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 ammy Peters works in the modernist tradition of abstract expressionism with a limited number of geometric forms that have evolved from his earlier figurative work. Abstract expressionism was initially brought to world prominence in the 1940s and 50s by artists such as Adolph Gottlieb, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell.
Born in 1939 in Shreveport, Louisiana, Peters learned about drawing, painting and commercial art growing up in his father's sign painting shop. As a teenager he became a protégé of the artist Edwin Brewer. Peters attended the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville and Little Rock University where he was a student of art history and design. His initial successes in regional competitions, such as the Delta Annual, inspired him to pursue painting professionally in addition to taking over his fathers company. From his Arkansas studio Peters has built a successful painting career that now spans more than 40 years.
Peters is represented across the United States by a number of galleries including: Multiple Impressions in New York, NY; LewAllen Contemporary in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Gail Harvey Gallery, Santa Monica, California; The Heights Gallery, Little Rock, Arkansas; Bentley Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona and Bentley Projects in Phoenix, Arizona.
Sammy Peters: I was born in 1939 in Shreveport, Louisiana and my family moved to Little Rock, Arkansas when I was 6. I have lived in Little Rock my whole life apart from a brief excursion to the west coast in 1964. The south was a very nourishing place to grow up. My mother and father spent a lot of time with us. My family was middle class. My father was the owner of a sign painting business. We weren’t wealthy but my sister and I were well provided for. As a sign painter and amateur artist, my father had his artistic side, so it was a very art indulgent family. The best way to keep me busy when I was a child was to put me on the floor with some crayons and paper and I would be happy.
Art Interview: Did your parents encourage you to become an artist?
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Sammy Peters
Installation View |
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Sammy Peters: No, not directly. My father would have liked to encourage me more but my mother was the one that ruled the house. My father was never really pushy about anything and his easygoing manner was positive for me. Had he been pushy I don’t think I would have achieved as much. I was lucky because art was always around me when I was young. There was a period when my father and his friend were making a comic strip together and our living room became their studio. Every day I would come home from school and something different would be happening in that room, a different set or model that they were drawing from. It was great for me to grow up surrounded by all of that.
Art Interview: Did you receive support from your parents while you studied at the university?
Sammy Peters: Absolutely. My father didn’t have a lot of understanding of what was happening in art in the forties. He was more interested in the art of his time; Edward Hopper and Newell Convers Wyeth, but he was very supportive. My mother was very keen on me being good at sports. That was her big dream so I played throughout my time at school.
Art Interview: Were your parents happy that you became in artist?
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Sammy Peters
Notion: Objective; Intentions
2006
Mixed Media On Canvas
48 x 60 inches
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Sammy Peters: My father didn’t really understand the painting that I was doing but he still was very pleased. We talked about art and my art in particular, but he never viscerally came to terms with what I was doing. He took great pleasure in telling his friends how much my paintings sold for; “ Can you believe my son just sold a painting for this much”. Compared to my prices today it wasn’t all that much money but it seemed to him to be a lot for a painting. My mother was always “just” pleased not excited, very laid back and all “ Yeah my crazy son is an artist”.
Art Interview: What were your reasons for studying art at a university?
Sammy Peters: That’s quite a difficult question to answer because I was a very cocky teenager. I thought I could do anything and the combination of being good at sports and being a successful student gave me a lot of self-confidence. When I graduated from high school I felt I already knew everything there was too know about art. So when I went to university I took some art classes but I didn’t give them the attention that I should have. I did well enough in my courses but I was bored and had trouble staying in tune.
Art Interview: Did you have any role models while you were at college?
Sammy Peters: Yes, at Little Rock University (now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock) I had a teacher named Edwin Brewer. His father, Adrian Brewer, was probably the best-known artist in Arkansas. He and Edwin had a studio that they had built together. Edwin thought I had a lot of potential and took me under his wing. I would go over to this amazing studio and we would listen to music and paint together.
In high school I also had a wonderful art teacher, Helen Terry Marshall. She was really a wonderful art teacher, very ahead of her time. She actually just died recently in her 90’s but she used to bring in influential films from New York and a lot of animation from the Canadian School of Animation. I will always remember her having us paint to jazz music.
Art Interview: Edwin was quite supportive of your work when you were studying?
Sammy Peters: Yes, he was very supportive. My father and I would go to Edwin’s and paint. Edwin was a huge influence on me early on. Some of the first paintings that I made were done in his studio and you could easily see they were very Edwin Brewer influenced pieces. He was steeped in an almost classical cubism if there is such a term. He would look at nature then find the patterns within it. His landscapes, for example, tended to be quite structured and blocky. They were really quite nice. Edwin’s father Adrian was a realist and my father really loved his work. I believe my father actually saw Adrian as a role model.
Art Interview: Has the image that you had of what the life of an artist would be changed for you over the years?
Sammy Peters: Yes, absolutely. When I was young I had a very romantic picture of life as an artist. I think I imagined it to be more Bohemian than it really is. Times have changed though and I have to admit I was pretty Bohemian back then.
Art Interview: What artists do you admire today?
Sammy Peters: I could name a few artists that I have responded to at some point. Richard Diebenkorn is an artist that I value highly. I appreciate several different periods of his work, his figurative period, his earlier abstract expressionism, and I was able to follow his career at each stage. I also feel a strong affinity towards Philip Guston, his early abstract expressionist work was a little on the tame side but I liked it. I thought that it was very elegant, very mastered and I admired his courage during the transition he made into figurative work. I respected his ability to say; “Well, this is what I am doing now with these huge cartoon developments”. Willem De Kooning has been my favorite abstract expressionist from the beginning of my career.
Art Interview: Did you have to work a job while you were studying?
Sammy Peters: No. I spent my time studying and partying. I didn’t take learning very seriously until after I left school. I think is the same story for a lot of the boys that I went to university with. I started off at the University in Arkansas and then transferred to Little Rock University.
Art Interview: Did you ever suffer as a starving artist?
Sammy Peters: No, I was never in that situation. My father suggested to me that I stay and work at the sign business with him, since there weren’t many galleries that could support an artist at that time. He offered to support me with my art by helping to buy materials and acquire a studio. I wanted to go to New York in order to get my work out there, but his idea didn’t sound so bad to me. I have never had to paint for money and still don’t. Had I gone to New York I might have become a little more known than I am now, but I personally prefer to not have to rely on my art in order to survive.
Art Interview: Certainly you do well financially from the sales of your artwork.
Sammy Peters: It’s hard for me to think in those terms. Having the sign business, where eventually my wife ended up working, meant we were very secure. We eventually sold the business and the residuals together with our pensions were enough for us. Of course my wife loves the income I receive from my art, but if it were up to me I wouldn’t sell any of my paintings. If I had enough space to store them all I would. It’s not that I want to hide my paintings from the public but there are just some paintings that I really just don’t want to let go of.
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Sammy Peters
Alternate: Static; Unity
2004
Mixed Media on Canvas
60 x 48 inches
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Art Interview: So you never made the conscious decision to live from your artwork?
Sammy Peters: That was a decision I never really had to make. You have freedom if money is never an issue. If one uses art as a primary source of income you end up dwelling on the insecurity of the market. I have a number of friends that make their livelihood from artwork alone and when we get together I hear angst in their voices. They talk about how the market is changing and how so few paintings hang on gallery walls in New York. It’s not a big issue for me. That painting comes in and out of fashion is a very sad state of affairs for some but it’s not going to affect me one way or another.
I make regular forays into the art world and I’ve found that I don’t identify with it very much. I always come back and carry on with what I was doing at my easel, fairly unaffected.
During the eighties there was a huge art boom and a lot of young artists were making large sums of money. But then they suddenly disappeared. I personally can’t imagine what that must be like to be suddenly propelled into the spotlight and retracted back in the blink of an eye. You could see the trails of a lot of them trying to jump to the next trend as they floated away.
Art Interview: Did you have the intention of becoming a professional artist when you were young?
Sammy Peters: To be a professional artist in the South in the sixties was not really a possibility. You couldn’t make money there with art. But I felt that I was a serious artist and I knew that I was going to pursue art. I spent all of my free time in the evenings and on the weekends in my studio.
Art Interview: How did you approach your first gallery?
This oral history transcript is the result of a digitally recorded interview with Sammy Peters on March 26, 2007. The interview took place over the telephone between Berlin, Germany, and Little Rock, Arkansas, USA and was conducted by Lucie Ackerman for Art Interview Online Magazine.
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