Arts & Style Artist Hal Boyd makes ‘art that is mine’

By Ana Preger Hart

Baltimore artist Hal Boyd’s paintings give observers the feeling that they’re in a dream: People dressed to the nines are waltzing in the moonlight while a gazelle looks on nearby (“Gazelle,” 2012); a bride and groom pose for a traditional wedding portrait, while candles dance behind the bride and two ghostly figures kiss in the background (“Bride & Groom,” 1989); a reclining woman admires her manicure, while a miniature pig beside her shows off its painted hoof (“Drying our Nails,” 2017).

Boyd was born in 1934 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, a small city in the Mississippi River Delta. His earliest memory of making art is as a first-grader at Columbus School in Cincinnati, Ohio. He had been drawing with pencils and crayons for some time but discovered poster paints at school.

“Each month, first-graders voted on which of their anonymous entries would be easel-painted to illustrate the next month’s calendar,” Boyd wrote in an email to the Beacon. His drawing of Santa with a Christmas tree and gifts won for December 1939.

“In fact, I’m pretty sure my images won every month of first grade,” he added. Boyd later studied drawing, painting and sculpture at the University of Nebraska and the University of Mississippi, where his teachers included abstract expressionist painter Jack Tworkov and sculptor David Smith. Nevertheless, Boyd thinks of himself as largely self-taught.

Painting ‘to keep my sanity’

As with many artists whose careers span decades, Boyd’s need to create is visceral and ever-present.

He says he is at his best, mentally, physically and emotionally, when he paints every day. “[While] painting, I lose any sense of time — I lose myself. I have to paint.”

Boyd, now in his late 80s, has been hospitalized several times but still paints every day in his home studio. “When hospitalized, I sketch — to scare up painting ideas and to keep my sanity,” he said. Where does the endless inspiration come from? In one word: everywhere.

“I am inspired by ideas, by memories and experiences, by individual human beings, by the human figure, by animals, by poems and plays, by newspaper reports, by photo- graphs, by other people’s paintings, by my dreams and the dreams of others, by philosophical and psychological concepts, by stories both oral and in print,” Boyd said.

Boyd’s paintings are lively, with bold colors and rich, layered textures. The physical spaces he depicts often appear wavy or offkilter, resembling the surreal landscape of dreams.

As a child, he had pet cats, and his daughter keeps several, so cats (as well as other animals and imaginary creatures) feature prominently in his work.

So do women, musicians and people kissing. Large, colorful flowers, the sun, the moon and other natural elements

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Ask for Jim Schwartz or Chris Boggs: 410-747-4770 scripts, sketches and prototypes show what went on behind the scenes.

A 1969 sketch of Oscar the Grouch shows the same eyes as the finished character, and some of the early puppets on display resemble future Muppets.

Visitors can also see a different side of Henson in ventures he explored outside of children’s entertainment. For instance, in the 1960s, Henson worked as an experimental filmmaker on commercials, documentaries and short films, one of which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1965.

As a television pioneer, Henson maintained the eye of a filmmaker, emphasizing consistency of character and message.

Admirers worldwide

Though Henson’s life was tragically cut short at age 53 (he died of pneumonia in 1990), what he created connects us all: Bert and Ernie, Big Bird, Kermit the Frog.

After all, images we come to love in childhood, uncrowded by other memories, often become the best-remembered lessons and emotional experiences. With its global reach, Henson’s work may be one of the things much of the world has in common.

One display reveals what Henson scribbled on a script for the 1980s television series Fraggle Rock: “What the show is really about is people getting along with other people, and understanding the delicate balances of the natural world.”

Henson imagined new worlds and new ways of seeing our world. In a 2007 press release for an earlier tour of his work at the Smithsonian, Sesame Street producer Jon Stone captured the spirit of Henson’s magic:

“Jim didn’t think in terms of boundaries at all the way the rest of us do. There are always these fences we build around ourselves and our ideas. Jim seemed to have no fences.”

Traveling exhibit

“The Jim Henson Exhibition” is actually the traveling version of a permanent exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) in New York City, which explores the art, history and technology of the moving image in all its forms.

Its Jim Henson exhibit started with a major donation by Henson’s family to MoMI in 2013. The final production is a collaboration between the museum, the family, and the multiple companies, workshops and studios that encompass the Henson universe.

Since 2017, the traveling version of the MoMI Henson exhibit has delighted museum visitors across the nation. MoMI’s director of curatorial affairs, Barbara Miller, said the Henson family was eager to bring the exhibition to Maryland, where Henson first established his creative genius. The Maryland Center for History and Culture is the tenth venue to host the show. MoMI works with each venue to ensure a smooth installation. Since “the puppets are essential to the experience,” Miller ex- plained, a puppeteer from the Jim Henson Company visits each venue to “pose the characters in order to bring them to life.”

The Maryland Center for History and Culture — a combined museum, library and virtual learning center, founded in 1844 as the Maryland Historical Society — considers itself the oldest cultural institution in the state.

Today, under its first female president and CEO, Katie Caljean, the center is embracing its purpose with renewed energy. Caljean’s vision of a “warm and welcoming” place where “everyone can find themselves and feel accepted” aligns with Henson’s delightful vision of caring communities.

It is an ideal environment to display the depth of Henson’s vision. Miller explains that “Henson’s career was truly unique, as it is realized across generations, media platforms and spans history from the earliest days of television to the early days of digital puppetry. Henson and his team of writers, builders, composers and performers conceived a model of collaboration that is timeless.”

The MCHC is located at 610 Park Ave., Baltimore, and is open Wednesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.

“The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited” opens May 26. Tickets are $19 for adults, $18 for seniors, $17 for students and children, and free for MCHC members and those under 2.

On Saturday, June 3, is an all-day “opening festival” featuring puppet shows, films, live music and more. The museum will also host a puppet-making workshop on June 10 and a screening of The Muppet Movie on July 15.

For more information on these and other events around the exhibition, visit the MCHC website at mdhistory.org or call (410) 685-3750.

Artist

From page 19 often appear in the background.

Boyd is an avid reader of fiction and a lifelong philosophy and psychology student. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that his fascination with psychoanalysts Freud, Jung and Lacan shows up in his work.

“Viewers ask where my ideas come from. If by ‘ideas,’ they mean ‘images,’ they come from somewhere I can go only through painting — from the unconscious,” Boyd said. “The unconscious encodes aspects of itself on the canvas. In that sense, every painting is a discovery.”

Boyd feels it’s not easy to pin down his influences. “I’ve been affected by the work of so many artists,” he said. “Earliest influences were the Sunday funnies and comic books, including Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates.”

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Later influences include Balthus, Max Beckmann, Pierre Bonnard, Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse.

Happy to be in Baltimore

Family members — wife Clif and children Jenifer, Patrick and Betsy — have always supported his efforts and often contributed valuable suggestions regarding individual works-in-progress, Boyd said.

“They have posed for me occasionally, and I often base characters on one or another family memory, painting him or her basically from memory — more or less faithful to his or her lineaments.”

After spending 32 years in San Antonio, Texas, and 20 years in Brevard, North Carolina, Boyd and his wife moved to Baltimore County in 2018 to be near their younger daughter and her twin boys.

“I like big cities, and love Baltimore,” he commented, “especially the galleries and the Baltimore Museum of Art.”

Boyd quickly gained local recognition and has exhibited in several Baltimore galleries, most recently with a solo exhibit titled “Active Imagination” at Gallery Blue Door in Mount Vernon.

“Baltimore is definitely an artist’s city. The art community is warm and welcoming, generous and fun,” Boyd said. He has also exhibited at the Forum Gallery in New York City, the Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis, Tennessee and the Laguna Gloria Museum in Austin, Texas.

What’s next for Boyd? “The next painting is always very much what’s next for me,” he said. And, hopefully, another show or two.

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