Comments on: Walter Tandy Murch

By: Greg Winterhalter

Greg Winterhalter — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 23:00:22 +0000

I was,a student if Walter Tandy Much in the mid 60’s at Boston University and at the Skowhegan School in Maine. I can attest to the powerful.magic of his work as well as the greatness of his,yeaching. He opened many doors in my mind during those years. Great man!

By: john gauld

john gauld — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 16:05:08 +0000

I had Walter as my painting instructor my senior year at Boston University, 1963, and spent my masters program with him until 1965. His voice and comments remain with me. He urged me to throw dirt on the gessso canvas. Finally in frustration I did and produced some of my more energized pieces. His reply when asked why, he said, ” I wanted you to get beyond seducing yourself with your ability to draw.” He always looked into where the student was trying to go, not just pushing his style. He was an incredible person.

By: Debora Williams

Debora Williams — Sun, 19 Mar 2017 01:12:40 +0000

I have purchased a landscape painting on canvas from a sale in Kansas City it is signed TMurch 62 but does not look like these examples, however I am puzzled because looked at the mark on the back of the canvas and the maker is from Brooklyn New York. Do you know of other example of his work that are landscapes and do you know if he ever signed TMurch? Thanks for you help.

By: AADFI

AADFI — Sun, 04 Sep 2016 15:20:54 +0000

In reply to Anne Fordyce.

We are from florence “Accademia delle Arti del Disegno”, we are looking for Anne Boardman for the 50th anniversary of the great flood and CRIA. Please write us at info@aadfi.it

By: Emily Brown

Emily Brown — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 12:27:19 +0000

In reply to Rebecca.

I’ve just noticed this site; so glad to be able to view his work easily here. I agree with what Rebecca, Frances and Phil have said. Shall look for the book Bill mentions.

What acute sensitivity to light, texture and surface.

Thank you!

By: Quincy Whitney

Quincy Whitney — Sun, 12 Apr 2015 10:55:08 +0000

I am trying to find out more about the Murch painting of a musical instrument that became the November 1962 Cover of Scientific American. Research for an upcoming biography of violin maker Carleen Hutchins. Please advise. Quincy Whitney?

By: luke hanley

luke hanley — Sat, 20 Sep 2014 09:13:18 +0000

For a moment there, I thought I was looking at the face of ‘The Milk Maid’ by Vermeer. I recall reading somewhere a quote by Walter Murch where he described his technique. He would give the under painting a least two layers of paint then scrape it back after it was dry “with any thing at hand”….. probably a fine sand paper, scalpel or both. Anything to DISTRESS the surface! He would then build the image with touches of paint on what was left behind. What your looking at is a result of building and erasure, with his sensibility between the layers. When you stop is up to you.

By: Rombeaut Albert

Rombeaut Albert — Sun, 08 Dec 2013 11:24:07 +0000

Bonjour,
Hello,
Heureux d’avoir découvert aujourd’hui, grâce à vous, ce peintre dont j’ignorais l’existence et surtout l’œuvre. Il peint le temps; il peint la fragilité de toute image. Ce faisant, il nous peint.
Encore merci.

By: Domenic Cretara

Domenic Cretara — Sat, 19 Oct 2013 22:16:29 +0000

I had the great good fortune to work with Walter Murch for a few months before he died. He would walk around and look at your work and often not say anything but he was thinking about it. Then when the time was right he would softly say something that would completely open up the way you’d been thinking about it. He didn’t talk just to make noise as many teachers do. He wasn’t afraid of silence but when he spoke it changed everything. The “Old Guard” faculty at B U were real artists who brought the insights of a lifetime of work and experiment in their studios into the classrom. I also worked closely with Conger Metcalf who was a wonderful artist and a profoundly good man. David Aronson, Joseph Ablow, Reed Kay, John Wilson, Richard Yarde, David Ratner, Lou Cohen, LLoyd Lillie,
Arthur Polonsky and others created an environment that felt more like an apprenticeship than a college art dept. They were, and are amazingly dedicated artists and there was a seamlessness between what they did as artists and how they taught. I didn’t realize at the time how unusual a thing that would become. I didn’t know then that I would spend the next 40+ years as an artist who also worked as a college level art teacher. Their example has guided me to the best of my abilities.

By: Lucille Procter Nawara

Lucille Procter Nawara — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:57:12 +0000

The “Self-portrait with Glasses, c. 1960” at the top of this online article was dated looks as if it were painted at least 10 years before 1960. I was lucky enough to take a drawing class at Boston University with Walter Murch around 1966. He was the most profound studio teacher I ever had (in 8 years of college and graduate study, and the quote at the top of this article captures the essence of his mysterious guidance. He had us lay our large half-finished nude figure drawings out on Commonwealth Avenue in Brookline, in front of the B. U. art studio – long enough for muddy footsteps and tire tracks lay their gray-brown imprints. Then we were to rework our drawings, even upside down, integrating the random textures and marks with those we made while observing the model. The point was that we were learning to make drawings, not illustrations of the figure.

I will add the Conger Metcalf also taught drawing at B. U. at that time and was another wonderful teacher of observation and sensitive weighted line (to convey shadow, gravity, negative space, focus) and learning to see the overlapping of muscles and bones below the skin by the slightest nuances of the contour line and its quality of softness, angularity, and overlapping lines or shadows. Add painter Arthur Polonsky to this mix, and there was a humanist, enigmatic and oblique, but very encouraging and helpful in a spiritual, almost non-verbal way, though he was amiable and conversant.

Thank you for your wonderful article!