Discovering Larry Kaufman in Wassaic

The Millbrook Independent, Published on October 24th, 2012 | by Tonia Shoumatoff 

“A mysterious artist reminiscent of Balthus was applauded by a number of people who saw his work during the recent ArtEast Tour in Wassaic last weekend. "

 His name is Larry Kaufman and his wife, Marsha Kaufman, mounted the first major local show of his work.  I was very stimulated to see such strong figurative drawing, the interesting angles that were used, looking down at the faces as if from a wide-angle lens,” said Oresta, one of the artists on the tour.  “The compositions were so compelling and showed a beautiful, rich use of black and white values. I came out of this tremendously excited about working with pencil.”

Kaufman, who could not see gradations in color, called himself “color ignaorant” not color blind, and chose to work mostly in black and white in his paintings, and 4B pencil in his later portraits.  He also created shades of grey in some of his painted wood sculptures.  The wood sculptures are floating figures carved out of pineshelving that he layered.  The detail of arms, sinews, toes and fingers in contortionist poses that are somehow graceful is extraordinary.

A graduate of the School of Visual Art in NYC and Indiana University where he taught painting, printmaking and drawing and  met his wife, Marsha.  Mr. Kaufman worked as an assistant curator for the Rockefeller art collection in Pocantico Hills, where his wife Marsha did landscape gardening.

Although Kaufman was tragically killed in a car accident at age 58 a few years ago, he had a posthumous exhibition in Chelsea at the Bibro Fine Arts Gallery.   His work was the subject of a private showing at Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate.  The Art Institute  purchased one of his drawings for their collection. 

“When he was ready to stop being a painter he threw out much of his early work because it was too big to store,” explained Marsha. He then threw himself into an intensely creative period of working on his portraits and large wood sculpture bas reliefs.  He also painted wood with bronze or copper and added copper flashing and sometimes plexiglass that created interesting shadows.

His multi-media assemblages inspired by farm machinery have a constructivist style. A green and yellow series is based on John Deere while and a red and black series captures International Harvester.

One of the few paintings that he did not destroy is a black, grey and white portrait of Marsha, a subject of many of his pencil drawings.  Although Marsha is mostly known as a landscape designer—she designed the gardens at Serevan and Cobblepond Farms in Sharon—she too is an artist. Her love of flowers figures heavily in her work.

“Larry was the best teacher I ever had in my life.  He was so encouraging to other artists, visiting their studios and taking them to museums, he has a great sense of comraderie.”

Kaufman’s final oeuvre features dramatic images of trees that he photographed with a long exposure 4 x 5 camera to bring out the contrast and details.  “Larry always appreciated nature.  I could never repay him for the things he taught me, but I was also able to teach him a few things about horticulture.”

– Tonia Shoumatoff

Tags: Wassaic

About the Author

Tonia Shoumatoff Tonia Shoumatoff, senior reporter, has worked extensively in radio, television, film, print and events production. She produced for The Body Human series on CBS, OMNI-The New Frontier on ABC, as well as documentaries and feature films. In the Hudson Valley she co-produced the first five Amenia World Peace Festivals, served as Media Specialist for Clearwater and has written articles for print that have been published in Omni, Dutchess Magazine, Lapis Journal and purchased by The New York Times Magazine. Since 2004 she has been the New York Watershed Manager for the Housatonic Valley Association and has headed up many environmental stewardship projects in the Harlem Valley. She can be reached at toniashou@gmail.com.