| This painting by Raymond Neher of three nude men playing at
the beach was found rolled up in the closet after his death along with
several other figurative paintings. While he was living Raymond had
told me that not long after he moved to San Francisco he had an exhibition
of his figurative art that received a very negative review by one of the
local art critics. I'm not sure now, but I believe the review may have
been in the San Francisco Chronicle. Raymond was deeply wounded by the
review, and from that point forward all but abandoned the human form as a
subject for his art and moved to landscape painting. I found this
story very sad, not just for the wound that Raymond bore all those years,
but also for the fact that Raymond no longer painted figurative art, as he
had in my opinion great talent in this art form. I
suspect the naked man with his back to us in the painting is in fact Raymond
himself. He painted many self-portraits and his long torso and the
slightly wavy hair of his youth appear to indicate this is in fact him. |
