LARRY STANTON

IN HIS COUNTLESS INTIMATE PORTRAITS, HE IMMORTALIZED NEW YORK’S GAY UNDERWORLD IN THE 1970S AND 80S. ALMOST FOUR DECADES AFTER HIS UNTIMELY DEATH FROM AIDS, THIS CLOSE FRIEND OF DAVID HOCKNEY’S IS FINALLY GETTING THE RECOGNITION HE DESERVES.

Nearly 40 years after Larry Stanton prematurely left us, at just 37, his work is finding new life thanks to a series of exhibitions in both Europe and America – the most recent was organized at Tarmak 22 Art Space in Gstaad, Switzerland, by Apalazzo Gallery, Apartamento Magazine and Antonia Crespi. In a very short time span, Stanton created an outstanding body of work in diverse techniques: painting, drawing, photography and video. Born on a farm in Delhi, New York, in 1947, he moved to the city to study art at Cooper Union in 1966, but stayed just one semester. His appearance in the gay underworld of 1960s New York was spectacular. “Many people in the community had already heard that a new kid was around, one who was unusually attractive, and many wanted to meet him, including me,” recalls Arthur Lambert, Stanton’s partner and adoptive father, today the executor of his estate.

But who was Larry Stanton really? Not only a handsome young man, he was an extraordinarily talented and promising portrait artist whose work, although admired by figures like David Hockney, Peter Schjeldahl, Henry Geldzahler and William Burroughs, was little exhibited during his short but intense life – he lived and painted in Manhattan until his Aids-related death in 1984. He did his best work in the short period beginning in 1981, after he recovered from a

psychotic episode for which he was briefly institutionalized, and in which alcohol and the death of his mother played a significant role. When he returned to his work, he found in it a new, all-engrossing commitment. He became a familiar sight in Greenwich Village, starting his day in the early afternoon, drinking coffee at the same spot while balancing his sketchbook on his knee to draw someone who caught his eye. His studio became a gathering place for artists and writers, enticed by his charm, his looks and his work. They, his friends and his family became subjects for his portraits. But it was the boys he encountered in his nocturnal expeditions that became the main focus for his art. In the late 70s and early 80s, New York was a magnet for boys who came from all over the country. Many were escaping from homes and places where being gay was not accepted.

“People make their own faces and Larry knew this instinctively,” wrote David Hockney in the preface to the first book on Stanton’s work, edited by Arthur Lambert and published in 1986 by Twelvetrees Press. His paintings and drawings were often compared to those of Alex Katz, which they resemble superficially, but Larry claimed his work was informed by the painterly textures and psychological warmth found in the canvases of Picasso, Matisse and Hockney, his beloved friend and mentor. His drawings and paintings are remarkable for their unstinting, often breathtaking belief

in the sensuality of human beauty. They take as their subject both the pretty blankness of youthful faces and the exaggerated character of ageing ones. As well as these sitters, mostly found in gay bars, he also depicted artist friends like Ross Bleckner and Izhar Patkin, and the writers Dennis Cooper and Tim Duglos. What one first notices in Larry’s drawings are the eyes, which are often the centre of attention. Most of his subjects fix the viewer with their gaze. A master of wax crayon, he would occasionally fill the background with images, but most are simply coloured in, giving just the right importance to the sitter and making the paper a beautiful object in itself. In addition to his stunning drawings and paintings, he also produced an important body of colour and black-and-white photographs, as well as a series of Super 8 films shot on Fire Island in the mid 1970s. These constitute a unique record of private gay life at the time, an explosive mix of freedom, friendship, fun and sex.

But whatever idyll had existed was brought to an end with the onset of AIDS: by the early 80s, countless were dying, among them Larry. In his lifetime, Stanton sold seven paintings, but since his death almost his whole body of work has been bought up by collectors – it took 40 years for his art to be appreciated. In April 2022, Apartamento Publishing brought out the first comprehensive monograph on his work, Think of Me When It Thunders. Looking at his oeuvre today is a journey back in time, a round-up of faces and stories, of beautiful drawings and paintings, of fragments and sketches. It is the plot of a film that lets us know how difficult it is for those who leave us, but also for those who stay – and that memory is a great learning exercise for the soul.