Oblivious People

In his life as in his work, Raphael Soyer, 60, is one of the quietest of American painters. Short (5 ft. 2 in.) and shy he speaks in a voice so low that listeners must cup their ears to hear him. But his feelings run deep, and his words are often blunt. This week 32 oils and 34 of his drawings are on display at Manhattan's ALA Gallery in his first show in four years. They were like the man himself-strangely still, unexpectedly strong

Ever since his boyhood in Tambov Russia, Soyer wanted to be an artist. Along with two of his brothers, Moses and Isaac, both professional painters today, he made endless sketches of horses and Cossacks, which his father would painstakingly correct. In 1913 the family moved to the U.S. to escape Russia's chronic antiSemitism, and in time Raphael went to evening art classes at Manhattan's Cooper Union. He quit high school m his sophomore year, worked as a messenger boy, a factory hand, even did a stint in a shop that turned out cheap flowery embroidery. But he spent every spare moment sketching.

His earliest paintings were for the most part street scenes in which buildings and bridges, walls and traffic overwhelmed the tiny humans that lived in the city. Gradually the human grew bigger and bigger until the figure itself dominated the canvas. Soyer longed to paint portraits in the manner of Thomas Eakins, "completely uningratiating, starkly honest." Degas was another influence, turning Soyer to the natural grace of young women going about some daily task, oblivious to the world.

In Degas' case, the subject was apt to be a ballet dancer; in Soyer's, it might be a young actress, a painter or a seamstress. But all his figures--whether a girl, a member of his family, or even himself--have the same bemused quality. "When people are by themselves, they begin to look like that, ' he explains. "Even in a crowd, they walk against you without seeing you,' their expression a kind of moody emptiness " Soyer's people live in a world of subdued color, curbed motion and meticulous design; yet they brim with individual life.

Soyer will go to melodramatic lengths to show his distaste for nonobjective painting. In one lecture he displayed slides of five abstract paintings, defied his audience to tell him which two were done by professional artists and which was the work of a parrot, a monkey, and a child m nursery school. "What satisfaction does one get from painting in a way that requires no knowledge, no technical skill? What pride in accomplishment can one have? Nonrepresentational art is nothing more than personalized decoration " says Soyer firmly, if barely audibly. "Good representational art is something for contemplation. Like building cathedrals it involves the hand, the mind and the human spirit."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.