If Joe Zucker were not a painter, he might be a pirate (a theme that appears in his work), a weaver (since he is so adept at merging different concepts into a coherent whole), an executive at the Container Store (since the idea of storage as an art form is a deep concern), a fisherman (since that is his favorite pastime) or a basketball player (he coaches the Bridgehampton High School Killer Bees).
Fortunately, he is a painter, and one of the most accomplished artists living and working in the Hamptons. Zucker is widely recognized by critics and by his peers, and is exhibited in galleries in this country and Europe, with work in the permanent collections of MoMA, the Whitney, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New Museum, the Jewish Museum, Harvard’s Fogg Museum, Yale, and numerous others including both the Parrish Museum and Guild Hall. I recently visited him in his large East Hampton studio, where he is preparing for two major shows, one called “Plunder” that features works on pirate themes and opens September 4th at Nyehaus, on Gramercy Park in New York, and another in Maastricht in the Netherlands, scheduled for February.
He sometimes works with scrolls, some on a monumental scale, that are painted on both sides so that the rolled ends reveal something more than is being made obvious on the front. While the work reveals, it also hides. And scrolls, by nature, are their own storage cases, one of his current themes. Zucker creates what he calls box paintings in the form of diptychs so that one piece becomes the cover for the other. The idea of storage thus moves from a logistic to an artistic plane, from the mundane to the challenging, engaging the viewer in a provocative, highly conceptual way.
Zucker lives in a modern house on a large piece of property between East Hampton and Sag Harbor. The architecture, which is fairly typical of its time, the early 1980s, blends into the woods on the exterior and definitely takes a back seat to the varied art and objects on the inside. His wife, Britta Le Va, a photographer and interior designer, has a sure and steady hand in decorating, and a refined and restrained approach. She points out that their own house is minimal and loft-like, to allow space for hanging Joe’s work. “We don’t need many objects. All I do is change the flowers and grasses seasonally.”
The result is austere beauty that is at the same time welcoming and lived in. It is a home with great serenity and—what you don’t expect in a house of this provenance and in this location—dignity. The Zuckers did not achieve this the usual way, by playing it safe and doing things in a predictable minimalist way. While modern, it is not the kind of stuff you buy in a store or see in other people’s homes. “I don’t use things off the rack,” Britta says.
As examples, the furniture and glassware and alabaster dishes are designed by Britta and exquisitely executed by craftsmen, often in Egypt, where she has photographed extensively. Another example: an outdoor chandelier is made from a driftwood bush. But it is all used sparely and wisely, so that the strongest feature, whether shape or color or texture, is there to be savored.
“There is no signature look” she points out, either for Britta or for her clients. Interestingly, Britta’s free spirit has a strong parallel with Joe’s work. You can’t pin him down to a specific style, at least not in a traditional sense. The changes in his work relate not to modification of images, which is often the case as artists grow and change, but more inherently to subject matter and how the work is made. “I’m a perpetual group show,” he says.
Captions
Joe Zucker in his studio preparing for his latest shows. On the worktable is a twenty-four foot scroll featuring flying cannonballs and pirate ships. In the background are new drawings from his pirate series.
Outside Zucker’s studio, grasses and wisteria grow along a brick path leading to the living quarters. Multiple skylights and sliding glass doors fill the studio with natural light, and when the doors are open, with fresh air.
Britta Le Va’s reference library and workroom is spare to emphasize the shapes and textures of the furniture and art objects, but not as spare as the more public areas of the house. Japanese and Chinese lanterns hang on both sides of a chaise designed by Britta and made in Egypt.
Outdoor curtains and a chandelier made from a driftwood bush frame the passage from a wisteria-covered outside courtyard to the pool area.
The pool, a shimmering retreat in the pine and oak woods, shimmers even further at night with custom made glass bead spheres lit from inside by candles.
A view of Zucker’s current exhibition at Nyehaus, on Gramercy Park, showing AR/AR, an acrylic, rhoplex and cotton on canvas painting from 1979, with pirate drawings in the background.
Zucker’s interpretation of a ship’s sails pierced by cannonballs, showing seascapes and landscapes through the circular openings of the torn sails. The massive installation, woven of many parts, covers floor and walls in the Nyhaus exhibit.
The glass roofed passage between the studio and the house serves as a place to sit and relax, or with some furniture changes as a site for dinner parties. The pirate flag on the studio doors signals one of Zucker’s important current themes. Bronze daybeds were designed by Britta and crafted in Egypt.
Paint cans line a worktable covered with splotches that document Zucker’s color choices. In the background, a new series of pirate drawings.
Each year, for the past 31 years, Zucker has given Britta a Valentine present of a watercolor or drawing that reflects their habitat and their lives together. Framed, they now line the bedroom walls.
Zucker’s scrolls are produced on horizontal surfaces, such as this large worktable on sawhorses, where they can rolled and unrolled as he paints.
The tools of the trade: brushes and rollers of various sizes meticulously arranged on a table in the studio.