For Sale: Frank Holmes' "Big Date"

"Big Date" 51.5"x 83.5" Oil on Canvas

Most artists have a painting they return to time and again, never quite finishing but never quite being ready to give up. Not many artists, however, work on a painting for 30 years. Here's an article about Frank Holmes' "Big Date" that appeared in print a number of years ago.

"Frank Holmes began Big Date in 1974 while on fellowship from the American Academy in Rome for his realist work. Inspired by a fellow artist, Holmes wanted to break free from his rigorous adherence to the rules of realism. He finished Big Date in 2004 after showing it to a gallery owner and committing to its completion by the gallery's opening date. Holmes, who primarily paints still lifes and interiors, calls Big Date 'a strange painting that's not at all like what I normally do.'

"Big Date" (detail)

"In spite of its whimsicality, Big Date is tightly rendered. Holmes started loose, drawing 'big bloopy shapes' in pen and ink and filling them in with paint, mostly straight from the tube. 'I think I was seeing it as a very pure-color sort of thing,' he recalls.

"He interpreted the car's interior--doorknobs, the glove box, the key with its rabbit foot, the fluorescent red of the driver's cigarette tip and the windshield wipers--in stylized, unexpected ways. Through the years Holmes changed some of the shapes and locations of the elements, but says Big Date remained essentially the same as he originally envisioned the painting in 1974.

"I didn't work on it steadily for 30 years--probably for just a couple of months total throughout the 30 years--but it was always there for me when I felt the need to get away," he says. "I guess it was a refuge of sorts."

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This week I called Frank to get a little more insight onto this unusual departure from the realistic works that built his early reputation.

"'Big Date' was part of that first spring in Rome… I found myself doing various things that I hadn’t expected to. I was inspired to be like a kid... like the kid I was when a friend and I made a big-enough-to sit-in (but stationary!) roadster we could pretend we were driving around. It was great! This was about 1949--we were ten and both had a real love of cars."

Of the painting itself he explained, "I was trying to create something about the feeling around the things I did then when I was ten or eleven years old. It was loopy and loose before I tightened it up."

Sounds a lot like life, I thought. You're carefree, and then tighten the reins and become more careful.

"It was part of that abstract period that I went through in Rome," Frank said.

I can imagine a photo of the young Frank Holmes sitting in one of these home-made kid-crafted 1949 cars. When I look at this painting and what it represents, I think of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane and "Rosebud." Maybe there's more here than meets the eye.

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The painting is actually still available. Frank Holmes originals generally run in the neighborhood of $20,000. I've been told that the suggested "ask" on this is $2,000 plus S&H. Or best reasonable offer.

If this piece catches your fancy, send me a PM on Facebook or an email to ennyman (AT) gmail (dot) com.

If you're interested in an original car-themed picture, I believe Mr. Holmes would consider discussing that, too.

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Meantime, art goes on all around you. What are you into?