ART STORIES: Lloyd Behrendt – The Lost Art of Photo Oils
talking with the artist, designer & creator themselves about their
chosen medium. Get to know the artist behind the items featured and
find inspiration in their personal stories of creativity. Today I would
like to welcome Lloyd Behrendt to Vintage Indie. Today's Art Story is a little different from our usual feature as Lloyd is currently practicing a form of art that seems to have been lost throughout the years. He takes a lot of pride in his work and keeping the traditions of photo oil art alive.
What is your preferred medium? photo oils — I call them (using the rocket scientist part of my brain :) oils on gelatin silverprint. the technique was developed in the 1800's shortly after the invention of b & w photography, often used to create portraits. the pigments are applied directly to film (or much more commonly, the silverprint itself) and are the same ones used by traditional oil artists. the difference is that they are absent the titanium white pigment that is used to obscure the charcoal sketch that is the basis for the finished oil on canvas (or other substrate). I have been using Marshall transparent Oils since 1961, when I learned at the tutelage of Sheldon Kamilar, who had mastered the technique at the New York Institute of Technology in the 1950's. He was teaching shop at Southwest (Melbourne, Florida) Junior High School and had convinced the administration to let him teach a Graphic Arts class. We used a 4X5 Speed Graphic Camera, learned to develop and print that format, and then to 'hand-color" the resulting prints.
Artist as a young man
How did you get started? At the same time I serendipitously learned the oil technique (we were space babies — it was 1960 and our folks literally were building America's space program — my family had been here since 1949 and in 1950 my dad was the Weather Officer who forecast the 1st US launch from Cape Canaveral, I was 18 mos. old and saw it from the beach at Patrick Air Force Base) because my poor math skills, or phobia thereof, made it necessary to take a different elective from the rest of my classmates and the Graphic Arts class just happened to fit my schedule — I did not take it because I wanted to, it just happened)
I discovered a tiny, beat up enlarger my folks had bought and used during WWII when they met in Alaska, my dad in the Army Air Corps (asked him why he joined in 1939, and he said that was the only way he could get a square meal, but I'm guessing he saw the war coming) and my Mom a Civil Service telephone operator (she was from a large Italian family that settled in Buffalo, my grandparents having come over from southern Italy thru Ellis Island around 1920, she was quite the adventurer, and apparently once dated Pappy Boyington of Black Sheep Squadron fame while he was a test pilot at the Bell facilities in Niagara Falls) .
I had an Agfa box camera that shot 2 1/4 negatives, purchased at the BX while we were stationed at Ramstein AFB in Germany in 1958, and that was my first venture into the world of b & w photography, my interest having been piqued in the GA class. I recently discovered a few of those negatives — pics I took of our Gordon Setter, Rebel. My Mom had learned how to paint in oils while we were stationed in the Philippines in the mid-50's and was quite good, so she was formative in my need to become an artist tho I did not realize it at the time.
Who or what inspires you? In addition to all the talented artists I interact with here on the Space Coast, and the Western Masters from the 1500's forward, I am particularly inspired by my patron saint, Francis of Assisi (one of my accidents of birth, another being born into an Air Force family just after WWII ). I read up on him and discovered that he had his epiphany during a disease/starvation induced vision in which God commanded him to 'go and do only good works'. That caused him to renounce his wealth and debauched lifestyle, and become the ascetic that still moves more people than I can imagine to follow in his footsteps.
With my art, and all else that I do, I try and reflect the good and beautiful things in the world, and share my observations, especially across time. I have come to find that my art has a very large historical component, obviously with the space launch series. But even my wildlife work is done as an homage to William Bartram's (our part of Florida in 1776, the St Johns river , ) and John James Audubon's (our part of Florida in 1823, the St Johns river) wildlife paintings.
Red Tailed Hawk
Male Pileated Woodpecker in Longleaf Pine
What advice would you give to someone wanting to get into this medium? Go for it! I made a conscious decision in the mid-80's to come back to this technique.
I made a decision back then to reject the coming of computer graphics and go back to doing my images by hand, the way they had been done for 100 years (I have now come to describe the technique as original digital as I hold up my hand — digit being the Latin root for finger). Even now, with the ubiquity of digital images (billions are created each day! from phones on up), I'm certain that there will always be a small group of users, now really becoming artists, that still use film. Once the print is created, one does not need electricity to view it, or to create it. Plus, even tho there are many filters in Photoshop that emulate say Van Gogh's style, I can still tell the difference between a film image and a digital image, sort of like the way one can tell the difference of music played back from vinyl vs. music from a CD (another renaissance!)– there is just something more pure about the old school way, and it is apparent to connoisseurs. So Go for it — You can still get B & W film ( I have been using Tri-X for 38 years now), B & W papers and chemicals, and Marshall Photo Oils.
Whooping Crane
Five Points of View
Does vintage play a role in your art or life? If so, how? This vintage technique underpins my sole occupation. Many of the images are themselves vintage, or illustrate history long passed. Interestingly, the picture above, shows me wearing my Dad's A-2 leather jacket he was issued in WWII, in front of my cradle — the B-17 '909'. My folks were stationed in Jamaica after the war, my Mom was at a cocktail party, and at 11:30 on a Saturday night, unexpectedly went into labor. They put her on a B-17 and flew her to Guantanamo Bay Naval Air Station where I was born at the hospital Sunday at 2 am (have always been a bit disappointed that I wasn't born on the plane, being an Air Force brat it couldn't be any cooler than being born on a B-17, but I guess my Mom was glad I wasn't).
Great White Egret in Freshwater Marsh
I discovered the same plane is still around giving fantasy flights throughout the US, one of about 15 still flying. I caught up with it in Vero Beach, just south of here, in early February, took this pic and then crawled thru her, 60 years after I flew in her back to Jamaica at the ripe old age of 10 days…What a trip, to see the 4 plywood, fold-up jump seats in the rear cargo hold, where my Mom must have held me for that return flight. Talk about goose-bumps!
Scrub Jay with Orchid
What is important for your customer to know about your work? Several things: It has a large historical and/or natural science component that most art doesn't have; the scenes, tho I adjust the colors (make a gray sky blue for example) are a historical illustration of the reality that is happening at that moment in time — if you compare my negatives with the finished work, you can verify that they were not 'photoshopped' to alter what was actually happening, as is possible with digital images; the work is permanent — the silverprints are inert and do not fade, and the oils are the only medium so far created by man in which the red pigment does not fade over time (goes back 500 years to the European Masters works); although I now commission ltd ed giclees and sell them at a greatly discounted price so all can enjoy the art, my original images, even though photographically based, are all one-of-a-kinds, in fact when I sign them, each one is numbered 1/1, seemingly redundant, but meant to emphasize the unique nature of the piece.
Mathers Bridge 1992
11×14 oil on gelatin silverprint original.
More about silverprint:
The choice of media for my artwork is likely the earliest form of color photography, commonly known as ‘hand-colored’ photography. This technique uses a black and white photograph — a gelatin silverprint ( that is, a silver-salts image on a durable backing) as a base for oil paints that are applied directly to the print surface.
The oils used are the same as those used by traditional oil painters , absent the titanium white used to hide the canvas.
In addition to the unusual look of this media, it offers great archival properties. Silver gelatins resist fading and oil paints have been proven to hold up for hundreds of years. The look, while it can be quite contemporary, also lends itself to reflecting things from the past, especially history-related subjects. The media also allows me fine opportunities to enhance depth. It is becoming increasingly rare in the day of digital photography.
A special thanks to Lloyd Behrendt for sharing his art story with us. Please visit Lloyd's website Blue Saw Tooth to see more of his work. He is also working on several books one hard cover ready for purchase is Birds of Feather.