Oral history interview with Jan Wunderman, 1965 September 5

Transcript

Preface

The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Jan Darcourt Wunderman on September 5, 1965. The interview took place in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and was conducted by Dorothy Gees Seckler for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

The original transcript was edited. In 2023 the Archives retranscribed the original audio and attempted to create a verbatim transcript. This transcript has been lightly edited for readability by the Archives of American Art. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Additional information from the original transcript has been added in brackets and given an –Ed. attribution.

Interview

[00:00:25.64]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  This is Dorothy Seckler, interviewing Jan Wunderman, uh, in Provincetown on September 5?

[00:00:33.57]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  I think so.

[00:00:34.40]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Yes. [Laughs.] Jan, I know that you were born in France. And I thought it might be interesting to begin with your childhood years there—any factors that might have affected your taking the direction of thinking about painting. And then, of course, having been transplanted at some point, I thought that also would be an important event as far as it would have affected the art that you later developed.

[00:01:07.31]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Well, I think probably one of the earliest influences was the fact that my paternal grandmother was a painter. And as you know, in those days, this was a rather rare occupation for a woman. I remember a great deal being said about it. However, as a youngster, I have no recollection of having been to museums or being, um—having anything around me that had to do with painting as a profession.

[00:01:40.98]

I drew as a child constantly, and I do recall that my mother encouraged this enormously. She was, as mothers are of only children, very proud, you know, that her daughter could draw. At that time, I'm afraid it was mostly in the realm of Christmas cards that were sent to the family—you know, that kind of silly thing.

[00:02:03.36]

As far as what the influence had in terms of coming to this country, I was displaced so constantly as a child, and I know that the impressions were very deep, my years in Canada, the years I spent in France. And I was always extremely responsive to all that I saw. But it wasn't until I was about 16 that I actually became aware of even the existence of things like art schools. At that time—

[00:02:35.19]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Were you in France, or here?

[00:02:36.51]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  No, that was in California.

[00:02:38.64]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  When did you actually come—did you come first to Canada? And then—

[00:02:42.21]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  We came to Canada and entered the United States through Canada. As a matter of fact, that was my father's reason for being in Canada—so that he could enter the States. It had something to do with the quota system. They couldn't get in as French citizens. Uh—what did you just ask me?

[00:03:00.36]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Well, when. Or, how old were you?

[00:03:01.50]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Oh, when. Well, I was about 13. By the time I came to California, I was 13.

[00:03:08.07]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

[00:03:08.70]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  And it was just after high school, when I was supposed to be going into UCLA, that a dear friend—it was someone who was still a very close friend of mine—took me to see my first art school. And it was one of the most staggering experiences that I can remember, to see that there were actually people who spent their days painting and learning to draw.

[00:03:32.67]

Uh, I can't tell you, I mean, this was such an exciting thing. And, of course, as you know, in those days of Depression, it was very important to my parents that I continue in the University and take up some occupation that would pay, and so forth. And I chose to go to art school, which made quite a hubbub in the household, as you can imagine. But I did go, and it was at that time that I spent the four years at the Otis Art Institute, with a very academic kind of teaching that they had there, and I think very worthwhile too. So that was—

[00:04:13.10]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  What city is that? Not Los Angeles?

[00:04:14.03]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  That was in Los Angeles, yes. In Hollywood, actually. No, I guess it was in Los Angeles. The four years there were just as exciting. I recall the first days of going into art school, where it was just absolutely more than I had ever dreamed could be possible. I was given a partial scholarship.

[00:04:36.84]

And I remember coming in with a box of drawings, a quite large box of drawings, and feeling that I had done something really quite gauche, when I saw other students coming in with very neat portfolios of maybe 12, very carefully done [drawings –Ed.]. And I thought, oh my God, you know what—how—what do I do now? And I tried to hide them in the bushes before I got into the art school. [They laugh.] I didn't know what to do with them. But it was on the basis of that box full of drawings that I was given the scholarship. And, of course, that made up my mind about whether art school or university.

After the schooling, I regretted it to some degree. Because we, at that time, were not given any degree, and four years of art school is a very substantial amount of training. Nowadays, I understand this is different, and I have wished at times that I had some form of degree which would have permitted me to teach, which I cannot do now since I have no college credits whatsoever. But this is how it all began. That's, uh—

[00:05:53.48]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  [Inaudible] [coughs] At the conclusion of your four years of art school, first of all, what kind of work were you doing at that time? Were you interested mainly in figure work? Had you prepared at all for any kind of commercial design? And then, what was your actual experience after leaving art school?

[00:06:16.57]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  I had very little training in the commercial field. That particular art school didn't offer a program in commercial art that was very worthwhile. As you know, Chouinard and Art Center were the two schools that did, and this one did not. I had been to Mexico. I had been very influenced, naturally, by that period of the Social Realism.

[00:06:39.85]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

[00:06:40.39]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  This was the big thing, and it was just before the onslaught of the Abstract Expressionist school.

[00:06:48.46]

Being in California, I literally do not recall knowing anything about the Abstract Expressionist school. I was still very much in that Social Realism—

[00:06:59.24]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Now, what years would this have been?

[00:06:59.81]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  That was, let us say, 1944. Uh—

[00:07:05.18]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. When you were getting out of art school—

[00:07:06.68]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Yes.

[00:07:07.11]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  —and beginning to look around.

[00:07:08.24]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Right.

[00:07:08.51]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  —the world.

[00:07:09.62]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Looking around the world and wondering, what do you do now? You know? And in Los Angeles, I might say, fortunately, it was at that time very easy to get into every show. I very quickly was in the Los Angeles Museum and the San Francisco—And every major show that took place, I was automatically included, which made me feel very—you know, very worthwhile and very—just very good.

[00:07:37.61]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Could you describe a few of these paintings that would have been in these shows?

[00:07:39.53]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Yes, I can. I'd say that I was already breaking away from what I had learned in school. They were manneristic, in the sense that I had been influenced by the kind of flatness of the Mexican painting. And I was beginning to mix the two. There were, uh, one show consisted of figures—usually placed against windows, painted rather in a flat manner, rather heavy paint, somewhat a mixture of many things, you know, the Mexicans. And I remember that I was—

[00:08:20.36]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Which particular Mexicans were you admiring most?

[00:08:22.79]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Well, what at that time, I don't really think I had much discernment about it. It was just all so colorful and beautiful. You know? And young people tend to do this anyway—they are so influenced by so many things, uh, primarily—

[00:08:35.88]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Well, Mexicans—yes—

[00:08:37.16]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  —I would say that I had seen much of Rivera and Orozco were the two that interested me most. I had also seen many Matta drawings, which I think served to confuse me more than anything. That was my first real contact with something that was outside of my own expression.

[00:08:57.89]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Yes. Yes. Were your figures sort of cast in the heroic mold of some of the Mexican things, or did they reflect any of the Primitivism, which of course was important in Mexico.

[00:09:06.89]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Yes, I think—I think they did. I think they did. Although, they were much simplified. And I'm trying to recall now what one could liken them to among the Impressionists, because we were also very influenced by this. You know, you go through an entire gamut of liking, and then rejecting and so forth. And in that sense, there was probably—I would say that show reflected so many influences, and a little bit of my own. But mostly it was a picking here. And the Renoir color at that time appealed to me enormously, whereas now it makes me a little ill when I see some of the paintings. So that you can—

[00:09:51.17]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  And you have paintings in that manner?

[00:09:52.22]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Yes, I still have some of those up in the attic. Actually, that group that was done that I would say was Mexican-influenced was quite interesting. It was stylized in the sense that it was very linear. There was no attempt at real anatomical drawing. It was, in that sense, stylistic. And the areas of color were very flat and sharp, and I went on with that for some time. I was also very moved by the human condition. And one, I think, is far more heroic as a youngster. Then, as you grow older, you tackle subjects of such mammoth depth, and then find that it really has nothing to do with the painting. It takes a while, you know, to learn that. I think young people today have a much firmer grasp on that than we did in our time.

[00:10:48.23]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Yes. Did you do then some Social Realist subjects?

[00:10:50.15]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Yes. You know, there was the Negro sitting in front of the factory. There was also one painting of a—and this was during the war—a Negro and a white worker walking out of a factory with the metal helmets that they wore, all done in this kind of flat style and kind of a "pow" business. Already, I think, though, we were coming to the realization that you had to look for something different, but the differentness at that time was all that mattered. And it was all shown, you know. This was the thing that I think was a little confounding too. Anything I did, it was put up, and it was all very easy. And I think much too easy.

[00:11:36.75]

At that time, I also studied for several years with a man named Alson Clark—lithography. And he was one of the old Wild West men who drew magnificent horses, you know, tearing off into the sands of the Western desert. I decided I really didn't like lithography at all. This just wasn't for me. But I was working. I was working very steadily and doing very, very well. And then—

[00:12:09.08]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Were you living with your family at that time?

[00:12:10.29]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Well, I was married at the time. I was married in California, and then decided that both the marriage and California were just not working out, and I was coming to New York. And that's where I took my first headlong, bloody—uh, crash into a stone wall of complete non-acceptance of anything that I was doing.

[00:12:35.52]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  And what year would you have arrived?

[00:12:36.90]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  That was in 1946.

[00:12:38.97]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Yes.

[00:12:40.92]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Really, it was just incred—I cannot tell you what an incredible experience that was. You see, coming from California, as really already then an accepted painter—there was no major show where I had not been—incapable of getting into any show at all in New York. But nothing! It was as though California didn't exist. And I had studied with some of the really fine people out there—our watercolorists, who have always been, I think, far and ahead of any of the watercolorists that we had here in New York. Well, anyway, I just didn't—not only did I not make a splash, Dorothy, I couldn't even get my foot in the door of the smallest little exhibition anywhere in New York. I was very distressed by this.

[00:13:30.42]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  There was one thing that occurs to me here, but this is probably kind of an obvious thing that you get asked a lot. But, of course, during the later '40s and early '50s, we gradually heard something of a California School, the Diebenkorn Park Group and so on. But you didn't come in contact—they were in San Francisco, in any case—

[00:13:49.02]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Didn't that come a little later?

[00:13:50.52]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  It did come probably a little later, yes.

[00:13:51.45]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  I think it was. I don't recall anything about that particular group.

[00:13:56.62]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  You didn't know about that, or any of that going on?

[00:13:58.28]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Nothing. No.

[00:13:58.67]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  I just wanted to clarify that. No, I probably am wrong in placing it in that time you were in California.

[00:14:03.71]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Also, you're quite right, this did take place in San Francisco, where I'm quite sure it came up considerably later. It came up after I left.

[00:14:10.91]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Yes. Well, I just wanted to clarify. Of course, we think of California without making very much distinction in our minds between Northern and Southern California sometimes. And of course, it made an awful lot of difference which place you were, to some extent.

[00:14:26.03]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Well, they were very related. There certainly was an interchange of ideas. It's only 500 miles away. But, uh, I don't recall anything about that particular school, and I do think it came later.

[00:14:40.49]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Yeah. They were working then, but they didn't come into our world of—

[00:14:44.48]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  That's right.

[00:14:45.20]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  —as far as being recognized until then.

[00:14:46.39]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Yes. Oh, I'm sure they were working. There was always a large group there working.

[00:14:50.78]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  So when you came here, you had figurative work. In the [inaudible] style.

[00:14:53.87]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  It was figurative. Yes.

[00:14:55.95]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  And you found, suddenly, that the people who were getting the shows were, at that time, more or less the Abstract Expressionists? Was that under way?

[00:15:02.37]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  That was starting. That was beginning. And it was interesting to me that after a year or two here, I had to begin to understand that what I was doing really had very little excitement compared to some of the things that were going on here in New York. At that time, I remarried, and I had children, and there was a period where I did not work consistently. I was very involved with household and children, as many women painters do, and then come back to their work once the children are in kindergarten, or some such thing.

[00:15:42.33]

And it was during this period, of course, that this great explosion, this marvelous thing happened with Abstract Expressionism. Surprisingly, I was immediately drawn to it. It was, to me, something absolutely marvelous that I didn't understand. I could see the wonder of it. I was terribly moved by it. But to be able to say that I knew what I was doing, I realized quickly, as I began to work again, that I had very little real concept of this so-called new space, for instance—

[00:16:19.65]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

[00:16:20.03]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  —which was very basic in what they were doing. And the complete release of method—it's one thing to see it, and to say you can—Well, I can go home, and I can do it. But I think the only way one could is if you are in a studio daily and hard, hard at work.

[00:16:40.31]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  And one thing that interests me here—most of the people who were doing this, the Abstract Expressionists, had been through earlier phases of Cubism, and, you know, Synthetic Cubism, anyway. And so, when they put structure aside, they had been through a highly structured thing before. In other words—

[00:16:57.01]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Right, right.

[00:16:57.03]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  They were throwing off something that they had been through. But you hadn't yet had a Cubist phase.

[00:17:01.74]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Yes.

[00:17:02.03]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Had you?

[00:17:02.55]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Oh yes, very strong.

[00:17:03.81]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Uh-huh. When was that?

[00:17:04.86]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  This was in art school. We had been very well schooled in that. I'll tell you, this was an excellent course.

[00:17:11.50]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

[00:17:11.73]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  We had been very well schooled in that, uh, and through the Impressionists. We'd had a marvelous course in color theory—a very difficult one—which is why today even when I see the Op painters, I'm not too surprised by it, because we had gone through a great deal of this. After all, you know that it isn't new, and one knows what to do with color to make it jump and bounce. Actually, one of my biggest problems was that I was so grounded in the Cubist school that I couldn't quite get out of it. It was really like being in a cube and not being able to let the brush just break through that bound form. Much of what I was doing then was related to that—to Cubism.

[00:18:02.26]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Then at the same time that you'd been through Cubism, was that the same period as the Mexican thing? Did they sort of fuse in your work?

[00:18:10.43]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  There was some fusion. And we had learned—we had had it in art school, and it was considered as one would a kind of basis for composition, let us say, how one can arrange space on a two-dimensional surface—

[00:18:29.69]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

[00:18:29.93]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Uh, the possibilities, as you say, of Synthetic Cubism and Analytical Cubism. Uh, I found it a little cold. It wasn't my particular idiom. And yet, it was the basis for structure within all my canvases. And I have to—I must say that I think this holds even today.

[00:18:48.80]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Yes, I've noticed that. That's why I was so curious that you hadn't mentioned it.

[00:18:52.04]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Yes. So, there came a point finally where it seemed to me that the best thing to do would be to go back to school and find some nice, bright teacher who could shorten this period of catching up for me.

[00:19:07.56]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Yes.

[00:19:07.77]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Because what I could do in five years in the studio, I was sure I could do in a class over a period of perhaps a year or two. And this is exactly what happened. I went to the Brooklyn Museum Art School with Reuben Tam, who turned out, I think, to be one of the most delightful teachers I've ever, ever met in my life. A marvelous man, a very dedicated teacher, who, by the way, pointed out to me that I was so thoroughly and well grounded in the Cubists, that it would be a short and easy thing for me.

[00:19:41.40]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

[00:19:41.97]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  And in working with him, I guess that was one of the most exciting periods that I remember in learning, because I did break through. He is a remarkable person, insofar as he pushes each person to his own directions. He is never—never have I seen him inflict upon a student his own solutions.

[00:20:05.06]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

[00:20:05.63]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  He wants you to find your own. And within a short period, he actually asked me to leave the class and just go home and paint—that this was now the thing to do. And I proudly did so. And I was both glad and sorry to leave the class, because I did enjoy it so much. And, uh—

[00:20:26.72]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  You didn't work with other teachers there, then? I mean, Benton was—

[00:20:29.29]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  No.

[00:20:29.60]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  —there at the time.

[00:20:29.90]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  No. This was the only one. I was there two nights a week, and that was it. I studied with no one else.

[00:20:38.22]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

[00:20:38.51]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  And then I went home and really began to work with a vengeance. I had a studio. I had the time. The hours began to grow that I could put into it each day. From two hours, it grew to four hours. And I really produced a great deal of work for a number of years, really without even trying to show. And it wasn't for a long time that, um, I really didn't try to do anything with it. I just felt that I would know when I was ready. And indeed, I was very fortunate, because just at the point where I felt that I was getting to something that interested me and that I was beginning to have a consistency about what I was doing, was the time that the man from the Angelski Gallery saw the work, and asked me to join the gallery. Which was wonderful because I'm an awful coward about going around with the work, and asking for shows, or asking for a gallery. It stupefies me, you know. The whole thing is very difficult.

[00:21:47.47]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Yeah. And what was your work like at the point where he saw it?

[00:21:50.95]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Very abstract, very expressionist. I had certainly latched on to that method of working, but based still on natural forms.

[00:22:02.44]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

[00:22:03.19]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  And it had begun with hundreds and hundreds of drawings of trees and rocks, and taking segments, really, not the landscape particularly, and then blowing these things up into very large, colorful canvases. And I think, really, they were very successful. I have some of these still that are left, and I like to look at them. I still enjoy them, so that I feel that they are structured. They're strong. They were individual enough so that they do stand up.

[00:22:35.48]

And, of course, that began to develop as one does. You—perhaps if you don't go into a completely totally new direction, you evolve as you work, and the forms began to change. And in time, I felt the need to tighten the forms, to leave behind the completely unbound amorphous kind of forms that I was working with. And there began to appear more bound forms, more tightly structured, even to using quite a bit of linear definition in masses. And then out of that came the show that was at Roko Gallery, which also I think was very consistent, very strong.

[00:23:31.65]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  What year would that have been? We might put years—

[00:23:33.07]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  That was two years ago. That was 1963, I believe.

[00:23:38.02]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Yes. And the Angelski show?

[00:23:41.05]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Oh. [coughs] Well, Angelski unfortunately was a sad debacle for me. I was there for about nine months, and he had scheduled me for a show, and I couldn't take it because we were in the process of moving. He rescheduled it for three months later, and in the meantime, closed the gallery and went back to Paris. However, he had sold some of my work at the gallery by then. And I don't just know how this happened, but Mike Froehlich [ph] had seen the work and asked me to join his gallery. And as I said, constantly being the perpetual coward, I was only too glad to go with him, rather than start looking for a gallery. I certainly haven't regretted it, either, because he's a very sweet man. He's been very good with me. And I had the show there.

And then, of course, the whole world again—you know, the art world blew up into the Pop Art and the Op Art. And there are questions that you must constantly ask yourself as to your own direction in relation to what's going on—relationship to what is going on around you. Quickly, I had to admit that neither Pop nor Op is my idiom. It just isn't anywhere near—a hard edge, no hard edge, I've never felt that there was such a thing as a manner of working that would, oh, I would say, like a pianist, eliminate half the piano. I think that hard edge, and soft edge, and all the rest of it is part of my tools. And I could not see myself using, like, three notes to paint with.

[00:25:30.11]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm [affirmative]. That's very well put.

[00:25:31.16]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  But I have enjoyed these movements. I think they kind of keep us hopping, and they keep us honest—the ones, those of us who have picked a direction and are willing to go along with it, do so at some cost to ourselves, obviously. Because we could easily, being in the center of things as we are in New York, throw ourselves into Pop, and then Op, and whatever's coming next.

[00:25:57.05]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

[00:25:59.39]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  And clearly, I've made the decision not to do that, and follow my own little direction, whatever it is, and just let that be it. And this is what I'm in the process of doing now. The work is evolving in a peculiar way at this point, because I seem to be returning to some form of humanistic, if rather strange humanistic, idiom. Nonetheless, one that again contains figures of a sort. And I'm very willing to follow that little path, and just see where it leads me. I really find it very exciting that again I have found something that moves me, and intrigues me—

[00:26:44.47]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Yes.

[00:26:45.07]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Tickles my fancy, almost, I might say.

[00:26:47.65]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Yeah, and we were talking about your figurative—some of the paintings that you were just beginning with figurative material, subject matter. Or not really subject matter so much as thematic material. Anyway, of course, I gathered that the way you used the figure was very intuitive. It's not a matter of working from a model, a form, in most cases, but there's a kind of image or presence of the figure which emerges. And this intuitive thing is something that must be a continuation of imagery during the—or of, well, during your Abstract Expressionist phase, there must have been a sense that what was coming on the canvas was from an intuitive level, or represented some form of perhaps unconscious mentation. And so, this seems to continue, though, in the figurative idiom, I would assume. But you clarify me on that.

[00:27:53.30]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  No, I think that's very well put. And this is exactly what makes it fascinating at this point, is not just simply taking figures and painting them as figures because one is interested in painting the figure. But I am very intrigued with the idea of this very intuitiveness about people, that you might say the human condition, again. You know, it's very funny that in a sense it reverts back again to the very early days of my training, but in a completely different way. It's as though one were able to conjure up people in strange and very human situations, and paint them not directly as beautifully-done figures, but, as you say, from the inside. Perhaps very much as I feel in certain situations.

[00:28:52.50]

Um—of course, this is the liberation that we've all been through and that I think permits each of us to, as I said, travel his own little path. If only that, I think that is the thing that gives each painter his individuality, that he can take of himself very deeply, and consider it importantly, and translate it on a canvas originally. When we speak of my art school days, it was simply the problem of a figure against a building. I don't think I had the real feeling about those people—it was the thing to do at that time—that I do now about the loneliness of some people, that I find to be such a strain that seems to go through our entire society today.

[00:29:46.35]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Yes.

[00:29:46.65]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  There is this huge loneliness that seems to be part of everyone's lives. It certainly is part of mine, too. And I think this is what we've all beat here on the deck, which makes it such a marvelous summer. And I think, basically, this is what I'm dealing with now. And that can come out in very strange ways, you know, with strange faces. And, of course, now, I have behind me that whole wonderful Abstract Expressionist color, and I feel that the tools are just formidable. I have no limits. If I can just go ahead, and follow that thing, and use everything I know, and come back to the figure, if you can call it that, or figurativeness in that sense.

[00:30:36.06]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Yeah. That's beautifully expressed. I'm so glad we were able to articulate that. But we have just a short part of the tape left, and I wondered if we might just fill in—it's a bit anticlimactic perhaps, but you mentioned that, of course, a number of your—I mean, I happen to know that a number of your canvases have been accepted into major national shows. And I wondered if you'd just like to mention—you did have a prize, too that we should get on the record here.

[00:31:03.54]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Well, yes. You know, after the first not getting into anything, now I have a few little credits. I won the Ohashi Award in the Pan Pacific Exhibition in Japan, which was Tokyo and Osaka. And I have a painting at the Norfolk Museum, and two paintings at NYU. That pleases me very much because they took one, and then they wanted another one. And I think that was just fine. And since then, of course, I have gotten into all the usual shows—you know, the Butler, and the Pennsylvania, and I really can't recall all of them at this point. But it's beginning to go a little bit, and it's fine. I just won a show at the East Hampton—is it the art gallery, or some—I've forgotten just—The Art Guild, excuse me.

[00:31:58.17]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. The Guild, yes.

[00:31:59.10]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  That was just before I came here. And paintings are generally being accepted, I think, in places which are beginning to please me very much.

[00:32:08.07]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  Yeah. I was delighted, of course, to see the one at the Provincetown Art Association this summer.

[00:32:12.55]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Thank you.

[00:32:13.77]

DOROTHY SECKLER:  And I'm sure we'll be seeing many more.

[00:32:16.98]

JAN WUNDERMAN:  Well, I think the important thing now is to get back to work, and get on with the things that you have seen and that I was talking to you about.

[END OF TRACK AAA_wunder65_9099_m .]

[END OF INTERVIEW.]