PORTRAIT OF MY FATHER, 1972-1979
BY STEPHEN KALTENBACH

Recently a friend in my book group who is a docent at The Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento told me that she would be sitting in front of this painting this week. She described it as "spiritual" and I did some research regarding the painting and found some information about it. Stephen Kaltenbach was a professor at Sacramento State University and also University of California at Davis. He studied with Robert Arneson and William Wiley and "...overlapped with the conceptualist Bruce Nauman's study there." (Cindy Nemser)

"In the late 1960's, Stephen Kaltenbach was at the center of New York's avant-garde and, during the 1070's, achieved acclaim for the arcane ads he ran in Artforum....For all the success as a conceptual artist, Kaltenbach is also known for paintings such as Portrait of My Father. In a California barn, the artist labored for seven years over this testament to life, love, and the loss confronting us all. That his pursuit was spiritual is evident in the manner by which light and color permeates such intertwining arabesque and intersection with whisker, brow, and pore. The subject is returning to the light from which he came in a vision of infinity and the rightness of nature. While a phtotgraph provided its basis, this portrait is far removed from the cool detachment of the Photorealists due to Kaltenbach's prolonged engagement. Kaltenbach's sole aim was to celebrate the human bond and make a memorial to his father that only he could create."

From Cindy Nemser, "An Interview with Stephen Kaltenbach," Artforum, 9, no. 3 (November 1970): 47-53


The painting is acrylic on canvas and measures 114 inches X 170 3/4 inches.