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CHRISTOPHER WHITBY
The above is a transcription of the authors's introduction to the section CHRISTOPHER WHITBY on page 521 of the three volume book THE ART OF ROBERT CREMEAN, AN ENCYCLOPEDIC VIEW.
Christopher Whitby is portrayed in diverse media, in drawings, in sculpture in the round, in bas relief, as a single image and in more than one full study. The genesis of the child on the hobby horse is described thusly in Volume II:
While teaching at the La Jolla Art Center (now the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art) Robert Cremean would often see the young son of his landlady playing in the yard, most often riding his hobby horse. The image of the child equestrian was indelible in the imagination of the artist who first depicted him in sculpture in 1958 and again in 1960. The child on the hobbyhorse appeared repeatedly thereafter both in individual works and as a detail within much larger and more comprehensive studio sections. These depictions were done in wood maché, wood mortise, carved wood, graphite drawings, modeling paste relief, gesso and in bronze. The most extensive examination of Christopher Whitby was in THE CHRISTOPHER WHITBY COLORING BOOK, 1990-1993.
After Robert Cremean had begun the first of the eight sculptures on the sculpture stands, the patron, George Y. Blair, said that he would like to commission a work from him and gave him a check in the amount of $2,500 down payment. No final price was agreed upon. Work continued in the studio until there were eight sculptures on eight sculpture stands. Subsequently, the cross piece in the middle of these was completed followed by the sixteen feet wide back panel. When completed, the entire work was titled THE CHRISTOPHER WHITBY COLORING BOOK. Robert Cremean then insisted it be subtitled The Blair Commission and that the $2,500 initially paid would be the final purchase price.
Numerous portrayals are here presented together, both the single pieces and those that were elements of larger, works completed between 1958 and 2015.
The first PORTRAIT OF CHRISTOPHER WHITBY was exactly that, a portrait of the child on his hobby horse, his image not transposed by metaphor as it was in later versions. A simple individual portrayal became a complex statement or, in context with other figures and images in much more expansive works, part of and reflective of the concepts addressed therein by the artist. These are evidenced in more contemporary portraits and studio sections. Since so much of the work of Robert Cremean has to do with his personal investigation of himself as Everyman, both the child and the hobby horse reflect metaphorically his own changes of attitude, of his broadening intellectual base, his analysis and understanding of cultural events and constructs and his response to them, his moments of joy and of outrage. They reflect his ideas about “the artist” and the actualities of his own being: his changing ideas about the culture; the intellectual challenges which confronted him at various moments in the studio; his own mortality and sexuality; his observed physical changes and diminishment related to aging. The child on the hobby horse is at times passive and apparently content with his being. But at moments when the culture itself appeared toxic to the artist and when he was in profound personal conflict with certain individuals over intellectual concepts or practical matters relating to his work, his concerns and his anger were clearly mirrored both in the child and in the hobby horse. These renditions are reflective, often prophetic and without exception thoughtful and elegant.
A CHRISTOPHER WHITBY PRIMER, in my view, presents a retrospective of many of these moments in the ultimate development of the concept of the child on the hobby horse as he rides through so many years of being. Copied below is the statement about this piece as it appears in Volume II of this edition:
In this final portrayal, many of the metaphorical images depicted and analyzed by the artist during the whole of the fifty-five year ride of the ever-young but spiritually and intellectually maturing equestrian are once more revisited. It appears that his and his horse’s expressions have radically changed, as if the events confronted and experienced while riding through that ever-present “valley of astonishment,” contemplated by the artist decades earlier, have at last been fully internalized. He remains a child but no longer is he naive.
Numerous questions arise when viewing this depiction: could it really be a self-portrait of the artist whose memories are so clearly made manifest in the drawings on the two wall panels?; through time and sexual awakening and diminishment, exactly whose passage was it?; have the artist and the equestrian finally become one in which the boy is becoming the horse and the horse the boy and the boy a man?; does the amorphous naiveté of the child of first view metamorphose into the startled cognizance of the second view, the horse reacting with startled and rearing anger and the equestrian of the third view resigned?; have the equestrian and the horse finally become one both actually and sexually?; do the panels serve as a defining retrospective of so many of the ideas and events and thoughts through which the horse and rider have ridden? And is A Christopher Whitby Primer further evidence that the entire STUDIO SECTION 2009-2015 is, in fact, a multi-faceted retrospective of the artist’s work and his own abbreviated autobiography?
NOTE: At this moment, February, 2023, Robert Cremean is in the process of creating a major diptych, perhaps the last characterization of Christopher Whitby...or maybe not. He is, after all, approaching 91!
CHRISTOPHER WHITBY
The above is a transcription of the authors's introduction to the section CHRISTOPHER WHITBY on page 521 of the three volume book THE ART OF ROBERT CREMEAN, AN ENCYCLOPEDIC VIEW.
Christopher Whitby is portrayed in diverse media, in drawings, in sculpture in the round, in bas relief, as a single image and in more than one full study. The genesis of the child on the hobby horse is described thusly in Volume II:
While teaching at the La Jolla Art Center (now the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art) Robert Cremean would often see the young son of his landlady playing in the yard, most often riding his hobby horse. The image of the child equestrian was indelible in the imagination of the artist who first depicted him in sculpture in 1958 and again in 1960. The child on the hobbyhorse appeared repeatedly thereafter both in individual works and as a detail within much larger and more comprehensive studio sections. These depictions were done in wood maché, wood mortise, carved wood, graphite drawings, modeling paste relief, gesso and in bronze. The most extensive examination of Christopher Whitby was in THE CHRISTOPHER WHITBY COLORING BOOK, 1990-1993.
After Robert Cremean had begun the first of the eight sculptures on the sculpture stands, the patron, George Y. Blair, said that he would like to commission a work from him and gave him a check in the amount of $2,500 down payment. No final price was agreed upon. Work continued in the studio until there were eight sculptures on eight sculpture stands. Subsequently, the cross piece in the middle of these was completed followed by the sixteen feet wide back panel. When completed, the entire work was titled THE CHRISTOPHER WHITBY COLORING BOOK. Robert Cremean then insisted it be subtitled The Blair Commission and that the $2,500 initially paid would be the final purchase price.
Numerous portrayals are here presented together, both the single pieces and those that were elements of larger, works completed between 1958 and 2015.
The first PORTRAIT OF CHRISTOPHER WHITBY was exactly that, a portrait of the child on his hobby horse, his image not transposed by metaphor as it was in later versions. A simple individual portrayal became a complex statement or, in context with other figures and images in much more expansive works, part of and reflective of the concepts addressed therein by the artist. These are evidenced in more contemporary portraits and studio sections. Since so much of the work of Robert Cremean has to do with his personal investigation of himself as Everyman, both the child and the hobby horse reflect metaphorically his own changes of attitude, of his broadening intellectual base, his analysis and understanding of cultural events and constructs and his response to them, his moments of joy and of outrage. They reflect his ideas about “the artist” and the actualities of his own being: his changing ideas about the culture; the intellectual challenges which confronted him at various moments in the studio; his own mortality and sexuality; his observed physical changes and diminishment related to aging. The child on the hobby horse is at times passive and apparently content with his being. But at moments when the culture itself appeared toxic to the artist and when he was in profound personal conflict with certain individuals over intellectual concepts or practical matters relating to his work, his concerns and his anger were clearly mirrored both in the child and in the hobby horse. These renditions are reflective, often prophetic and without exception thoughtful and elegant.
A CHRISTOPHER WHITBY PRIMER, in my view, presents a retrospective of many of these moments in the ultimate development of the concept of the child on the hobby horse as he rides through so many years of being. Copied below is the statement about this piece as it appears in Volume II of this edition:
In this final portrayal, many of the metaphorical images depicted and analyzed by the artist during the whole of the fifty-five year ride of the ever-young but spiritually and intellectually maturing equestrian are once more revisited. It appears that his and his horse’s expressions have radically changed, as if the events confronted and experienced while riding through that ever-present “valley of astonishment,” contemplated by the artist decades earlier, have at last been fully internalized. He remains a child but no longer is he naive.
Numerous questions arise when viewing this depiction: could it really be a self-portrait of the artist whose memories are so clearly made manifest in the drawings on the two wall panels?; through time and sexual awakening and diminishment, exactly whose passage was it?; have the artist and the equestrian finally become one in which the boy is becoming the horse and the horse the boy and the boy a man?; does the amorphous naiveté of the child of first view metamorphose into the startled cognizance of the second view, the horse reacting with startled and rearing anger and the equestrian of the third view resigned?; have the equestrian and the horse finally become one both actually and sexually?; do the panels serve as a defining retrospective of so many of the ideas and events and thoughts through which the horse and rider have ridden? And is A Christopher Whitby Primer further evidence that the entire STUDIO SECTION 2009-2015 is, in fact, a multi-faceted retrospective of the artist’s work and his own abbreviated autobiography?
NOTE: At this moment, February, 2023, Robert Cremean is in the process of creating a major diptych, perhaps the last characterization of Christopher Whitby...or maybe not. He is, after all, approaching 91!