Robert Stanley

"Samantha (#516)" 1996
Oil on linen
60 x 44 in

Steven Vail Galleries, Telephone (515) 288-7007
E-mail info@stevenvail.com, tiffany@stevenvail.com

Robert Stanley at Mitchell Algus.(New York, New York)
by Jonathan Goodman, Jan, 1998

The figurative painter Robert Stanley died of cancer in November 1997, on the last day of his show of recent work at Mitchell Algus Gallery. Stanley was known primarily for his Pop treatment of photographs taken from a variety of print media; in the mid-1960s, he gained recognition for his stylized, hard-to-decipher transformations of pornographic images, first shown at the Paul Bianchini Gallery in New York. These works, along with his versions of such popular subjects as the Rolling Stones or the Indianapolis 500 (Stanley painted the event in 1967 for Sports Illustrated), established the artist as a skilled and knowingly ironic interpreter of contemporary culture.

Stanley spent several years in the late 1960s and early '70s working on high-contrast images of nature, including close-up studies of trees and littered ground; however, during the past 20 years he concentrated on the female nude, painting sensual works based on studio photo shoots of models. This exhibition of five large oil-on-linen female nudes continued his interest in painterly erotica, as well his sharply derisive view of the commercialized figurative image.

Stanley's style is color-intensive. His graphic handling of the nude is direct to the point of explicitness. Yet, at the same time, his effects can border on the abstract: hair, for example, tends to take on a life of its own, and his colors can startle because of their intensity; his backgrounds often include drips and quick scrawls. In Gabriela (February/May 1997), the nude model half reclines, with her legs widespread, against a white ground that has a number of spontaneously brushed strokes. The woman's young, voluptuous body is expressively rendered; holding her right breast in her fight hand, she gazes downward, allowing the painter, and by extension the viewer, to attend voyeuristically to her openly exposed sex. The painting's illustrative style intensifies its raunchy candor.

While the argument can be made that Stanley's inviting young women may represent a further exploration of erotic art, an aside on the oversexualization of the media, or a protest against puritanical highmindedness, these images are experienced, first and foremost, as arousing. The cheerful pose of the naked Samantha (February/March 1996), standing with her hands placed behind her head, is agreeably fetching; her lithe body, youthful features and engaging smile constitute a powerful come-on. Stanley's centerfold girls are alluring, and he painted them well for many years. His erotic canvases are best understood on their own terms, without the distraction of theory.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group