Donald Purdy

I was born April 1924, five years before the 29 Crash, in Connecticut. I mention the Crash of 29 because in my formative growing up years, the ensuing Depression influenced greatly my personality and development. Norwalk, Connecticut was a manufacturing town, Dobbs Hats in particular, my mother and most of our neighbors worked there. I can’t imagine a better place and time (Depression) for an artist to grow up in. It was, in retrospect, an excellent environment for an aspiring artist to grow up in. Many years later, when I was 30 years old and decided to be an artist, I realized that the austere conditions of the Depression years would help me face the austerity of an artist’s life.

At 18 I was drafted into the Army and served almost 4 years. Then on to college for seven years, B.A. at University of Connecticut, then onto graduate school at Boston University, earning a M.A. in Psychology, and then finish in, my graduate work for PH.D. in Psychology. It was at this point that I decided in the summer of 1952, I did not want to continue and write my dissertation. I had been painting for the last few years & working in galleries part-time. I had met an artist and decided I really wanted to pursue painting too. In all of those years of college I had never taken a single course in art. I can’t really understand this but I guess I really wanted art & painting to be something all my own. I really have had practically no communication with other artists or art organizations all my life. I think I can say after more than 50 years of constant painting progress probably has been unnecessarily slow.

Phase II:

I left Boston that summer, I had completed all course work for my Doctorate, but there was still a dissertation that could take a year or two. I made the decision that I wanted to pursue art. While in Boston for 3 years I had worked in galleries and had done picture framing for a large art store once I had come to the conclusion that I wanted to be a part of the art world. So, I left Boston with $25.00 to my name, a wife and a baby on the way. My parents kindly invited me to go to their cottage in Connecticut for a start. We managed to get jobs in New Haven and so we went to live there, found work as a picture framer & we were off to a new start. For the next ten years, New Haven was our new home. For the first seven years I managed to gut buildings in central New Haven, where I would run rooming houses. In each place I would get room for a gallery, a basement to paint in, a room to live in & then I would rent out the remaining 6-7 rooms for an entire pronominal Land lord. It worked out very well, the gallery brought in a little money, I worked outside, full time jobs, at ALCOA 2 years & Yale Alcohol Center for three. I managed to paint every night and my wife ran the gallery. We enjoyed modest success & managed to save up with a bit. I think in the fourth or fifth year we had a stroke of good fortune. A gentleman offered me a contract to buy thirty paintings a month from me for seven years. Each year I would get a little more for each painting. He allowed me to still sell my paintings in New York and Connecticut. I had been going in to New York and selling my paintings to about twelve galleries, so it was wonderful to be allowed to continue. I had galleries up and down Madison Ave and even on 57th (Schoneman Galleries) at last in my last 3 years in New Haven I was able to buy a house & discontinue my rooming house enterprises.

Phase III:

The next phase, a move to Wilton augured in a new kind of outlet for me. Besides continuing my seven year contract with my agent, I went to New York once a week & began dealing in 19th century European & American art. I traded my own paintings for relatively inexpensive other paintings & prints. At that time for example Lautrec posters were less than $1,000 each. Slowly I worked my way into paintings by The Eight at that period were very reasonable ($200 – $2,000), an Ashcan artist like Lawson was $1,200 - $1,500. Gradually, over the years this business grew enormously, at least on my level. I dealt almost exclusively with art dealers, in New York & across the country. I never had a gallery again, no advertising ever, business conducted from the home, no overheard. While writing this, for my daughter, who is developing a web site for me, I am now 85 and still painting every day. It hasn’t been easy, we have foregone many of the amenities, like vacations etc., but I must confess it has been completely rewarding. I write this to offer hope to up and coming artists. At times it does seem formidable to envision marriage, bringing up a family and simply painting for a life time. I always remembered a little book, given to me by my high school French teacher entitled “pas à pas”, step by step. It always suggested to me it always was possible to go where I wanted to go and to do so “pas à pas”, step by step.

Phase IV:

Since the purpose of this little essay is to enlighten a little my approach to painting and art, Ill give it a try. First I have always had an enormous desire to paint, even after all these years, it is fun. But what to paint? Even here I often approach a panel and at the last minute decide what to do. It seems that as I paint I constantly interact with the painting. It is as if I don’t really know or want to know exactly where I am going. As a former psychologist it might say I am trying to express a little of my unconscious, at the same time I am interacting with the painting, waiting and hoping for something that I can enjoy to hit me. This has been a big indulgence for me, for the last 20 years or so it hasn’t been necessary to sell my own work, and I scarcely do, so it has no longer been necessary to consider the salability of a work. My wife often comments “who do you think you’re going to sell that to?” I have been influenced by other artists that I handle, the Barbizon artists in landscape, impressionists and expressionists. I feel a little kinship with some one like E. Munch, his “The Scream” especially. I tried a little some abstract art but never was comfortable with it.

In the last few years I have tried subjects and compositions that were complicated & difficult for me, it has been a long haul to have them turn out to be successful, no regrets, I have felt that painting allows one to travel down many different paths, some quite alienable, other so familiar.