My newest and favorite serendipitous discovery is .... Donald Sultan. He's been an institution for a long time in the New York City art world, though I am sorry to admit I know little about that world or his art. In real life, he is the most engaging and positive man, someone you would say has "good energy," and whom you might be compelled to hug, on a whim, as the room grows with endless possibilities in his presence.
Donald started Tuesday night, "Artists' Night" at my local, Edward's, where you can get a burger for five bucks, add a dollar more if you want cheese, and a martini for five bucks as well. I had always known this about him, but he didn't really come on to my radar, until I ran smack dab into him in the lobby of my Dallas hotel a few weeks ago. He was in Dallas for a book reading, of his new book, Donald Sultan: Theatre of the Object, and I was doing a press junket for HBO (No. 1 Ladies, what else?) I said hello to him, giggling that the person I would run into in Dallas would be the person I often saw across a table, across the street ....
I ran into him last night and introduced myself as "the woman in Dallas." I must say, he knows one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE WRITERS, James Salter, so as I flailed my arms and gushed emphatically (something people do over Donald's and his work), I could only get out snippets of how I LOVED that Salter writes about a meal Sultan made in Salter's book that he co-wrote with his wife, Life is Meals.
The Donald Sultan Dinner is entry August 30th:
The dining room in Donald Sultan's small country house is longer than it is wide, with a worn floor painted in brilliant black-and-white diamond design. It adjoins a square, far-from-modern kitchen. A painter, one imagines, possesses a sense of style. Maybe not Francis Bacon or Jackson Pollack, but definitely Donald Sultan, who has, among other things, designed the decor for a hotel named for him in Budapest and who is a remarkably good cook. He gave an impromptu dinner one August night that involved, however, not more than ten minutes cooking.
With drinks there were two cheeses. One, he seemed to remember, was yak cheese, though this seemed unlikely, and the other a Fribourg. There was also a hard Italian salami on a board with a sharp knife and crackers. The dining table was covered with a beautiful cloth, and plates and silverware had been set out. There were many candles, including some in wall sconces.
On a large platter were sliced red and green tomatoes with fresh mozzarella and basil, and on another, quartered store-roasted capons. First however, came soft-boiled eggs, decapitated in their shells, with a dollop of caviar on top. A bit later, a plate of steaming corn-on-the-cob was brought in.
There were five of us. After the egg, one ate as one pleased. As always, there was good wine, and for dessert, thin handmade cookies from the best local source.
Pleasurable in every way - the food, the intimacy, ease, and presentation. The reaction was predictable: we ought to do this ourselves.
This approach to life and to entertaining is marvelous, though I am not sure where one gets "yak cheese," even in Sag Harbor. He's such a jovial man, and I can envision spending a night cutting salami off the wooden board, full of style, and good conversation.
It is his humanity that I found so striking, but there should be a few bragging moments for his new book, these lifted off Amazon:
An immaculately produced volume, Donald Sultan is a detailed examination of the artist’s distinguished thirty-year career and captures the essence of an innovative spirit whose work continues to evolve and inspire.
In the electrified atmosphere of New York’s downtown art renaissance of the 1980s, when graffiti and post-modern figuration were filling gallery walls and art magazines, Donald Sultan (b. 1951) developed a strikingly different style using simple iconography and a complex technique. His gouged and spackled paintings of lemons, tulips, and vases were abstract, familiar, erotic, and captured enthusiastic critical attention immediately. Influenced by artists from Sasetta to Warhol, Sultan chose still life as the vehicle for advancing his mission to “haul painting into the 21st century.” Today, Sultan’s work can be found in more than forty-five American museums, including MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Gallery of Art.
Later this afternoon, I received an e-mail from Donald. A lovely man. He had talked about another fun thing last night, movie reviews on You Tube called Reel Geezers. He wrote two lines, to give me the website address. This is a classic example of the fact: discoveries beget discoveries.
