Painting by Tom Sanford of a few of his peer artists.
Periodically Sanford has been able to convince various sympathetic peers to allow him to paint their portrait. In some cases he was able to trade the results for a painting, but not often. A few others were sold to third parties (aka collectors). It is rumored that he did trade one the below pictures with the sitter for roughly 5000 dollars worth of very fancy jazz cigarettes.
In 2012 Nick Lawrence invited Sanford to participate in an exhibition at his Frieght and Volume Gallery. The ideas was that each of the participants would paint Mie Iwatsuki, a frequent model and muse for celebrity painter Alex Katz. Sanford was thrilled and decided to try to use this as an opportunity to meet an paint the far better known artist, no doubt in hopes that might be a boon to the floundering painter’s career. Through Mie he arranged a meeting at Katz’s Soho loft/studio. It can only be assumed that the meeting didn’t go to well. The resulting painting, based on Otto Dix’s picture “Self Portrait with Muse” (1923) was by Sanfords estimation quite accurate to the aging Katz’s likeness. However Katz hated it and is rumored to have asked Laurence to have it removed from the exhibition. Unfortunately for Katz, the painting however had already be purchased by a loyal Sanford supporter, and not wanting to alienate the collector, Lawrence elected to hang the picture in the darkest corner in the back of the gallery, and at least temporarily remove the image from the website. Katz did discover the painting at the opening of the exhibition and stormed out. Needless to say, the stunt did little to improve Sanford’s standing in the art world.
Sanford met Schachter after sliding up into his instagram DMs in the fall of 2020. Sanford had been a fan of Schachter for many year, primarily because of Kenny’s art dealing and writing activities, and more recently his powerful instagram presence. More recently Kenny has become extremely successful in the realm of digital art, and like most of Sanford’s portrait subjects has stopped returning his text messages. Anyway, Sanford proposed a trade in which Sanford would paint Schachter, resulting in this picture. Sanford recalls being extremely pleased with the painting. However he is not confident that Schachter liked it as much as he did. Either way, Schachter held up his end of the deal. Sanford considers the exchange a career high point.
Sanford painted the collage artist, Michael Anderson, several times over their friendship. This canvas from late 2019 was the last time as Anderson would die just over 6 months later on the 27th of July, 2020. Sanford first reported being scared of Anderson when they first met at the 2003 Scope Art Fair in Miami Florida, where both artists had solo booths. But after reconnecting in New York City the next year, Anderson became good friends and often exhibited together. This Painting, set in Anderson’s 3rd iteration of The Harlem Collage shop, on 107th and Broadway, shows the “Mad Collector” showing off his comprehensive collection of NYC graffiti stickers. Anderson had collected stickers since 1992 and claimed to have 40,000 or so. The picture also nods to several of Andersons influences, such as his friend jazz man Ornette Coleman, pitcher Doc Ellis, as well as various collage artists.
In 2018 Sanford was invited to participate in a 3 person exhibition of himself, Christian Schumann, and James Busby at Neumann Wolfson Art on New York’s Upper East Side. With his usual poor instincts, Sanford wanted to collaborate with the tow other painters. Schumann wasn’t interested in the idea, but Busby was. So it came to pass that Sanford traveled down to Chapin, South Carolina and spent a few days hanging around with Busby and his family. The two painters ate a good deal of BBQ, drank some beers, rode ATVs around Busby’s property, and Sanford did some drawings that resulted in this pretty magnificent painting of Busby in his studio. The two also collaborated on a couple works which were not as successful. After the exhibition the Busby portrait painting had not sold, which bummed Sanford out. On top of that disappointment, Sanford’s relationship with the gallery seems to have been strained. The artist is not really sure why this is, but he suspects the cold shoulder is related to some internal family matters that he doesn’t have much to do with. He does hope he manages to get the Busby portrait painting back one day, as he would love to use it trade for a Busby painting to remember his lovely time down in Chapin.
Sanford became aware of painter Rebecca Ness via instagram and traveled to meet her at the Yale Art School during the winter of 2018. Both painters made paintings of each other. Ness’s picture was exhibited in her first solo exhibition at the 1969 gallery and was sold. Although Sanford was happy for the young painters success, he was a little disappointed that he did not have the opportunity to trade his painting for hers.
For this picture, Sanford invited his frien-nemy, grad school colleague and occasional collaborator, William Powhida, to join him for an evening of inebriation at the Uptown Bourbon bar in West Harlem. The two enjoyed far too many rounds of Narragansetts and Evan Williams shots, gossiped a bit about the “art world”, played a few very sloppy rounds of Uno, and possibly spent a lot of time texting with Jules de Balincourt.
Sanford reports having too many sordid stories and petty fallings out with Barnaby Whitfield to record in this format. If one is interested in that sort of trash you’d have to corner the artists at a bar and buy him several drinks, and ask him about the Miami Party.
This painting came about because, having discovered EOG’s work on instagram, Sanford cribbed a particularly tastily painted pizza slice from one of Giraldo’s paintings. Not wanting to risk being called a plagiarist, Sanford reached out to the younger artist, who at the time was studying at the NY Art Academy on Franklin Street. Sanford showed up with many beers, and Esteban was extremely gracious. This painting depicts EOG eating chicken at a dinner party thrown by Liza Schoenfein that both painters attended.
Sometime around 2006 a young Daniel Heidkamp introduced himself to Sanford at an art opening, probably at Frieght and Volume gallery (or it was Zach Feuer gallery, same space back then). At the time Sanford was the type of painter who sometimes needed an art assistant (in that he had more money than he needed at the time) and pretty soon Heidkamp was filling that role. Within a few years Heidkamp was far more successful as an artist than Sanford, and around that time Sanford made this painting of his pal Danny. Sanford believes that he has not actually seen Heidkamp in person since making this painting and is not sure whether this is because the more career save younger painter hates the portrait so much, or considers Sanford too professionally toxic to mingle with? The two do still exchange Christmas cards, but Sanford suspects that Heidkamp’s wife takes care of this detail.
