Peter Saul’s early use of pop culture cartoon references in the very early 1960s while living in Paris, situates him as one of the few fathers of the Pop Art movement. Moreover, the influence of Saul’s paintings (with their cartoony figures, lurid-lush colors, splatter-film expressionism and contrarian take on topical subjects) pervades much of recent art in the late 2000s. It has strongly contributed to major careers, like those of Carroll Dunham, Elizabeth Murray and Peter Doig and others. Moreover, “it has paved the way for the neo-Surrealist noodlings of countless student painters spilling out of art schools and straight into the arms of a ravenous market”.
Peter Saul – Rich Guy
Rich Guy, 1965
I saw Peter Saul at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2010