Summer in the City. Leonard Koscianski, 42″x26″, oil on canvas, 2017.
Summer in the City is a medium size painting, in oils on canvas. Its based on childhood memories of summers spent at the municipal pool in Parma, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. Everyday in the summer the pool was packed with kids from the nearby neighborhoods. Except for the lifeguards, and the managers, there were no adults. Its not that they weren’t allowed, they just never came in the afternoons. In the background – the Cleveland skyline as it existed in 1963.
Stylistically it is an eclectic mix of American Realism, Surrealist Art, and American Primitive painting. This mixing of styles makes it Postmodern Art. The diver is realistic, but the houses are severely simplified, ala the surrealist paintings of Giorgio de Chirico. Paintings based on childhood memories are a favorite of American Primitive painters. The texture of the water and concrete were both created by underpainting with thick, pure white paint to create the textures. The colors were glazed over the top of the dry white paint, giving them luminosity. The space of the painting is a Surrealist distortion of classical perspective. The viewer is looking straight down at the diving board ladder, but straight out at the city skyline.
This painting was sold by the Stremmel Gallery in Reno, Nevada.