After four years, Sullivan Goss in Santa Barbara is displaying a new solo exhibit for well-known Santa Barbara artist Hank Pitcher, Feb. 28-April 21 at the gallery, 11 E. Anapamu St., Santa Barbara.
There will be an opening reception, 5-8 p.m. March 6 during 1st Thursday.
Twenty paintings — ranging in size from a suite of 10 small paintings made on the beach from direct observation, to six large studio paintings — will tell the story of the Pitcher’s last 18 months on the beaches of Montecito. But that is only part of the story.
Fundamentally, according to Sullivan Goss, HANK PITCHER: The Miramar Affair is a love story.
“It’s a story about how long ago, a fierce and untamed Isla Vista painter and surfer, Pitcher, talked a polished and manicured blonde girl from Manhattan’s Upper East Side into making a life with him,” Sullivan Goss said.
“She was more Montecito than he was, so she asked him to find a way to live on Miramar Beach. To make his dream come true, he did,” Sullivan Goss said.
It was during that time that Pitcher painted “Tommy’s Miramar,” one of his early masterpieces. that became one of the best-selling images of Santa Barbara. Pitcher’s career blew up.
That was 40 years ago. Hank and Susan Pitcher are now grandparents. So, when a local collector commissioned him to come back and paint the Miramar, all of those old stories began to glow again.
“And he saw how love continues to unfold in this place of dreams,” Sullivan and Goss said. “He witnessed a stage managed proposal. He also saw a new generation calling themselves ‘influencers’ trying to live the dream before they can really afford it.
“Lighting the way from around the point, the Coral Casino’s lighthouse continues to lure would-be’s and already-are’s to a storied stretch of coastline. The tower itself keeps changing, but the beacon shines on.
“Fitzgerald once visited that beach; so did Einstein. But it was Fitzgerald who articulated its appeal in ‘The Great Gatsby,’ writing of another such light that it makes us believe in ‘“’the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us..
“Over the years, Hank has occasionally been called back to Miramar Beach. The affair, it seems, continues.”
Pitcher, who has been exhibiting for over 50 years, currently lectures at UCSB’s College of Creative Studies, where he has served since 1971.
A special catalogue printed in a limited edition of just 250 copies will be offered with stories written by Pitcher and images from his most recent engagement there, as well as a selection of paintings of the place from years past. Cost for the catalogue is $20, plus tax.
Early on, he befriended Bay Area Figurative painter Paul Wonner in California and later Paul Georges in New York, making him an unlikely bridge between two distinctive post-abstract figurative styles. His monograph was released in 2020 and is in its second printing.