DAVID BUDD
At a lunch in Sarasota, two years ago, I met Corky Bowes. During our conversation, she asked if I knew of a gallery that might show the work of her late husband, David Budd. My wife, Agnes, recalled an ad in ‘Art News’ that included the work of artists from the 50’s & 60’s. Agnes remembered the name of Melville Price being in the list of artists. Mel had been the husband of Barbara Price, our friend and former Dean at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Agnes promised to look for the ad and contact Corky. In this way, from a casual conversation, the exhibition of the work of David Budd has come into being, along with the invitation, from Tom McCormick, for me to write a catalog introduction.
Personally, I write both as a former museum director and a fellow painter about work with which I have a great affinity. David Budd was of my time and, although never knowing him, I know his work for his concerns are of our era: abstraction, gesture, color, texture and surface. As a painter, I understand these issues and, at the same time, I acknowledge the lyrical inspiration and influence of nature, also evident in Budd’s work.
In January of this year, Agnes and I drove to Sarasota and visited with Corky in her home. The conversation gave more insights into the life of David Budd and Corcaita Christiana, an equestrian performer of the Christiana family, circus nobility. Her life is a fascinating story in itself, yet the following comments refer to her life with Budd. As a young and handsome student, he first saw her, she recalls, on the beach. They were married in 1950 with Corcaita a ‘child bride’ of eighteen years. Early in their marriage, David traveled with the circus in Canada. While she was performing in the ring, a vivacious and beautiful girl, he was selling cotton candy, making enough money to go to New York.
In the early fifties, David became part of the New York art scene and Corky went with him. She met artists from Kline to Pollock and David showed at the Betty Parsons Gallery. As she says, with “her strict Catholic upbringing and sheltered by a large Italian family”, she was aghast as “too much stuff was going on with the artists drinking and fighting, then hugging” and “being promiscuous, swapping wives”. The couple drifted apart and she performed, as an equestrian star, in circus throughout the world. Corky was even the stand in for Doris Day in the movie ‘Jumbo’. She eventually divorced David and remarried. In the late eighties, her return to Sarasota, the home of the circus, seemed inevitable and she moved back. David phoned her to say he was dying. With their daughter, now grown up, she looked after him for the last few years of his life.
Corky lives in a modest house in a quiet neighborhood, surrounded by trees and palms on the outside and by Budd’s paintings and drawings inside. What is noticeable is that she has real affection for the work. She insisted that we take a painting off the wall, so as to get natural lighting in order to better admire the surface and brush strokes. With gentle caress, she touches a crimson painting in the hall wall, pointing out the undulating surface and delicate texture. Corky genuinely admires David’s talent and the fact “he never prostituted himself”. She feels that “he deserves further recognition” and hopes this show in Chicago will do that for David Budd.
Of course, in his lifetime, he did receive accolades and awards, including the prestigious Peggy Guggenheim Award in l986. For that occasion, late in his life and with his numerous health problems, Corky went with him to Venice. In that catalog, David Budd wrote “I feel no time to concern myself with such pedantic phrases as ‘ the paintings speak for themselves’. We look and then we decide, not the paintings. We like or we do not like.” Unlike Budd, I do feel the paintings speak for themselves but agree that we decide to like or not! The work in this exhibition shows a range of abstraction, reflecting the richness of palette and potential of surface that the artist explored and exploited during his lifetime. Gesture is evident throughout the work, whether in the intricacies of marks or the scumbling of surface. The paintings are an art without epoch, timeless in concept and creation. Like music, the paintings are pure, dealing with orchestration of surface, marks and gesture.
David Budd was born and studied in Florida, moved to New York, then for a decade lived and worked in Europe. Corky feels that this was a mistake and “poor timing” as Budd became forgotten and overlooked in his own country. Nevertheless, exhibitions were numerous, both solo and group shows, in prestigious galleries and major museums. His work is included in museum collections including the Metropolitan, Guggenheim, Whitney and Corcoran. Most recently his paintings were included in the exhibition “Modern Art in Florida 1948 – 1970”, curated by Mark Ormond for the Tampa Museum of Art in 2003. In the catalog, Ormond writes “Budd’s first paintings in 1954 were influenced by his new friend, Jackson Pollock. Budd painted on masonite with powerful gestures that took paint beyond the panel’s edge” At the preview of this exhibition many guests were present. I met Gertrude Kasle, a renowned art dealer from Detroit who I know well and, to my surprise, had retired to Sarasota. Corky was also at the opening but not until that luncheon in Sarasota, which Gertrude hosted, did we meet.
David Budd is of my era, a fellow painter to whose work I can easily relate. As I began to write, I realized I should know more and that is why I visited Corky. Although I never met the artist, I feel I know him through his work and widow. His journey is my journey and those of many artists of the 50’s and 60’s who reveled in the joy of painting. Today, what a pleasure it is to see work that celebrates the passion of painting and the magic of the mark. The hand of the artist is so evident in these works on view at the McCormick Gallery. The paintings are resonant with color and gesture, a visual delight. From an early work, fittingly called ”Early” 1954 to the “Creeks” 1958, the sumptuous color and tormented gesture reflect an era of the potential and promise of painting. The variance in movement and mood, space and surface, gesture and gestalt are evident throughout the work. Color, whether sumptuous or somber, is celebrated in many ways, as is gesture. David Budd is of his time, yet more, for his art is an art without epoch. As alive and vital as when created, to be enjoyed this day.
Much else has been written on the paintings of David Budd by such as William Burroughs, Carter Ratcliff and Thomas Hess. For the 1984 catalog from the Max Hutchison Gallery, Joseph Masheck wrote an essay appropriately titled “An Earthly Abstraction”. Most relevant and poignant are the words from a 1996 catalog by the Selby Gallery, Ringling School of Art and Design, Sarasota, in which Kevin Dean writes, “David Budd died of heart failure at his home in Sarasota on October 9, 1991. But his work survives him, and its haunting beauty lives on in the memories of all those who see it”. Indeed, the work of David Budd does live on, with paintings vibrant and expressive. To see his work today is to have the privilege and pleasure of sharing in his colorful creativity.
Roy Slade
Director Emeritus,
Cranbrook Art Museum.
Clearwater, Florida
January 2006.