Donald Sultan (Asheville, NC, b. 1951)
Oil, tar, and spackle on tile over Masonite, 1997
96 x 96 inches
Donald Sultan was born in Asheville, North Carolina in 1951. After receiving his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Sultan moved to New York in 1975 to pursue a career as a painter. Passing through a construction site in a Manhattan lobby where they were laying a floor, Sultan had an idea that would revolutionize his work and inform the foundation of his entire career. Instead of painting with traditional materials such as oil on canvas or wood – why not use unconventional but equally durable materials such as linoleum tile, tar, Masonite, and spackle? This alone set Sultan apart from his peers and his predecessors. Like those of Neil Jenney and Richard Artschwager, it can be argued that Sultan’s paintings are “built” and so, more akin to sculpture than painting.
Like Lemons May 16 1984, currently on view at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Yellow Squash Feb 18 1997, is a seminal work from the artist’s fruit and vegetable series and one that the artist chose as the cover image of his major monograph published in 2009, “Donald Sultan: The Theater of the Object.” In this painting, the artist enlarges his subject – the yellow squash – so that it becomes the entire focus of the painting and suspends it mid air in a black void. In viewing the squash head-on, the fruit is abstracted and Sultan contrasts positive and negative space to great effect. Both spaces are given virtually the same amount of importance, which makes for a striking, unexpected and powerful image and forces the viewer to reconsider the beauty and majesty in something as simple as a vegetable found in everyday life.
Sultan might be revolutionary in terms of his unique technique and particular utilization of materials, but he also fits into the history of Western art with his choice of subject and interest in the use of non-art materials. The European Arte Povera movement of the mid 20th century had particular influence on Sultan as did Minimalism, which followed it. Artists from these two schools of thought experimented with tarn neon, metal, and felt – just a few of the industrial materials that became synonymous with their avant garde practice. In his selection of subject matter and coloration, Sultan pays homage to some of the great masters of painting including Velásquez, Goya, and Manet to name a few. It is also from the 19th century Dutch, Flemish and Spanish painting traditions that Sultan’s love of the color black is derived.
Landscape, still life, and the play of figuration versus abstraction are all themes that have been explored in depth throughout art history and are themes that Sultan embraces. Sultan cites the American Modernist, Arthur Dove (1880-1946), as an artist whose work was forefront in his mind when he was creating Yellow Squash. Dove was considered to be the first American painter to create pure nonrepresentational imagery. It is also interesting to note that during the 1920s, Dove experimented with various unusual painting materials such as collage and oil painted over wax emulsion.
