MY FAVORITE FIFTY
by Charlie Finch
Now that Jerry Saltz has announced that he and his spouse Roberta Smith are writing a book on their favorite 100 paintings and challenged his fans to contribute, I spent last night trying to answer Jerry's task.
Man, it is hard to think of 100 favorites all at once. So, presuming that Jerry and Roberta will each pick 50 (though, if they collaborate and try to agree on 100, the project should take years!), I have fudged and chosen my 50. Some of them I liked enough to buy, and, of course, the price was right: Daze, Iona Rozeal Brown, Sherry Wong, Lisa Ruyter.
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Others are ones that I have recently encountered, while many have stuck in my gourd since childhood. I have seen 95 percent of them in person. So, in no particular order, and because it's August, I shall do Jerry's bidding. . . .
- Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, SUPPER AT EMMAUS
- Lisa Ruyter, BADLANDS
- Édouard Manet, AT THE TUILERIES
- Eric Fischl, POSTCARD PORTRAIT OF JERRY AND ROBERTA
- Barnett Newman, VIR HEROICUS SUBLIMIS
- Iona Rozeal Brown, a3 blackface pimping and pandering #3
- Andy Warhol, DOUBLE ELVIS
- Théodore Chassériau, THE TOILET OF ESTHER
- Walter Robinson, ELLEN BERKENBLIT
- Henri Matisse, THE CONVERSATION
- Jean-Honoré Fragonard, THE PURSUIT
- Sherry Wong, SALEEM RISING
- Diego Velasquez, THE ROKEBY VENUS
- George Caleb Bingham, FUR TRADERS DESCEND ON THE MISSOURI
- Johannes Vermeer, WOMAN WITH A RED HAT
- Edward Hopper, EARLY SUNDAY MORNING
- Inka Essenhigh, THE LOWER EAST SIDE
- Andrew Wyeth, CHRISTINA'S WORLD
- Chie Fueki, RON
- Thomas Gainsborough, MR AND MRS ANDREWS
- Ando Hiroshige, 36 VIEWS OF MOUNT FUJI
- Vincent Van Gogh, THE NIGHT CAFÉ
- Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, SELF-PORTRAIT WITH VISOR
- Frank Stella, THE MARRIAGE OF REASON AND SQUALOR
- Diego Rivera, THE FLOWER VENDOR
- Willem de Kooning, SATURDAY NIGHT
- Cecily Brown, WOMAN ON TOP
- Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, GRAND ODALISQUE
- Deborah Kass, SANDY KOUFAX #3
- Rafael Ferrer, SOMBRERO DE PALMA
- Daze, JACKSON AVENUE STUDY
- James Ensor, CHRIST'S ENTRY INTO BRUSSELS
- Kurt Kauper, CARY GRANT #1
- Isca Greenfield-Sanders, PINK PARACHUTE (BLUE)
- Robert Rauschenberg, BED
- Marcel Duchamp, FRESH WIDOW
- Andrea Mantegna, LAMENTATION OVER THE DEAD CHRIST
- Jean-Michel Basquiat, SUGAR RAY ROBINSON
- Ralph Coburn, BLACK AND BLUE
- Charles Burchfield, ORION IN DECEMBER
- Gerhard Richter, BETTY
- Elizabeth Peyton, ANDRE
- Max Beckmann, SELF-PORTRAIT IN TAILS
- Jackson Pollock, FULL FATHOM FIVE
- J.M.W. Turner, THE BALLPACKET FROM ROTTERDAM
- Beauford Delaney, HENRY MILLER
- Leonardo da Vinci, THE VIRGIN OF THE ROCKS
- Carl Holty, ON WAR
- James Rosenquist, F-111
- Paul Gauguin, WHERE DO WE COME FROM? WHAT ARE WE? WHERE ARE WE GOING?
CHARLIE FINCH is co-author of Most Art Sucks: Five Years of Coagula (Smart Art Press).
