The Walter Darby Bannard Archive

New Jersey Masters (1980)

Catalog statement for the exhibition "New Jersey Masters," Gill/St. Bernard's School, Gladstone, New Jersey, April 1980.

When I am asked what my paintings mean I reply that they have no meaning; only words have meaning. Paintings have character, quality, feeling.

Judging a painting is like judging a person. You get familiar with it, size it up, think about it and decide if you want it around. Some people are phonies and hustlers; so are some paintings. Some paintings endure and keep on giving; so do some people.

A good painting makes you do the work. Like a Hamada pot, it "just sits there like a stone by a river-bed. It does not perform, it does not reach out and grab you. It is fulfilled within itself and does not seem to care whether you like it or not."

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