Peter Bocour (1947-2011) grew up in the Greenwich Village art scene of the 1950’s and 1960’s. His father, Leonard Bocour, was the founding partner of Bocour Artists Colors. As a child, he spent a great deal of time in his father’s paint factory, particularly enjoying the ribbons of paint emerging from the paint guns and filling oil, watercolor and acrylic tubes sold under the names Bocour, Bellini and Aquatec. He told stories of his father giving tails of paint from the tube guns to artists such as Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning in the days before they were successful and receiving paintings by them in thanks. Bocour was an abstract artist who loved to use color and hated to draw, leading to his expressive visual vocabulary. Peter received his undergraduate degree from New York University and his MFA from the University of California at Berkeley. He also studied painting at the Skowhegen School and at the New York Studio School. When you look at Peter’s paintings and drawings, the influence of those ribbons of paint are obvious. Stare long enough and you’ll see something else though. For me, Peter’s paintings are about dance and music. Peter’s painting “Izzy’s Dragon” could just as easily have been called “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” with it’s sensous leaps, dips, turns and attitude. “Blur” is a swirl of dancers waltzing to Johann Strauss Jr.’s “Vienna Blood Waltz”. “Man O’ War” is any music for the Hustle dance from the 1970’s with dancers repeating patterns, all dressed as brightly as they can. Once you understand the musical influence on Peter’s paintings, they make enormous sense as the fusion of painting, music, dance and time, contained in a limited two dimensional surface. You understand his paintings differently. They are not incoherent jumbles of color and stroke – they are concise, carefully orchestrated performances.
Christine Debany May 15, 2013