Max Mallie's Blog: Pastel Artist Daniel E. Greene

Daniel E. Greene, whose career as a painter spans seven decades, has been committed
to the pastel medium since first cutting his teeth in portraiture as a street artist in 1950s Miami. Although he has worked heavily in oil as well (most of his commissioned portraiture is done in that medium), in his personal work he has always moved back and forth between the two. And his pastels—large, formal, conceptually and technically dazzling—proved years ago that the medium is just as suitable as oils for creating accomplished, serious work.

I talked to the artist last April, just after his latest one-man show at Gallery Henoch in New York City. I asked the artist about the experiences, choices, achievements and specific paintings that have shaped his life in art. The full article can be seen in the October 2015 issue of Pastel Journal—the 100th issue—available here or on newsstands.

Here is what the artist had to say about painting fabrics—one of the captivating elements of his still life work.

“I’ve always been interested in painting fabrics. And that goes back to the beginnings of doing portrait commissions. Throughout art history, artists who have painted portraits have had to paint fabrics, and developed methods for dealing with the fact that the folds in the sitters’ clothing change from day to day. They might put the clothes on mannequins or add starch to the fabric so folds remain constant. I practiced how to go about dealing with these changes by setting up materials in various still life setups. That lead to an enjoyment of painting interesting fabrics. The fabrics in these still life paintings started to become one of the salient characteristics. So I began to collect interesting fabrics.”

Greene, who has a new solo exhibition opening in January 2016 at Cutter and Cutter Gallery in St. Augustine, Fla., shared a few additional paintings from his illustrious life in art: