Brian McPartlon
Artwork International | | New Mexico, USA
Brian was born in Schenectady, New York in 1948. His father was a roofing contractor and his mother was a community leader. Together they had 5 children. Throughout his high school education, his enthusiasm for art was noticed by his teachers who encouraged him to be an artist. At the age of 16, he ran away from home to New York City, an event that shaped his future. He was found and brought home by the police after two days of adventuring on his own in the city.
At the age 17, he entered a local artist show in Schenectady,, and was recognized as one of the “best of show”. This led to a group exhibition at Oak Room Gallery in Schenectady. In 1966, he attended the Boston School of Practical Art. At the age of 19, Brain married Sandra Knowlton. The following year, the couple moved to the East Village for Brian to attend the School of Visual Arts.
While at the School of Visual Arts, Brian worked scrupulously at the art of drawing in a traditional studio setting. He also learned the arts of painting and sculpture in accordance with the syllabus. During this time, he continuously visited the city to explore art museums as well as traditional and contemporary galleries, hungry for arts without confinement. In hindsight, this time was critical to his artistic discovery and personal exploration. This was when “hanging out” was serendipitous and purposeful without coincidence. He frequented places like Tompkins Square, the Psychedelicatessen, McSorely’s Bar, and Cafe Wha while protesting the Vietnam war and joining the march to the United Nations with Martin Luther King, Jr. These events brought a connection to a world that was his to encompass and portray in a manner unlike any he had learned in school. He met and associated with a number of influential artists as neighbors and friends. His associations with Abby Hoffman and his “Diggers Free Store”, radical Mike Garrison, Richie Havens, and Andy Worhol and other counterculture, societal outliers reflected his plight to encapture their collective voyage. Somewhere between the runaway teens he allowed to camp out in his apartment hallway and the night job of liquor store deliveries to affluent New Yorkers on the Upper East Side, Brian decided it was time to move forward with his art. Brian and his wife moved to California so he could attend the San Francisco Art Institute. It was there he says he learned “how to be an artist” from teacher Wally Hedrick. He professes he learned “how to paint” from teacher Jack Jefferson. Brian joined the lineage started by Clyfford Still of abstract painters.
Upon graduation in 1973, Brian began his professional art career. He rented an upstairs loft studio in San Francisco south of Market on Bluxome Street. Downstairs was a small art foundry where he worked and hung out with Peter Voulkos, Ruth Asawa, Fletcher Benton, and Arlo Acton. Brian maintained his livelihood by doing odd jobs with construction. One day, the roof of his studio leaked and Brain had the roofing skills learned from his own father to fix it. Impressed and grateful, the landlord gave him a downstairs studio space on a handshake. A few months later, encouraged by Wally Hedrick and inspired by his Six Gallery, Brian and some artist friends put together an impromptu art show. Studio 13 jazz played as the artists sold beer and charged a fee at the door. Hundreds of Art Institute people attended, as did just about every artist from the quickly evolving South Market Art scene. A month later, Brian was joined by Doug Gower and Alex Buys in a polished three-person, well-attended art show. Artists asked Brian for the space for their shows in what became known as 63 Bluxome Gallery. The San Francisco Chronicle’s art critic Tom Albright boosted the Bluxome Galleryto the spotlight.
In 1975, the well known collector Thomas Martinez became Brian’s patron. Martinez introduced Brian to other collectors, designers and artists. Brian found himself making more sales than all of his friends from the Art Institute. A loose collective of South of Market artists put on Open Studios. Albright provided rave reviews. In a short amount of time, the artists became legitimate competition to the downtown art galleries. Brian had one-person and group shows at Canessa Gallery, the San Francisco Museum Downtown, Mission Cultural Center and the Art Institute. Brian’s artistic interests brought him to the San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts where he met Miss O’Keefe , Louise Nevelson, Manuel Nori, and Nathaniel Olivera at their exhibitions. Henry Hopkins, the director of the San Francisco Museum, loved the energy the young artists displayed. In 1978, Brian was using his studio and building movie sets with Rick Brown. Those jobs were short lived but paid well. When he wasn’t working on a movie, he was painting at the studio. The Mission Street Studio was well visited by artists, collectors, movie directors, and students.
Brian’s life changed dramatically in 1984 when his wife of 17 years left him and moved to New York with their two daughters. Brian stayed in California and spent every penny flying his girls out to visit him. Brian’s art suffered and he resorted to writing a movie script instead of painting. This script centered around an artist, deep in depression, who painted over his pieces with black. The script did not get funding and Brian’s creative innovation further veered into deluded depths. While the scene of his small apartment with its views at the top of Telegraph Hill would normally be inspirational and enriching to Brian’s artistic livelihood, he instead found himself on a despairing decline. He spent some time visiting his brother in Santa Fe, New Mexico for a summer, before heading back to San Francisco afresh and restored. He fell in love with Marcy Heller, a former contemporary from his Art Institute days, a relationship which quickly led to marriage and starting a family together. With a renewed focus on family and keeping his children with him, he focused his efforts on business. He joined his brother Kevin in renting a building in the Santa Fe Railyards and divided the space into art studios. The spaces at Paseo Studios filled up quickly and the roofing business they started together grew rapidly. Brain and Marcy had two children they raised in Santa Fe. At last, Brian could afford to fly his girls to visit him more often and be together as a family.
After the Paseo Studios success he started promoting local artists, all while working quietly in his new studio he built at his home on Bobcat Crossing Road. Brain teamed up with many talented New Mexican visual artists to raise funds for arts for children whose art classes had been cut due to slimming budgets. Through his involvement with the Rotary Foundation for the arts he teamed up with Anges Martin, Bill Lumpkins, Gene Newman, and Susan Rothernberg and many others to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars that went to nonprofits in the arts.
In 2005, the director of the San Francisco South of Market Cultural Center came to visit Santa Fe. The idea was born to put on a reunion of the ‘70s artists from some exhibits sponsored by the San Francisco arts commission. Brian was credited as founder and curator of the event, with the help of many talented people who worked hard for its success. In the same year, he had a one person show of work at Expressions Gallery on Canyon Road in Santa Fe. Because of his abilities to creatively fundraise, Brian was recruited to become a member of the Museum of Spanish Colonial Arts in its founding year 2010. All the while, Brian continued quietly and ceremoniously on his art. In 2011, he started work on a new body of work on 6x6 canvases. In 2009, the Center for Contemporary Arts utilized his fundraising talents to procure him as the producer of the Armory Show. The show was a successful reunion, celebration, and fundraising event for the Center. He can currently be found in his new spacious midtown Santa Fe Studio, working on a new series of large paintings whose focus is preternatural.
know more about the artist, and Artwork International:
Brian McParlton
@brianmcparltonstudio
@brian.parlton
mcpartlonstudio.net
Artwork International
ARTWORKinternational INC
Santa Fe, New Mexico USA
1 505 / 982 7447
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