Peppers & Abstract Expressionism

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Mark Rothko
No. 61 1953

My first contact in any form, with the Sweet Pepper, was in the art-room at school. We sliced them in two and drew their insides. I didn't know they were food. A working-class boy from Winson Green, I was unaware of their very existence until that point. As I was of Mark Rothko. Naive and unschooled, it took a visit and lecture from a student teacher to open my eyes to Abstract Expressionism and to the wider American school of (then) contemporary art. I don't remember his name, and would assume that if he's still alive today, he would be about seventy. But thank you, whoever you were/are, you changed my life.

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