Artist Eric Forstmann
July 27, 2021
What some see as rubbish, painter Eric Forstmann sees as inspiration.
Text by Robert Kiener
Connecticut-born-and-bred painter Eric Forstmann makes the ordinary extraordinary. Take, for example, one of his most popularâand best-sellingâstill-life series: a succession of well-worn, rumpled menâs dress shirts suspended on a blank wall. Thatâs right, shirts.
âWell, you canât get a much more ordinary subject for a painting than a bunch of button-down shirts hanging on wooden and plastic hangers,â admits the sixty-year-old artist with a smile. âBut Iâve always believed there is beauty in many ordinary things. And I am always trying to bring out that beauty in these simple, often overlooked images.â
The now-iconic shirt paintings, with their finely detailed curves and folds and intriguing shadows, invite viewers to slow down and look more closely. So do Forstmannâs other paintings, which feature more typical still-life subjects, such as fruit, vases, and flowers, as well as more unexpected fodder, like ceiling-high stacks of office furniture and strips of crumpled
brown paper.
Thereâs a depth and sense of fun in much of his work. Look closely, and you may spot a reflection of the artist himself in some of his still lifes. Forstmannâs work can be found in the permanent collections of museums including Waterburyâs Mattatuck Museum and Missouriâs Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Actors Meryl Streep and Warren Beatty and former president Bill Clinton have all purchased pieces.
Forstmann, who graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston, calls himself an âeyeball realist,â explaining that he prefers to work from an actual object or scene as opposed to painting from a photograph. He confesses to visiting the Sharon dump to find unusual objects to feature in his still lifes. âAnd I have gotten the occasional menâs shirt at the Goodwill store,â he admits.
But Forstmannâs portfolio isnât all still lifes. The artist combs the countryside near his home in Sharon to find scenes for his ongoing plein air landscape series. âIt is so beautiful around here. Thereâs a smallness, an intimacy, as well as occasional grandeur in this part of New England,â he says. âI feel like it deserves the respect I give it by standing there and studying it and
painting it for hours. We are so lucky to live around all this beauty.â
EDITOR’S NOTE: Eric Forstmann is represented by Eckert Fine Art Gallery + Consulting at the Mass MoCA campus, North Adams, Mass., janeeckertfineart.com.
Share
You must be logged in to post a comment.