mugu to the navy. The navy invited us to do a painting that
we’d give to them. And Ben said, “It’s a good
idea. Then you have another wall, and you have a list, and the navy has
one of your paintings.” We were out there a weekend, and we were given a
photographer to photograph that piece and photograph this piece and so
and so, and then we were to make the painting.So I made a painting of this— Blue Angels
[1963]. And so I made this thing so it would relate to the ground and to
the air. It was organic, and I realized— But I painted it with a palette
knife, and then I did three other paintings, the same kind of organic
things. But I said, “A palette knife doesn’t work with this many curves.
It’s too damn tedious.” It relates to a brush. See? So I did organic
paintings in 1964, maybe thirty or forty of them, one a day. [including
Family Affair, 1964; Windfall, 1964] I still have some of them
left. Then I don’t know if I told you, I framed all of them. I was all ready
for a show. I said, “I would like to have a show.” And by accident, I
found out that there’s common knowledge that none of the painters knew
about, and that common knowledge was that museum over there has a
committee that meets once a month to decide who they’ll give a one-man
show. They’re reviewing material. I didn’t know about that.So I wrote to the Santa Barbara Museum [of Art]. I think I may have
written to two or three other places asking when their committee meets
to evaluate paintings for a one-man show. I got a letter from Santa
Barbara said, “Meets in so-and-so time, and you send this kind of
material.”So I sent the material. It came back in a short time. Said, “We like you.
We’ll give you a one-man show in a year’s time.” Next March or
whatever.
1.7. TAPE NUMBER: IV, SIDE ONE JANUARY 15, 2003 and JANUARY 16, 2003
- WESCHLER
- So you didn’t want to wait for a year to do the Santa Barbara show.
- HAMMERSLEY
- So I had this brilliant idea. I wrote the letter saying, “I thank you
for the invitation, but, now, in case there is a cancellation in your
schedule, I have a complete show all ready to go which I could bring up
in a day.”A week later, they said, “Fine. Can you bring it up in three weeks?” It
was marvelous.I said, “Boy, that’s one time things worked out.”
- WESCHLER
- So these are paintings you’ve done in one day each, and then you had a
show in three weeks?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Good work.
- HAMMERSLEY
- So with my Volkswagen, I loaded some thirty-odd paintings, and then I
took photographs of the show at the Santa Barbara Museum. I have all
these photographs of all these paintings. Oh. And then I gave one of the
paintings to the Santa Barbara Museum. It was a very good painting. I
mean, I liked it. Some are odd. Some were not well liked. I remember
this friend of mine I respected, she didn’t care for them. “Well,” I
said, “nevertheless, I’m pleased with it.” That was the beginning of the
organic hunch paintings.
- WESCHLER
- Now, you say that in response to my question when things started up
again for you—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Now, excuse me. See, that was backwards.
- WESCHLER
- That was ’64.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That was ’64. We’re like in the seventies.
- WESCHLER
- We’re after you’ve done the computer paintings.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. After the computer. Oh, yes. After the organic ones, the hard-edge
came to me, and they were fatter and stronger and bigger, and that one
painting ended up in The Responsive Eye
show. [That, 1964] After that, the
paintings, they stood on their own legs. It was great. I mean, the ten
years of the seventies was a very productive time. I’d look at my
slides, and, god, I did a lot in those ten years.
- WESCHLER
- So let me get the order straight here. You did that little organic hunch
spurt in ’64, and then after that you still had some geometric
hard-edge, and then you kind of petered out. Then you come to New Mexico
and you do the computer things, and what do you start painting when you
start painting again in the early seventies? Hard-edge but thick
hard-edge?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes. And one of those paintings [You’re Just
Like Your Mother, 1972] I sent to the Guggenheim, which the
man you mentioned— Isn’t that funny? I forgot his name. The “W”?
- WESCHLER
- “M.” That’s why you keep forgetting. Motherwell.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Motherwell. It’s not important, those things. I’m sorry. So I was not
teaching, and it was so— I was so rich in time. Get up in the morning,
breakfast, do dishes.
- WESCHLER
- Were you living here in this house?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I’ve been in this house thirty-two years. Since ’68. That’s longer.
Amazing. I just can’t— When I turned eighty, I don’t understand how I
got here so quickly. It’s unbelievable. What the hell have I been
doing?
- WESCHLER
- So you had the Guggenheim, and you were rich in time and momentarily
flush in funds, and you just got up in the morning and—
- HAMMERSLEY
- And then just work, and there’s no side—
- WESCHLER
- No distractions.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Appointments. No places to go, no obligations. And it was heaven. If I
have an appointment late in the day, it upsets the working period. I
want to have it just open.
- WESCHLER
- Well, I tell you what. I think, actually, although we just started a new
tape, I think we’ll probably stop for now.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Okay.
- WESCHLER
- And that’ll allow our brainpans to fill up for tomorrow morning. And
tomorrow morning, I want to take you through that spurt of the seventies
and up to today.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Okay.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. Does that sound good?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Great.[Tape recorder turned off.]
- WESCHLER
- Okay. We’re continuing now, and we had a night’s rest, a good sleep, I
hope.Did you have any things that you remembered that you wanted to mention
that you had forgotten?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. I mean, we’re working from Albuquerque on now.
- WESCHLER
- Yes, right. Is there anything that—
- HAMMERSLEY
- So I was thinking— No, except when I first came here, I traveled a lot
around the state, and what was interesting, there was very little
traffic. Now I’m jealous of the Californians and the New Yorkers that
are moving here. There are too many people now. I don’t quite—
- WESCHLER
- Spoken like a Los Angeles person who moved here a little bit earlier
before everybody. Even if they move in now—
- HAMMERSLEY
- But anyway, I don’t know if you’ve seen the towns on the other side,
especially one town, but it felt like I was walking into Tom Sawyer’s
place. I mean, it was a quadrangle, and—
- WESCHLER
- Which town was this?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Cerrillos. As I understand, they mine turquoise in that area. As a
matter of fact, there are a lot of mines here. But Golden, there was a
general store. And my sister would come here, and I’d take her out,
because the jewelry was very good. This was ’68, ’69, and seventies,
early seventies. And then we’d be talking to Mrs. Johnson, and the
Indian would come and trade with her, jewelry for some— And then her
rugs were very good. Then she always had a plant in the window that the
cat could eat. I asked her the name, which I’ve forgotten, but the cat
was a marvelous cat.And then across the street, there was a lady that collected— The front
yard was filled with glass bottles, and most of them were purple. There
was a year in which they stopped, or they added another element to glass
so it remained clear. As a matter of fact, I have one that’s slightly
purple. Then you go into the small store, and it’s like a sardine can of
glass. It’s just amazing. I wonder if it’s still there. But anyway, that
was the only thing there in Golden, just those two places.Oh, and then there was a church, and I took some photographs of the
church. It was odd. It was kind of lonely, and I wondered who would come
or where they come from.But then the next one was Madrid, where they used to mine coal, and you
pass a long avenue. You’re on the highway or road, and these abandoned
houses that are just dying, and then you go down into the main street,
and then there were some antique shops with elderly couples. Now you go
there, and there’s people your age opening gift shops and weaving rugs
and jewelry. And then there was a baseball field on the end, and they
would have jazz— I mean— I don’t know what they, the music— The kind of
music today, that sort of thing there.Then beyond that was Cerrillos. There was one— You come into Cerrillos,
and there’s a plaza, a big empty square, and there was a gift shop to
the right, and you’d go down and there’s a marvelous antique shop in
that corner, and then you’d just drive around here, and then you pass a
church, and you never saw anyone. You never saw anyone except the man in
the store.Then Burl Ives would trade at this antique shop, and he was interested in
a four-poster bed. I was remembering when— You see this chair over here,
that oval thing?
- WESCHLER
- Right, yes.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That was from some distant Swedish relative that lived near Franklin
Avenue, my uncle, and the two ladies were moving or something, and they
brought out this brass bed. Each corner had a brass head of a swan, and
the foot was more elaborate and the backboard was quieter, but it was
all brass. Uncle Eric said, “Now, you can unscrew all these things.”I lived in this funny little room, and it was a regular-size bed, and
then that funny bed, just like wire for the mattress. And like an ass, I
didn’t take it and just improvised. Because it was a marvelous— Oh,
god.
- WESCHLER
- Do you think some of these shapes and textures— I’m thinking, for
example, of Indian rugs and so forth. Did that have an influence on
your—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Influence in that I enjoy it. You see that ochre square— I think that
was the first rug I bought.
- WESCHLER
- I’m looking at the rug right here, and it’s brown, for one thing, one of
your favorite colors, brown and black, squares and crosses, and a
geometric shape.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And that lady, that Indian lady, she did squares. Now, I was here
for two years looking at rugs, and I didn’t see anything I liked. Now,
near Grants— I go west. I think it’s Grants. Well, somewhere in that
area you turn off, and you go to a place called Ice Caves, and you say,
“What the hell is that, Ice Caves?” Well, you go down, and there’s this
general store, and they— I have a feeling you have to pay now. But
anyway, they direct you. You go down a path. Then there’s a rickety
stairway you go down, and this cavity in the ground, and then you go
into this like an abandoned subway station, and it stops. The wall that
stops you is a green ice. It’s extraordinary. All year long, it’s ice,
because the whole thing is surrounded with lava, and it’s insulation,
you see.Then you come out and go to the store. They had rugs. Then you could take
another path. It was quite extraordinary. You walk up to the top of this
crater, and it was brown-purple, and it was a just perfect cone, and
there was an opening on this one side, then a couple of trees here. This
purple gravel the size of walnuts. And it was— God.
- WESCHLER
- How far is that from here?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, maybe sixty miles.
- WESCHLER
- In the direction of—
- HAMMERSLEY
- West. You take the highway west. Ask your hotel people. That’s also— Oh,
maybe Grants turnoff is— I’m mixed up here. Grants turnoff might be for
the city of Acoma.
- WESCHLER
- Anyway, but this was in the context to telling me about the rug.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And the Ice Cave store. I saw that. It was so simple and so nice that I
bought it.
- WESCHLER
- I guess in a way I’m asking, you had been blocked up in Los Angeles, and
you’re about to launch out onto this huge, productive decade of the
seventies. Do you think it had something to do with the change of place,
with the amount of new vision you were having, the Indian stuff, the
land? Did that kind of excite you in a way that got you going again, do
you think, the change of place?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I think it was just a parallel. It was just a coincidence. Like, let’s
say you’re a painter and you go to Yugoslavia, or you go to Spain or
someplace, and you start painting. I couldn’t do that. I would go to
Spain, and I’d be fascinated by just looking at what the things— And all
those new things stop me from working, because I want to look. Now, what
is odd—
- WESCHLER
- That reminds me of my grandfather [Ernst Toch], who had a beautiful
view. I told you he was a composer and he lived in the Santa Monica
Hills. He had a fantastic view out of his studio window, and somebody
said, “Well, it’s easy to be a composer with a view like this.” He said,
“When I compose, I close the curtains.”
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I see. [mutual laughter] You can’t— It’s like I cannot have music
when I’m working. I cannot have anyone in the house when I’m working.
There’s an Indian painter, [Fritz] Scholder. I don’t know if you’ve ever
heard of him. He was very popular some years ago and selling like mad. A
couple of teepee things, you know the paintings. He’d take a jar of
paint and throw it on the big canvas— "I come in the studio and I turn
on the music—" What do they call music today? Rap or something,
- WESCHLER
- Hip-hop.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I can feel my energy going away from me when that music’s on.
- WESCHLER
- So, in other words, stimulation from the outside doesn’t— It doesn't
stimulate you; it drains you. You need to be concentrated when
you’re—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. But this is entertainment, the traveling, and it was just a
change of pace, and it was so un-California and so un-Los Angeles. Then
the people said, “Yes, sir.”
- WESCHLER
- I have noticed that.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Still?
- WESCHLER
- Yes.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I’m surprised because I haven’t heard it so much anymore. And I
thought, "Boy, that’s not Los Angeles." It’s very nice, that courtesy,
that old-time form. It dawned on me one time. Form, manners—like
Victorian age and my father’s generation—allowed you more room to
maneuver.
- WESCHLER
- How do you mean?
- HAMMERSLEY
- When Maurice Tuchman came up to me and was talking, he put his hand
around my shoulder— I didn’t know him. He said, “Now, Freddie, how about
if you—” and so on. I was no place. I mean, it was too close. You don’t
call me by a nickname if you don’t know me, and then you touch me. They
don’t do that in my father’s time, and I was in my father’s time. Of
course, I’m an old man in relation to your age.
- WESCHLER
- How does that relate to your painting? How does form allow more room to
maneuver, manners and so forth?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I hadn’t thought of that relationship. I don’t know. I’d have to think
about it.
- WESCHLER
- Because I think there’s a sense in which your painting is
well-mannered.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- It’s precise. It doesn’t presume upon me. It impresses me in a—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, tell me what painting might impose— What did you say? Impose on
you?
- WESCHLER
- It doesn’t presume on me.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Presume on me. What painter would do that? I’m thinking— I’m trying to
figure out.
- WESCHLER
- Who would be an example? I’m just thinking. I mean, there’s, obviously,
a partly— I would tend toward more explosively— Not Pollock, but some of
the more explosive abstract stuff, expressionist stuff or, let’s say,
well, obviously, something like Otto Dix. I mean, there it’s the subject
matter that’s doing it. But there’s a— And, by the way, it’s not wrong.
It just a completely different way of—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exactly.
- WESCHLER
- Whereas your work, it strikes me, has both a kind of sense of balance
and a courtesy.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s very pleasant. I’m glad that you feel that, because the
disadvantage in my work—I’m thinking of the lay person and my mother—is
that it’s foreign. It’s not something that they can put a name to. I’ll
never forget when Van Deren Coke gave me the one-man show at the
university, and it filled that one— There’s a very nice room in the
Popejoy Hall.
- WESCHLER
- Where? Here?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Here at the university [University of New Mexico], the art museum in the
Popejoy Hall. It’s a big room, and I had a lot of material. You come
through the door, and there’s a store, etc. You can walk down steps, and
you stand there, you can see the whole thing. And I was in there taking
photographs of my show. On the other end, there’s a small room where
there are other paintings or little shows, and then there’s another
gallery. In that back room, there were some lovely French sketches of
almost before Impressionism, and they were charming.So this group of ladies came in, and they were standing on the stairs,
and they looked around, and they looked back, and they said, “Well, we
don’t have to look at this. Let’s go up into the back room.”And I said, “Oh, that’s right. That’s right.”
- WESCHLER
- Was that your mother’s attitude, generally, too, do you think? What’s
the nicest thing she ever said about your work?
- HAMMERSLEY
- She never said anything. Oh. As I mentioned, when we were at the San
Francisco show, toward the end, she didn’t say a word going through all
the rooms. When we were getting close to the car, she said, “Well, the
colors were nice,” like she had to acknowledge that her eyes were open.
And then, see, I’d been brought up just to not make waves and to accept
anything that went on, and then as I got older, the anger came out.
- WESCHLER
- When did she die, by the way, your mother?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I’d have to ask Susie. I have a feeling it was the late sixties.
- WESCHLER
- ’68?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Somewhere around in there. I’m thinking Dad was ’66. Yes, somewhere in
the sixties, the both of them. [Hammersley’s father died September 26,
1966; his mother February 18, 1971]
- WESCHLER
- Without psychoanalyzing you, do you think that had anything to do with
your period of feeling empty in Los Angeles?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I think it was a great help that they died, that she died.
- WESCHLER
- Conversely, the explosion of the seventies had to do with her—
- HAMMERSLEY
- I wonder. I wonder. You know, the point is— I noticed one time when I
was going to Jepson [Art Institute]— I’d come home and I’d lie down and
rest and just put my hands on my chest, and I would just let my thoughts
go wherever I wanted, and I was aware I’d feel my sweater. Then after a
while, I didn’t feel the sweater at all. The sensation, you can’t do
anything if there’s no movement. There’s no sensation. So then I’d
listen to my hands, and I couldn’t hear a thing. No sensation. I
thought, “That’s very interesting.” Now I don’t know what my idea is or
what the point is.
- WESCHLER
- You were talking about your mother.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Oh. If you have a diet, if you eat a certain thing a long time— Oh
yes. I thought of a pleasure principle. Oh yes. That’s right. Here. This
applies, I think. Let’s say the pleasure principle is of eating. So you
start with possibly a salad or something, and then you go to some beets
and some vegetables, and it’s delicious. You just love it. All right.
Now, without knowing it, the rheostat changes. You want some dessert.
You keep on eating the dessert, and you’re maintaining this pleasure
principle, pleasure level. So then you go through the desserts and the
coffee or some wine or whatever, and you keep on going, and then after a
while, to maintain the same level of pleasure, you’ve got to stop. And
it’s such a pleasure not to have anything to eat. And I’m convinced that
when you work a certain length of time— It parallels my comment— You use
up your fund. I’ve saturated my sensory equipment in eating, that
example, so the body just stops. I mean, the stomach says, “Enough.” You
know that Business and Health magazine or
Time magazine, they say if you eat
something, “I really could have some more,” but if you wait twenty
minutes, you find yourself feeling full. You know that.So I have a feeling the Los Angeles thing, the school stopping, the
painting stopped, and all of a sudden there was a door open, and it was
New Mexico. Then it took me a while to get used to this rhythm here.
- WESCHLER
- Also, you had all that stuff you wanted to look at before you started
painting.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And then without deciding anything, like in ’69 an idea came, and
it was a little gesture, and then nothing happened. There was a lot of
things to do. You know, just doing the dishes or shopping, that’s the
disadvantage of being alone or not being wealthy. If you had someone to
do it for you, it would be very nice. See, I could use that time by just
sitting and reviewing my library reports.
- WESCHLER
- One thing I noticed you did in 1970, so that’s fairly early on, was you
did these knee pictures. [Debbie’s Knees,
1970; Knee Portrait #2, 1970] Would you
talk about them a little bit?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. Oh yes. When I came here—
- WESCHLER
- For that matter, before you even get to those, talk a little bit about
the photography in your work. I mean, to what extent do you think of
photography as part of your opus?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, it came by accident, or it came by necessity, when I told you this
Japanese photographer in L.A. charged a lot. It cost a lot of money to
have slides made or black and white done, and so I finally bought a
camera, and then I could take slides of my own paintings. Then I could
take slides of a Bonnard show or of various exhibitions, and that was
very exciting. Then I was providing material to support my mouth in
teaching, because mouth by itself is not enough, especially for me. I’ve
got to have the image. And that image by itself is not good—the sound
combination is, I think, crucial.So, all right. The photography went for a long time, and I came here, and
I was taking photographs of the snow, and etc., and then—
- WESCHLER
- Which you, by the way, thought of as part of your art, or not
especially? The photographs you would take of the snow, was that in the
form of just it was beautiful so you photographed it?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right, right.
- WESCHLER
- Or it was an artwork itself, or it was an aide-mEmoire? What do you think?
- HAMMERSLEY
- It was a different dish set in front of me. Now, a parallel to that, I
was teaching at the university, and the photo department was right
across the street from the art building, and I would go in and look at
what they had on the walls, and I said, “Boy, I don’t know anything
about darkroom stuff.” And I remember my father doing it in the kitchen
and drying the things on the dining room table. So I signed up for the
beginning photo class of the darkroom.So then I took pictures of— Oh, and at that time there was a Spanish
postman, and I said, “Louis, do you know of any babysitters in the
neighborhood?”Louis said, “Yes.”I said, “I’d like to hire some so I can draw some heads.”So he gave me a couple of names. So this, bless her heart, this homely
girl came over, and she looked sad. [Debbie, 1970] Oh. When Maurice Tuchman had a show of— I think
it was hard-edge paintings, and then photos by painters, and Billy
[William] Brice had something and so— And Debbie is on the poster. It’s
filled with photographs. Also, it was like eating candy when I first got
the camera. I bought a macro lens so I could take a portrait of your
button or a raisin. I mean, it doesn’t look like a raisin.
- WESCHLER
- You just made the same gesture that Rico Lebrun did about looking
through a telescope made out of your hands.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. So macro, that was another world, and it was fascinating. I have a
lot of these slides.
- WESCHLER
- What’s funny to me, by the way, is that you would ask for a babysitter.
Did you pay her what you would pay a babysitter, basically?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, and that was a $1.25 an hour.
- WESCHLER
- So your idea of a babysitter was somebody who, instead of babysitting
your baby, would sit there for you, and you would pay the same amount
and you would do their face and so forth.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right. So I forget how many times a week—maybe once or twice a week
she’d come—and we’d sit there, and I’d draw— Well, in those days, I
could draw for three hours, but these days I can’t.But then it was summer, and she wore shorts and something. I said, “Sit
on this table on your—” I’m interested about the buttock, but in this
case what happens to the toes in relation to the buttock when someone’s
sitting on their knees. I said, “Let me see what happens.” [Debbie’s Knees, 1970]She said, “All right.”“I’ll take a picture of your face.”So that’s how that started.
- WESCHLER
- How did you end up, by the way, with that wonderful picture on the
porcelain? Is that on a toilet or on a—
- HAMMERSLEY
- The picture on the what?
- WESCHLER
- Is it on the toilet or on the bathtub, where you’ve got the white— It’s
just her knees, the one that you sent to me.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh. Well, that was a part of that series. I have a couple of other
knees, which were not as successful.
- WESCHLER
- And there she’s sitting on— What is she sitting on?
- HAMMERSLEY
- She’s seated on a chair, and just one leg is crossed. [Knee Portrait #2, 1970]
- WESCHLER
- But it looks like a porcelain chair or something.
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, that’s the other leg. That’s the leg that she’s resting her left leg
on.
- WESCHLER
- Right, right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, so that was a short serving, hors d’oeuvres, and that was enough.
Then, as I say, I did the printing. Oh, and then I have one box of
Mother’s things, all kinds of odds and ends. That cabinet in the
bathroom was Mother’s dollhouse, what she called a dollhouse, and I
still have some scissors about that long.
- WESCHLER
- The length of your little finger.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, like actually cut. Mother took them to the cutlery shop in San
Francisco to have them sharpened, and it’s unbelievable. But I still
have those, and then I have a box of Dad’s things, a couple of Indian
things and some diaries, etc. Now, why did I bring this up?
- WESCHLER
- Scissors you used to cut the pictures or—
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no. It was just a plaything [unclear]. Why did I get over here? What
was I— Oh, the photography.
- WESCHLER
- Right. Did you take photos of some of those things from that—
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, I never thought of that. Oh yes. Going through these boxes, I came
across a cleverly bound folder that would contain the negatives of the
postcards. I don’t know what size that— It was almost like four by six
inches. And they were all filled with my father’s negatives. Some of
them were— Well, they were not interesting. A horse being dipped for
ticks, etc., two men with this trough and the animal’s in there and
they’re poking him along. Or then sad things, just a couple of houses in
this field in Montana, and he’d taken a picture of that. And then some
pictures he’d taken in London, and then of Salt Lake City.These were large, and so I got a small— I can’t think of what it’s
called, that you put the negative and then the paper and expose it to
light to get a print. And it was interesting, because I didn’t have an
enlarger. I could go to school at that time and use the enlarger. So I
made a lot of contact prints, what is hanging up now.Then I came across pictures of Mother when she was young. And then when I
was young, and I loved army uniforms, and I have this army hat with
funny little— What was that underwear called? BV something.
- WESCHLER
- BVDs?
- HAMMERSLEY
- BVDs? BVDs, yes. So it was interesting, seeing these photographs. I
would show Susie, and we’d talk about it. But what was still unexpected,
and I never understood it, he never said anything about the photographs,
whether, “That’s a good one” and “I don’t care for that one.”
- WESCHLER
- You’ve talked about your mother’s response to you. As a photographer,
did your father respond to what you were doing any more warmly than your
mother did?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t think he saw anything I did with photography.
- WESCHLER
- No, but I’m saying, since he had been a photographer, how did he respond
to your art? You said your mother never said—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Same thing. Absolutely no interest. I have a feeling they were on
another plane of being neurotic, as I was in my plane. And they were in
their castle, and they would occasionally look out, but it was just
amazing how— But, see, what surprised me— When I left home, what a
delight to leave home. Then later I realized I still had home with me. I
was still listening to the same script, and that really disappointed and
shocked me. But those people, when they left their home, they still
brought their systems with them, the cooking and the housekeeping.
- WESCHLER
- Do you feel that once you moved to New Mexico and they had died, that
that noise began to dissipate for you, that it went away?
- HAMMERSLEY
- There was a change in that I was more open to want to know more about my
shortcomings. See, I was very reluctant to show my shaky hands. I’d have
to have a couple of drinks before I’d go out to dinner, that sort of
thing. I still do. There’s a slight case of agoraphobia. I don’t like to
go out. What did you ask?
- WESCHLER
- I asked whether after they had died— You had said you were disappointed
after you left home that home was still inside of you. Do you think when
you moved to New Mexico and they were no longer alive that that critical
voice kind of dissipated for you and you were freer?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I think it helped coming away here, in that, “I’m going to do something
about this.” So then I contacted someone to be a good— I called up my
hygienist that I knew in L.A. “Who’s a good psychiatrist?” So he was the
one that told me that my parents told me, “You can’t make it.”I remember once walking into his place a few blocks away one morning when
it was 17 below zero.
- WESCHLER
- This is a psychiatrist you were seeing here?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And then he retired, and I occasionally go to a psychologist. It’s
like I think of art school, that, “I’ve got some drawings, but would you
look at those drawings? I don't know what, what—” Then you would look at
them and say, “Well, you see this?” “Oh. Oh.”So the psychologist now, if I’d known about the psychologists, the way
they work— Of course, he told me— In those days, that’s the way—
Psychiatrists don’t say a damn word, and he rocks his foot. I said, “Why
are you moving your foot?” That sort of thing.
- WESCHLER
- “Why does it matter why I’m moving my foot?”
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes. Oh, Christ. So this guy will say, “Well, it’s just a habit I
have. What the hell’s the difference? Let’s go on to the next subject.”
That sort of thing. He said, “Now psychiatry is more like psychology,
that they’re more open.” I didn’t know that, but I’m very pleased for
the poor bastards that are going.
- WESCHLER
- And did it have the effect, though, talking to him and so forth, of
loosening things up for you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. The peripheral debris, like it’s easier to talk to you, for
example. It wouldn’t be this way when I first came here. I’d be, “Oh
yes?”
- WESCHLER
- Did that also help open up your art? We know that the seventies proved
to be extremely vital for you.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, I assume so. I’d never thought of that, but I’m sure it
contributed. It seems reasonable that it would contribute, because it is
like a painting. I’ll never forget [Herbert] Jepson saying, “If you have
trouble with drawing, if you have trouble with the knee, don’t look at
the knee. Look at the upper part of the knee and look below it, and
start there, and then come to the knee.” That will usually— Where the
trouble— Don’t concentrate on troubles. So the psychiatry, the problem—
And it’s like a painting. If I have trouble here, go around to the other
places, and if those work, then, oh, it directs the answer to this
place.So, a marvelous feeling to get— Well, first, to talk to someone and you
can say any goddamn thing you want. That is un-Hammersley, see? We
couldn’t do that.
- WESCHLER
- So anyway, we’ve mentioned a variety of ways in which coming to New
Mexico opened things up. So now let’s talk about what happened here in
New Mexico. The painting you started doing in nineteen— Are some of the
things we’re looking at on the wall here, these are from the
seventies?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, that’s ’66. This is a later one, and I think that’s before I came
here. That’s done in Los Angeles. [Paintings up to 1967 were done in Los
Angeles. Those from 1967 on were done in Albuquerque.]
- WESCHLER
- But in any case, we have some of these sorts of things.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, this is Los Angeles, and this is Los Angeles, and here’s New
Mexico.
- WESCHLER
- But I want to talk about the— Let’s see. I’m looking for some of the
stuff that’s later. This sort of thing.
- HAMMERSLEY
- What’s the year?
- WESCHLER
- It says 1979 on this one.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, ’79. I didn’t know that.
- WESCHLER
- I’m looking at— But generally, it’s very strong—
- HAMMERSLEY
- [referring to a painting] Now, that I’m very pleased with. [Mate, 1980]
- WESCHLER
- The point is, these are very strong geometric things at first, with
rectangles, squares, that sort of thing. It initially starts that
way.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, you remember the remark about “That oblique is seductive”?
- WESCHLER
- Right, yes.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, I realize that’s a dangerous thing to do, oblique. You can’t have
too much because it’s too excessively stimulating. But this painting
that we’re looking at, called Mate—
- WESCHLER
- Right. From 1980.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I was so pleased because there was no verticals or horizontals.
Everything was oblique. And it was restful. It was a yin/yang, as a
matter of fact. And I was delighted with that painting. Well, it’s
called Mate. I told the owner of the
gallery, Martin Muller, who is a— I can’t stand the man. He’s a nut. [I
was a bit hard on him there.] But the printer was so good. He didn’t cut
off the points. Now, that’s a marvelous cutting job and a printing job.
That’s dangerous to ask to have that done. So anyway, I was very pleased
with that.
- WESCHLER
- But this strikes me as typical of a certain body of the work of your
seventies.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- And it’s large fields of geometrically straight color, fields of color
that are consistent. They don’t blend into other colors and so
forth.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right, right.
- WESCHLER
- Later on, you’ll be doing something which I think was more organic, the
shapes and so forth, but for this first period, much of the work that,
for example, is in these notebooks—
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s right. The notebooks are all geometric.
- WESCHLER
- Are all geometric. These notebooks are largely New Mexico notebooks?
- HAMMERSLEY
- They’re usually dated. ’74—
- WESCHLER
- ’74, ’75. So let’s just take a look at some of these notebooks, for
example. Remind me again of how the notebook would work, how a work
would go from your— I want you to describe for me— You are now in your
full blossom of that wonderful period of productivity of the
seventies.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right.
- WESCHLER
- So on a day-to-day basis, how would it work? You would have an idea? You
would put something in your notebook? First you would put it in
that—
- HAMMERSLEY
- First I put it in the small notebook. And then one feels good, and
sometimes, without thinking, it would breed another one, a relative. And
I’d put some down. Now, I felt good if I had three ideas that were
likely or possible. So then I would leave the room. I would leave the
room.
- WESCHLER
- An idea, by the way, let’s just define as a combination of shape and
colors. That’s the idea.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s right. And it was materialized in this small shape here.
- WESCHLER
- In this beige notebook.
- HAMMERSLEY
- So if it was very good, I wouldn’t do anything about it, and I’d do
other things. I always think of Churchill. He said, “I never took
vacations; I change activities.” And I thought, “That’s very true.”So if something is very good, I never act shortly after that. I think
it’s stupid to— You’ve got to let both of us age, it age and me age, at
least sleeping one night. Now, two or three days is better. All right.
Then I come back the next day— "Yes, okay, that’s fine. Let’s put it in
the book." So then I put it in the book exactly the proportion I have
the stretchers for, and I have the canvas ready. So then I stretch the
thing, and I draw it, and then it gets very exciting.
- WESCHLER
- First of all, let’s look at this. In the book, how many of these would
you do in a single day, for example?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, maybe three would be a lot. It’s often just one.
- WESCHLER
- And that’s in your black notebook, of which there’s like six to a page.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- For a while you’re using colored pencils, and then later on you started
using paint itself.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct, correct.
- WESCHLER
- The paint that you would actually use. So, okay, you would do a bunch of
these, and then what would happen?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, what is odd, the first thing that you were looking at [Hot Cross, 1994], the first thing you were
looking at here— Now, this one was twenty-four inches square. Now, what
I was amazed, and I still don’t understand it, there’s some
relationships that work on a— Big to me is— That’s big to me. [Pre Prayed, 1981]
- WESCHLER
- Let’s mention, that’s—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Forty-five square. Now, the reason I like forty-five square is that I
can comfortably pick it up. Forty-eight is slightly uncomfortable. It’s
a little bit too hard for me to pick up.
- WESCHLER
- Does that affect how it looks, do you think? Or just the picking up? Can
your eye tell the difference that it’s comfortable or not
comfortable?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh no. I think the eye is more flexible than the length of my arm.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. Good. So anyway, you were saying—
- HAMMERSLEY
- So I have the idea— I have a blank canvas sometimes over there, and I
have the idea. I look at the canvas. "No, that doesn’t work on that
size. That doesn’t feel—"
- WESCHLER
- So even though it works in your notebook, it doesn’t work on canvas?
- HAMMERSLEY
- So then I get a smaller size. Oh, that’s right. It’s twenty-four,
twenty. That’s right. Now, then the next step is the organic size, and I
learned— It became conscious to me— Santa Barbara had a show Leonardo Visits Vinci. There was a small
room. There were two of his drawings, where a seated man with a cloak
on, and it was just the knees and this— You go this close to it, you
see, and when I went that close, I’ll be a son of a bitch, it’s the size
of my face, that shape. That drawing was the size of my face. So there’s
a relationship. So the organic paintings are usually my face size, and
then my arm size, and this [holds up hand] is snapshot size.
- WESCHLER
- The size of your hand, basically? [Twice
Blessed, 1987; How Now, 1988]
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. You get a snapshot. Oh, that’s nice.
- WESCHLER
- It fits nicely in your hand.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And then you get a large painting, a large photograph. You have to
be very careful. There was a painter in Los Angeles that would splash
painting, and he made an enormous painting, and I remember seeing it at
the Pasadena Museum. I turned around and looked at it, I said, “Oh, dear
me.” It should’ve been small. It was not right.All right. So then this feels good on a twenty-four. So then I get the
twenty-four—
- WESCHLER
- Talk about that just a little bit more, though. How do you know,
looking—
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t know. It just feels.
- WESCHLER
- You just feel.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- And you trust your feeling; you have faith in your feeling.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. Well, I’m sure— How would I relate it to the word? There are
some times that you need twenty words to describe something, and other
times you need four. The poor writer, he puts eighteen words, and four
is enough, and I get tired. I wander when he’s talking. Hell’s bells,
please get to the goddamn point. It’s like— Where did I think of that?
What do you want to do? “What do you want to do?” Say, “Well, I want to
say it’s ice cold.” You don’t have to tell me it’s cold as the Eskimos
in Africa or wherever. But anyway—
- WESCHLER
- So we’re looking right now, by the way, at a painting that is a drawing
from your notebook which is black squares in the corner, blue between
black squares on the vertical, and then the middle third is white and
blue columns, vertical. [Troika, 1974]
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right.
- WESCHLER
- So maybe people will be able to see that. And you decide that should be
twenty-four inches.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. And someone has that here in town. The title is Troika.
- WESCHLER
- So you paint. Now, when you’re doing these paintings again, remind me,
you don’t use tape. How do you make this? You draw—
- HAMMERSLEY
- This is drawn with a ruler and a pencil. Then I look at that drawing for
a while, and then I decide, what’s the first color? Well, let’s get the
black.I remember Henry [Lee] McFee saying, "When you start a painting,
establish where the darkest is and then where the lightest is, so you
have a reference—the value extremes." So wherever you’re going, you know
that you’re not going to go darker than that or you’re not going to go
lighter than that. Very clever. So I think I would start with the
black.
- WESCHLER
- This is, again, with a palette knife?
- HAMMERSLEY
- With a palette knife. So I put the blacks in, and then I have to wait
until it’s dry.
- WESCHLER
- One thing I’ve noticed generally, by the way, about your paintings is
that they’re exquisitely smooth.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right.
- WESCHLER
- Is that hard to learn how to do?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. Let’s say, if you can picture spreading peanut butter with a palette
knife— After I’ve cut the pencil line in half all the way around— I cut
it this way, I have to turn the canvas and then spread the paint this
way, and then turn the canvas. Then I just move the paint over that
shape. Then I clean the knife and then distribute the paint this way,
turn the thing four times and distribute the paint. So the application
of the paint disappears. That’s the first coat. The first coat— You know
that expression “fat on lean.” The first coat is the paint with a little
turp in it, so it’s thin, lean. It’ll enter the canvas more. Because if
I put another coat on top of it, I don’t want to put a lean coat on top
of a lean coat. I want to put a fat coat on top of the lean. Now, if I
want to put a third coat, then I’ve go to add some oil to the paint so
it’s more fat on this fat one.
- WESCHLER
- The top coat is the fattest coat.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. Because if you reverse it, put lean on fat, after a while it’ll
crack.
- WESCHLER
- That’s interesting. How many coats did you put on some of these?
- HAMMERSLEY
- But always two coats, except—
- WESCHLER
- I’m looking at the one behind you [unclear].
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, all the ones that you see are two coats. Yes, after the whole thing
is done, one coat. And one coat of paint is not quite enough. A second
coat follows. [Ambidextrous, 1967; There Now, 1970]
1.8. TAPE NUMBER: IV, SIDE TWO JANUARY 16, 2003
- WESCHLER
- You were talking that you were concerned about the aging of a canvas and
so forth.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, I want the thing to last, and I don’t want the thing— There’s
always kinds of things that’ll happen that I don’t know anything— Like
some people had a painting of mine. Oh, the Neutra house, and it was
hung right in the sun. We were up on a hill, and the sun would come from
the ocean side, and I saw them a few years later, and it was just filled
with cracks. God, I thought, “Well, now, I wonder if that’s partly my
fault,” the kind of white I was using. In the old days, I got whites
from different companies, because white can be yellowish, greenish,
bluish, or grayish. So I thought, “I’ll have a painting with just
whites.” But the difference is not quite enough.There’s a Renaissance painting of the Annunciation where the angel is
coming to Mary or someone, and the cheeks are pink and the shadows are
pistachio green. So I made a painting, very close values, this pale
green and this pistachio. Goddamn, those two colors were just marvelous.
Here again, it’s the opposites, pink and green.
- WESCHLER
- So you’re talking about you’re trying to make it last. Also, the
smoothness is very important to it.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I don’t want people to say, “I like the texture.” I don’t intend
the texture to be seen. I want them to see that there is a shape sitting
there, and it’s related to this shape, and that’s the sensation that I
want them to— Now, there’s nothing wrong with putting texture, if that’s
what they are working for, sure.
- WESCHLER
- If that’s what they want.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Nothing wrong with that.
- WESCHLER
- So you’ve described this process of with the knife you would go four
times around, and you’d take it ninety degrees each time, and then you
do it again, and ninety degrees, and the palette knife, you spread the
paint around.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Generally, by the way, did the final painting look exactly as it was in
the drawing, or did you sometimes change as you were going along?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, no, no. It has to be like the painted diagram in the book. Now, what
was very strange, I did one painting— I don’t know if I can find it. I
have a picture. [Common Courtesy, 1970] I
liked the idea. When I made the painting, I said, “Oh dear.” No, wait a
minute. Yes, I said, “That’s not what I thought.” But [Martin] Muller
[owner of the Modernism Gallery in San Francisco] liked the painting. I
wonder if I can find it.It was a black painting with a thin strip of white on the bottom, not all
the way, and the thin strip here on top, and it was called Common Courtesy. I thought it was great, but
when I made the whole thing, oh dear, I was so disappointed. Then five
years later, I looked at it and said, “Oh, that’s not bad.” Now, see,
it’s very strange. I’ve changed.Oh, here it is.
- WESCHLER
- There it is right there. We’ve turned to it right there. Okay. I see.
Let me ask you, Sacred and Pro Fame
[1978]—which was done in ’78, which is a terrific painting—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Black is top.
- WESCHLER
- You told me it’s upside down.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, it was printed upside down.
- WESCHLER
- It was printed upside down in the mailer for Nouvelle Abstractions Américaines. How do you know? In
other words, I mean, this is an interesting example. What makes one side
right-side up or upside down? Let’s talk about this particular one,
because it’s actually a very interesting one. It’s, by the way, a
beautiful painting.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. All right. Have you looked at it right-side up?
- WESCHLER
- Well, let’s turn it upside down.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, do you feel a difference?
- WESCHLER
- It definitely feels different.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I found—
- WESCHLER
- I don’t know why I would describe one side as correct or not
correct.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It’s personal taste.
- WESCHLER
- It’s a New Yorker cartoon where they have,
“Oh, that’s upside down,” and then everybody makes fun of how can you
say one side is right-side up or not.
- HAMMERSLEY
- But I could turn the thing upside down and say you, being a painter over
there, would paint it this way, and you’d be satisfied.
- WESCHLER
- Right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s fine. I paint it, and I do it the opposite way. Now, what I
found, that it’s more stimulating if the heavy is on top.
- WESCHLER
- I see.
- HAMMERSLEY
- There’s an innate tension.
- WESCHLER
- In this particular painting there, if you were to describe it as three
boxes on top, three squares, they are completely filled in red, black,
red, whereas on the bottom it’s red, white, red.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right.
- WESCHLER
- So the black makes it more like— The white reads as emptiness there, so
you would agree that it’s heavier, the three, the red, black, red, than
red, white, red?
- HAMMERSLEY
- And this being on top is heavier than anything below it.
- WESCHLER
- Right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And then there’s an odd thing—
- WESCHLER
- Why is it better if heavier is on top?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t know why. It feels good. It feels boring or expected to have it
on the bottom. But, I mean, so what? That doesn’t do it well. I don’t
know why.And then another funny thing, to me, the oblique is more comfortable if
it goes from left to right. If I turn it upside down, and it goes the
other way, I don’t know if it works, it’s just not— See, it grows
comfortably toward my strong side.
- WESCHLER
- When you have it upside down, indeed the oblique—
- HAMMERSLEY
- But the obliques are still going left to right. I’m sorry. It doesn’t
work here.
- WESCHLER
- That’s not the deal here. By the way, this is a good example of one.
This is Sacred and Pro Fame, where it can
be looked at very illusionistically. In other words, it can read— And my
point is precisely this is not your intention. But I can look at this
and say, “Oh, this looks like two skyscrapers with red roofs and a black
emptiness between them.”
- HAMMERSLEY
- Which is the skyscraper?
- WESCHLER
- It goes back and forth. You can imagine a white skyscraper with a red
roof, right? With a black space in between them.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, yes. I see what you mean, yes.
- WESCHLER
- Or, conversely, you could flip it around and imagine shoeboxes coming
toward you at the bottom with red fronts, and that’s red backs back
there.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right. Yes, yes.
- WESCHLER
- And that’s that kind of an illusionistic Necker cube kind of thing where
they bounce back and forth and do that. But that’s not your
intention?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no.
- WESCHLER
- You have no interest in that illusionistic—
- HAMMERSLEY
- At the beginning. I’m fascinated to see it after I’ve done it, because I
know if it feels right, there’s going to be dividends.Now, the thing I thought you were going to say, I don’t know what is the
first thing you see, but often you see the two actors here, the black
and white going together in this field, and then I can reverse it. Oh,
but I see a cross on a red field, and that cross is busy. That’s
another—
- WESCHLER
- Now, using again Pro Fame, if I look at
this Pro Fame and I think of a red sky,
then I see a very busy white cross with black shadows across the
front—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. That could be black shadows. And then your point of being boxes
coming toward, and then the boxes that are coming toward my head.
- WESCHLER
- Right, right. So it does all those different things, but you’re saying
that at the stage when it’s in the notebook, and when you’re painting
it, you’re not interested in that. You’re interested in flat, expansive
space.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- And it’s only afterwards that you begin to look at all that other
stuff.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes, and it surprises me because— Well, I think this is one thing
that contributes to— Well, going to a Bonnard painting, I mean, there’s
so many things to look at, and you can keep on making withdrawals. And
here you can make withdrawals. First, you get one sensation. There’s a
big thing with red, black, and white. That’s the first sensation. Oh,
and then a cross. Then, if you keep on looking, it will show you,
because you can’t stand— Your mind can’t stand still. You want to keep
on exploring.
- WESCHLER
- As you were doing all geometric work, basically—these are all variations
on things that you can do inside of a square that are in this notebook,
six to a page and so forth—were you also going to drawing classes and
drawing? Some of these drawings here, are those from that period, too?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. In the seventies, yes. There would be classes at the university,
and I’d go maybe once an evening. Isn’t that funny, why I bring that up.
So I would take my bench with me, and I would take a cushion because, as
you get older, the padding diminishes. But it was good up to a point. I
would simply concentrate— I mean, I was drawing. But the young children
around me, after a while—"No, I can’t do this anymore." If they were
like— See, in the old days, after Jepson closed, a group of us would get
together and work in this girl’s attic. You would pose for twenty
minutes, and we’d sit and draw you, and then I’d pose, and then Pat
would pose. There was no coffee or tea. I hate that. You know, if
someone comes to visit me, I never serve anything. I want to talk, and I
want to hear what they say. I mean, well, like, we’re business now.
We’re not having snacks, and snacks are a—
- WESCHLER
- So you’re describing how you would go— For a while, you were going to
the university and sitting with the young kids and drawing the
nudes?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- And then that you felt that you were too old for that, or it was too
social, or what was the problem?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, I don’t quite know, but I think— I don’t want to be with the young
ones when they’re drawing. Bless their heart, I’d like to help them, but
I want to draw, see?
- WESCHLER
- Did you do nudes here at the house, then, afterwards?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Never. I’d been thinking, now that Peter [Goulds] sold some paintings, I
could— I wonder what the models charge these days. When I left L.A., and
here, I think they were $10 an hour. Imagine, Lawrence, when I first was
at Chouinard [Art Institute] in ’40, you’d come in, the drawing class,
Jepson’s drawing, and the model would come in, and he would put a sheet
on the model stand, either Jepson or he— He would take a pose— He was a
boxer, let’s say, and— The bell would ring at nine o’clock, and he would
start his pose. He would hold that for fifty minutes. Fifty minutes. The
bell would ring at ten minutes to ten, he would take a break and all the
students would take a break. At ten o’clock, the bell would ring. He’d
take another pose for fifty minutes. Seventy-five cents an hour, and
that was a good thing. I mean, they liked that.What’s so funny, I enjoy talking about it. It’s so ridiculous because in
those days things were expensive. Now it’s expensive. There are just
more zeroes, but it’s the same relationship.
- WESCHLER
- The reason I was asking you about the drawings of the nudes that you
were doing is— You are painting rectangles. Did you ever have a— I mean
you love Bonnard. Why did you not paint some of the things you were
drawing? Or let me rephrase that. What was the relationship between what
you were drawing and the kind of nourishment you got from drawing nudes
and the rectangular—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, it has nothing to do with the painting, the drawing. The drawing
seems like it’s just to sharpen your eye. You see, the painting has
nothing to do with skill in the hand manipulation. With the drawing,
it’s mind-hand relationship. You know, you could see something, and if
you don’t draw for a while, your hand becomes rusty. "Christ, that was
terrible." If I were to start drawing, it would take me a long time to
get into the rhythm.
- WESCHLER
- I see, for example— I’m now looking at the Visual
Puns and Hard-Edge Poems catalogue. [Visual Puns and Hard-Edge Poems: Works by Frederick
Hammersley, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, California, 2000]
And there’s the Knee Portrait # 2, which
is 1970. And then there is Yogurt , which
is 1976-’77. I see a relationship between the forms in the two.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, because of the obliques.
- WESCHLER
- Yes. But, in other words, the painting feels to me very organic and
informed by these kinds of lines and so forth.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I’d never thought of that.
- WESCHLER
- And I’m wondering whether that’s true of some of the— I mean, for
example, what year is that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- ’85.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. That’s ’85. That’s later, but if we were looking at a drawing, a
nude from, let’s say, earlier— I mean, there I can see oblique. I can
see a square of emptiness on the right. I can see an oblique and so
forth. I’m just curious whether you’re playing with them, whether the
two are cross-fertilizing each other.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I wouldn’t be surprised, because if I were to draw you, I’d have to look
and see what’s going on, and I’m not going to make a list of the things
I discover. I mean— “Oh, yes, it’s dark, and then the face is partly
dark. Oh, there’s some light areas here, and I like the light areas and
the dark,” and that sort of thing.And then you’ve got to put it somewhere on the page, and you’ve got to
put it on the page so it fits into that real estate. That’s very
stimulating. I never understood what Jepson meant, “You’ve got to relate
to the page.” I didn’t understand what he was talking about, and I
didn’t understand what he meant— I do now. When you do a still life, you
become the still life. If you look at the bottle or you look at this
bowl or look at the orange, it’s like you enter it. You’ve got to feel
the contours of that orange or the contours of that beard or the
contours of that knuckle. I’m the knuckle.You see, sketching, I can chew gum and have the radio on, and I’m making
some marks. Hell’s bells. That’s not drawing. Now, I have to be careful.
If people just like to sketch and play around, that’s fine. I mean,
that’s their business.
- WESCHLER
- But it’s not drawing.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Sure.
- WESCHLER
- When you draw the square and the band of color and so forth, you become
the square and the band of color in the same way?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t think that. I’d never thought of that. It’s very strange, this
world. You know—
- WESCHLER
- The world of geometric?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I wonder why— Maybe my background was that I was frightened of
people so I’m not painting people, and maybe that contributes to my
being reluctant to start drawing people. I would like to draw people. I
like Bonnard or Degas. God, those people are just heaven. What nudes?
Modigliani I don’t think has the substance as— Well, anyway, some of the
colors of Degas’ nudes are delicious. They’re marvelous.
- WESCHLER
- You’re having this incredibly productive period of painting and also a
very productive period of drawing, these wonderful drawings. Did it ever
occur to you to paint a nude?
- HAMMERSLEY
- There’s a lot of preparation for that, and the older I get, I’m aware of
the time it takes for the preparation. And the making of the frames—
See, I was not aware how much time it takes.
- WESCHLER
- But that’s true whether it’s going to be a geometrical thing or not.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, no, making the arrangement for them to come, and then get the
material out to do it, and then they’re going to come, and then we do
it. I think I’m making up excuses.
- WESCHLER
- I think you are.
- HAMMERSLEY
- But the point is there’s some reason I’ve not done it.
- WESCHLER
- Was there a time when you were thinking you might, and then you decided
not to, or it never even occurred to you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Many times I’ve thought about it, and then I would lie down until the
feeling went away. [mutual laughter] You know that. It’s a very good
device.
- WESCHLER
- So that’s why you didn’t do nudes. Why didn’t you do candlesticks, for
example, or something?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, that wasn’t as interesting. See, that’s not organic. Now, like
[Charles] Sheeler’s photographs of the Ford Motor Company or even
Sheeler’s locomotive wheels, now that’s gorgeous, but it’s slightly
oppressive. You know, it’s too bloody rigid. You see, it’s so funny, me
saying that, and I’m doing this, which is rigid.
- WESCHLER
- But this is rigid and light.
- HAMMERSLEY
- This is rigid and fun. Now, see, this title, for example, I turned the
title upside down. This title is Up Side
Down. Now, that’s literal. Upside is down. It’s not upside
down.
- WESCHLER
- Up side down.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- The reason that I’m pressuring you on this is that I notice— I wonder to
what extent in the eighties you begin to move away from these rigid,
even the playful, geometric things into a more organic shape.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, that was when— In 1981 I remember sitting there, and there were
four paintings I was working on, and I was painting this painting— I was
pleased with these paintings.
- WESCHLER
- These are geometric paintings out of the notebook here.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Geometric, correct. Out of the notebook. All right. I was painting this
thing, and it suddenly dawned on me, “I’m not enjoying this. Oh, Christ,
and I’ve got to finish those other two. Well, I’ve got to finish them.
And then I’ve got to frame them. Oh, god, and then photograph them.
Well—”So it was a chore from then on. And I finished the four. That was 1981,
and it stopped. All the paintings stopped. Now, you’ve heard that
expression, “Well, I’ve got so many photographs of the family. They’re
in a shoebox under the bed.” You’ve heard of that. And then, “If I had
time, I’d put them in albums.” Well, I said, “This is the time.” So I
took out all my photographs, and they’re all in albums.
- WESCHLER
- That’s what you did during that period there?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. There were two years there was no painting. I cleared a lot of
things away, and I did things that I hadn’t time for, and I forget what
I did, but it was two years. And then the juice started to come, and I
can show you the first organic. It was slightly timid.
- WESCHLER
- Do you have it here in the house?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Let’s go get it.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I’ll bring it, if you like.
- WESCHLER
- I’d like to.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Because it’s small. It’s not big.[Tape recorder turned off.]
- WESCHLER
- We’ve just taken a break, and we’ve gotten ourselves a few pictures to
look at. And you were saying that you had done two years of filling your
photo albums and cleaning up the apartment, and suddenly what
happened?
- HAMMERSLEY
- “Let’s try a little painting.” So this was a Masonite panel. I think it
had already been sized, so I started drawing with vine charcoal. This
was a delight in that it was the opposite of the geometric procedure, in
that I could draw lines without thinking, just let the hand move, and
then with a chamois erase, draw, erase, draw, erase some of the shapes.
"No." "Right."The thing that was most pleasurable is that I would draw a series of
shapes I’d never seen before but I understood. It was exactly right. All
right. So then I would look at that. "Oh, that’s lovely. Now, that’s
going to be brown." So then I’d mix the paint. This is painted with just
one coat. I don’t know if it’s one sitting or not, like that Jewish
painter I was telling you about, but that’s beside the point. I wasn’t
into anything yet. I hadn’t started any rhythm.
- WESCHLER
- Now, by the way, in this case, one of the things I notice is that the
eye following the line imagines that underneath this, if you’re telling
me there was charcoal drawing, but this would’ve been one continuous
line, and then there were lines—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exactly.
- WESCHLER
- And then this crosses this and came back like that.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exactly.
- WESCHLER
- So you’ve created— I mean, the drawing underneath it is just flowing
lines that intercept each other, that go over, that creates the
shapes.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And then I may erase some of this. So it would stop and then pick up
later.
- WESCHLER
- Right. So then you’re saying, “Okay. That’s going to be brown.”
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Was brown the first one, by the way? You do love brown.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I wonder. Yes, I do like brown. I don’t remember. You see I like
lavender.
- WESCHLER
- What’s the name of this painting, by the way? Let’s see. [The Same Address, 1982]
- HAMMERSLEY
-
The Same Address.
- WESCHLER
- That’s a funny name, isn’t it? Even though you haven’t been painting for
all these years—
- HAMMERSLEY
- But that came from the same address.
- WESCHLER
- It came from the same address.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I did keep records of the paintings as I painted. That has a
number. I’m sure there’s a number two. That one was a few steps
later.
- WESCHLER
- Let’s get the name of this one.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s No Doubt about It [1985].
- WESCHLER
-
No Doubt about It. Okay. [laughs]
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, this one I don’t want to sell. I’m very pleased with this
painting.
- WESCHLER
- Why?
- HAMMERSLEY
- It just feels right. It’s mildly ridiculous. But, goddamn it, it just
feels right. If I could analyze it, you see, it’s primarily like I was
telling you about the tools. Oh. In the tools, by the way, there’s a
principle that I learned in Chouinard, the design instructor, large—and
we’re built this way—large, medium, and small.
- WESCHLER
- You’re showing the knuckles of your finger.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- The large one, then a medium, then a small, right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. And this principle of large, medium, and small is crucial. It’s
organic. It has grown that way. So if I say I’m going to use— In
painting, it’s going to be primarily warm and less cool or the other way
around, or it’s going to be mostly intense and then grayed, or
conversely. That’s mostly warm, you see. And then the blue is not, and
then the black is neutral, and the white is neutral. But the yellow,
ochre, and the red, it’s a warm world.
- WESCHLER
- Are you painting with paintbrushes, or was it a palette knife—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Everything was paintbrushes now, because I learned, after I did that
navy thing with a palette knife, it was too tedious. When I made three
organic paintings, which are gone, and I thought, “This is too—” Oh.
That’s what started the 1964 organics, painting with a brush. So I
returned to the organic world, and then I got out my brushes.
- WESCHLER
- So this one also feels— No Doubt about It
has a kind of anthropomorphizing thing that I associate— That those are
two figures in relationship to each other in some way, that there’s a
conversation going on between those two—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, it could be, yes. You think that way, because it is like the two of
them are talking together.
- WESCHLER
- One thing, though, you still have, by the way, in certain cases, you
left the background—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, that will show sometimes.
- WESCHLER
- It will show between where the different bodies of color are.
- HAMMERSLEY
- The colors don’t touch one another. There’s a slight interval.
- WESCHLER
- There’s a slight interval in some cases, and some cases not. And then
let’s go over to see this. Are you finished with that one?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. You can put it on the floor, if you like.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. Now, this one is called?
- HAMMERSLEY
-
Basic Training [1985].
- WESCHLER
- Now we’re at 1985.
- HAMMERSLEY
- What was the year of the Doubt one?
- WESCHLER
-
No Doubt about It is also 1985.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, for goodness sake. Now, see, that really surprises me. What was
this? Oh, ’82. That was the first one.
- WESCHLER
- Right, right. ’82 was the first one, and these are a little bit later,
three years later. What do we call this one again?
- HAMMERSLEY
-
Basic Training. Now, I don’t know what was
on either side of that, but I really enjoyed this, because first it was
warm and cool, and there was one guy, just one guy, and the diet was
very limited, and that’s basic training. Now, the frame is what I— I
ripped up some molding in the house someplace. See, it’s a quarter
round, and it’s been painted cream, so you’ve heard the word distressing in making frames. You take a bundle
of keys on a wire and strike the thing. That’s what I did there.
- WESCHLER
- Now, let’s, by the way, talk about frames here. The knee photographs
have these kinds of frames. I mean, your geometric things don’t have
this kind of frames.
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, they’re aluminum.
- WESCHLER
- They’re aluminum frames.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- But now when you’re doing these sort of paintings, also your drawings
you would frame, and it’s just characteristic of your work that a lot of
your stuff, when I went back to your studio, you’ve done all the
frames.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- And that’s a part of the work?
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s exactly right.
- WESCHLER
- So talk about framing a little. We haven’t talked about it at all.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Framing to me is crucial, because, first, it must support the painting,
enrich— All right. I’ll go backwards. I like space between the image and
the frame so there’s a no-man’s land, and then the frame must go with
the painting or fit with the painting. And I have collected wood from a
big contractor in town. They would throw out scraps of wood, and my
garage, the ceiling is filled with strips of wood, and then, as you see,
in the workroom there’s all kinds of strips. Because if I put this
painting on the table, and I take strips of wood and put next to it and
keep on— Sometimes I have to put two pieces on top. See that marigold
painting?
- WESCHLER
- Right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That was maybe close to thirty different pieces.
- WESCHLER
- Of?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Of different moldings. So I keep on moving these scraps of wood. And
then you see— See, this is a rough cut, so I would make use of that.
- WESCHLER
- Do you, by the way, paint the wood yourself?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Here I have a lot of odds and ends of paint. Silkscreen paint. I
did silkscreening for a while, and I have a lot of these jars. I didn’t
want to throw them away, so I used that.All right. After it’s framed, then I look at it a long time to decide
what color is appropriate. It’s not attached to the frame yet, the
painting’s not. After the frame is painted, then I attach the painting,
and then I wax the frame three times with carnauba wax. I want a nice
patina on it.
- WESCHLER
- Now, one of the things that also happens to the frames is that sometimes
you have notched things.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Sometimes there’s—
- HAMMERSLEY
- All kinds of carving.
- WESCHLER
- There’s carving. Now, what’s that about, for example?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, you see, I think that’s One on One
[1987].
- WESCHLER
- Let’s look at that painting there as an example. What is this one
called?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Is it One on One?
- WESCHLER
- Let’s see. This is a wonderful frame. One on
One, 1987.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Describe the painting first. It’s yellow with a blue stripe, black with
a red column , or red figure coming out.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- And it is floating. One of the things that happens is that you have a
sense of the painting as kind of floating in this space, if that’s
correct. It’s a deep frame.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- And describe the frame here in this case.
- HAMMERSLEY
- See, this is just a piece of three-quarter-inch pine. I think it came in
this wide. So I look at it while— And I also have samples of what the—
All the carving is done, actually, with a rasp. You know what a rasp is,
a wood rasp. It’s flat on one side, slightly curved on the other. So
this is the curved part, and so I just start. “Oh, I know. I’ll just put
grooves in the thing. Oh. And then why don’t I go around the side.”
- WESCHLER
- And this is, by the way, done after you decide— This is in response to
this painting?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Oh, yes.
- WESCHLER
- It’s not that you’ve done these frames, and you’re trying to figure out
which painting goes in it?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no.
- WESCHLER
- The painting exists, and now you’re going to create the frame.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right.
- WESCHLER
- Now, what in this painting suggested that it would be good to have these
rasps—
- HAMMERSLEY
- This blue.
- WESCHLER
- That blue—
- HAMMERSLEY
- I’m just making this up. I’ve never thought of it before, because it
felt, well— I want something to— Do you remember the Impressionist
paintings? They have this French frame, which is a lot of jazz. Do you
know what rotten stone is, the color of rotten stone? It’s kind of a
bleached ochre. I think of the Impressionist painting as kind of
ochreish, but it’s grayish. But all this jazz was just slightly subdued,
and it’s subdued because they put hot gesso on it. Gesso is chalk and
rabbit skin glue, and it’s thick. You paint this on this jazzy little
knot, and it fills it up slightly, but the knots are still part of the—
Then they have fancy corners.And I looked at these. "How in the hell can they put on such a jazzy
frame with this gorgeous painting? Why doesn’t it compete?" It doesn’t
compete. It helps the painting, and I just marvel at that. So I want a
frame to do the same thing. I want it to help the painting, and then it
becomes the extension of the painting. See, that painting is kind of
mild, so the frame is kind of mild. Now, that was before I got more
active, and this was more like—
- WESCHLER
- And by the time you got here, you’re really [unclear].
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Now, is the work of art the painting plus the frame? Could you imagine
somebody— If somebody said to you— If you were to go to somebody’s house
that had bought this painting, and they removed the frame and put a
different frame on, would that in some way not be the painting that you
had in mind? To what extent is the frame organic to the painting for
you, is it continuous with the painting? If you want this work of art,
this is what it is; it’s with this frame?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. I would be annoyed if they would take it off and put a new
frame on, but I would certainly understand, because they want to get in
on the act. [Weschler laughs.] And critics and the museum people I saw
on TV, they were talking about where to put a Moore thing. He was there
and whoever the director of this Washington museum was, and they were
saying, “Yes, but we ought to—” We ought to. All
right. Now, if they want to do something, don’t have any people around.
Just do it.But this, I don’t want— This is the way it should be, that I think it
should be. Now, I have no say— If you buy it and you say, “I hate that
frame. I’ll put an aluminum frame,” that’s fine. That’s your
business.
- WESCHLER
- But as far as you’re concerned, the work of art is the combination of
this frame and—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Exactly. Exactly.
- WESCHLER
- I notice, by the way, for example, when you framed the nude behind us,
there, instead of having stripes, you have dots or circular—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, what do you call that?
- WESCHLER
- You bored circular little holes into it. [Ego
Lesson, 1992; Pleasant Tense,
1996]
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, like round cups.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- You see, sometimes I’ll cut dowels, so I’ll have this little button
here.
- WESCHLER
- Right. That drawing there has some dowels in it.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- The drawing of the hill there.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Well, anyway, I’m fascinated with paint— Like see the ceiling,
that’s called lath. You remember the word lath?
- WESCHLER
- Right, right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It’s very rough, and I use that for many frames. I sand it down
slightly, distress it a little bit, and then combine it with something
else. And then it— Well, I’ll show you a painting that works that
way.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. We’ll wait just a second while you get it.[Tape recorder turned off.]
- WESCHLER
- This one here, what is this one called? It is Goal
Rush from 1997. That’s an example of one that’s made with a
lath.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, you see, the sawed marks of the lath are a series of straights,
which relate to the few straights in that. But there’s a lot of rounds,
so that I rounded corners, and put the half-rounds on the top and
bottom. The lath is nailed to another piece of wood, four other pieces
of wood. So I take these, as I say—
- WESCHLER
- By the way, when you finish a painting, do you immediately do the frame,
or do you do a bunch of paintings and then eventually do a bunch of
frames?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right. I do it that way. When I have— I like to finish the paintings
first.
- WESCHLER
- And have a whole bunch of them, and then think of how to frame them?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- I’m looking over here at a new painting of yours, and that does not have
a frame yet.
- HAMMERSLEY
- No.
- WESCHLER
- And you’re thinking about it?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. There’s a frame in the workroom that’s leaning against the wall,
and it had a round thing, but I haven’t quite decided how to do the
carving yet.
- WESCHLER
- So that’s part of the thinking. Now, by the way, having these new
paintings out here reminds me that there’s one more step. We’ve gone
from geometric to more organic shapes, but at this stage, an early point
of your organic shapes, they’re solid colors.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, yes.
- WESCHLER
- And then at a certain point, you begin to have what I call blushing of
colors.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Blending, yes.
- WESCHLER
- Blending and blushing. When did that happen?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I wonder if I could find that painting, or is that gone? If there’s a
little shape here, there’s a big shape here—
- WESCHLER
- What is it called? Do you remember?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, I don’t.
- WESCHLER
- What year, roughly?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, it would be the late eighties, I think.
- WESCHLER
- Okay.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It came by— The blending came by necessity.
- WESCHLER
- Why?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Because if this hand shape is in a big jazzy shape here, but the shape
goes under this one here, I start with the brown, but I don’t want to
connect brown again. So I have to change colors. I want to change colors
there.
- WESCHLER
- But you don’t want to make a whole new geometric shape?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I don’t want that shape to surround this thing, or else it went
into some other place. I can’t give you a good— Oh, let’s see. Oh. All
right. See, that shows blending.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. We’re going to talk about—
- HAMMERSLEY
- You can leave it there, if you like.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. Well, it’s called Inside the Temple
[1988].
- HAMMERSLEY
- Do you remember Campbell on TV talking about myths?
- WESCHLER
- Joseph Campbell, right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And he was talking about the word bliss, which I
understand. He related that somehow to when you’re inside the temple.
Now that I think of it, I don’t remember what he said, but I remember
the phrase “inside the temple” was related to bliss, and that’s why
that—
- WESCHLER
- And talk about bliss while we’re here. When you say you understand—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Bliss is arrival.
- WESCHLER
- Having arrived?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, to get what you want.
- WESCHLER
- Achievement?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Achievement. Goddamn it, that’s lovely. Lovely is bliss.
- WESCHLER
- It reminds me of something you once said, by the way— Before we talk
about— The thing about bliss reminds me, I read once you said, “When you
see something great, you see the seeds of greatness in yourself.”
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I see a common— There’s a common— I’d forgotten that.
That’s right. I like to think, if I get something harmonious— Oh, let me
tell you about the Indians later, Indians and harmony. See if you can
remind me. Now, what was I talking about?
- WESCHLER
- You were talking about bliss.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Bliss.
- WESCHLER
- But here you were saying, “When you see something great, you see the
greatness in yourself.”
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Now, I like to think, if I get something that is bliss or I’m very
happy about, harmonious, great, then I like to think Auntie Maude would
look at this, hopefully Mother, or the person on the street, he would
look at that and say, “God, look at that painting,” and he would feel
it, too. And that’s what I mean.
- WESCHLER
- Yes, that was your experience when you would see Degas, for example?
[unclear] had that experience, too, a feeling of pleasure, joy, etc.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- So at some level, the history of painting is the history of people
gifting each other with bliss?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. It’s a lovely gift.
- WESCHLER
- Just now when you welled up with tears, I’m wondering, are you welling
up with just the delight of that? You mentioned your mother. Your mother
is somebody who didn’t—
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no.
- WESCHLER
- She never got it?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No. Bless her heart, I wonder how she— Her bliss, I think, was finishing
a job and getting the housework done, and her bliss was resting, to get
it over with. I understand that kind of bliss, too.
- WESCHLER
- But anyway, you’re just saying that so the bliss is—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, you’ve been given something, and that’s the bliss. I’m looking at
a Degas, or I’m looking at a Bonnard— Now, there’s some Bonnards I don’t
like, but that’s beside the point. You’d look at something or you watch
a horse move or you see an athlete move a certain way— Boy, it’s just
great.
- WESCHLER
- Do you find yourself, by the way, when you’re by yourself watching an
athlete move on TV, do you get choked up like this, or is it when you’re
talking to somebody else you get choked up?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, no, I’ll look at TV and sometimes cry.
- WESCHLER
- It’s very sweet. Let’s talk about Inside the
Temple.
- HAMMERSLEY
- All right.
- WESCHLER
- It’s an expression of bliss, as you were saying.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, see—
- WESCHLER
- By the way, this is 1988, so this is relatively early when you’re
starting to do these.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. This was in the show downtown, when I was in a little gallery
downtown. It was reproduced, and I didn’t want to sell it. It’s been a
couple of times I didn’t want to sell it. Now, see the blue shape on
top?
- WESCHLER
- Right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It doesn’t touch that lavender shape. I wanted the black there, but I
didn’t want the black going to the right corner. So that’s where the
blend comes in.
- WESCHLER
- Now, in the old days, though, you would’ve just had a straight line or
it would’ve been black on one side and white on the other.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s true. That’s true.
- WESCHLER
- And why does it not do that? Why do you blend it instead of— I, by the
way, love the blending, but I’m just asking how you came to it.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It would be too blunt, too sharp. See, the whole thing, there’s a
certain relaxation, a certain softness to the shapes. I’m rationalizing
here, but the blending seemed appropriate. Now, what I really was
pleased to— Where the background on the bottom becomes a shape. Now,
see, the second thing that happened, early painting— See the background
shape to the left where it becomes a finger that’s going up?
- WESCHLER
- In other words, the gray background becomes a white thumb.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It becomes a shape, yes, I guess a thumb shape.
- WESCHLER
- I think what’s fascinating in this particular painting is that the shape
that is black in the upper left-hand corner and white in the right-hand
corner becomes red in the middle, and it’s all one continuous shape.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, that’s right. I’d forgotten the black goes into the red, yes. Yes,
it’s one shape.
- WESCHLER
- It’s a delicious painting.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I’m glad you like it. Yes, I’m very fond of this painting.
- WESCHLER
- Were you excited when you started doing these blendings? Was that a
whole—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I mean, it was necessary. I said, “Damn, that’s not bad.” Then the
strangest thing. I thought, "Why is that?" People always mention it.
They like it, and I think it’s because they’re not confined. They’re
someplace that they could blend to something else. They can go to
something else, easily travel.
- WESCHLER
- Well, and also, it’s how you go into the painting. In other words, the
blend is itself a metaphor of your own giving yourself over to the
experience, the aesthetic experience. You yourself are blending into the
experience of the painting.Let’s look at this one, too, as long as we have it out. This is much
later. Goal Rush is 1997.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, that was started two or three years earlier, and I came upon it.
See those things leaning against the wall?
- WESCHLER
- Right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Those are all paintings or drawings that I started, but I don’t know
what to do with them.
- WESCHLER
- Let’s bring them out just to look at them while we’re talking. I’ll
bring out a few of them. Okay?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Look at it first. Sometimes it’s just a drawing.
- WESCHLER
- These are works in progress right now?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. What were you going to say about them? More paintings around, so
just a second here.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I’ll start with this.
- WESCHLER
- Okay.
- HAMMERSLEY
- This is what the drawing looks like. Now, see, I have never erased
anything of this.
- WESCHLER
- This doesn’t even have a name yet, because it’s just a drawing?
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s right. Now, I haven’t the slightest idea what to do with this.
See, there’s a chance for a blending here, and there’s a chance for
blending here. But I don’t know what colors. I just don’t know what to
do. This has been sitting for like—
- WESCHLER
- I notice, by the way, that blendings generally happen at the necks, at
the straits.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Where there’s a bulbous shape on either side, and there’s a kind of
constriction.
- HAMMERSLEY
- A transition.
- WESCHLER
- Then you can blend in those places.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- That’s one of the rules, it seems like.
- HAMMERSLEY
- You see, it would be slightly boring— Let’s say, if this is red, the
whole thing would be red. So the blending I showed you—"Well, hell, if
this is blending, I could go into orange, but what’ll I do here?"
- WESCHLER
- So we’re having all these thoughts about what at this point is just a
series of shapes, organic forms.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct. But that’s what the organic painting looks like before it’s
anything painted.
- WESCHLER
- And then this here—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, that’s practically done.
- WESCHLER
- Does it have a name yet?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No.
- WESCHLER
- It’s another square one. Interestingly, by the way— This is your most
recent work, right?
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s right.
- WESCHLER
- It’s got some what I call blushes, what you call blends, in places that
are unexpected. For example, here at the edge of the— There’s a white
finger that goes into the black shape, but then there’s this kind of
blue bruise or blush—
- HAMMERSLEY
- On the outside of it, yes.
- WESCHLER
- Which doesn’t go across anything. It’s just a little locus.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- And similarly, on this one, the top of the black thumb turns blue at the
end.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right.
- WESCHLER
- Again with a blush, whereas this white finger becomes yellow at the
bottom. So this is a different kind of blushiness that’s taking
place.
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s true. All right. Now, then I thought, "I’ll add an unexpected
agent—"
1.9. TAPE NUMBER: V, SIDE ONE JANUARY 16, 2003
- WESCHLER
- We’re in the middle of talking about blends and bruises and orange size
and so forth. So go ahead. We’re now talking about your current work. Go
ahead.
- HAMMERSLEY
- So, see, this I was getting ready to frame, but then I looked at it and
I said, “I wonder if I should make the blue more pronounced and the
yellow more pronounced.” But then I was in doubt, so I didn’t do
anything. You know that old chestnut, “When in doubt, don’t”? It’s very
important. Can be a very helpful principle. So I’m not quite sure what
to do, so I just let it age.
- WESCHLER
- Now, we’d gone to look at all these, because we’d started out by talking
about this painting down here that’s a finished one from 1998, I
believe. This is Goal Rush, 1997. It says
here 1997 to ’02, so this is really—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, two dates.
- WESCHLER
- 1997 to ’02.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. See, that’s four years.
- WESCHLER
- Right. And so talk about that, for example. I’m just saying that that’s
a recent completed work.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, you see, if it was— Four years ago, the attitude was more— Well,
this was jazzier, concentric things, a lot of activity. And I looked at
it, and I said, “Oh, forget it.” So I went on to other things. There’s
another painting like this that is much quieter, and it’s called Hap and Stance [1992]. Hap and Stance. So I made another one—which never happens,
make another one—but stronger, and this is called Second Stanza. [mutual laughter] I was very pleased with
that title.
- WESCHLER
- And this one over here on the right is really new. Doesn’t have a frame
yet.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.
- WESCHLER
- It’s finished, but you don’t know what to put on the frame, in other
words?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Then I’m not quite sure of those two brown things touching one
another on the left.
- WESCHLER
- By the way, how do you do the blending? Just technically, what happens?
Because they’re very subtle. It’s almost like you can’t tell at any
point where the blend has happened.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It’s the interval— Let’s see. All right. See the blue and red on the
right?
- WESCHLER
- We’re talking now of Goal Rush.
- HAMMERSLEY
- The left painting. Goal Rush. Right. All
right. I have a little pile of blue, and then I have a pile of red.
- WESCHLER
- On your palette.
- HAMMERSLEY
- On the palette. Now, if it’s that long a passage of blending, I mix the
two colors so there’s a funny gray in the middle. So I take the red, and
I kind of exhaust the brush up into the middle, and I exhaust the blue
down into the middle, and then I pick up the middle mix and blend it on
both sides. Then I wipe the brush so I don’t see any brush marks. Do you
know the word sfumato?
- WESCHLER
- It’s a Renaissance term, right?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, and it’s to— Like da Vinci, the brush stroke disappears.
- WESCHLER
- It comes from smoke.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, how interesting. Can you pronounce it?
- WESCHLER
- I can’t pronounce it, either.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Sfumato or something. Anyway, now, with the small areas, the small
blend, the black and white, the white and the black come close, but I
put the black up a little bit, and I’d take the white a little bit. And
then I’d wipe the brush, and then take the white into the black, and
then I’d wipe the brush and take the black brush or go back into the
white. Try to disappear or cause the strokes to disappear so I’d just
have a smooth transition.
- WESCHLER
- Right. An organic transition.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- These feel to be organic not only in that the shapes are organic
curving, you know, but that the blending also is another form of
organicness.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And since people like it and point it out, you see, I get the feeling
that they’d rather not have sharply defined shapes, like portraits or
natural things. The shadows that occur on your coat are blends, and
sometimes even the outline is not as sharp as it could be, depending on
the light.
- WESCHLER
- It occurs to me, by the way, that there was a stitch that I dropped back
there, which is a work that took place between the geometric thing here
and the beginnings of these organics, that self-portrait of yourself
that gets reproduced a lot, that About
Face [1980].
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, the drawing in 1980.
- WESCHLER
- Yes. That occurs between the two. You had finished the hard-edge and
you’d run out of gas.
- HAMMERSLEY
- But this was in ’81, so I was still painting the geometrics.
- WESCHLER
- When you did this, did you do a whole series of these self-portraits, or
just this one?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I have another which I can show you where I was angry, but the drawing
doesn’t look angry, and when I’m not angry, the drawing will look
angry.
- WESCHLER
- This one looks—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Kind of severe?
- WESCHLER
- Yes, severe, right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Let’s see. Oh, yes. Because of the marks—"Goddamn it, you know, I
wish I could get a goddamn drawing," that feeling. So it comes out that
way. No, no. Well, no, if I had that feeling— No, that’s kind of a
middling one.
- WESCHLER
- You did a whole series of these self-portraits at that point?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, a few.
- WESCHLER
- This is 1980?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Let me get a couple of them here. By the way, [unclear]. I hadn’t
realized that.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Now, here’s the angry one.
- WESCHLER
- Oh wow. [laughs]
- HAMMERSLEY
- Here’s my favorite. This is 1956. [Self
Portrait, 1956]
- WESCHLER
- Okay. Let’s come back. I apologize to readers that it was my fault that
I had forgotten to bring this up at the time, but we now have them in
front of us. What I’m interested in, in terms of the— All through the
seventies, alongside your geometrics, you had been doing the nudes and
the figure studies, but then in 1980 you’re coming to the end of the
geometrics. You’re almost out of gas on the geometrics, and you do a
series of what I hadn’t realized were quite large facial
self-portraits.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And also, in the ’80 period, I copied a lot of Velázquez heads, the pope
and some of those heads, and it was amazing how hard— I have one where
the pope, he looks like a dangerous bastard. [Copy
of Velásquez Head, 1980]
- WESCHLER
- Francis Bacon liked that one, too.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, is that so? I got very close to him. I liked that drawing. You know,
there’s a lot of activity in it. Now, I don’t have any name or date on
this one, do I? Isn’t that surprising? [Other
Side, 1983]
- WESCHLER
- On the back it says Other Side is the
title. 1983 for this one.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And that’s ’80. [About Face, 1980]
- WESCHLER
- This one’s 1980. Right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, the ’80 is on the front.
- WESCHLER
- So basically, the point I’m trying to make is that between the geometric
and the resurgence of organic painting, in that period you did a series
of these faces.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Correct.
- WESCHLER
- Which, as I recall, at an earlier time where you’d done a face, you’d
done a self-portrait at a point when there was a transition between
two—
- HAMMERSLEY
- The black-and-white catalogue. That’s why the drawing is called About Face.
- WESCHLER
- But one of the things that happens— Somebody who’d been doing geometric
work takes a look at themselves, a serious look, the way you are in
these two drawings, and comes out the other side doing organic work.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I see. I’d not thought of that.
- WESCHLER
- I just wondered whether that had something to do with it. But you were
just saying that there was Velázquez, and you were saying what’s
interesting is that the 1980 picture, which looks severe, you didn’t
have severe feelings as you were doing it, but 1983, which looks calm,
you were more severe as you were doing it.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I was angry. I was angry. And I was almost going to throw it away,
and I said no, because I’m fond of things that are not successful at the
time of making, because they always have seeds of things possible that
will come. And this, the more I look at it, the more I like it. The fact
is, it’s so anti-Hammersley.
- WESCHLER
- What is Hammersley if that is anti-Hammersley?
- HAMMERSLEY
- This is Hammersley.
- WESCHLER
- He said, pointing to the geometric stuff. Or Hammersley is in
control.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes. Now, some young lady wrote an article called “Left Field.”
[Kathleen Shields. “Paintings from Left Field.” Art in America, January 1991, pp. 124-27, 153.] I want to
get into left field. I’ve been paying taxes on that real estate all my
life, but I’ve never got into it— Left field is where I’m free.
[Weschler laughs.] Baconish. See? So the organic is a small gate that I
can get in there. That one there is an early stop momentarily in left
field.
- WESCHLER
- 1954. There’s a softness to left field. There’s a freedom to left
field.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- I think you’re getting there.
- HAMMERSLEY
- And there’s a— That’s Hammersley. I’m wearing a different garment. A
garment had been put on me, and that’s called Hammersley, but that’s not
the real me.
- WESCHLER
- And left field is where you want to go. Are you still going there?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I hope so. Boy, I hope so.
- WESCHLER
- Looking at this painting that you just recently did, that we were
talking about a second ago, that you don’t have a frame for yet, what’s
the name of that painting?
- HAMMERSLEY
-
Second Stanza.
- WESCHLER
-
Second Stanza. Is that closer to left
field?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no. Well, I mean, the attitude, because it’s done the second time,
so it’s a little bit more jump to it. Oh. I haven’t shown you the late
paintings. I did some in the nineties. Then I realized the organics are
getting too large, and they’re getting— I really shouldn’t say this.
They’re—naivete is not quite the word. The directness or the
unconsciousness has been lessened slightly and contrivance—
- WESCHLER
- They’re becoming too knowing. So how are you responding to that? What
are you doing in response?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I stopped.
- WESCHLER
- And that’s why right now you haven’t been painting much?
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s right.
- WESCHLER
- By the way, show me some of the ones that you said you haven’t shown me.
I’ll stop for a second here and we’ll—[Tape recorder turned off.]
- WESCHLER
- Two paintings to look at, and the titles are Savings and Loan from 2001 and—
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s On Time.
- WESCHLER
- And On Time also from 2001. You were
saying?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I think these are getting too big. I’m pleased— As a matter of fact,
there’s things in both of them I’m pleased— This is so unusual, so
strange, that I like that. And this where the jazz is localized in just
the left, that orange, I like. I have another one that’s even more— Very
complex, but then I look at it and look at it, and it becomes better, so
I’m canceling out myself. What do you think of this?
- WESCHLER
- I agree with you that they— I prefer the smaller, the one in
between.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- About the size of Inside the Temple
[1988].
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Because I’m going in another direction. Like I’ve exceeded— It was
very strange, very strange.
- WESCHLER
- A second ago, I’d said they’re getting too knowing, and you responded to
that. What about that made sense to you?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Well, No Doubt about It [1985] has a
different attitude than the two big ones.
- WESCHLER
- The big ones look more professional, more—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, more—
- WESCHLER
- Like an academy has been set up.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, they’re more accomplished.
- WESCHLER
- Right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- There’s nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t have the— What would you
call the attitude of that painting? Naivete is not quite the word.
- WESCHLER
- Surprise. The freshness of just having arrived.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes, just having arrived. Yes.
- WESCHLER
- And your response, basically, you painted these two in 2001, and now
you’ve stopped again.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. See, after they were framed, then I was done.
- WESCHLER
- But this is not a stopping for good. You’re just—A pause, you’re
pausing.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I’m very curious to see— And you see, I hate to bring it up,
because then I’m put on the— What’s the word? Maybe "To hell with the
painting. Let’s try some drawings. I don’t want to draw, but I’d like to
draw." That sort of thing.
- WESCHLER
- And you have no idea what’s going to come next?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, I don’t.
- WESCHLER
- Does that make you scared? Anxious? Relaxed? Curious?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no, because now I’m used to it. I’m more used to it. The one thing I
was going to say earlier, as I got older, you know, I told you about
entering shows and getting rejected. And the discouragement was
unpleasant. I thought, “Well, you know, when you get older, you get used
to it.” It always comes brand-new. Discouragement always comes new. I
don’t know if you experience that.
- WESCHLER
- Sure, sure. It’s always the first time.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, it’s so amazing how it’s just brand-new.
- WESCHLER
- How you’re exposed all over again.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes.
- WESCHLER
- You’d asked me, by the way, to ask you about Indians and harmony.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. I’m thinking how un-American— It’s funny, because they’re the
Americans. I read someplace where— I admire the American Indian very
much. He’s closer to God than the white man. He sees God in everything
that grows. I mean, that’s God out there. And when— How can I put this?
He walks with harmony on either side of him, and he walks with harmony
in front of him and harmony behind him, and that’s the way the Indian
is. Now, if someone harms you, the Indian says, then you know he’s out
of harmony, and you ignore him until he gets it back. Now, an American,
the son of a bitch will hit you. You let him alone until he recovers.
Boy, I think that’s great.
- WESCHLER
- How does it relate to your painting?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I haven’t the slightest— Oh, I’d like to— Yes, when things are going
well, I’m in harmony. Yes. No, I’ve shown some harmony. Harmony’s in
front of me, at least.
- WESCHLER
- Let me ask you this. Who do you paint for?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I paint for me.
- WESCHLER
- You were saying a second ago you get discouraged when people don’t like
it and so forth, but at some profound level, do you care what other
people think?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I like very much if they like it, but I understand
if they don’t. It hurts a little bit, but it’s silly to be— If I were a
child, I would be— The concern is greater when they don’t like you or
like it, what you’ve done. But that lessens.
- WESCHLER
- I mean to what extent, when you are painting, are you concerned about
whether you are communicating something clearly, and to what extent— If
you’re painting for yourself, that isn’t an issue, right? Or is that an
issue?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I don’t give a damn about communication. If I can give— What’s the
word? If I can clothe my feeling with something that is the same as my
feeling, I’m satisfied. And then I’d like to think the observer might
get the same sensation. I’m so fascinated by having the thought and
converting it into sound or in converting it to write a word. That is
very difficult.I remember hearing a lecture— Oh, Agnes Martin.
- WESCHLER
- Do you know her, by the way?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, I don’t. I was fascinated by the questions that people asked her.
They were stumbling over— They couldn’t find the words to— “When did you
start—” “Did your mother—” “How about the—” I couldn’t believe it. And I
realized it’s like painting. It’s very hard to convert your thoughts or
feelings into clarity. And then one girl held up her hand and she said,
“Do you have music when you paint?” [laughs] It was so refreshing, and I
wondered if the other people thought of this contrast. Zip and
“bbllbbllbbllbbl.” God, it was marvelous. Talk about a clear painting.So anyway, the whole point of painting is another form of talking, and
I’m talking to myself or I’m— Yes, I’m talking—
- WESCHLER
- You earlier talked about Hammersley. “That’s good, Hammersley."
"Hammersley, that’s—”
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, I’m talking out loud. I’m talking with shapes. If it feels good to
me, I’m satisfied.
- WESCHLER
- By the way, you’re always “Hammersley,” or are you sometimes “Frederick”
to yourself?
- HAMMERSLEY
- It’s interesting. I don’t know why I use “Hammersley” more than
“Frederick.” I very seldom say “Frederick.” Oh. When I was a child, I
was mildly ashamed of “Frederick.” It was too bloody long. Someone was
“Bob” or “Bill.”
- WESCHLER
- What about “Fred”?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t like nicknames. [Weschler laughs.] It’s like I’m reduced.
- WESCHLER
- So “Hammersley” is what it is. So you’re having a conversation with
yourself.
- HAMMERSLEY
- When I’m doing it, I don’t think I’m having a conversation. You
understand. But I understand what you’re talking about.
- WESCHLER
- Let me take the role— We’ll bracket the fact that I really love this
stuff and I’ve enjoyed it and so on. But I’m the creature from outer
space. I’ve come down here. I say, “Well, I understand the plumber, what
he does with his life. And I understand the architect, what he does with
his life, and I understand the schoolteacher, what they’re doing with
their life. But, you know, you’ve been applying paint to canvas— I mean,
I even understand Degas, what he does with his life, because he’s making
it look like a woman, and I can understand that and so forth. I mean, I
understand. But you spend your whole life making these bands of color
and geometric shapes. What’s the deal?”
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, it’s astonishing. You’re talking about how I felt about [Henry Lee]
McFee, how is it that a grown man can spend his time putting paint on
cloth? I feel exactly the— When you bring it up, it is— It is— I’m
flirting with the ridiculous.
- WESCHLER
- [laughs] And yet?
- HAMMERSLEY
- [sighs] I like it. But, yes, that’s what my father was uncomfortable
with, or suspicious. I don’t know. Not suspicious, uncomfortable. And
most of the people of my generation, painting was dangerous. Dangerous is strong. Painting is—
- WESCHLER
- Suspect.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Suspect. That’s the word. Now, if I’m a plumber, "Oh, I get you." Now,
what surprised me and pleased me, when I was at Chouinard [Art
Institute] after the war, there was a friend of mine that was in class,
and I hadn’t seen him for some while, and then I saw him, and he’d been
to Mexico. He said, “You know, it’s a funny thing. When I was on the
streetcar, this girl next to me said, ‘What do you do?’” And he said,
“I’m a painter,” and she said, “Oh, that’s wonderful.” He said, “Christ,
no one on an L.A. streetcar would say that was wonderful.”And I thought to myself—Oh, which makes me think of, the Mexican and the
Oriental are the only ones that seem to understand magenta. [Weschler
laughs.] You know, magenta is an un-American color. But the Orientals
and the Mexicans, oh, they understand that. The Latin people, they
understand expression or— I didn’t know the Greeks were so emotional
until I was in L.A. and I met a Greek, and then I saw that wonderful fat
movie.
- WESCHLER
-
My Big Fat Greek Wedding or whatever it’s
called, yes, right.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Did you like it?
- WESCHLER
- Yes.
- HAMMERSLEY
- It was so— Have you seen the movie, obscure, Mostly Martha, a German film? And most of the shots were in
the kitchen. She was a chef, and she was an orderly woman, not
excessively orderly, but she was known as a good chef. And then this
raunchy Italian comes in, a good chef, and they’re this way for a while,
and then he said, “Where did you learn to be such a good cook?” He came
out and— “You’re good.” That’s not American. But anyway, when he said—
Well, anyway.
- WESCHLER
- You always choke up when you are either saying something is good or
somebody is saying something is good to you.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Right.
- WESCHLER
- That chokes you up.
- HAMMERSLEY
- I have a feeling I’m not used to compliments. I had no compliments when
I was a child, and I think that’s part of it.
- WESCHLER
- It’s amazing. Eighty-odd years, and it still matters.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Well, I wonder why it would not be.
- WESCHLER
- But coming back to this question I had for you a second ago, your first
response is, “Yeah, this is faintly ridiculous.” But at another level,
it’s clearly not ridiculous to you. It matters. It means something. In a
way, I’m asking you to account for your life.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- It’s been a good life?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I wonder what I would’ve done if I had not done this. Conducting a
business, I can see that would be very stimulating and very exciting.
The number of colors on the palette would be enormous, the
considerations, like Peter Goulds [at L.A. Louver], all the things he
has to think about. At my age now, I certainly wouldn’t want to embrace
anything like that. My god. But then I’ll go backwards, and I always
envy the actor, the singer, and the dancer in that they’re the
instrument. And what a sensation that must be, that they’re the instrument. But the disadvantage, they never get
to see themselves in real like we do. They can see pictures and motion
things. But by god, that— And when I see— Susie made a remark— They
added to the Broadway prizes, and they added to those theater people.
It’s different than the movie people. It’s realer.
- WESCHLER
- One thing that’s interesting is that you envy the actor but don’t think
of yourself as an actor. You think of yourself as a director when you’re
a painter. You, early on, told me that that’s an actor and that’s an
actor and that’s an actor, in terms of the different shapes.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- Those are the actors.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes.
- WESCHLER
- But I could tell a story in which you are singing these colors, but
that’s not how you feel about it.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Singing?
- WESCHLER
- Yes, in other words, that you are performing these colors. But you don’t
think of it that way. You think of yourself rather as directing the
actors, which are the colors themselves or the shapes.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, I guess you could say that. I’ve never thought of it that way.
- WESCHLER
- You talk about it that way all the time.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I see. I’ve never thought of it.
- WESCHLER
- You say, “There’s this actor. Let’s move this actor over here.”
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I think of them as—
- WESCHLER
- You think of them as actors, not of yourself as an actor?
- HAMMERSLEY
- No, no. No, no. I’m enjoying the participation of those actions. When I
get the stage all right, I mean, it feels good. It feels good.
- WESCHLER
- I just want to keep pressing you on this to account for yourself. You
spent your life in this fairly ridiculous activity, and yet it’s not
just fairly ridiculous. It’s something more. By the way, it has— What to
me is interesting about it is that it’s partly a completely private
activity, a dialogue with yourself, but it’s also about sharing that
dialogue with yourself with the outside world, in the form of
exhibitions or, you know. If there wasn’t the possibility of showing it
to the outside world, would you do it with the same—
- HAMMERSLEY
- I don’t know how I would feel. My first reply, "Yes, I think I would."
Then I thought of Van Gogh. I don’t think he ever sold anything, but he
loved painting and he just kept on making paintings. I don’t think he
gave a damn. He just wanted to paint, period.When you’re asking these things, I think one of the elements is leaving a
mark. See, you have an advantage. You’re leaving an offspring.
- WESCHLER
- A child.
- HAMMERSLEY
- You have a— This friend of mine that’s forty and finally had a child,
and I was thinking, imagine, the child is formed inside of her,
literally formed inside of her, and then she’s equipped to feed the
thing when he comes out. That is really astonishing. And then the
husband, what the hell is he doing? I mean, he’s just admiring and being
thankful. But anyway, he has left a mark. When he goes, he’s there. And
this is a secondary—
- WESCHLER
- These are your children.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, these are the secondary mark. Believe me, not compared to yours. I
don’t think it’s as good as yours.
- WESCHLER
- Would you have wanted to have children?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. Now that I’m older, it would’ve been marvelous. I always think
of this friend of mine. “Yes,” he said, “but I just had to pay $800 when
my son wrecked the car. You don’t know what it’s like." And I’m sure
there’s a lot of problems. You just get out of bed and you’ll have
problems.
- WESCHLER
- I notice in other interviews that have been done with you, also in here,
that there’s often the language of seeds, of giving birth. In the
interview that you did with the Chouinard guy, you do talk about the
difference between a flower, how a flower’s a seed—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes.
- WESCHLER
- What you said about how a flower has a seed, and it just comes out as a
flower— It’s a single—
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh yes. I’m fascinated— I plant a garden most every year. I’m
fascinated. It’s unbelievable. You can put a little speck in the earth,
and later you can eat the result. Now, that is really quite remarkable.
So plants— Then sometimes I worry, that, god, there’s no reaction yet.
And then the little sprout will come up, and then it will just go all
over the place. But plants are— The seed relationship of the size to the
result, how did that much information be packed in such a small place?
That is unbelievable.
- WESCHLER
- How does that relate to painting? The seed of an idea in painting, how
does that—
- HAMMERSLEY
- That’s funny. The seed of an idea seems like— The idea comes as the big
seed. It’s a big seed. It’s not as miniature, it’s not as small, as
nature’s seed. However, it’s interesting sometimes— I’m fascinated in
the teaching, I’ll be talking about things that I think are important,
and some peripheral, incidental— Some minor rip in your coat was
something that they’ll remember, and years later they’ll say, “I
remember when you mentioned the rip in that guy’s coat.” Well, that was
not important to me, but, I mean, that was important to them. So that’s
fascinating. You never know how you’re going to be received.
- WESCHLER
- Let’s conclude by talking about that. You’ve got this incredible body of
work in this house. I assume you’re going to still be working for
another ten or fifteen years, but what is your hope or what is your
desire for all this stuff after you’re gone? I mean both practically,
but beyond that, more philosophically, what is your hope for—
- HAMMERSLEY
- [sighs] That worries me. I really don’t know what to do with it. The
point is, Peter’s doing so well, the ideal is to sell them all. [Bror
Julius Olsson] Nordfeldt— I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. Taos
painter and lithographer. The Taos group, years and years ago, and he
was very well known and he did some work at Tamarind [Lithography
Workshop]. And years ago he had died, and I was talking to Van Deren
Coke, who was the chairman of the art department when I first came, and
then he was an amateur photographer— Well, I should be careful. He loved
to take photography and he was good on the history of photography. And I
said, “Van, what happened to Nordfeldt’s things in his house when he
died?” He said, “Oh, there was nothing there. He’d sold them all.”Now, that’s my ideal.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. Short of that, though, would you—I mean, Vasarely has a whole
foundation and a mausoleum to him when you go to France. You can see all
the Vasarely in one place.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oh, I see.
- WESCHLER
- If it were possible to have a lot of your work be in one place, would
you like that, or do you like the idea of scattering your seed, as it
were?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, my feelings are mixed. I’m thinking of the Barnes Foundation, all
the trouble they’ve had. If I’m in charge, I can make mistakes, and
that’s my business, but if Joe makes mistakes and I’m gone, I mean, I
don’t like that. But it would be a nice idea to have— Like this house
could be used to show my things. Someone has to take care of the house.
But all right. Or let’s say I’d be able to sell most of them, and then I
would give some to [Joseph] Traugott, the curator that gave me my first
show, which started the ball rolling.
- WESCHLER
- In Santa Fe.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Then I would have to decide who and how to give them away. I’m really
puzzled by this. If you have any suggestions—
- WESCHLER
- Do you think about it a lot or not especially?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, I do. What would you suggest?
- WESCHLER
- We’ll keep that off the tape, and I’ll think about what I suggest, but
in a larger sense, to what extent would it matter that you be part of
the history of art a hundred years from now?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I doubt that it would matter that much.
- WESCHLER
- You’ve had your fun?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. I’d like to have a couple of these someplace that— Oh, like— All
right, I don’t have to go backwards. I made arrangements with the
medical school at the University of New Mexico, if I drop dead outside,
then there’s a card in my pocket that the body would be given to that
organization and they can use the body any way they like. Then they
called me up. “What shall we do with the ashes?” "Oh," I said, “I was in
the army, so send the ashes to the military thing in Santa Fe.”So that’s taken care of. I don’t like the funeral world. Well, you know
what I mean. So that’s taken care of. That’s very clear and simple, and
I like it.
- WESCHLER
- But you’ve got a body of work. What do we do with that?
- HAMMERSLEY
- But this body of work, I would like to have it decided as simply as
that. It would be lovely. But I just don’t know what to do. So I’ve
asked people, and I said, "I’m open to suggestion."
- WESCHLER
- Has it been a good life?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Oddly enough, as I got older— I didn’t like the beginning, but I felt
the last few years the best I’ve ever felt, which I’m very pleased
about.
- WESCHLER
- By definition, that one definition of a good life, that you feel better
and better.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes, yes. It’s interesting. I do things slightly different than I did
before. Mother was a rusher. Hurry, hurry, and get things done, etc.
You’re— I wonder if that’s typical of New York. You come on time. Now
here, if someone says ten o’clock, they’ll come at least ten fifteen,
and it’s a mañana thing. I don’t like that. It means it’s not very
important.
- WESCHLER
- When you say you’ve been feeling better as you’ve grown older, how do
you mean? Better in what way?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Less mental debris.
- WESCHLER
- Clearer?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Clearer, yes. And I think that is, no doubt, the result of the
psychologist, etc. That has contributed some, I’m sure.
- WESCHLER
- But also the work.
- HAMMERSLEY
- Yes. Yes, yes, yes. At the end of the organic field to begin with—in
1981 or ’82 it started—it was different and better than the ’64 organic
area.
- WESCHLER
- Because?
- HAMMERSLEY
- Freer. I was going to say wilder. No, that’s too excessive. More open.
Felt good, felt very good. That also felt very good. Of course, I was
tied up in those days, so a little freedom felt very good.
- WESCHLER
- Well, anyway, this has been a lot of fun. Is there anything we haven’t
covered?
- HAMMERSLEY
- I doubt it.
- WESCHLER
- Okay. Well, listen, thank you very much. This has been terrific.