Honoring the Artist: Dan Black

This week’s cover poster celebrating the 2006 Hampton Classic is not what we might expect where horses and their riders are usually the primary subjects. Instead, the artist Dan Black concentrates on an underlying optimism that prevails. Or as Mr. Black puts it, “Despite all the insanity of life, the serenity that the work presents will not vanish.”
Mr. Black sees this cover as being atypical in another way as well, its “moments of anticipation of things to come.” Even so, the image maintains the artist’s consistent style of romantic realism.
Speaking of anticipation, it’s doubtful that Mr. Black could have predicted the course his own life would take, considering his family’s professional pursuits. His mother’s side were Jehovah’s Witnesses; his father’s family were bankers.
While Mr. Black was apparently influenced by two very different kinds of traditions, it didn’t seem a problem. He found a perfect balance, becoming both a volunteer for the Jehovah’s Witnesses and also an artist.
First, his art.and particularly his interest in horses. According to Mr. Black, he was intrigued by the “bond that develops between people and their horses. Cats are aloof; a dog is all over you. But a horse is a compromise. I’ve loved horses every since I would come to the Hampton Classic and would spend my summers here. It was quite a bit different from Brooklyn Heights where I grew up. My wife’s family lived near Two Trees Farm on Scuttlehole Road so I got to know horses that way, too.”
As a volunteer for Jehovah’s Witnesses during the last 18 years, Mr. Black has only recently been able to devote more time to painting.
“An important step in my development came when I took a watercolor workshop in Maine,” he explains. “I learned how to become more spontaneous, to finish a work in a few hours. Now when we go to Tuscany, for example, I come home with 14 or 15 finished works; before, they would be half-done.”
Mr. Black also recalls another pivotal point in his artistic life when he traveled to South Dakota, creating a series of paintings of the region. A friend published the series as cards.
When asked what guiding principle he uses to evoke his images, whether they are landscapes, horses or portraits (which he has also done), Mr. Black answers without hesitation: “ My work has an old-world quality, like the eighteenth or nineteenth century, a more civilized period.”
Yet Mr. Black has another passion as well: a penchant for helping people and learning from them through his work with Jehovah’s Witnesses. Such commitment takes him to many different places when he lectures, also helping him deal with people who have a prejudice against organized religion.
It’s all in a day’s work, however. While it’s true Mr. Black is a busy person, balancing two professions throughout his week, he wouldn’t have it any other way. “You’re in a good place if you want to do a lot of things,” he says. “We train our kids to be bored. They don’t have enough to do.”
–Marion Wolberg Weiss
Look for Mr. Black with copies of his posters at the Hampton Classic near the V.I.P. Tent. Mr. Black’s website is: danielpblack.com