What the Artist Kept to Himself
Thomas Lowry
A bright new light in figurative painting is shining from a wholly unexpected place. In an unprecedented move, Mayfair’s stalwartly modern Penfield Gallery has thrown the full weight of its considerable influence behind a fairly unknown realist and his series of portraits.
Although this show is the first major exhibition for the artist, his work already hangs in the homes of many of New York’s finest collectors, disguised in that most easily dismissed of forms—portraiture. Daniel Blake has long been the portraitist of choice amongst New York’s elite. And I must admit that while I have been exposed to his work in this capacity on several occasions, this is the first time I have been aware of his talent.
Over a span of twenty years, unbeknownst to his many patrons and purportedly even to his own agent, Blake has created a series of works that serve as an intensive study of one unidentified model. This series, in addition to representing a notable augmentation of his catalogue raisonné—both in terms of breadth and depth—provides a rare view of the stylistic and emotional evolution of the artist.
The works in this show are, first and foremost, compelling portraits of a young woman, gracefully realized and technically adroit. Indeed, one could devote an entire article solely to the artist’s renditions of red hair. Not since Titian has there been an artist more enamoured of the redhead.
But, there is more to his story. The obvious mystery here is that the young woman herself neither ages nor changes during the course of the series. This anomaly has captured the imagination of the art world, sparking a debate over whether his model is real or is simply a product of the artist’s imagination.
The exhibition is divided in two distinct parts. In the initial stage Blake’s talent is on full display in his mastery of the subtle textures of flesh and plaster and cloth. It is these early works that belie the depth of the artist’s connection to the subject and it is this emotional intensity that distinguishes his work. The delicate, varied brushstrokes, the intimate scale—these are moments stolen out of time. In the later works, the paintings themselves are the moments—attempts to recall time past.
The early works have a voyeuristic quality. In “September Morning” the subject, seen in profile before an open window, is both observed and observer. While the artist’s vision extends only as far as the borders of the canvas, the girl’s vision knows no such boundaries. It is her expression much more than the artist’s smudged, ruddy brushstrokes that convinces us of the world beyond the confines of the small room. And yet, there is a sense of timelessness in these portraits. It seems his subject could have just as easily existed a century ago as today.
While the washed-out palette is familiar, the later work sees a sharp departure from the earlier portraits. Here Blake moves closer to his subject. His paintings from this period, numbered rather than titled, are broken down into highly detailed elements. What we see is a freckled shoulder, the detail of the corner of a pink mouth, the curve of a waist, the myriad colours within a single plait of hair.
The irony is that the closer Blake moves to the girl, the more distant she becomes. In recalling the detail, the whole is lost. The extraordinary tenderness of the earlier works is also missing, replaced with an almost scientific approach. What starts as an exploration of the whole person becomes an obsessive exhumation of pieces of the whole.
This change in approach is reflected in a change in technique and tools. Blake abandons the nuanced brushstrokes of the earlier paintings for a flat, stripped-down look. His use of palette knives on the dead spaces of the canvas serves to actively separate the girl from what surrounds her. In many of these later works, it is the dead spaces themselves that seem most alive. In “Fourteen,” the bed—stripped of covers and alive in cold light—seems to serve as a canvas within the canvas. The artist seems to be painting absence itself.
The later works are much larger and possess a deliberately talismanic quality. Their scale seems a desperate attempt to magnify their memory, to fix them in time. Unlike the earlier pieces, which seem effortless, here is where you see the effort. They are constructed with resolute, painstaking discipline. You feel each scrape of the blade across the canvas.
This part of the series seems compulsive—a conscious turning away from truth to beauty. It is the fast moment, slowed down, halted and stretched across the canvas to be examined close-up. These efforts to render the moment so clearly convey the power and the sadness of his yearning to hold on to it. These canvases haunt you. The artist provides just enough pieces to suggest the whole and you cannot stop yourself from trying to fit them together.
Blake came by his skills through a combination of classic training and osmosis. He studied at the Slade in London and then briefly at the École Nationale in Paris. His mother, Mary Blake was a popular landscape painter until her death two years ago.
Kat read the last sentence over again.
Some critics have called the show provincial. And indeed, there is nothing in the subject matter that particularly distinguishes Blake’s work from countless others. It is about a girl, as it so often is. And so why Blake? Why not Castillo with his resin spheres or Xiaolin with his lurid murals? Why not any number of other artists? Greater talent? Not necessarily. Better craft—perhaps. Timing? Ah, warmer.… Story? Warmer still.
There are those who say that the true masterpiece here is in the story. After all, Blake has been around for a while. Within a short space of time, the mystery surrounding his choice to paint this one subject over the course of so many years has done more for his fame than his considerable talent was able to achieve in his career to date. Indeed, it threatens to eclipse even the work itself.
And so what of the girl? Who is she and what is she to the artist? Blake himself has thus far refused to comment and his agent, Martin Whittaker, is cagey, saying only that whatever else their relationship was, it was certainly productive.
This writer, for one, hopes that she is not real. Because if Blake invented her, he can invent another. But if she is real, he will have to wait for lightning to strike again, something that may never happen. But while that is my hope, it is not my belief. The level of detail and the consistency with which she is rendered would be unlikely without a real subject from which to draw. But even more than this, there is a sense of purity or even piety about these portraits. A sense of urgency, a compulsion, to make us see his truth. And inherent in this is the acknowledgement of the ephemeral nature of the subject. Why bother to capture on canvas that which is going to last forever?
Sadly, what I believe most likely is that the girl in the portraits is dead. This would explain both the lack of aging, and the fact that in later works she becomes hardened, more defined; and his approach to her becomes almost clinical.
It is telling that much of this article and much of what is being discussed about this show is about the story, not about the paintings themselves. We are so susceptible to context. To provenance, to criticism, to popular opinion and packaging—all that surrounds and attends. A truth that the artist, or at the very least, his agent, seems to understand well. The viewers will do well to remind themselves that it is the pictures themselves that matter. Look into the face of the young woman in the Penfield Gallery and decide for yourself what is true.
* * *
KAT’S EYES MOVED down to the reproductions of the paintings at the bottom of the page. She breathed a sigh of gratitude that the ones the Times had selected did not show her face, or indeed any of her, full on. In one she was sitting on the edge of the bed, her face half turned away. The thin spine of a book visible in her hand. She felt a rush as she recognized the faded red cover. It was Rimbaud, but she could not remember which one. She bent closer to the photo. She had found it in a shop on the rue Mayet in Montparnasse. The margins had been filled with small, scrawled notes from a previous owner. Messages from a stranger. She had read them as she read the book, so that the stranger’s voice and opinions had become intertwined with those of the author. To this day, she could not be certain how much of what she knew of Rimbaud was really his thoughts and how much was the opinions of her fellow reader. She examined her face in profile. Although she was entirely familiar to herself, she doubted that anyone would be likely to identify her from this particular image.
Her eyes moved down to another, unfamiliar image reprinted at the end of the article. One of the later paintings, it was a close-up of the back of her head. Her hair was gathered loosely from the nape of her neck, held fast between the teeth of a large jade-green comb in the shape of a serpent. She looked at it closely. Although she could not remember ever having owned a comb like it, a faint sense of familiarity dogged her as she examined its intricate curves. Had she forgotten?
The review was also accompanied by a photo of Daniel, leaning forward and gazing impatiently at the camera. His hands, resting on his knees in the foreground of the photo, appeared unnaturally large. Kat examined his face, its hard planes more prominent rendered in the stark grays of the newsprint.
She was still studying it when the phone rang, startling her. Even with the volume turned all the way down, the sound reverberated off the bare walls. While her eyes lingered on the newspaper in front of her, Kat reached behind her and felt along the counter for the handset.
“Hello?”
There was a brief pause. When it came, the voice on the other end of the line was flat.
“Did you think you could run away from me again?”
She recognized the voice before the sentence was completed. Staring into his eyes in the newspaper before her, she caught her breath.
And then he laughed. Suddenly, graciously, convincingly.
After a moment she laughed, too. Eagerly, gratefully, not entirely convinced.
“Daniel.”
“Hello, Kat.”
Again there was silence. It was her turn to speak. “I’m sorry … I shouldn’t have just come to the gallery last night.”
“Yes, maybe not the best time or place for a reunion.” His voice was smooth, betraying no trace of emotion.
“No, I suppose not. I’m sorry … we didn’t get a chance to talk. Congratulations on the show.…” While she spoke, her eyes strayed to the window, following the guard across the street as he approached a dark blue sedan in the diplomatic parking space in front of the embassy. She watched him stop short as it pulled away suddenly from the curb.
“Yeah—it’s all a bit mad at the moment. Listen, can we meet up? I’m at the Dorchester.” She heard a male voice saying something in the background. “Actually, how is this afternoon, if you’re free?”
Kat had stood up and was crossing the drawing room, moving deeper into the house, away from the front windows. How had he found her? Her name was on the guest list, but it was her married name. How had he known it was her?
“So, you’ll come, then? This afternoon—say, two o’clock?”
The words were out of her mouth and the phone back in the cradle before she registered what had happened. She looked around the empty room for witnesses, but there were none.