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HANK PITCHER PT. CONCEPTION CALIFORNIA ARTIST - $25,000 (SANTA BARBARA MONTECITO GOLETA)
Chapala near Ortega
condition:
like new
make / manufacturer:
Hank Pitcher
model name / number:
Pt. Conception
size / dimensions:
3x7 feet
QR Code Link to This Post
3 ft. x 7 ft. (Canvas, framed doorskin)
Signed Hank Pitcher
Pt. Conception and Rancho El Cojo-Jalama Ranches
https://www.independent.com/2019/04/24/the-last-perfect-place-in-california/
https://www.dangermondpreserve.org/
HANK PITCHER (b. 1949) is a graduate of UCSB’s College of Creative Studies, where he was influenced by intellectuals like Marvin Mudrick, Buckminster Fuller, and Harold Rosenberg. Bay Area Figurative Painter Paul Wonner was also an early and important influence. Subsequently, Pitcher went to the Hamptons to learn more about their surfing culture. While there, he met a number of artists in what might be termed “the post-abstract figurative school” – artists like Fairfield Porter and Paul Georges. This made Hank a special bridge between two coastal camps of artists looking to forge a new aesthetics in representational painting.
In 1975 he was appointed head of the College of Creative Studies Art Program, and in the two decades that followed he helped create one of the best undergraduate painting programs in the country. He brought in Georges, Jane Freilicher, Rackstraw Downes, and Alfred Leslie to visit from the East Coast, and convinced Charles Garabedian, John McCracken, and Tom Wudl to teach there regularly.
This strikingly diverse group of artists and teachers had been recruited by Hank Pitcher because they shared his commitment to authenticity in art, to formal rigor and beauty. At times Hank was the only teacher remaining in the UC system that still taught figure drawing to his students. The university gave him access to the artworld at large, but Santa Barbara provided a critical distance from fleeting trends that came and went from the contemporary art scene. It also provided a perfect space to make a lifelong study of the world around him from iconic surfboard portraits, to the changing environment of his favorite vistas around Point Conception.
AN ANALYSIS OF THE ARTIST'S WORK
Hank's paintings represent a forty year search for an authentic vocabulary to describe life in Southern California. The reductive quality of the flattened shapes and unmodulated colors recall the realism of Edward Hopper. Other paintings, however, are as gestural as the Bay Area Figurative paintings of David Park or Paul Wonner. In his iconic surfboard paintings, one can hear the echo of Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans.
Pitcher painted early on with Paul Wonner, another artist struggling to paint representationally in an avant-garde context. Hank came of age as Pop Art, Minimalism, and Land Art were in ascendancy. Representational painting, especially figurative painting, went underground. Hank followed it all the way to Long Island, where he studied with Paul Georges. His mentor was interested in finding a way out of the mannerism of Abstract Expressionism and the aloofness of Pop art.
In every work, Hank endeavors to compose a picture so that it seems "effortless" or even "obvious." Said the artist, "The challenge and the desire was/is to make a genuine, truthful statement." He can paint shapes hardened by the vivid light of the Central Coast or soft painterly areas that suggest natural change or poetic reverie. Over the years, a distinctive style has taken form. You can tell a Pitcher picture from across the room.
COLLECTIONS
Santa Barbara Museum of Art (Surfers, 1977-78)
County of Santa Barbara
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX (Santa Barbara Plate, n.d.)
Syracuse Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York (The Curator, the Artist, and His Buddies, Tijuana Bar, 1970)
Northern Trust
Industrial Bank of Japan
Bank of America
Citicorp
Mobil Oil
Gainey Vineyards
CHRONOLOGY
1949 Born July 20, 1949, Pasadena, California
1971 Graduated UCSB, College of Creative Studies
1971 Met Paul Georges on Long Island and formed lifelong friendship
1971 Lecturer, UCSB, College of Creative Studies
1980 Traded studios with Gregory Botts of Manhattan & attended Figurative Painters Alliance
1985 Married Susan McKaba September 9
1996 Tenured Professor of Art, UCSB
2003 Publication of SURF, book featuring selected paintings from "little" a solo exibition
EXHIBITIONS
2021 HANK PITCHER: Just Now, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA.
2019 HANK PITCHER: Primal, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA.
2017 "HANK PITCHER: LOOK OUT", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA.
2013 "HANK PITCHER: THE LONG VIEW", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA.
2013 "Hank Pitcher: A 40 Year Survey", Weigand Gallery, Notre Dame du Namur University, Belmont, California.
2011 "HANK PITCHER: TIDAL FORCE", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA.
2008 "Hank Pitcher: Montecito Beaches 1978-2008", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA.
2007 "Hank Pitcher: Water Gazing", Ventura College, Ventura, CA.
2008 "The West Coast Ten", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA.
2006 "Hank Pitcher: New Paintings", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA.
2005 "Scenes of American Labor", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA.
2005 "Anima Mundi", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA.
2004-2005 "Face to Face: A Selection of American Portraits", Sullivan Goss, Montecito, CA.
2004 "In Search of America: Art of the American Scene", Sullivan Goss, Montecito, CA.
2004 "The Landscape: Old and New, Now and Then", Sullivan Goss, Montecito, CA.
2004 "Not Just a Pretty Vase: A Comprehensive Exhibition of American Still Life", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA.
2003-2004 "8th Annual Small Images Show", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA.
2003 "little", Sullivan Goss, Montecito, CA.
2003 "BIG", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA.
2002 "Surf Culture", Laguna Beach Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA
2001 Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
2001 Terrance Rogers Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA
1998-2001 Downey's, Santa Barbara, CA
1996 Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara, CA
1994 Tatistcheff/Rogers Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1992 Tatistcheff Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1991 Cate School, Carpenteria, CA
1989 Tatistcheff Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1987 Jessica Darraby Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1986 Jessica Darraby Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1985 Delphine Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1982 Meredith Niles Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1980 Meghan Williams Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1979 Bowdoin Gallery, Bowdoin, ME
1979 Meghan Williams Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1978 New Media Gallery, Ventura College, Ventura, CA
1978 Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
1977 College of Creative Studies, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA
1975 Anapamu Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1974 Esther Bear Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1974 Bortolazzo Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1973 Orlando Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1970 Esther Bear Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
https://www.independent.com/2019/04/24/the-last-perfect-place-in-california/