artists BIO

Chip Putman

A silver bola tie cannot disguise the fact that I am totally an east coast boy. Sadly, growing up I could never visit the Grand Canyon or hike the Red Rocks of Sedona. I lived an hour outside of New York City and found my great adventures to be museums and galleries. A day at the Met was heaven. I’d travel from Botticelli and the Renaissance to Rembrandt and the great Baroque painters. The drama of Delacroix led to the light-filled galleries of the Impressionists. And Picasso! At MoMA I saw van Gogh’s Starry Night, Monet’s Water Lilies and all of the Abstract Expressionists. While hiking through SoHo galleries I experienced the current Avant-garde. By the time I graduated from high school I had learned one thing; big colorful paintings are really fun to look at. 

SUNY Purchase is a small, little-known state college an hour outside of NYC. It was the only school I applied to and after a couple of years they finally let me in. I went for one reason, Irving Sandler. He became my college adviser and mentor. As the center of the art world was shifting from Paris to NYC, Irving Sandler was in the middle of everything. He drank with de Kooning and the artists at the Cedar Street Tavern, he wrote for Art News, he coordinated the legendary artists’ “Club”. He managed the Tanager Gallery; he wrote the four-volume survey of contemporary art, he founded Artists’ Space … and he taught a few days a week at Purchase. By the time I left Purchase I had learned one thing; in the art world, fame and fashion are fickle and fleeting, and it would be best to just paint what I love, clearly and honestly.

Paintings are made to be looked at.  I want my paintings to be like a loud, misbehaved two-year old trying to jump out of her crib, demanding to be heard. An anathema to interior designers! After a hectic day I want my collectors to turn off Netflix, relax with a glass of wine and simply look at the paintings.