Preface and Acknowledgments by Roger Saydack Learning to Paint is Learning to See: The McCosh Exhibitions, 2005–2014

Author’s Preface & Acknowledgments Learning to Paint is Learning to See: The McCosh Exhibitions, 2005–2014

MODERNISM was sweeping through American art when David McCosh began painting in the 1920s. Social Realism, Expressionism, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism and Pop Art all had their day during his career. By the time McCosh retired in the early 1970s more than a few prominent artists and critics were proclaiming that painting as a serious art form was dead. American art changed fundamentally over those years; but McCosh and his painting did not. He was as well-trained and educated as any American painter and he was quite familiar with all the trends and movements of his time. But the purpose of his art remained constant because for him painting was about learning how to see. And his voice as a painter and the look and feel of his work always flowed from that simple yet profound premise.

Painting has the unique ability among the arts to tell a story in a single, confined space that a viewer can take in as a whole. Think of all the battles, dramas, allegories, and fantastic tableaus in our museums. But a painting can also recreate a personal experience. Claude Monet said that the purpose of his painting was to state as accurately as he could his sensual response to a scene as it appeared to him at a specific moment. This was the aesthetic premise of Impressionism, and it led to an entirely new approach to painting.

McCosh’s painting was also about his personal response to his subject. But his interest was in how making a painting helped him see what was distinctive and special about his subject. That’s what he meant by “learning to paint is learning to see.” He was fascinated by how his eye moved across, around, and into the spaces of a subject as he experienced its colors and complexities—sometimes searching slowly and methodically, at other times racing excitedly along. Like the Impressionists, McCosh developed detailed methods and techniques for his work. His calligraphic brush strokes and patches of carefully graduated colors moved the viewer’s eye through the painting at the same speed that McCosh’s eye moved through his subject. His point of view was always interior, personal, and focused on discovering the essential character that a casual glance misses. And like the best painters among the Impressionists, McCosh had the technical knowledge and skill to assemble all of the disparate information he learned from the subject into a wellorganized and visually engaging work of art. His most vivid work is among the most important and innovative painting to have come from the Pacific Northwest.

Beginning in 2005, I curated a series of exhibitions of works from the collection of the David John and Anne Kutka McCosh Memorial Museum Endowment of the University of Oregon Foundation, which were presented at the Karin Clarke and the Schrager & Clarke Galleries in Eugene. My idea was to explore themes in David’s work and to discuss questions about his methods and purposes. Anne’s work was also presented in two exhibitions that featured her insightful portraits. This publication brings together images of paintings and drawings from all of the exhibitions, the explanatory essays I wrote, and additional materials that were created for gallery talks and for this publication.

The help and support of many have been important to me as I’ve worked on this project over the years. In particular I am grateful for the insights and inspiration I gained from my many conversations with the painters and McCosh students Craig Cheshire, Mark Clarke, and Margaret Coe and also from the writings of the artist and philosopher John Berger. My thanks to Karin Clarke for being such a great champion for McCosh and the art of painting; the staffs of the University of Oregon Foundation and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, in particular Danielle

Knapp, the Museum’s McCosh Associate Curator, for her kind assistance; the members of the McCosh Advisory Committee, all devoted friends and colleagues of David and Anne, for their cooperation and encouragement; my wonderful wife, Elaine, who is near the end of this list but is always first in my heart; and, of course, Anne McCosh, whose belief in David and his work lasted a lifetime and now beyond through the endowment she created.

Fall Creek, 1964 Watercolor on paper, 19 x 221/4 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0906