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An Interview with David C. Driskell

2017; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 40; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/cal.2017.0154

1080-6512

Charles H Rowell, David Driskell,

Financial Crisis of the 21st Century

An Interview with David C. Driskell Charles Henry Rowell and David C. Driskell This interview was conducted on December 27, 2014, at the artist’s home in Silver Springs, Maryland. ROWELL: As I read biographical notes on you, I noticed that––after studying at Howard University, Catholic University of America, and other American institutions––you travelled to the Netherlands to study art. That seemed rather different to me, because most American artists studying abroad, especially African Americans of your generation, went to France, Paris in particular, to study art. Why did you choose the Netherlands? DRISKELL: Yes, that’s a very interesting question. I don’t know if I’ve ever told anybody in interview form why I went to the Netherlands to study. It was the summer of 1964, and I was Acting Head of the Art Department at Howard University. My mentor, James A. Porter, had gone to Africa that year to do research on a Ford Foundation grant. With us at that time was a Middle Eastern scholar by the name of Dr. John Shapley, who had taught art history at Princeton University. He had been a professor at the Catholic University of America when I did my MFA there. His wife was head of the Kress Foundation at the National Gallery of Art. We would meet and talk about ideas for the department and plans, really, for my future. Dr. Shapley had been a mentor to me in many ways. He said to me one day, as he viewed some pen and ink drawings in my office, “I noticed you are very much taken with the drawings of Rembrandt.” He asked if I had considered teaching a course using sepia ink. I said, “No, I don’t think I know enough about Dutch art to be teaching such a course.” I then showed him a whole stack of drawings that I had done with sepia ink. Actually, I had made my own ink in order to get very close to the formula that Rembrandt used. I was teaching a course at Howard University at that time called Methods and Materials of Painting, but I included drawing and other mediums such as fresco, egg tempura, encaustic painting. I was always taken with the chiaroscuro method of painting, a way both Italian and Dutch masters painted. Dr. Shapley said he had a connection in Holland at the Netherlands Institute for the History of Art and asked if I would be interested in going there to study that summer. I said, “Yes.” He pursued his connection there, and I pursued my friendship with him, and before the end of the semester, I had been invited by the Dutch government to come as one of sixteen annual visiting scholars to study at the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie Den Haag (the Netherlands Institute for Art History in The Hague). I didn’t speak Dutch, but the courses were offered in English and French. Each weekday, we had a full immersion for three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon in Dutch art. We also had time set aside for museum visitation. The bureau was located across the street from the Mauritshuis, a major museum. There we conducted our research and visited the conservation laboratory. Another part of the story as to when I went to Holland relates to Ms. Mary Beattie Brady, director of the Harmon Foundation. She was a dear friend of mine and mentor as well. She noted it was time for me to travel to Europe and do independent study on my own. When I told her that I had a chance to go to Holland to study, she was just delighted. She said, “I will give you a purse of $500. I will give you a Eurail pass for the [End Page 43] summer, three months, but I want you to go other places as well.” I wasn’t due to pursue my studies at the Netherlands Institute until early July. It was to be a six-week course. Ms. Brady wanted me to go to Greece, to Italy in particular, and if I had time to Spain and France as well. She particularly...