Frank Lobdell. Painting as Philosophy
Frank Lobdell was committed to the ideal of painting as a transcendent enterprise bordering on a religious vocation—it was a vital but tortured process of sensing and responding to the world around him. While his New York contemporaries celebrated the spontaneity of action painting, Lobdell was known for working in a slow, measured manner; any impulsiveness was curbed by self-questioning, and his works bear the marks of erasure and revision. As the artist explained, “If you already know where you’re going, it’s just illustration.” 1 Errors and mistakes were seen by the artist as a kind of puritanical test of how he might respond: “I have no control over most external events—I can only try to control how I respond to them. Maybe that’s what it’s all about—a reminder to yourself and to others that this is the only freedom of action you have.” 2