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AristodimosKaldis

1899-1979A Retrospective

A 'R T , S. T S' C H 0 ICE MUS E U M

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Aristodimos KaldisA Retrospective

1899-1979

Jan. 12-Feb. 10, 1985

Artists' Choice Museum394 West BroadwayNew York, New York 10012Tel. 212-219-8031

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I made my song a coatCovered with embroideriesOut of old mythologiesFrom heel to throat;But the fools caught itWore it in the world's eyeAs though they'd wrought it.Song, let them take it,For there's more enterpriseIn walking naked.W.E. Yeats 1914

I think of Kaldis every time I read Yeats' short poem, The Coat. Like the singer in Yeats' poem, Kaldiswas self-made, richly "Covered with embroideries/Out of old mythologies" and, to fools, unfair competitionfor his work. But now that time has taken Kaldis' coat, his paintings walk enterprisingly naked-the whitelight and pure color filling us with song.

When I first met Kaldis, I recoiled. With graduate-school smugness (a fool catching the coat?), I perceivedhim as an anachronistic manque-a vestige of the past, painting like a second-rate Kandinsky (Kaldis wouldlaugh, since he always said the only thing that mattered was to be rated) and pontificating with anetymological authority that came simply from knowing (by his Greek birthright alone, I thought) an exoticlanguage.

But he did have a presence, and he was warm and charming, and he was always eager to help the manyyoung artists of our community who were struggling to reconcile abstraction and figuration. His lesson waspure-like Aristotle he prized clarity-"all art is abstract."

Then he was in need of help. Diabetes and a long life of self-neglect deprived him of a leg. I went to helphim from time to time and found his mind undiminished by age and illness, his spirit undiminished by alack of financial success. I came away from every visit with him in possession of some new insight into thepainters and paintings we discussed.

At the time, I was engrossed in Seurat, and Kaldis was pleased. Fond of Seurat and his very "Byzantine"paintings, Kaldis saw Pointilist paintings as mosaics.

Despite the many physical complications visited upon him at this time, his energy was undaunted; hisprosthesis adjusted, he came to my one-man show at the Bowery Gallery. He instructed me to meet himat the bus stop on the northeast corner of Houston St. and West Broadway, and he could be heard all overSoHo as he bellowed, "IDIOT!" because I was on the southeast corner, not having had the time to cross thestreet yet. It was 1978 and he would die a year later, but once inside the gallery he began attacking mycanvases with his cane in order to make critical observations, always preceeded by praise.

Paul Resika once told me not to pay much attention to Kaldis in public, that he was profound in privatebut nervous and frightened in public. I had initially judged him by his public performance. When his ageand illness brought us together, I would benefit enormously. Curating this show has proved to be acontinuing education for me and, hopefully, for everyone.

Spending the necessary time with the paintings again, talking with his son Guy, and with the artists whoknew him so well, I was once again educated by Kaldis, his work, and his life. He was truly a larger-than-life presence, a show-stopper, but his work has triumphed.

From its inception, the Artists Choice Museum was intent on mounting a Kaldis retrospective. Thisexhibition, then, is a project realized with pride, a homage from a community to a man and his work, andan educational experience for all. For me, there is also the fortunate redemption from folly.

Stephen Grillo, Curator, NYC 1984

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Aristodimos Kaldis"One of the official philologist-estheticians on the downtown scene" was an art magazine's way of

referring to Aristodimos Kaldis in 1962. Kaldis was famous for his impassioned and often humorousdiscourses, more so, perhaps, than for his paintings, although these too were frequently exhibited. But whenthe Poindexter Gallery offered its view of The Thirties in 1956, it was Kaldis the painter, not thephilosopher, who was chosen to represent the decade with one of his rather rare still lifes, along withprestigious names such as Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning] Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt,Mark Rothko and others.

Incidentally, this present exhibition is more complete than the recent one at the Kouros Gallery-Oct.IO-Nov. 3, 1984-a statement not to be understood as a critique of the gallery. The Artists' Choice Museumhas more space and it was thus possible to include more examples of Kaldis' life-work, which includes manyof his largest works. Secondly, I would like to say at this point, that this present essay is some 700 wordslonger than the essay in the Kouros Gallery catalogue, and includes, in addition to extra copy, a numberof revisions. _

I first got to know him in 1952. He was a vital, powerful, large man with an enormous head who talkedabout himself most of the time, because he was easily the most interesting person he knew. Conversationswith Kaldis consisted in listening to his oratory. It was rumored that he was the original of Katsimbalis inHenry Miller's book The Colossus of Maroussi. It was also widely believed that the Eighth Street ArtistsClub, which began in 1949, had been started by a group of artists who were tired of Kaldis interrupting theirdiscussions in the Waldorf Cafeteria on Sixth Avenue near Eighth Street. The group, it was said, made articleone ofthe Club's constitution, that Kaldis would not be allowed in. The first rumor may have had some basis.Anyone reading Henry Miller's book will be struck by the many points of resemblance to Kaldis in hisfictional character. The second rumor was quite false. It not only ignored the true background of the ArtistsClub, but also that Kaldis was a regular visitor at the Club's Friday evenings, and often entertained itsaudiences with his off-the-cuff remarks, laced by a penetrating and sometimes cruel wit. When Kaldis wasn'ttalking about himself, he was quoting from one or another of the sage-philosophers whose thoughtsaccompanied him as he journeyed through life. His lectures on archeology, with slide accompaniment,although intended for the lay public, entranced not only that public but also a loyal claque of artists. Hewas not only well-informed but had an unusual and compelling style of delivery. (In later years Kaldis likedto recall that Willem de Kooning would sometimes carry his slide projector for him on his way to hislectures.)

Kaldis died in 1979, but I can still see him wearing his long orange scarf, reminding me of Aristide Bruant,the poet of the cafe-concert, in the famous poster by Toulouse Lautrec. With this scarf flung loosely aroundhis neck, Kaldis would make highly visible appearances, at the Museum of Modern Art and the WhitneyMuseum, or at the gallery openings uptown or along East Tenth Street. It made no difference if the artistwho was having an opening was famous or at the threshold of his career; for Kaldis was never an arts' snob.He was sometimes difficult to avoid if one was not in the mood to be buttonholed. Thomas B. Hess, alwaysan admirer of his work, spoke of Kaldis and his archrival, Landes Lewitin, as the Scylla and Charybdis ofEighth Street.

Born in a small port town off the eastern shore of the Aegean between Pergamun and Troy, educated atthe gymnasium of Mytilene and the Evangeliki College of Smyrna, Kaldis arrived in Boston at the age of17. When he moved to New York in 1930, he felt immediately at home in the polyglot, cosmopolitan city.He himself, he said, spoke five languages, and he had no difficulty in finding other people who spoke themin New York. He once said that he had only to cross the Hudson River to find himself once again in Greece.

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At first he was a writer and, during the 1930's, an editor of research for the mural division of the FederalArt Project in New York City, presumably working with Burgoyne Diller who was in charge of the murals.Several people encouraged him to become a painter, including Diego Rivera whom he met while on the ArtProject, and his wife, Laurie Eglinton Kaldis, who was an editor and art critic for the magazine Art News.He never received any formal instruction, and was usually critical of art teachers. He said his inspirationcame from visits to the studios of the great-Picasso, Braque, and, above all, Matisse-not to omit mentionof the day-by-day encouragement he received from Elaine and Willem de Kooning who were certainly chiefamong his earliest supporters. He was also a great traveler, crisscrossing Europe and the United States insearch of museums and libraries to visit.

Kaldis had his first one-man show at the Artists Gallery in 1941, followed by others at the Ferargil Gallery,the Puma Gallery, the Kornblee Gallery, the Carlan Gallery, the Stewart-Marean Gallery. He won twoGuggenheim Awards in 1975 and 1977, to paint American landscapes-which invariably ended up lookingsomewhat Aegean. He was probably the first living American artist to have his work bought by Dr. AlbertC. Barnes for his Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania. But even though his subjects were often suggestedby places he had seen in Staten Island or New England, he somehow always managed to spice them withAttic ingredients-with thyme, sage, olive trees, honey, tufa. Hilton Kramer said in the New York Times,January, 1976: "Everything Mr. Kaldis paints is invested with the passion and extravagance of hispersonality which is given to uncontained outbursts of feeling and whimsical ebullience."

Although his press usually lauded him, it was not always for the right reasons. Many critics tended tothink of him as a "primitive," and they sometimes said his work was "child-like." I asked Kaldis about thiswhen interviewing him for an article in 1959. He replied, according to my notes: "When you drawacademically, you don't really see with your own eyes. You associate the subject with the eyes of some pastmaster, and resist it through your own. You lose spontaneity. You are shadow-boxing. Direct drawing mayappear naive. But I accept naivete, like Clement the Alexandrian, who defined it as the capacity to discardthe inessential. My aim is always to compose. In other words, in drawing, not to pick or select but to discardthe inessential. That is what I call a true, a real abstraction. When you select, as in choosing an hors d'oeuvre,you degenerate into a fragmentary painter. My aim is always to compose, to synthesize, and not to paintmakeshifts. Otherwise, the outcome is chaotic. Instead of developing into a higher form, it degenerates byreturning to the thicket that is, to the virginal nature."

Only in one aspect can a painting by Kaldis suggest a child's painting, and that is in his occasional useof the edge of a form as a ground-line for the placement of trees, houses or figures. In some paintings, wherethe edge of a mountain seems to be running downward to the base of the picture, we see trees and figuresattached perpendicular to this "line," making them seem, from the viewer's vertical standpoint, to be lyingdown sideways, although they are intended to be read by the viewer as "standing up." But this use of aground-line, usual in children's art at certain stages in the child's development, is not peculiar to Kaldis.We find it often in early landscapes by Kandinsky, also in paintings by Klee (who was conscious of children'sart as a source for adult style), Miro, Chagall, and many others. Although his paintings may strike the vieweras having the freshness and unsophistication of the naive painter, there is really nothing naive about a Kaldispainting. He merely has a highly individual and personal style.

Kaldis worked slowly and deliberately, and only when the spirit moved him. Behind each finishedpainting, there might be a number of smaller studies which he called "vignettes"-a term he sometimesapplied to a painting without any paint in its corners. Using brushes for the most part, he would pour a floodof lyrical brushstrokes into a form, and sometimes he would scrub the paint into the canvas. On occasion

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he would also squeeze the paint directly from the tube to make lively or agitated blobs, and sometimes withthe tube he would make long, curving pipettes of paint, or "armatures," which would serve to seal off anarea as well as direct the eye of the observer in the direction he wanted. He seemed always to know the rightmoment to stop. Had he worked the paintings more, they might have acquired the stiffness of "finish"-a characteristic of much folk art.

A typical Kaldis painting would be a view of a mountain-or of several mountains-thrusting their humpsinto inky blue skies. Winding paths, villas, gates, churches, shrines, temples, cart-wheels and olive trees inclumps dot the landscape rhythmically, with, at the bottom, a curving bay echoing the color of the sky. Hedid not use the traditional foreground, middle ground and background, but moved directly into a kind ofmiddle ground which was the plane of the picture itself. In the arrangement of his elements-which oftentook the forms of circles, triangles and squares, embedded into the landscape-he seems to be affirmingnature as emblematic of a mystical faith. In color, as well as in a sense of a powerful inner world, we sensein his art something akin to the early Kandinsky, a response-I believe-to an inner necessity banishingthe nightmare of materialism, and transforming every Kaldis painting into a lyrical affirmation of the joysof existence.

Somewhere during the middle of the 1950's Kaldis invented for himself what he called an "explosivespace," which he compared to the diastolic expansion of the chambers of the heart. In these paintings heseems to be catapulting his familiar forms into a white space. The paintings began to look more "abstract"although never non-objective. But this was not his only direction for at the same time he developed a morecompressed kind of painting, which he thought of as being a kind of systolic contraction. The forms nowbegin to be part of a dense tapestry of colors wedging together with many diagonal shiftings, interlacingsand interpenetrating movements.

Although usually simple descriptions of subject suffice-like Greek Village with Man or Bulls Head Cape-on occasion Kaldis would take off with titles like Eternal Soil of Democracy-Greece, Polydactylic DivineHand and Sappho's Eternal Sleep Blessed.

I am indebted to his, and also my friend, Paul Resika, for the opportunity to read the famous KaldisGlossary, which originally appeared in the second issue of the magazine "It is," published by Philip Pavia.The glossary is a three-page document available to students, along with the writings of other artists, in theMaster of Fine Arts Program at the Parsons School of Design. I wish I had more space to quote from it. Hereis a particularly choice Kaldisian quote:

"COLOR: Derma-Color ... Derma, in Homeric times, the skin. When color is applied creatively, itmultiplies itself and enhances the composition. It has magical powers. It moves the shapes and forms withoutchanging the lines of the painting. However, color is a dangerous temptation for those who suffer fromachromatopsia-color-blindness. Fortunately this optical impediment is not so perilous to painters as to citydrivers or to navigators of narrow shoals. For example, a headmaster in England relented and allowed oneof his pupils to take carpentry in lieu of the arts. Three days later the pupil returned to the class with hisleft hand in a sling. The pedagogue said to the student: "Unlike the Fine Arts, young man, carpentry doesnot tolerate inaccuracies."

Kaldis was a part of that scene which today there is tendency to view as having been dominated by theAbstract Expressionists to the exclusion of everybody else. Actually there were many painters and otherswhofound a climate of support within this scene and I think of Kaldis always as one of those who influencedothers, especially younger painters, if not by his own paintings but by his ideas and his own example of onewho had the strength of will to work for many years in conditions of near poverty. He was certainly thequintessence of the Bohemian artist, but he was much more besides, as these beautiful paintings so ablytestify.

Lawrence Campbell

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Minerva Surveying 1974, o/c, 53 x 888

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Sphinx over Thebes, 1972ole, 16" x 20"9

Day Dreaming 1973, o/c, 30 x 4110

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Hydra, 1959, oil on canvas, 26" x 21"

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Venetian Fortress, 1976, o/c, 40" X 30"12

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Patmos 76 1976, ole, 50 x 60

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Sporadic Landscape, 1972-73, ole, 40" x 30"

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Scylla and Charybdis 1972-3, ole, 40 x 5215

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Hellenic Landscape #1 1951, ole, 50 x 8017

Cycladic and Sporadic 1972, ole, 40 x 60

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Buffalo Landscape 1944, ole, 26 x 36

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Prometheus Unbound in Alaska 1t77, ole, 72 x 144

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White, White, Metaphysical Who 1973-75, ole, 72 x 96

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Haut Cagnes oil on canvas, 16 x 20

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Meduano 1976, o/c, 36 x 2423

Kaldis RememberedAt the recent opening of the retrospective exhibition of paintings by the late Aristodimos Kaldis at the

Kouros Gallery in New York (Oct. lO-Nov. 3, 1984) several of his old friends commented that they expectedhim to appear at any moment. Everyone seemed to be responding to the spirit of Kaldis that filled thegallery. This is the way anyone who knew him and his paintings thought about him. He was thepersonification of his paintings and they were the embodiment of him. All the diverse content of his personwas expressed, if not in one painting, in a large number of them as was seen in this exhibition.

It has been written of Kaldis that he was "an artist, free-lance etymologist, free-form lecturer, andfamiliar figure in the New York art world" (Newsweek, Nov. 5, 1962, pg. 106). The key words in thatdescription are "artist" and "free." True, he was a man of extraordinarily versatile talents with acommanding use of English richly supported by his native Greek tongue (he said 68% of English wordsderive from the Greek language), and he was equally at home in Europe where he had circles of friends inLondon, Paris, Amsterdam, Florence, Rome, and throughout Greece that rivaled his New York circle. Hecould hold forth for hours, be it before a crowd or only a few artist friends, discussing almost any subject,from the sublime to the pecuniary. In fact, he had a healthy respect for money and that subject seemed tofind a place in his conversation whether it was on art, philosophy, or etymology-all favorite subjects withhim. All this rich diversity however was channeled into art, which was his life, as freedom was his spirit. Itwas these qualities that so inspired the artists who knew him.

To his artist friends he spoke with enlightenment and inspiration about light and color, of the subtlenuances that make such a difference in a painting, about composition, and about the struggle, about the"home-runs" and the "strike-outs," about the need to keep going when we are discouraged. By example hetaught what he believed to be essential for an artist: dedication.

Though Kaldis never passed up an opportunity to speak to the world, he spoke most directly to his fellowartists, with his words as well as with his paintings. To his entourage of young artists he always spoke ofdedication, and of the importance of being able to make a good soup. Every new female acquaintance wasa rich heiress until she proved otherwise, and the Stork Club, rich ladies, and Greek shipping magnates oftenspiced his parables.

Kaldis is remembered as a man of superlatives. His large stature was greatly magnified by his mind andpersonality within. He was outstanding in any crowd, with his lion's mane hair underscored by his perennialred scarf wrapped several times around his neck with one long end hanging down his back. When he spoke'his sonorous voice floated to all quarters of a room, and the insistence with which he expressed himselfalways compelled an audience to listen. His knowledge of the classics and art history, and his repertory oflittle known anecdotes about well known artists were fascinating and enlightening to his artist friends. Onecould usually find him in the verbal forefront where artists gathered, whether it was at the Cedar Bar, theold Club on Eight Street and later a few blocks north on Broadway, or more recently at the new Club wayover on East Broadway, where in the 1970's he frequently held the floor with eruditions that pleased someand injured others.

Kaldis was a unique artist in a time when many artists were building careers by associating with new artmovements and reaping the benefits of the group publicity generated by the latest "ism." His remarkablepaintings, with their nervous forms dancing wildly in rich colors, had great emotional impact, but theysimply didn't fit comfortably into any art movement of their time. He patiently pursued a creative pathcharted by the mystical voices of a religious art from his Near Eastern childhood, tempered by a firsthandstudy of the great art of the museums of the world, in which he successfully merged the icon form withlandscape painting, creating his unique iconized landscapes. It was the Near Eastern foundation of his workthat set it apart from the dominant art of his time.

His paintings were greatly admired by other artists from the 1950's on and many art critics, among themThomas B. Hess, Lawrence Campbell, Hilton Kramer and Lenny Horowitz, perceived the distinctivecharacter of his paintings and praised them highly. His message to artists lives on in his work: "Be dedicatedto art but remain free in spirit."

Jack StewartNYC,1984

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Kaldis' paintings are at the same time shocking and pleasing. Today's photographic realism hasbrowbeaten our eyes so much that it is a relief to read Kaldis' fresh, bouncing details. His brushstrokes arealways on the run-nothing like the too even results of darkroom films. Instead, we see dabs of color racing,running up and down the mountains. His details, his brushstrokes, are never static or dead on their feet.These colors are all mixed from the chemistries of his brain, his senses and sweat, all made into one. Kaldistrained like a race horse running for the finish line. He didn't bother with details that took too much time.

At times he changed from a race horse to a marathon running-amazing how fast his feet could touchand lift up and touch again! Instead of runner's ankles, one pictures Kaldis' wrist touching and then liftinga brush full of color on the canvas.

Kaldis was one of the original artists in the Waldorf cafeteria during the forties: A magnificent talker,who spellbound us for many nights, for many many years. At first, no one understood his paintings-hisbad friends said he was a primitve, and absolutely lost. Not true, it turned out. Here he is in his paintings,a modern man in spite of his long great heritage. Amazing, how he absorbed so much Greek tradition butkept his image-presence alive and above it all. That was his point. He wanted to be personal about hispainting. And he became an expressionist in spite of himself. His paintings do have magical colors thatmatch his personality.

His character was formed by the many determined decisions he had made within himself. For instance,he decided not to be influenced by French painting or the Italian Renaissance. Decadent was his favoriteword whenever the subject came. These two areas he believed [after the war] could not build up a newcontemporary painting.

It was this premise which Kaldis then supported with magnificent monologues that strengthened therevolutionary art being born on 8th Street. His arguments were unforgettable, and I for one will never forgetthem.

Kaldis, again inspite of his origins, was in an odd way, an abstractionist. From way back in his sensibilitiesand imagination, there came forth projection of the Greek tradition of solid geometry. He painted hismountains as if they were the noble pyramids of Euclid. The geometrician, perhaps, was influenced by theGreek mountains too and transcribed them into textbook problems of solid geometry. But Kaldis, he justpainted greens, blues, yellows, houses, woods, trees, rocky, craggy, protrusions, roads and villages all overthe pyramids. The strict, geometric pyramid, is a presence or a shadow underneath the life of the mountain.Not overburdened, his mountains seem very, very happy with their burden. An art historian or "futurist"would say that Kaldis had interpenetrated both image of mountain and pyramid into one.

Sometimes Kaldis would paint his mountains with hard colors, sometimes with soft. These were moods.No matter. However he paints his mountains, Kaldis never forgets his Euclidian abstract shadow. That ishis message.

Philip Pavia

When Kaldis sat in the backseat with my mother-in-law very cozy and told her she should give us a lotof money right away, he was, at once, his most gross from her point of view and his most delicate from mine.He raged his whole life between extremes. One could not forgive his transgressions; they had to be ignored.

His fineness showed always in relation to Art. His paintings are delicate, and always an expression of awonderful self. When he spoke about art or helped someone with their paintings he was sensitive, completelyconfident that one could make ones paintings better, and he was able to show them, in a way that they couldintegrate into themselves, exactly how. In touching and astounding ways, his paintings were on the mark.He set out to make a painting of a polar bear in Alaska, and though it looked a bit like Greece, he carriedit off easily. His best head was truly with the Gods. And then I can remember him with his arms arounda freshly cut platter of a whole turkey saying "I know more than all of you." I don't think you could tellfrom the gross scene I just described, but he did.

Paul GeorgesNYC, 1984

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Aristodimos Kaldis, born in 1899, did not start painting as a career until 1938. His early paintingsreflected a Fauvist style similar to Cezanne and Matisse. These early pictures, sometimes labeled 'primitive,'were characterized by Kaldis as "naive," which he defined as "having the capacity to discard theinessential.''t His method in painting a realistic landscape or still life was to reduce visual memories to theiressences, thus arriving at a canvas that appeared simpler than it was. Although these paintings have achildlike charm, it is 'color' which makes them vibrate with energy. Beethoven and Wagner were his favoritecomposers, for his paintings are bold and sonorous, rather than quiet and subtle.

Kaldis was a giant figure in the art world because of his sincere interest in art and other artists' work.Walking with him on lower 5th Avenue in the 1940's was like being in a parade interrupted by frequent stopsto greet and talk with other artists. He was a very social person, yet he never belonged to any clique ormovement in painting. Kaldis was solitary only when he put paint on a canvas in his own unique style.Influenced by other expressionists and colorists, he never belonged to an 'ism' of painting. He was alwayswilling to share his ability to use color to help colleagues with their incomplete paintings, even colleagueswho may have had more recognition as artists. One such painter, John Groth, himself beloved as a teacherat the Art Student's League, once called upon Kaldis for help with a painting of a race track scenecommissioned by Armour and Company. This painting had been rejected by the meatpackers and I, whowas 8 or 9 years old at the time, was dispatched to the roof to drink Coca Cola and amuse myself with theview of 57th Street below. After they had worked 45 minutes on the painting, I was summoned back,whereupon my father asked me, "Guy, what difference do you notice in the painting?" I answered naively,"Dad, you put a hot dog in his mouth." They both laughed while my father patiently showed me how hehad highlighted the hot dog with ochre and the bun with white. On many other occasions I witnessed thesalvaging of an otherwise lifeless picture by another artist by Kaldis's skill in using color to separate outplanes in a picture without resorting to the exaggerated tricks of academic drawing perspective. Startingoften with little scraps of colored paper from Pall Mall and Lucky Strike wrappers temporarily stuck on thecanvas with a little saliva, he would suggest the colors that would transform an otherwise dull painting. Sopleased were many of his friends that they referred to him as the "Doctor of painting." He often stated inlectures that the trick was to keep the eye moving from the foreground to the background and back againto the middle ground.

Willem de Kooning, one of Kaldis's intimate friends, also a master of color, respected Kaldis's criticaljudgments of his paintings. I first met Bill de Kooning as a youngster on a visit to his 8th Street studio. Later,three generations of the Kaldis family visited Bill in his Easthampton studio. The last time de Kooning sawmy father was on one of his rare trips to New York City to accept the medal given him by the Queen ofNetherlands. Kaldis was very proud that Bill came by to see him recovering from a heart attack in his WestSide Studio before going to receive the medal. Recently de Kooning viewed a videotape of the October, 1984,Kaldis exhibition at the Kouros Gallery. When asked "Which paintings he liked best?", de Kooning repliedwith boyish enthusiasm, "I like all of them." Posing for a brief videotape of himself standing in front of theonly painting in his living room, a colorful Aegean landscape by his friend, Aristodimos Kaldis. whilede Kooning reminisced about the times that Kaldis would hold forth with great authority and clarityon art and philosophy at the cafeteria just around the corner from his 8th Street studio.

Like de Kooning, Kaldis was totally absorbed in painting and lived an aescetic life. Living frugally, hevalued his paintings more than the sums of money he could obtain for them at that time. He often counselledyounger artists to take after his example of not working at a 9 to 5 job, but devoting all of his energies toart. Some who saw him pinch, kiss, or otherwise show affection to young women misunderstood his love ofbeauty in the visual and tactile forms. He lived alone from 1941until his death in 1979. He encouraged othersto marry, but felt driven to spend his energies on art. He also hurt his chances at popular recognition by

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very strongly criticizing artists who taught at universities or art critics who knew less on art and art historythan he.

This high level of criticism was ironically the quality that attracted many young artists to his side. Inreturn for stretching a canvas, an errand in a car, studio space or other practical favors, he would give astudent hours of exhaustive criticism of their work. Kaldis' study of painting and sculpture was gained inhis frequent travel and visits to museums in Europe and U.S.A. His perspective on art was unique in thathe had a great capacity to reflect about the relationships between art and the rest of life. In his lectures atthe Carnegie Recital Hall, discussions with other artists at the Artist's Club, and numerous guestlectureships at universities around the country, he was able to give clarity to the puzzling concept that artistsdon't belong to society and yet are part of it with a story both charming and instructive. 2 He had a vastknowledge of history, philosophy, and government, and was able to show the complexity of thoserelationships clearly where others often only add to the listener's confusion.

Whenever Kaldis is the subject of a meeting at the Educational Alliance or an opening, almost all hisfriends and colleagues turn up. The spirit remains the same five years later-very little sadness, instead afestive air which Mrs. Milton Avery (Sally) described at the Kouros Gallery opening: "It was so much funto see the old crowd together again." The quality and quantity of Kaldis's friends and colleagues neverdiminishes. His spirit lives on in the paintings on the wall and in the animated discussion and vivid memoriesin the rooms full of people looking at his works of art.

Guy C. Kaldis

1. cf. Kaldis, Aristodimos, "Glossary," IT IS, Volume II, Autumn 1958

2. cf. Kaldis, Aristodimos, "Parson's School Lecture," page 2

Kaldis, like Longinus, was a "living library and a walking museum" - a rhetorician and the "first ofcritics." Like Falstaff, he was subversive, outrageous, priapic and noble. "I have the gravity for my levity,"he said.

He was generous with criticism. Three generations of artists and "mere painters" listened to him at theCedar Bar, various Rikers, and alliances here and abroad.

Years ago, Kaldis sent me a postcard of Seurat's Bathers. On the back in a magnificent scrawl was written:"To my colleague and friend with productive years of color and tonal composition." I also have from himthe injunction to "be heroic" and "detonate the picture." But when I asked him how Renoir painted thenudes we both loved, he replied: "Renoir had patience."

Kaldis knew the bitterness of lack of "success." The New York museums totally ignored him. But I neversaw him melancholy. And now a "Museum" show at last! Aristo, wanderer in the Elysian fields, what is yourcriticism?

Paul Resika6 November 1984

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Striding through Gothic, Romanesque and Byzantine cathedrals, orating-often to startled strangers-before art works at the Louvre, the Prado, the Stedelijk, the Metropolitan, the Guggenheim, the Whitney,Moma, Aristodemus Kaldis was a ubiquitous presence. With his massive head and majestic stance, he wasthe incarnation of Rodin's Balzac. A Dionysian scholar, Kaldis was a reservoir of a staggering body of arcaneknowledge. Through his eyes, art was viewed not in terms of years or decades but centuries, millenia-allat his finger-tips, ready for instant retrieval.

Whenever I planned a trip abroad I would always consult with Kaldis who would immediately begindrawing maps for me, no matter what the city or-country, locating a cathedral here, a museum there, a littleknown sculpture or a particular painting that none of the guide books mentioned,-all the while pouringout a stream of relevant information about the location of American Express offices, railroads, airports,excellent, cheap restaurants, beautiful gardens and parks, millionaires whose acquaintance I should make,until I was quite dizzy.

When I arrived at a given city and pulled out one of these impossibly chaotic maps, everything wassuddenly perfectly clear; his accuracy truly amazing.

The lectures he gave in 1945 in a room on one of the upper floors of Carnegie Hall had the same kindof kaleidoscopic clarity. Artists who wouldn't dream of attending a lecture would flock to hear Kaldis (payingfifty cents at the door) and the room was always packed with a highly professional and merrily responsiveaudience.

Willem de Kooning managed the slide projector on these evenings once a week while Kaldis poured outa seemingly helter skelter profusion of brilliant insights about artists, ancient and modern. Slides of the workof Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky, Giacometti, Miro, Leger, Arp were shown in illuminating juxtapositionswith examples of Etruscan, Persian, Byzantine, Egyptian, African, Greek sculpture, architecture, painting,mosaics. Immensely-if erratically-erudite, Kaldis chose his slides with great care, and once the membersof the audience got used to his unorthodox delivery, they always left with a sense of revelation-of expandedperceptions.

In all the lectures, at some point or other, an archaic Greek figure would appear holding a fish which wasan extension of his arm-a key figure for Kaldis and for us. The room would rock with laughter at theinevitable appearance of this key figure. Kaldis was apparently oblivious to the laughter that constantlypunctuated his lectures but, in fact, he lived on it.

Laughter was the air that Kaldis breathed as he swooped through the art world like a festive zipper,bringing strangers, friends and enemies together, showering them with his theories about marriage, money,religion, etymology, art history, and politics-usually over tables laden with Greek food. He would maneuver

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his large entourages to restaurants near Eighth avenue in the forties where an order of beer, retsina or ouzofor each of us would bring forth platters of mezethakia-vine leaves stuffed with rice, feta cheese wrappedin layers of delicate, flaky pastry, dainty sausages and quantities of pita. Kaldis would keep up a runningcommentary in Greek with the waiters, inspiring them to bring more and more food and then, he'd leap tothe center of the room and join them with explosive zest as they sang and danced between courses.

Kaldis was such a powerful personality, such a commanding figure that one is tempted to say heovershadowed his painting but, in terms of its freshness, originality and extraordinary psychic energy, hispainting is a match for the man.

I remember vividly my first view, in 1944, of Kaldis' paintings in his unbelievably messy studio in a hugebuilding on Fifth Avenue and 16th Street. There was an unmade bed with clothes piled on top of it; tablesand chairs cluttered with fruit, bread, paint tubes, dirty dishes, books, brushes, and everywhere-leaningagainst furniture, stacked against the wall-small canvases glowing with intense primary colors.

These early landscapes and portraits were reverently and painstakingly finished with a religious, almostByzantine fervor. Every inch of the canvas was covered with pigment in a manner often categorized as"primitive" -a label that infuriated Kaldis, whose concerns were those of a highly cultivated artist.Primitives don't change their way of painting: their imagery is locked into a particular technique. Kaldis'approach to his work changed considerably during the 'forties and the 'fifties. Like the Abstract Ex-pressionists with whom he was closely involved, his canvases became larger, his brushwork freer.

The imagery is always rooted in the landscape of his beloved Greece. Houses, boats, temples, mountains,trees-all carefully considered as abstract elements-emerge with joyous economy. There is a remarkablevariety in the application of paint as the white space of the canvas is activated by brilliant colors and free-flying contours.

The classic "artists' -artist," Kaldis is revered as a major painter by his fellows who avidly collected thedrawings he made wherever he happened to be.

Willem and I acquired a painting from Kaldis four days before he died at the age of seventy-nine in 1979.He had just returned from the hospital and we were visiting him in his hotel room. Kaldis was his usualexuberant self on this occasion and burst into song as we bade him farewell. The painting hangs in our livingroom where we see it every night as if for the first time. It constantly exhilarates us with its free-wheelingprecision-its miraculous verve. There is a frolicsome form like a dolphin gliding through the air past a steepwhite and yellow mountain high above the sparkling Aegean-blue water: "That's Kaldis' soul," said PaulResika.

Elaine de KooningEasthampton, N.Y., 1984

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Chronology1899 August 15, Born to Efstratios and Ourania Kaldis in Dikeli, (Atarneus) Turkey,

grows up in Mytilini, Lesbos, Greece. Gymnasium, Lesbos and Evangelika,Smyrna, Turkey

Takes over the management of Kaldis family shipping firm

Emigrates to Boston, Massachusetts

Visits Paris

Worker and interpreter at Hood Rubber Company, Watertown,Massachusetts

Migrates to New York City, becomes economist for Hotel and RestaurantWorkers Union, Local #6, leads Waldorf Strike

Meets and marries Laurie Elaine Eglington, Art Critic and Editor of Art News

Guy C. Kaldis, son, born

Mural Division of the Art Project, (WPA). New York City, Chief of Researchfor Diego Rivera; meets Kline, Gorki, Rothko and De Kooning

Trip to England, France, Italy and Greece to visit relatives.

Greek War Relief Auctioneer, Volunteer for Roosevelt, La Guardia ReelectionCampaigns

December, 1ST GROUP SHOW, Artists Gallery

April, participant in Group show of Modern Christs at Puma Gallery

November, 1ST ONE-MAN SHOW, Carlen gallery, Philadelphia

Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania, acquires Negro Looking atModern Art. first living American artist to be purchased by Dr. Barnes.

Key to Modern Art Lecture Series, Carnegie Hall, Studio 819

Lecturer at the Rand School

June 15, Front cover of Greek National Herald

May, Artists Gallery Group Show

Washington Square Inn Group show

Artists Gallery, Group Show

November, Leonardo Da Vinci Lecture, Miami, Florida

1915

1917

1919

1920's

1930's

1934

1937

1935-38

1938

1941

1941

1942

1942

1942

1944-50

1946

1947

1948

1950

1951

1951

1951

1956

1957

1957

1957-59

1959

1959

1959

1959

1962

1962

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December, Artist Gallery, FIRST ONE-MAN SHOW

September, Reunion on Lexington Avenue, Artist Gallery

April, Large Picture of Kaldis with scarf, Cover of Vii/age Voice

October, The Thirties, Group Show, Poindexter Gallery

Articles in IT IS, published by Philip Pavia

April 19, Picture in N. Y. Times Sunday Magazine Section, with caption'Bohemian' in Paris, later sues NY Times.

April, Stewart-Marean Gallery, one-man show, published Glossary, article onetymology.

November, Art News, Article and Color Plates

November, Rome-N.Y. Art Foundation, foreword by Herbert Read.

Museum of Modern Art, Spoleto International exhibition, Traveling show forone year

October, Kornblee Gallery, One-man show

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1962 November, Painting on Cover of Art News

1962 NewsWeek Article on Kaldis (Kennedy on cover!

1964 Kornblee Gallery, one-man show

1965 June, Festival of Two worlds, Spoleto Exhibit

1965 September, Hecksher Museum, Huntington, Long Island.

1966 ART USA Show in NY Coliseum

1966 August, Guest Lecturer, University of Oregon

1966 Kornblee Gallery, one-man show

1971 Samos Workshop, taught at the Pythagorean School of Art

1974 Landmark Gallery, 118Artists, 1974, 1975

1974 December 5, Leonard Horowitz interviews Kaldis in Soho Weekly News

1975 Guggenheim Fellow in Painting

1977 Second Guggenheim Fellowship

1977 May, NOEMATA, Brooklyn Museum, group show of Greek artists.

1977 September, Kornblee Gallery, One-Man Show

1977 November, Group Show with De Kooning, Krasner in Philadelphia CollegeofArt, Lecture

1978 September, WPA Show, at the Parsons School

1978 November, One-Man Show at the Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore. Lecture atMaryland Collegeof Art.

1978 November 23, Parsons School Lecture

1979 May 2, dies at the age of 79.

1980 September, Little Gems, Kornblee Gallery.

1981 September, Artists Choice Group Show

1982 Fall, in Artist Choiceexhibit at One Penn Plaza

1983 April, Group Show, Kouros Gallery

1984 Lyrics and Myths, Kouros Gallery

Selected One Man ExhibitionsKaldis, The Artists Gallery, New York, 1941Kaldis, Carlen Galleries, Philadelphia, 1942Kaldis, The Artists Gallery, New York, 1951Kaldis, Stewart-Marean Gallery, New York, 1959Kaldis, Kornblee Gallery, New York, 1962, 1964, 1966, 1976, 1977Kaldis, Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, 1978Little Gems, Kornblee Gallery, New York, 1980

Selected Public CollectionsThe Barnes Collection, Marion, P AThe Joseph Hirschhorn Collection, Washington, D.C.The Michener Collection, University of Texas, AustinMassachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

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Selected Group ExhibitionsGroup Show, Artists Gallery, New York, 1941Modern Christs, Puma Gallery, New York, 1942Group Show, Artists Gallery, New York, 1948Washington Square Inn Group Show, New York, 1950Tenth Anniversary, Artists Gallery, New York, 1951Reunion on Lexington Avenue, Artists Gallery, New York, 1956The Thirties, Poindexter Gallery, New York, 1957Rome=N. Y. Art Foundation, Rome, 1962Spoleto International Exhibition, Museum of Modern Art, Traveling Exhibition, 1962Recent Paintings by Nine Americans, Festival of Two Worlds, Spoleto, 1965Paintings in the Collections of Harvard Graduates, Heckscher Museum, Huntington, Long Island, 1965Art USA, New York Coliseum, 1966118 Artists, Landmark Gallery, New York, 1974, 1975Group Show; Kornblee Gallery, New York, 1975Birmingham Festival of Art, Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, 1976Noemata, Greek-American Artists, Brooklyn Museum, 1977Seventies Painting, Philadelphia College of Art, 1978Painting and Sculpture Today, Indianapolis, 1978WPA Show, Parsons College, New York, 1978Artists Choice Museum Show on 57th Street, New York, 1979National Academy, 154th Annual, N.Y., 1979Contemporary Realism, One Penn Plaza, New York, 1983Hellenic Expressions, Kouros Gallery, New York, 1983Lyrics and Myths, Kouros Gallery, New York, 1984

Selected BibliographyBurrows, Carlyle, New York Herald Tribune, December 7, 1941Bonte, C. H., "Greek from Classic Isle shows very Modern Art", The Philadelphia Inquirer,

November 8, 1942"Kaldis Handles Color in Extraordinary Manner", New York Herald Tribune, May 25, 1948"Ebullience in a Single Plane", New York World, June 1, 1948/Arms, Val, "Animated Still Life", The National Herald, June 15, 1957Kaldis, Aristodimos, "The Glossary", It is, Volume II, Autumn, 1958"Paintings, poetic ... abstract", The New York Journal American, April 25, 1959Longwood, William, "A Glorious Bean Soup", The New "fork World Telegram, October 15, 1959Campbell, Lawrence, "Kaldis Paints a Picture", Art News, November, 1959Sandler, Irving, New York Post, October 17, 1962"On with the Dance", Newsweek, November 5, 1962Waggoner, Karen, "Greek Painter Sketches Life", Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, August 7, 1966Horowitz, Leonard, "Artscope: A Dialogue with Aristodimos Kaldis", Soho Weekly News,

December 5, 12, 1972North, Charles, "Aristodimos at Kornblee", Art Voices, January, 1976Hess, Thomas B., "Five Bywaymen", New York Magazine, February 2, 1976Kramer, Hilton, "The Art of Painting is Alive and Well", New York Times, January 25, 1976Ellenzweig, Allen, "The Mythic Mirror of Aristodimos Kaldis", Arts Magazine, September, 1977De Mazio, Violet, "E Pluribus Unum", Journal of the Barnes Foundation, 1977Kramer, Hilton," Aristodimos Kaldis", New York Times, October 10, 1980Valamvanos, George," A Lifelong Sojourn in the Aegean: A Tribute to Kaldis", The Journal of

the Greek Diaspora, Summer, 1979Campbell, Lawrence. "Aristodimos Kaldis", Arts Magazine, November, 1984.

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Artists' Choice Museum394 West Broadway, New York, NY 10012212-219-8031

Board of TrusteesHans van den Houten-ChairmanTimothy E. Taubes-DirectorMichael Tcheyan- TreasurerLeonard D. Easter, Saundra Krasnow,Ann R. Leven, Patricia J. Murphy,Cynthia Parry, Anthony Quinn,Frank Taubes, Livia Sylva Weintraub

Board of ArtistsPaul Georqes=-Chairrnan EmeritusRichard Pitts-ChairmanStephanie DeManuelle,Pamela Endacott, Joe Giordano,Robert Godfrey, Stephen Grillo,Richard Hall, Howard Kalish,Morton Kaish, Charles Leopardo,Donald Perl is, Jim Wilson •

Board of AdvisorsLennart Anderson, Milet Andrejevic,Isabel Bishop, Nell Blaine, Larry Day,Lois Dodd, Rackstraw Downes,Jane Freilicher, Sidney GoodmanRoger Lewis, James McGarrell,Alice Neel, Raphael Soyer,Berta Walker, John Yau

BenefactorsA.M.Sampling, Chase Manhattan Bank,N.E.A. (National Endowment for the Arts),N.Y.S.C.A. (New York State Councilon the Arts), Ohio Arts Council (O.A.C.),Sidney and Frances Lewis Foundation,Hans van den Houten, New York CityDepartment of Cultural Affairs,David Rockefeller, Consolidated EdisonLila Acheson Wallace Fund

Acknowledgements andCredits:

We would especially like to thankGuy Kaldis, Jill Kornblee, AngelosCamillos, Jean Davidson, Janet Bosse,Annick du Charme, Sally Avery, RichardAhntholz, Robin Magowan, HarrietteForbes, and the ACM staff for their in-dispensable help with this exhibition.Also, thanks must go to LawrenceCambell, and all the artists who so viv-idly evoked the spirit of Kaldis and hislegend for this catalogue.

Catalogue design - C. LeopardoCatalogue editor - S. GrilloPhoto credits - Camerarts (Ali

Eali) , Mark Ellison, John McMahon,Mano Orel

Printer - Colormasters