biography

I was born in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York in 1941. I’m a self-taught painter. I began painting at age 3 after my Uncle bought me a small set of oil paints and a few brushes as a Christmas present. I painted until I was 27 during which time I persued my career as an Art Director. I became a photo-retouch artist at the New York Journal American Newspaper at 18; I attended Brooklyn Community College for Art, then Pratt Institute to study painting.

While working as a photo re-toucher I attended The School of Visual Arts, studying Advertising. My advertising career began at Olgivy and Mather Advertising. After one year I had the good fortune of getting a great job as an Art Director for Wells, Rich and Green Advertising, where I worked for 18 years.

In 1974 my partner gave me a neon sign as a birthday present. The sign said "I Heart New York". I was working at Wells on the New York Tourism Advertising Campaign at the time.

We liked the Neon sign so much that we decided to open up our own Neon Gallery. We called our Gallery "Say it in Neon". It was located on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village New York. We had the Gallery for 12 years.

In 1991 we purchased an old Methodist Church in our town called Colrain located in one of the beautiful hill towns of western Massachusetts. I wanted the building to be my new neon gallery. After fixing the building I became concerned that no one would come to see Neon Art, so we opened the church building as a restaurant, because my partner is a chef. We called it Green Emporium. In the past I’ve shown my neon art on its large walls.

In 2001, when I turned 60, I began to paint again. It was the fulfillment of a passion that I had in me for years. In 2006 we decided to close as a restaurant and re-open the building as an Art Gallery showing my paintings and neon art.

All the paintings that you see on this web site were painted in the last 5 years. You can check out Green Emporium at www.greenemporium.com.

I enjoy painting as well as I enjoy working in Neon and Sculpture. I consider myself to be a realist, but with a bit of fantasy thrown in. I like to paint scenes of my home, my garden, my animals, things we collect, our beautiful neck of the woods, friends, as well as anything else that I may be interested in.

I recently finished a series of paintings from the original Grey Gardens documentary that was produced by Maysles Brothers Albert & David in 1975. Grey Gardens opened as a play off Broadway last year, now it has opened on Broadway and become a hit. It is going to become a movie in 2007. I am looking for a Gallery in New York or perhaps East Hampton New York to show my Grey Gardens paintings.

I am interested in Galleries that would consider showing my original paintings and giclées. I am also offering original and giclée reproductions of all my paintings for sale. If you are interested in any of them please contact me.