Who was your most important teacher, and what did they teach you that you still carry with you today?

BOY WITH TIRE, Hughie Lee-Smith, 1952

J: I have to attribute that to my friend and mentor, the late Hughie Lee-Smith. I was first introduced to him through an image. I think I was still in high school, maybe in college, but fairly early on in my life. The image was called “Boy with Tire,” 1952. 

​I remember seeing that piece, and ... being moved, and curious as to how he was able to get that kind of powerful emotion into that painting. I would learn later on, it’s a matter of composition, value, tone, etc. 

I had opportunity to train with him for three years at the Art Students League, and befriend him for 20 years after this. So he’s one of the most influential teachers that I’ve ever had. I had decided at one point to try to become a portrait painter. So, I wrote him and asked for his advice (that was one of his specialties). At that time, I’m living on the Gulf Coast. I see a lot of murals around here, and I think, “I’ll put my hand in that.” I wrote him, he sent me a book (it was also one of his specialties). 

Everything I came up with, he’d already done it. {laughs} Print making. He’s already done all of this. So I think, “Well, I’ll do that too.” Then, I’m going through divorce. He’d already been there – twice! {laughs again} So whatever I was going through, he’d already been there. But it was, for the both of us: “Art is Life.” So, for 20 some years after I left school, he was a friend and advisor. I’m so glad my wife Gail got a chance to meet him before he transitioned in 1999. 
One of my paintings that encapsulates most of what I’ve learned from him is a portrait of a young lady, I found her, on Lexington sitting outside a cafe. She’s just sitting there quietly reading, and the shadow patterns, the way she is settled against that dark window, and the shapes, just remind me of his work. He used, not dark tones, but a lot of middle values in his work to evoke strong, emotional feeling. 

Hughie’s painting “Boy with Tire” has that emotional impact that really moved me and excited me and made me think, “This is what I want. This is what I want to do. I want to get this in my work.” I had no idea how to do that, and I learned later on when I had an opportunity to train with him: it’s a matter of understanding value, composition, color temperature, just understanding the fundamentals. 
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And for years, I never thought I’d meet this man, let alone train with him. I was at the Art Students League, going on my third year, and I heard that he was coming to teach there. This was about six months before it actually happened. That was the longest six months of my life. {laughs} The anticipation. That: “I am gonna meet this man. I’ve admired his work – since I was a kid.” 

When he started out there (because the teachers have to build their following) there were only two students: me and another guy. By the time I left though, he had a room full of folks. 
So, when he started out, I guess, I was his best student. {smiles} because during the year, each teacher would select the work of one of their students to represent that teacher’s class. I was selected to represent his class. 

A while back I had a conversation with an artist friend, where we talked about being influenced by certain artists, especially artists that we train with, and how that affects our work. The question was, “How much of them are we influenced by or are we just attracted to them because we have something in common?” 

Hughie and my work have both been called “semi-surreal,” because both have an element of isolation, loneliness, like Edward Hopper, for example. My work tends to be quiet, but it’s because I tend to be quiet like that. So, the connection is not so much trying to copy and paint like Hughie. I can’t do that, and I don’t want to. But, because I was influenced by his use of the fundamentals, my own sense of quietness tends to come through my work. It has a similar feeling to what he was expressing in his work, even though his motive was completely different. He’s just expressing who he was. Like this piece behind you. There’s a quietness about it, even though he’s moving. He’s walking. That’s just my nature, which is similar to the influence of Hughie’s work, even though our motives are different. 
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I tend to limit the number of figures in my paintings, depending on what I’m trying to say. Because I’m interested in people, especially on an individual basis. What’s this person’s story? This guy walking down the street here: are they dreaming, or is something on their mind? His body language suggests that he’s pondering something. That’s my story behind it. But that’s what I get from him. So, individuals, the individual story, is what I’m interested in. And that tends to minimize how many folks I put in a piece. And if there’s more than one person, like this piece of a mother with her children, then again, what is that story? What is their relationship? What is going on? 

That piece is a reflection of my childhood, too. Growing up in shotgun houses. A shotgun house was a traditional, African structure. It is a house brought over from West Africa. They tend to be a single dwelling space and an open space. We call them a shotgun, in Mississippi, Louisiana, probably much of the south. They say, if you open the front door, and open the back door, and fire a shotgun, it would go straight through without touching the walls. That was it. 

SOLITUDE, Oil on Canvas 36x30"  Joseph Pearson

SOJOURNER  This painting is accepted into the Allied Artists of America Inc. Associate members online competition Oil on Canvas 36"x24”
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FAMILY MEMORY, Oil on Canvas 72"x48"  Joseph Pearson (in reference to the shotgun house)

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