About The Artist

By Michele Newman, PhD

Given the opportunity to comment upon his works, and basing some of my remarks on our conversations over the years, I know I can prove the itinerary I had the privilege to accompany - except for the first five years - reveals a parallelism, despite tremendous differences in moods, subjects, as well as media and techniques - a spiral, an upside down cone, the opposite of the linear - or "wall-to-wall" consistency which characterize many great artists' journeys - to Picasso's diversity. David did not hesitate, now and then, to change direction, and proceeded on many alleys.

What strikes me to this day is the absence of any preconceived agenda. The great respect in which he held Picasso, Van Gogh, Crivelli, Michelangelo, Gauguin, Bonnard, as well as Jackson Pollock, Kandinski, and so on, never seemed to demand that he "should" do anything other than what came naturally in his artistic journey.

The work constitutes an entity. A statement. It tells a story of harmony and sanity. It also - by the nature of abstraction - lets the onlooker imagine various interpretations - it does not control others thoughts - only gives a point of departure -a point of contact. His art was born out of a meeting of many forces.

There was a total honesty and directness to his choices. They would be either his response to a beautiful face, an homage to a friend's intellect, a thank you to someone, and the reasons would change as life would take him through experiences such as fatherhood, and the changes that were in order for survival.

Indeed his output - the six decades of it - can easily be chronologically displayed, as well as arranged by related subject, similar techniques, or many interesting combinations, each piece made more significant thru kinship to the others, thus illustrating the artist's virtuosity. Themes, techniques, moods and emotions diversified through variations. It is a very rich and long tapestry. I have always had a particular affinity for this metaphor, having discovered the narrative and aesthetic merit of Queen Mathilde's Tapisserie de Bayeux, a long stretch of embroidery done in the 11th century. Imagine it rolled up! Oops! A real sin...So, here is the dream: Unravel the long sinuous road David traveled to produce the opus. Place each work in a suitable space. I am happy when in the course of the years I have been able to see a grouping of his works under one roof, tenderly dusted and cherished by a collector. This is also part of the dream.

In fact, I find his work poetic many times. Sometimes it is philosophic. When asked in an interview, "are you an artist?" David's response, "No, I'm a painter. I make paintings. And I make sculptures. But an artist, no. History will determine that. And even history, changes its mind."

The time is ripe for David Newman to be recognized as one of the 20th century masters.

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