38 | September 2009 | Nashville Arts Magazine

Nashville Arts Magazine | September 2009 | 39

In the years directly following World War II, the most de-!nitive movement in American art captured the global imagina-tion. Abstract Expressionism dramatically transformed visual cul-ture as the world had known it. Figures like Jackson Pollock and Clement Greenberg championed Abstract Expressionism as the culmi-nation of all art history to date. Artists and critics, fueled by American political and economic prominence, used Abstract Expressionism to relocate the art capital of the world from Paris to New York City. Waves of Eastern European painters departed for the United States and brought with them the cultural richness and classical training that they had received in their homelands. Anyone who appreciates modern art knows that the year 1945 is the watershed moment for this style. Postwar America bebopped in local dance halls, drove fast cars, and lined up at drive-in mov-ies. "e pride of victory in war and economic #ourishing permeated American culture. European artists made the journey from war-torn, occupied Paris to the bustling streets of New York City. In this envi-ronment, Abstract Expressionism exploded in popular culture. "is painting style forever changed the course of modern art. One can trace the same geographical and stylistic motifs in the career of Nashville artist Anton Weiss. Weiss, who is Austrian, arrived on American shores from behind the walls of a Russian concentration camp. His brother and grandfather dead, his father forced into years of conscription with Hitler’s army, Weiss’ life was shattered and broken. For him, the colorful sidewalks of New York City and the freedom of Abstract Expressionism determined the arc of his life as an artist. Weiss spent his boyhood summers at his mother’s family’s winery in Yugoslavia. "e country was invaded by the Nazis at the outset of World War II. Before the war, Weiss’ childhood had been quiet and peaceful. His parents were both painters, and his early memories are dotted with recollections of their work. When Hitler’s army exited Weiss’ ravaged homeland, the echoing footfall of soldiers’ boots fell on a life altered and damaged for the teenage artist.

Anton WeissFreedom of Expressionby Katie Sulkowski | Photos by Anthony Scarlati

Forced into a Russian concentration camp in Yugoslavia, Weiss and his mother both courageously escaped. Weiss was 10 when he en-tered and 13 when he escaped six months after his mother. "is turning point in his formative years allowed the artist to take part in an activity that has characterized his career and painting process to this date: the quest for freedom has played like a leitmotif through-out the artist’s personal and professional life. In Weiss’ opinion, his experiences in the prison of a concentration camp fuel a greater freedom of expression in his paintings today. He says, “I don’t feel bad about what happened to me. I reveal or address those experiences to make me a better individual, and I will perform in a much deeper sense than if I block them out. "ere’s no such thing as a bad experience if you use that experience as a positive ges-ture for the future. I think that you survive by that, and eventually it makes you a broader individual.”

During the war, Weiss had watched a documentary on the stormy life of the artist Michelangelo with his father while the latter was on leave from war. "e !lm made a vivid impression on the young boy. He knew as he left the theatre that his true passion and

F E A T U R E

42 | September 2009 | Nashville Arts Magazine

identity would be found in art. After leaving the con-centration camp, Weiss en-rolled in an apprenticeship in which he restored dam-aged frescoes in venerable Austrian cathedrals. Already, art was helping him to repair the damage of war and cap-tivity. Internally, he contin-ues the process to this date. Weiss directly confronts his memories and experiences from the past to inform his painting technique: “A revolt is stimulated within me and I will probably exercise a much stron-ger action to that revolt than if I were to paint all pretty things . . .It depends on the individual how they want to approach life. I !nd myself digging into the past to be stimulated by a positive reaction to that.” In the aftermath of the war, Weiss and his mother were reunited with his father by the Red Cross. A Catholic charity helped bring them to the United States. "e family by which they were spon-sored lived in Middle Tennessee. After a couple of moves to di$erent towns in the area, Weiss settled in Nashville. Neither the city nor the artist has ever been the same. Weiss attended Watkins Institute, the forerunner of Watkins College of Art and Design. Studying at Watkins gave Weiss the opportunity to continue pursuit of the great traditions of Western art. In his adulthood, the artist returned to Watkins as a professor and later became head of the art department. In 1956, Weiss began a four-year sojourn in New York City. "is visit allowed the painter to experience the Big Apple in the full bloom of post-war American painting. "e city was buzzing with new artists, immigrants, jazz music. Weiss enrolled in the legend-ary Art Students League in New York. Originally hopeful about his involvement in this organization, Weiss gradually became disillu-sioned with the traditional approach to art that it fostered. He left the Art Students League in search again for freedom. Just as his quest for political and personal liberation had carried him from a concen-tration camp to the United States, Weiss’ desire for artistic freedom demanded that he !nd a mode of painting and expression that he could own. Weiss enlisted in courses with the now-legendary Hans Ho$man. Time spent under the tutelage of this trailblazer of the Abstract Ex-pressionist style opened Weiss’ eyes to a new thought process and way to approach and execute painting. He found lasting freedom and stylistic liberation in this movement. "e very atmosphere of New York City directly impacted his nascent ventures into an

Weiss’ desire for artistic

freedom demanded

that he find a mode of

painting and expression

that he could own.

Nashville Arts Magazine | September 2009 | 43

exiting new style. “I spent quite a bit of time in New York. "e sidewalks gave me so much energy…the energy of existence and travel and accidents that were on those sidewalks! I took a multitude of sidewalks, just sections of that sidewalk, all the way from the Village to Spring Street—and a lot of the paintings come from that.” In 1960, Weiss triumphantly returned to Nashville. He was armed with a new stylistic approach and full of the spirit and activity of the burgeoning New York arts scene. Photographs from this period capture a con!dent, masculine artist—the typical image of the Abstract Expressionist painter. Clinching a pipe between his teeth, a lock of hair carelessly falling over one eye, he wields authority over his canvases. Inside, though, the artist experienced trepidation about the manner in which the Nashville com-munity would respond to his new art. To his surprise, both art and artist were embraced with excitement. He remains a local icon and holds historic importance to the Nashville area. He helped to found both the Tennessee Art League and the Tennessee Watercolor Society. Abstract Expressionism with its liberated attitude about what art is, and emphasis on the event of making it, allowed Weiss freedom of technique and execution that he exercises to the current date. Abandoning mimetic approaches, naturalism, and even paintbrushes, he brings a host of self-made tools and unconventional approaches to work at his easel. He attacks the canvas with homemade trowels, power drills, and palette knives.

Today, Weiss is more engrossed than ever in experimenting with “chaotic ele-ments” that happen on his palette, more so than what he’s doing to the can-vas, explaining, “I have total control on one hand what I’m composing, but I also have the chaotic experiences leading up to it.” Experimenting today means switching or changing his energy, doing something to stimulate him-self to get over a stagnation in the process, in order to get to another plateau. "e painting shown on the following page, bottom, is a work on a hand-made metal substrate. Bright, almost bloody hues of red are modeled on the surface. "ey are scratched, scraped, and eventually di$used into a #esh-colored boundary at the edge of the painting. Divided into two un-even regions, the red !elds are torn and dislocated from each other. In the empty, gray segment that divides the red zones, metal rings pierce the surface. "e viewer cannot discern if the rings are there to suture a torn painting or torture and puncture the surface of the metal. "ese elements are synthetic at the same time that they are damaging and corrosive.

"is type of painting is essential to Weiss’ oeuvre. It asks the viewer ques-tions rather than providing them with answers. It uses deconstructed ele-ments, allowing the viewer to assimilate them mentally and recognize their original power as forms. Weiss combines the Abstract Expressionism that he learned from Ho$man with the technique of opaque transparency bor-rowed from painter Richard Diebenkorn. "is style features the layering of numerous glazes to enliven and provide depth to the surface painting that meets the eye. Color is central to Weiss in achieving this phenomenon. He says, “"ere are certain colors that will react to certain situations. It’s very rare for me

44 | September 2009 | Nashville Arts Magazine

to use the color purple. For me, it brings out too much of the dark side of an experience. Now red, most people say ‘red, blood.’ Whatever. It doesn’t matter to me. I think red is a very #amboyant color. . .. Most of [my paintings] are concerned with earth color. I don’t analyze myself and the reasoning for it, but, at the same time, this is how it happens.” "rough courage and hard work, Anton Weiss has pursued po-litical, personal, and artistic freedom throughout his life. He has taken part in trends and events that have become part of the fabric of twentieth-century history. In doing so, he has created an artistic legacy that is itself historic. Weiss’ personal life spans a

constellation of cities in Europe and the United States. His art is known globally. And yet, he has chosen to be a local man. "rough

his work as director of the art department at Watkins and invaluable contributions to the Tennessee Art League and Tennessee Watercolor

Society, he has shaped the Nashville arts community. A local treasure and an icon of a vital American style, he has enriched the lives of generations of

artists and art lovers. He says, “I probably feel better about my painting process than I ever have—because it’s exciting!” Nashville shares his excitement.

Anton has asked that we leave his images untitled for the article, preferring not to in!uence your perception of his art.

Nashville Arts Magazine | September 2009 | 45

Anton WeissThe Interview

by Katie Sulkowski | Photography by Anthony Scarlati

It was a beautiful sunny morning when Anton Weiss and I sat down for this interview. He came straight from his studio, creative and energized, a little guarded at "rst, but in no time we were into interesting waters. He looked a lot younger than I expected, dressed comfortably in his san-dals and with a smile that simply wouldn’t quit.

#ere was a lot of ground to cover. I knew he had survived 2$ years in a Russian concentration camp in Yugoslavia, and yet, rather than being bitter, he has found a way to accept it and to use the experience in a posi-tive way. I thought it was a good place to start.

KS: Let’s start at the beginning. What was it like for you grow-ing up during the war?AW: I was on my own a lot, especially for those 2% years. I was 10 years old, and survival was the only solid issue that you were con-cerned with. "ey were trying to take those kids and convert them into Communism and control their destiny. My mother escaped from the camp six months before I did. I knew where she was cross-ing the border; in case something happened once I left the camp, I knew where to !nd her.

KS: You were 13 when you got out of the camp. Were you able to pursue art at that point?AW: Yes, when I went to apprentice in Austria. In the summertime, we didn’t go home or on vacation; we were allocated to do labor for the country, and you were paid while you performed those acts. It was such a beautiful experience. I loved it! Of course, when my par-ents decided to come to the States, I didn’t want to leave. Looking back now, the life that I chose, it’s all been good ever since then. I don’t have any complaints about life.

KW: Your father was employed by Peabody. What were you do-ing at that point in your life?AW: "at’s right. My father wanted me to be something other than an artist. He said, you need to get a degree. I said, Dad I could care less about a degree; I want to paint! I signed up for two months at Peabody, and it didn’t take. I would spend more time with the teacher there, Alfred J. Pounders, in his private studio painting with him. So I said, why am I doing this? Pounders said the same thing: unless you’re going to be an educator, why are you going through this agony?

"e thing is, my father would never spend a dime on my art educa-tion. Not one single dime. And later, I found out why. He thought if this is something you’re passionate about, you agonize over it.

(Laughs.) Everything that I achieved was mine. And it still is. It’s not going to re#ect on my parents; nobody gave it to me. I created it, you see.

KS: Talk about your painting technique and what it is you want to accomplish.AW: "e experience for me is that you exist from one period to an-other period, and your experience is elevated automatically because you can’t help but gain knowledge. "is is what I have lived. At the end of the day, I’ve gained a tiny bit of experience or knowledge,

and what I did yesterday becomes obsolete. "is is the process of putting pigment on top of pigment. I’ve learned you can become paint-transparent with opaque pigment. What that means is you will use a #at area of canvas, or whatever, then you will use overlays of another color, not necessarily a complementary color, but a color of your choice. And you will leave fragrances of the underneath color evident. And you do this like 20 times, and what happens in this sequence is you create depth. "is is what I’m concerned with now; I’m painting with a concept of transparency, with an opaque fashion. "is is where I departed from Ho$man.

KS: As you’re painting and taking away from a surface, are there other things going in your mind; are you reaching back into the past when you paint?AW: Oh yes. Let’s put it this way—it may reach a point of explana-tion: your experiences that happen in the past, whether they were

“There is no such thing

as a bad experience, if

you use that experience

to your benefit....”

46 | September 2009 | Nashville Arts Magazine

good, bad or what-ever, they’re still ex-periences. "e major-ity of the time if they were bad, you sort of block them out, and you erase those experi-ences. Well, I’ve never felt that way. I don’t feel bad about what happened to me. "ose experiences make me a

better individual, and I will perform in a much deeper sense than if I block them out. "ere is no such thing as a bad experience, if you use that experience to your bene!t as a positive gesture of the future. For instance, a lot of people…you talk about disasters in so-ciety like concentration camps, even imprisonment or whatever—I could say to myself, the people that were behind those actions are shunned by me. I don’t feel bad about those things. I was in a Russian concentration camp. I can’t say to myself those people who were behind that were bad. "ey’re not. I don’t have anything against them, those people. But I think that you survive by that, and eventually it makes you a broader indi-vidual. If somebody does something, even in words or whatever, you know, does that person really realize what he said or what he did? A lot of times he doesn’t.

I’m not saying it justi!es what they did, but to me, see, I question my reaction to what they did�� they probably don’t even know; they’re probably not aware of what they did. "at’s a matter of reactions to things that I may have said.

KS: You said that sometimes being un-der stress or duress can actually make some of the best paintings. AW: For a period of time, I did some paintings that were related to those early experiences. What I !nd myself doing is reinitiating or digging up speci!cs of what happened. A revolt is stimulated within me, and I will probably exercise a much stronger action to that revolt than if I were to paint all pretty paintings. Paintings

don’t have to be pretty in order to be appreciated. Take Goya for instance; they don’t have to be pleasant in order to be good. "at’s all I’m saying. And it depends on the individual, how they want to approach life. I !nd myself digging into the past to be stimulated by a positive reaction to that. "at’s all it is.

KS: There must be a lot of chemical reactions going on inside of you when you’re at the easel.AW: Well, there is. "ere are certain colors that will react to certain situations. It’s very rare for me to use the color purple. For me, it brings out too much of the dark side of an experience. Now red, most people say red, blood, whatever—it doesn’t do that to me. I think red is a very #amboyant color. Now some of the purples, and sometimes deep blues, have a tendency of arousing a di$erent reac-tion to my experience. Other artists may have completely di$erent experiences. It’s very rare I will use purple in my paintings. "e ma-jority of them are concerned with earth color.

KS: How did you arrive at the techniques that you are using now? AW: When I changed from classical to abstract, I had to get rid of the classical instruments. It was a crazy process. You have this dictatorial message that your brain gives you if you hold a certain implement in your hand. "is is what it’s going to do; this is what it’s sup-

Nashville Arts Magazine | September 2009 | 47

posed to do. "is is what your teacher told you to do. But I didn’t want to do that. I had to change. At one point, I painted in watercolor and used an enamel palette, and the color came o$ in sheets. I thought, this is so beau-tiful; why can’t I put this back on my canvas. I enjoy painting more so than ever because I’m not afraid to venture.

KS: Are you that way in life?AW: Yes. Most people don’t have the courage to make a statement. I enjoy the process. For a while, I was forcing it, but now I can always get a drill and a sanding pad and mutilate it…. And sometimes, I don’t know what the past will reveal. "is is the beauty of it. It’s not just a process where you add and add and add. "e majority of the time, depending on the material, you take away, and you leave whatever you feel is necessary.

KS: What do you do when a painting goes cold on you?AW: Let’s say if I worked on a painting for three or four days and the surface has gone dead—in order to reactivate, I will take a drill to rebel against my actions, to recover and go back. It’s almost like going back and rediscovering a day in the past. And you get a new insight, a new foundation, and go on.

Prime example is the painting that’s in the gallery now. I literally had to go and scrape o$ 50 percent of the surface in order to regain the quality that I felt I needed. About a month later, I got it to a point where I’m satis!ed with it. It revealed what I wanted it to reveal.

KS: Where else do you find inspiration for your art?AW: Right now, I’m so engrossed with experimenting with chaotic

elements that happen on my palette. It’s stimulating to me [because] they were not mixed on purpose. I’ll start out with a blank canvas with those elements, and then I’ll start !lling in values and colors to connect those pieces. When I reveal it, I can feel the stress and activity and excitement of working this palette. I have total control on one hand, what I’m composing, but I also have the chaotic expe-riences leading up to it.

Just underneath the friendly exterior, I was surprised to learn how coura-geous this man is, to get in constant touch with those experiences of his past to instigate better painting, a better process, a better self. What sur-prised me the most is that he’s not afraid to go there, nor does he dwell on his past. Certainly, I’ll never forget his warm smile and Southern drawl. But, now that I know him, I’ll never forget his perspective on his own experiences. And what some would see only as a tragedy in the world, he has chosen to use for good in the creative process of his art.

Anton Weiss is represented locally by Leiper’s Creek Gallery and by Bennett Galleries in Knoxville and L Ross Gallery in Memphis.