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RE THE F-111: A COLLECTOR'S NOTES
Robert C. Scull

In 1961 I heard about an artist who was working in a manner different from that of the then prevailing abstract expressionism. He was not represented by a gallery, and one had to visit his studio to see his work. My guide was Richard Bellamy, director of the Green Gallery. One Sunday we rendezvoused in front of a building on Coenties Slip, in lower Manhattan, and after the usual shout-from-the-street-instead-of-doorbell, we made our way upstairs.

To this point, the preceding could describe many of my loft and studio visits. Meeting James Rosenquist was another experience. I encountered an ill-at-ease ex-North Dakotan of about twenty-eight who spoke in a painfully abstract manner. He had been in New York some six years, I learned, and till recently he had made his living as a billboard painter. I had to ask to be shown his paintings. The first ones, his older work, evidenced the influence of the abstract expressionists. This was not surprising, considering the impact of the great works that had recently come from Pollock, de Kooning, Still, Rothko, and Kline. After this slightly historical display Rosenquist brought out three canvases he had just completed. They were figurative works, but their images were unlike any I had ever seen. They seemed to me as disconnected and puzzling as Rosenquist's way of speaking.

The one that interested me the most was a large canvas in acid-bright colors. It was not the color that aroused my curiosity, but rather the madness of the imagery. Entitled The Light That Won't Fail, the painting was divided into three sections. The largest was given over to a large part of a television screen; one of the smaller sections revealed part of a Spam sandwich, the other, the profile of a girl's mouth, chin, and neck.

I asked why the objects were not centered - why only fragments of them were used. No answer. I pressed for some explanation. The artist finally came out with, "Man, this is our new religion - the cathode-ray tube - and the painting is the explanation."

I liked that. It focused on what I came to see was at the heart of Rosenquist's work: his immediate concern with the forces playing on all of us.

I judge art, not by history, but by the measure of my response and personal involvement in the art experience. The Light That Won't Fail almost annoyed me and at the same time it charmed me, for I could see that Rosenquist was looking at things in a new, contemporary manner. I bought the painting then and there (incidentally giving the artist his first sale). It seems to me as strong today as it did in 1961.

By 1964 the extraordinary movement that came to be known as pop art was a generally accepted fact. New works by Rosenquist, Oldenburg, Dine, Wesselmann, Warhol, Indiana, and Lichtenstein were being bought by collectors and museums, and the new art had even triumphed over the name given to it, half in fun, half in condescension. During the winter of 1964-1965 the art world heard that Rosenquist was working on a mammoth canvas. I asked Jim if I might see it. No, I was told. Even he had not seen it all together, he said, since he was painting it in sections and his studio, big as it was, could not accommodate the whole thing. Disappointed in that, I inquired if he had other new work to show. No, he said, because the "big one" was taking all his time.

As the weeks went by, about the only solid news from the studio was that the new work included a gigantic rendering of a fighter-bomber and that the painting itself was more than eighty feet long. Jim gave his friends the impression that his task was perhaps too great. He would mumble that he "had to get on with it," that "there was no turning back." I sensed obsession. His attitude may have had romantic overtones, but what it meant, practically speaking, was that for over half a year there were no canvases for sale and the artist's obligations were piling up.

In the spring of 1965 I left the city on a vacation. After attending four of Jim's openings in a row, I was going to miss the unveiling of the "big one," since his schedule and mine could not be made to coincide. However, I counted on returning while the canvas was still in the gallery.

The exhibition opened and the F-111 was an immediate success - if that word also means instant controversy. As usual, Rosenquist's work was applauded by those who understood its significance. Those who disliked pop art could not dismiss the painting and were astonished by what they deemed the arrogance of such a huge undertaking.

My vacation ended. When I returned to New York and went to 4 East 77 Street, I was surprised to see trucks at the entrance and moving men on the stairs leading to the gallery. Somehow I had arrived a day late and the painting was being taken down. Worse news was in store. Leo Castelli, Jim's dealer, was in the act of dispatching forty-one of its fifty-one panels to individual buyers all over the United States. The role of this remarkable dealer must be noted. Although he had sold the majority of the panels, he had had the foresight to stipulate that all sales were subject to cancellation if a purchaser could be found for the entire painting before it left the gallery. I informed Mr. Castelli that I would buy the painting and keep it together.

For me, the F-111 is tremendous. I am not referring to its size, although it is certainly a tour de force in this respect, with some 850 square feet of real excitement. First of all, it is a great painting in the traditional sense of orderliness, integrity, and execution. But I have encountered these qualities in many paintings I did not care to own. Two things drew me to this one: its authority - every bit of it was done with the dexterity of a master and its content. Most art historians seem to agree that one of the specifics for greatness in a work of art is that it seriously mirror or comment on its own time. The F-111 does this overwhelmingly. It presents the essence of the United States' relationship to the world, displaying the equation of the good life of peace, with its luxuries and aspirations, and our involvement with the potential for instant war and final annihilation. I regard the painting as a milestone in the visual literature of what is perhaps art's greatest theme: the struggle between life and death. It speaks to all mankind, employing the plain language of everyday men, not the secret signs of the specialist.

The history of the F-111 since I bought it is a story in itself. Like a true flying machine, it has traveled to other countries, touching down wherever a large enough wall space was available. I am happy indeed to welcome it home again and to have it seen by visitors to the Metropolitan.

Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, March 1968: 282-83