Remembering the Artist: Robert De Niro, Sr. Page #3

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Jackson Pollock

and everybody was in there.

But he wouldn't even

walk into the bar,

is what I'm saying.

He considered

himself superior.

And that gives you

a picture of Bobby.

He thought quite

highly of himself.

And since I thought

so highly of him,

we were good friends.

Ha ha ha!

KRESCH:
De Kooning and his

friends, they had this

competitive thing,

so you didn't hear him

talking much about Bob.

And since Bob wasn't

going out of the way

to go to their openings,

they didn't go to

his openings, and so on.

So...there was a coolness.

And Bobby, who was younger

than those guys, had arrived

at the kind of New York

painting before them--

painting in

a meaty style.

So, in a certain way,

he's the first of

a certain kind of painting

even though he's been

marginalized by the art world.

What was going on

in painting at that time,

I did not agree with.

When I showed at Peggy

Guggenheim's, finally,

I was showed with Pollock and

those people, and I did not

agree with their thinking and

their painting and so on.

Yeah.

And I saw them all become,

you know, famous and rich,

and I could have followed that

path, I suppose. I had the...

if I had gone along with

Greenberg and the rest.

I didn't want it and

I couldn't have done it.

I couldn't see it

make any sense to me.

SANDLER:
Being on the scene

would have been important.

He was a loner.

He was known to be depressed

or have periods of depression.

KRESCH:
He was very touchy.

If he even misunderstood that

someone said something that

went against him, that person

was no longer a friend.

And I think there wasn't one

of his friends that he didn't

have that with.

I think he obsessed

about things

and about things that

weren't going his way.

He did talk about some analyst.

He saw a psychiatrist,

gave him some medication--

anti-depressants? Who knows?

De NIRO, VOICE-OVER: "I feel

that I've hardly the courage at

this moment to wash my brushes,

"which have been standing

in turpentine for days.

"It may be true that

love finds you, or one

doesn't search for it,

but I don't think it'll

come knocking at my door."

"The pills don't help

or the prayers either.

"God, God, God...

I am past the point where

I can walk the streets

looking for a gallery

or a lover either,

for that matter."

I remember I was instrumental

in getting him into a gallery.

It was in Graham,

Graham Gallery.

He was a very good dealer.

He had several shows there,

and then he heard

there was some problem,

that Graham had done

something to some artist,

and he quit the gallery.

Absolutely. Turned out

that Graham was actually

very scrupulous

and loved his work

and was excellent,

but it didn't matter.

He hated every dealer he had

anything to do with.

But then what happens

around 1958, really by 1962,

certainly by 1960, is--

I've always referred to it

as a "Blood Bath."

There is a radical

change in style.

A young generation of artists,

led by abstract painters like

Frank Stella and pop artists

like Andy Warhol,

hard-edged painters

like Ellsworth Kelly--

what they do is they suppress

the painterly quality in their

work, and this is really what

most interested De Niro--

the energy of paint, the sweep

of paint, the movement of paint,

rather...always his emphasis.

And suddenly this becomes

very unfashionable.

In large measure, Bob De Niro

was a victim of his time.

I began to think, "I don't know

what's going on today."

I mean, I could never...the

whole scene was beyond me.

And I didn't know what to

think because you never know

how it's gonna turn out, and

you have such a hard time that

you sometimes think badly,

you know what I mean?

It's a very difficult

situation.

KRESCH:
Well,

it just wasn't good.

And the money was a big,

big problem.

It was hard times,

especially 'cause he had

all these reviews from

the "New York Times"

from his first show that

were magnificent, you know?

Sometimes when I visited his

studio, he'd have a couple

of them on the floor,

I guess to remind him.

"Not enough sales to live like

a human being and to help

"Bobby and Virginia.

"Everything depends on money,

of which I have little.

Has my prayer been all for

nothing and is there no God?"

He was very particular

about what art is

and was not in favor of

what was happening

after, you know, say,

the obvious one is

like an Andy Warhol

or something like that.

He would just go on,

you know, talking to my mother,

this...rambling

about this or that.

SANDLER:
And he wasn't going to

change his style just because

what I'm sure he considered

a fashion--probably hated it.

And I know other artists

who did and that anger

sustained them,

you know.

STORR:
There's no question that

it was profoundly disconcerting

to have the Pop Artists

come along and change

the look of art,

the rules of the game, and--

and this is a crucial thing--

to make popular culture,

commercial Americana,

the subject of painting.

And that was a huge shift.

KELLY:
In the face of that,

why not go to Paris and

immerse yourself in the art

with which you've been

so completely enthralled

for decades

and work on your own art

and see how you can grow

in that environment

and then bring it back.

De NIRO:
He went to France.

I remember there was,

like, a going-away party

for him on the boat.

And I was 17,

and he went away.

KELLY:
It was a challenging time

for him, I think, emotionally.

It was a productive

time for him.

He made a lot of art.

But the shift of focus of

contemporary art was here,

not only in the United States,

but in New York.

De NIRO:
My father was

having trouble in France.

He was not doing well,

so he'd send me letters.

And this is one of them:

"Dear Bobby, I hate

to bother you again

"but I've become sick

with all the trouble

I've had recently.

"I'm trying to prevent

being hospitalized.

"When I get in better shape,

I would like to come back.

"You know how much I love

you and always have.

"You saved my life last

summer and I hope you

will do it again now.

"You are an angel

and you always were.

Love, Dad."

I went there when I was...22,

and I knew that he was there

and I had to see him

and make sure he was OK.

I said, "We have to

get out there.

We got to bring these

paintings to show to people."

We had some of his

paintings.

I literally was carrying

his paintings in the

Left Bank to art galleries

and dragging him along to

show them to art dealers.

You don't come in

unsolicited that way.

It's just not done.

And me, what did I know?

I just said,

"Let's bring it around."

So, we did that for a while,

and that didn't--a week or two--

and then finally

that wasn't...

there was no response.

He was not happy.

We were having a hard time.

He wasn't getting any kind of

recognition, if you will, there.

I knew he had to come back,

and I made him come back.

De NIRO, VOICE-OVER:

"Bobby has always managed

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