INTRODUCTION
Fantasy and Reality In The Art of The Di Rosa Brothers by
Fred Page/Page art Inc
RICHARD DI ROSA
CATALOGUE NOS. 1-12
RICHARD DI ROSA & HERVÉ DI ROSA
CATALOGUE NO. 5
HERVÉ DI ROSA
CATALOGUE NOS. 13-17
SELECT EXHIBITION & MUSEUM CATALOGUES
CATALOGUE CHECKLIST
by Fred Page / Page Art Inc.
Richard and Hervé Di Rosa make wild art. Fantastic art. Cool art. It seems to come from another world where the protagonists are cartoon monsters with bug eyes or human types with only one giant eye. It’s a world of fun and fantasy, a non-linear place where the laws of physics end and the power of the imagination rules over all.
Within the Di Rosas’ universe there is also a wonderful naivetê that pervades their vision. By design it’s a funhouse with wavy mirrors and outlandish scenarios, as in the painted cabinet titled Le Retable de La Mer [cat. no. 5], where the turbulent waves of an ocean sweeping across surface (Herve’s contribution) conceal an quiet undersea kingdom filled with outlandish marine life (Richard’s forte) when the doors open to reveal a huge-lipped fish and an orange arthropod staring at one another with mutual shock, seeming to say, “Wow! Look at you! You’re weird!” Their fellow denizens include sea cucumbers whose swaying tubular bodies end not in puckered mouths but in the bald heads of little men with exaggerated noses and startled eyes. And of course there is the grinning sea star, and a fraidy-cat octopus furiously swimming away from a (what else) bug-eyed eel. And all those rising bubbles make for a lively sound-scape as we take a swim through this Mad-Hatter marine world.
This innocent and extravagant sensibility illustrates one of the key differences between the French Pop artists, most often called Figuration Libre, and their American counterparts. While Andy Warhol mined the deep irony inherent in the advertising media - green-stamps and celebrity photos among them - the Di Rosas created alternate fictional worlds free of banality and its cynical realism. They sculpted and painted a world more akin to a later generation of artists, the low-brow school of the West Coast. Heavily influenced by cartoon culture, zines and animation the characters in this world are irrepressible and indestructible. Think of the relentlessly obnoxious bonhomie of Bugs Bunny, and the always thwarted schemes of Wily Coyote whose catastrophic yet hilarious deaths are shaken off in a cloud of dust making us laugh until we cry
Among Richard’s most compelling, and most representational, creatures are his 1987 painted resin busts [cat. nos. 2 & 3] of the two vagabonds, Gros and Maigre (Fat and Skinny). Dressed in white and blue striped costumes with little pork pie hats balanced on their heads, these two naives might be dressed for a seaside holiday Or they might be cosmically lost characters akin to Samuel Beckett’s hapless tramps Estragon and Vladimir in Waiting for Godot. With trumpet mouth and winking eye they appear to be in dialogue, perhaps having just shared an inside joke about their peculiar and unnerving circumstances
Richard’s sculptures present this common innocence, most often expressed through their outsized eyes. Why are they so ga-ga over everything they see? Perhaps it’s because this is the artist’s leitmotif for expressing his own wonder and visual delight at our marvelous and crazy world: the four-eyed red creature [cat. no. 1] is clearly an animated electric guitar, and the yellow cupcake creature, La Main au Pompom [cat. no. 7] with its comic selfabsorption in its single-spiked coiffure, seems, like many teenagers, blindly obsessed with its own appearance. As the piece de resistance of his art, La Femme Enciente [cat. no.12] is a buoyant and heroic-scale send-up of expectant motherhood. Prefaced by an homage to Picasso’s love of women, Richard celebrates his own love with a bubbly balloon mother who floats on a blue cloud of maternal comfort as she moves along, unhindered and unafraid of any pedestrian concerns
Though on occasion Hervé di Rosa has created three-dimensional objects, the medium of his talent is mainly canvas or paper and he is given to presenting various tableaux vivants of his own fantastical worlds and the creatures that inhabit them
The primary figure in Hervé’s oeuvre is a human-looking creature whose head is dominated by one enormous horizontal eye and dilated pupil above a mouth with a pair of bulging lips. In the painting Les Amoreaux de Hawaii [cat no.13], we have two such creatures, young lovers entranced by the flowery delights of Hawaii. With leis around their necks they loll in an exotic garden, a cyclopean Adam and Eve on vacation, enthralled with one another and their botanical paradise, staring at the whole marvelous world around them, true innocents abroad. Those who remember Rick Griffin’s images of flying eyeballs from mid-1960s San Francisco psychedelic posters will feel at home among this crowd.
In the late 1980s Hervé began to paint a series of large works on black paper, clearly titled and presented like movie posters with a vibrant and graphical design. Among these works in our catalogue Cinema [cat. no. 15], stands out in this respect. We the viewers are actually represented in silhouette as an audience watching the action on the screen, in this case a multi-period film with everything from helmeted Roman soldiers to spaceships and flying saucers and the antennae-like creatures who came with them. It’s all great fun and a complete send-up of film genres in a compact and technicolor format.
The last painting in the catalogue Untitled [cat no. 17] appears at first to be a novelty. A giant toothy head is surrounded by eight shaped panels. Closer examination reveals that the panels seem to represent among other ideas, the ages or transformations of man amid the elements of earth, air, fire and water. Could these be our destinies: to be consumed by fire, dissolved in water, fixed like stone among the basalt mountains, or blasted to infinity with rays of atomic energy? Suddenly the playful has come full stop. The bottom panel shows a cyclopean figure reclining on a blue plinth with a pyramid at one end and a huge question mark balanced at the other end, while his single arm and hand grasps an arcing dynamic arrow, possibly a symbol of man’s will and action in this ancient, hostile and ultimately mysterious universe.
Intriguing, playful and serious, the Di Rosa Brothers have created a body of work whose amazing assortment of creatures reflect in sometimes outlandish ways the full spectrum of endeavors and foibles that define our own human race.
NO. 1
Buste De La
e
Polyester resin on wood with acrylic paint; 1987
Signed and dated in black: BUDDY 87
Height: 36 3/4 inches Width: 25 3/4 inches [93.3 x 65.4 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1988
Buste du Vagabond
Polyester resin on wood with acrylic paint; 1987
Signed and dated in white: BUDDY 87
Height: 18 ½ inches Width: 23 ½ inches [47 x 59.7 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1988
Buste du Vagabond Maigre
Polyester resin on wood with acrylic paint; 1987
Signed and dated in white: BUDDY 87
Height: 21 ½ inches
Width: 12 ½ inches [54.6 x 31.8 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1988
Carved wood and metal with acrylic paint
Signed and dated in black: BUDDY 90
Height: 24 inches Width: 17 1/2 inches [61 x 44.5 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 5
‘BUDDY’ DI
[Born 1963] and HERVÉ DI ROSA [Born 1959]
Le Retable de La Mer
Hand-painted acrylic and carved wood two-door cabinet, fitted with wheels; 1986-1987
Signed on front of right-hand door at lower right: R + H DI ROSA / 86
Dimensions of Cabinet:
Height: 59 inches Width: 59 inches Depth: 16 3/4 inches [150 x 150 x 42.5 cm]
Width of Each Door: 29 1/2 inches [75 cm] Overall Width (Doors Open): 118 1/2 inches [301 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
Nature morte aux tre fleurs
Cut and welded metal with acrylic paint; 1990
Signed and dated in white: BUDDY 90
Height: 36 inches Width: 19 inches [91.4 x 48.3 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 7
RICHARD ‘BUDDY’ DI ROSA [Born 1963]
La Main au Pompon
Molded and painted polyester resin; ca. 1990
Impressed name, edition number and foundry name: BUDDY 2/8 O(livier) HALIGON [fabricated by O(livier) Haligon, [Paris, France; Miami, Florida since 1998]
Height: 10 inches Width: 5 1/2 inches [25.4 x 14 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
Bouteille et Tournesol
Cut and welded metal with acrylic paint; 1990
Signed and dated in white: BUDDY 90
Height: 37 3/4 inches Diameter: 7 1/2 inches [96 x 19 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
Carved wood and acrylic paint; 1990
Signed and dated in black: BUDDY 90
Height: 9 inches Length: 22 1/4 inches [23 x 56.5 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
Buste Femme et Enfant
Polyester resin on wood with acrylic paint; 1990
Signed and dated in black: BUDDY 90
Height: 27 inches Width: 18 1/2 inches [68.6 x 47 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
Nature Morte Aux Quatre Fleurs
Cur and welded metal with acrylic paint; 1990
Signed and dated in green: BUDDY 90
Height: 35 inches Width: 19 inches [89 x 48.3 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
Picasso loved women, and I love my pregnant wife.... I protected her with a purple umbrella, lifted her with two yellow chimneys and set her on a small blue cloud - Buddy Di Rosa, 1990
NO. 12
RICHARD ‘BUDDY’ DI ROSA [Born 1963]
La Femme Enciente
Hand-molded and painted fiberglass; ca. 1990
Incised name and edition number: BUDDY 1/3 [fabricated by O(livier) Haligon, [Paris, France; Miami, Florida since 1998]
Provenance Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 13
HERVÉ DI ROSA (Born 1959)
Les Amoreux de Hawaii
Oil on canvas; 1988
Signed and dated lower left: DI ROSA 88
Height: 38 ½ inches Width: 32 inches [97.8 x 81.2 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1988
NO. 14
HERVÉ DI ROSA (Born 1959)
Nuit Exotique
Acrylic on paper; 1990
Signed lower right: DI ROSA 90, titled lower left: NUIT EXOTIQUE
Height: 60 inches Width: 40 inches [152.4 x 101.6 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 15
HERVÉ DI ROSA (Born 1959)
Cinema
Acrylic on paper; 1990
Signed lower right: DI ROSA 90, titled lower left: CINEMA
Height: 60 inches Width: 40 inches [152.4 x 101.6 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 16
HERVÉ DI ROSA (Born 1959)
L’Enfant et La Baleine
Acrylic on paper; 1990
Signed lower right: DI ROSA 90, titled lower left: L’ENFANT ET LA BALEINE
Height: 60 inches Width: 40 inches [152.4 x 101.6 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 1 7
HERVÉ DI ROSA (Born 1959)
Untitled (Nine shaped sections)
Acrylic on canvas with applied burlap panel at center; 1985
Signed and dated lower right: DI ROSA 85
Height: 69 inches Width: 78 inches [175 x 198 cm]
Provenance
Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
CATALOGUE CHECKLIST
NO. 1 Buste De La Lyre Abstraite
Polyester resin on wood with acrylic paint; 1987
Signed and dated in black: BUDDY 87
Height: 36 3/4 in Width: 25 3/4 in [93.3 x 65.4 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1988
NO. 2 Buste du Vagabond Gros
Polyester resin on wood with acrylic paint; 1987
Signed and dated in white: BUDDY 87
Height: 18 ½ in Width: 23 ½ in [47 x 59.7 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1988
NO. 3 Buste du Vagabond Maigre
Polyester resin on wood with acrylic paint; 1987
Signed and dated in white: BUDDY 87
Height: 21 ½ in Width: 12 ½ in [54.6 x 31.8 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1988
NO. 4 Femme et Roi
Carved wood and metal with acrylic paint
Signed and dated in black: BUDDY 90
Height: 24 in Width: 17 1/2 in [61 x 44.5 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 5 RICHARD ‘BUDDY’ DI ROSA and HERVÉ DI ROSA
Le Retable de La Mer
Hand-painted and carved wood and acrylic cabinet; 1986-1987
Signed on front of right-hand door at lower right: R + H DI ROSA / 8
Cabinet: Height: 59 in Width: 59 in Depth: 16 3/4 in [150 x 150 x 42.5 cm]
Width Each Door: 29 1/2 in [75 cm] Width (Doors Open): 118 1/2 in [301 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 6 Nature morte aux tre fleurs
Cut and welded metal and acrylic paint; 1990
Signed and dated in white: BUDDY 90
Height: 36 in Width: 19 in [91.4 x 48.3 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 7 La Main au Pompon
Molded and painted polyester resin; ca. 1990
Impressed name, edition number and foundry name: BUDDY 2/8
O(livier) HALIGON [Paris, France; Miami, Florida since 1998]
Height: 10 in Width: 5 1/2 in [25.4 x 14 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 8 Bouteille et Tournesol
Cut and welded metal with acrylic paint; 1990
Signed and dated in white: BUDDY 90
Height: 37 3/4 in Diameter of Bottle: 7 1/2 in [96 x 19 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 9 La Limaçon
Carved wood and acrylic paint; 1990
Signed and dated in black: BUDDY 90
Height: 9 in Length: 22 1/4 in [23 x 56.5 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 10 Buste Femme et Enfant
Polyester resin on wood with acrylic paint; 1990
Signed and dated in black: BUDDY 90
Height: 27 in Width: 18 1/2 in [68.6 x 47 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 11 Nature Morte Aux Quatre Fleurs
Cut and welded metal with acrylic paint; 1990
Signed and dated in green: BUDDY 90
Height: 35 in Width: 19 in [89 x 48.3 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 12 La Femme Enciente
Hand-molded and painted fiberglass; ca. 1990
Incised name and edition number: BUDDY 1/3
[fabricated by O(livier) Haligon [Paris. France; Miami, Florida since 1998]
Height: 84 in Width: 72 in Length: 108 in [213.4 x 182.9 x 274.3 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 13 Les Amoreux de Hawaii
Acrylic on canvas; 1988
Signed and dated lower left: DI ROSA 88
Height: 38 ½ in Width: 32 in [97.8 x 81.2 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1988
NO. 14 Nuit Exotique
Acrylic on paper; 1990
Signed lower right: DI ROSA 90,titled lower left: NUIT EXOTIQUE
Height: 60 in Width: 40 in [152.4 x 101.6 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 15 Cinema
Acrylic on paper; 1990
Signed lower right: DI ROSA 90, titled lower left: CINEMA
Height: 60 in Width: 40 in [152.4 x 101.6 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 16
L’Enfant et La Baleine
Acrylic on paper; 1990
Signed lower right: DI ROSA 90, titled lower left: L’ENFANT ET LA BALEINE
Height: 60 in Width: 40 in [152.4 x 101.6 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
NO. 17 Untitled (Nine shaped sections)
Acrylic on canvas and burlap; 1985
Signed and dated lower right: DI ROSA 85
Height: 69 in Width: 78 in [175 x 198 cm]
Provenance: Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco, 1990
