New York City Paintings 1976 to Date

Rural Connection, Perry Street, NYC, 8" x 10", oil on canvas, October 1st, 2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Washington Square Arch  

Oil on canvas, 10” x 8”, April 23^rd, 1989  

Inspired by a ash can school artist, Everett Shinn. His painting was done in charcoal and had several drunken friends strolling down the center of the street towards you. Tom painted it from the sidewalk in the Spring.  

His outdoor style of painting evolved in Nantucket. Heretofore he was painting studio portraits. In 1985 he started taking old master paintings of landscapes, seascapes and figures in landscapes, mostly of Winslow Homer, and finding the same type scene in Nantucket and painting that in a smooth surface traditional manner. That went on for two Summers. He tried all sorts of scenes, men in boats, harbors scenes and finally settled on five different views of Main Street. In 1986 he started painting five different views of Main Street over and over again trying to perfect his landscape painting manner. He used only fours oil colors to focus on color theory. By the end on 1986 he was close to perfecting a impressionist manner. Impressionist meaning painted with a large brush and more paint than needed to cover the canvas so some of the paint raises up on the canvas. In 1987 he produced his greatest work in this manner.  

His 1987 manner followed him wherever he went and he painted most excellent works in Key West, Palm Beach, New York City, Cincinnati and Atlanta.  

In 1999 the Arch was covered while it is being repaired. Originally erected to celebrate the Revolutionary War with statues of Washington on the right and Hamilton on the left. The park was a potter’s field and the last person hung there was a black woman accused of setting a fire. Inside of the arch is one large room which could be made into a fantastic coffee shop. There are two small windows that look out. A very small spiral staircase goes up to the roof where some avant gart artists celebrated the New Year by breaking into the arch and spending the night drinking on the roof declaring the whole Village a bohemian enclave.  

 

Irving Berlin’s Home  

Oil on canvas, 10” x 8”, October 1996  

Painted from life in the upper east side of New York City. Now the home of the Ducy of Luxembourg. Tom was staying in a hotel nearby while his wife attended a professional meeting and made use of the splendid opportunity to work in the fancy Sutton Place neighborhood. The home was previously owned by Irving Berlin for many years. Tom knows John Wallowitch, a composer like Berlin, who lives just down the street. Every Christmas Eve John and his friends would sing Christmas carols outside his home. Sometimes Irving would come to the window. While working on the painting for several days Tom felt quite safe in the ritzy, glitzy neighborhood. A proverbially who’s who of American and European wealthy would walk by and it was one of the few places where Tom felt he could leave his paint stand for a few minutes to go down the street to get a sandwich.  

Several people expressed a lot of interest in the painting while he worked on it as the leaves fell from the Ginkgo trees that grow plentiful in the city. It is said that the Ginkgo tree is a prehistoric tree that was capable of surviving volcanic eruptions and the massive pollutants that come with such eruptions so is perfectly suited for growing in the polluted city. Tom had painted many such paintings on the street but worked especially hard on this one because he was slowly moving out of the apartment he lived at for twenty years in Greenwich Village and was moving to Cincinnati, Ohio, where his wife worked and his hometown.  

The composition of the painting is a variation of Tom’s tunnel view down city streets. In this view the street ends as the cliff begins dropping down a hundred or so feet to the East River. The color is indicative of Tom’s strong light and dark manner where the two light fluxes are juxtaposed against each other. The dark shadow areas are full of variation as well as the light areas but when a photo is taken of the painting the two areas cannot be reproduced correctly. Either the light or the dark area has to be focused on for the light flux difference is so great, very much like human vision.  

Tom used his yellow light and blue shadow manner. Changing the color of the light and dark areas to lean towards a stronger color gives piazza to the paintings.

Queensboro Bridge  

Oil on canvas, 16” x 12”, Fall 1996  

Greenwich Village A Primo Guide To Shopping Eating and  

Making Merry In True Bohemia by Saint Martins Press, Released May 5^th 1995,  27 paintings by the artist adorn the pages, Tom’s good friends and neighbors wrote the book. Below are some of the 29 illustrations.

 

Alan Ginsberg  

Watercolor on paper, 8” x 10”, June 1^st, 1993  

Black Marsha  

Watercolor on paper, 8” x 10”, June 1^st, 1993  

The Stonewall Inn, located at 51 Christopher Street, first opened its door in the Depression year of 1930, having been converted from two hundred-year-old stables. Utilized for several decades as a hall for private parties, business banquets, and weddings celebrations, in the decade of the sixties it became a tawdry gay bar frequented by preppie types and drag queens like. A callboy service sometimes operated on the second floor. On the evening of June 28^th, 1969, it became the improbable site of the Battle of Stonewall during a police raid of the place. Robert Bryan, a men’s fashion magazine editor, was there that night and remembers policemen being driven back by angry drag queens tired of being intimidated and oppressed by John Law. A prominent “solider” in the melee was Black Marsha (a.k.a.) Marsha P. Johnson or Malcolm Michaels), a black drag queen and panhandling Christopher Street personality for over twenty years. Read the full story in Greenwich Village, a  primo guide by John Gilman and Bob Heide from St. Martins  press. Tom Lohre did the 27 paintings for the guide. Tom lived on Christopher Street for twenty years.  

Bob Dylan  

Watercolor on painted Wild Turkey Whiskey bottle with the  top cut off, 3” x 3” x 6”, June 1^st, 1993  

Crystal Field  

Watercolor on painted wine label with the top cut off, 3” x  3” x 6”, June 1^st, 1993  

George Bartenieff  

Watercolor on painted wine label with the top cut off, 3” x  3” x 6”, June 10^th, 1992  

From the Book

The Theater for the New City was founded by Crystal Field and George Bartenieff (a husband and wife acting team), Theo Barnes. and Lawrence Kornfeld. All had emerged out of the Judson Poets Theater. Originally producing works like Eumchs jor the Forbidden City by Charles Ludlam and Evidence by Richard Forman. they later presented new plays at Westbeth, at the Jane West Hotel, at 162 Sec¬ond Avenue (at Tenth Street), and now in a permanent home at 155 First Avenue (at Tenth Street). Theater for the New City presented the first production of Sam Shepard's Buried Child, which went on to re¬ceive a Pulitzer Prize. The first act of Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy was introduced at TNC in 1976 on the two hundredth an¬niversary of the American Revolution at a festival of Village plays by Village writers. A committee was formed at TNC in 1993 to build a new Joe Cino Theater there.

Young Edward Albee  

Watercolor on paper, 5” x 7”, June 24^th, 1992  

Tiny Tim  

Watercolor on painted 40oz beer label with the top cut off,  3” x 3” x 6”, June 23^rd, 1992  

Walt Whitman  

Watercolor on paper, 5” x 7”, June 23^rd, 1992   

 

Sylvia Miles  

Watercolor on paper, 8” x 10”, June 22^nd, 1992  

Thomas Paine  

Watercolor on painted 40oz beer label with the top cut off,  3” x 3” x 6”, June 22^nd, 1992  

Sylvia Miles  

Watercolor on paper, 8” x 10”, June 21^st, 1992  

 

Steve McQueen  

Watercolor on painted 40oz beer label with the top cut off,  3” x 3” x 6”, June 20^th, 1992  

Sam Shepard  

Watercolor on painted 40oz beer label with the top cut off,  3” x 3” x 6”, June 18^th, 1992  

Maxwell Bodenheim  

Watercolor on painted 40oz beer label with the top cut off,  3” x 3” x 6”, June 17^th, 1992  

Mattheu Bodine  

Watercolor on painted 40oz beer label with the top cut off,  3” x 3” x 6”, June 16^th, 1992  

John Wallowitch  

Watercolor on paper, 5” x 7”, June 15^th, 1992  

Jessica Lange  

Watercolor on painted 40oz beer label with the top cut off,  3” x 3” x 6”, June 14^th, 1992  

Jimmy Hendrix  

Watercolor on painted 40oz beer label with the top cut off,  3” x 3” x 6”, June 14^th, 1992  

James Dean  

Watercolor on painted 40oz beer label with the top cut off,  3” x 3” x 6”, June 13^th, 1992  

Henry James  

Watercolor on paper, 5” x 7”, June 12^th, 1992  

Eleanor Roosevelt  

Watercolor on painted 40oz beer label with the top cut off, 3” x 3” x 6”, June 6^th, 1992  

Edward Albee III  

Watercolor on paper, 5” x 7”, June 4^th, 1992  

Edward Albee II  

Watercolor on paper, 5” x 7”, June 3^rd, 1992  

Edward Albee I  

Watercolor on paper, 5” x 7”, June 2^nd, 1992  

Edna St.Vincent Millay  

Watercolor on paper, 8” x 10”, June 1^st, 1992  

 

Father Demos Square  

Oil on canvas, 20” x 16”, April 25^th, 1989   

 

White Horse Cafe  

Oil on canvas, 16” x 12” , April 1^st, 1989  

Washington Square Arch  

oil on canvas, 40” x 40”, April 19^th, 1989  

Washington Square  

Oil on canvas, 40” x 30”, April 17^th, 1989  

Brant’s Band  

Oil on canvas, 16” x 12”, April 16^th, 1989  

Property of Ronda Granger  

Waverly Theatre  

Oil on canvas, 24” x 20”, April 1^st, 1989  

Property of Ronda Granger 

 

Village Vanguard  

Oil on canvas, 16” x 12”, October 10^th, 1987

Whereabouts unknown  

Fifth Avenue  

Oil on canvas, 16” x 12”, May 1^st, 1987     

 

Commerce Street, New York City  

Oil on canvas, 16” x 12”, Winter 1987   

 

Cherry Lane Theatre  

Oil on canvas, 10” x 8”, May 1^st, 1986  Owner Unknown   

 

Dante’s Cafe  

Oil on mylar, 10” x 8”, June 1^st, 1985  

Owner Unknown  

 

Figaro Cafe  

Oil on canvas, 10” x 8”, May 1^st, 1985  

Owner Unknown  

Central Park  

Oil on canvas, 24” x 20”, June 15^th, 1979  

Owner Unknown  

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Brief History of Christopher Street  

March 29th, 1993  

        Stonewall just didn't happen where it did in Manhattan.  The stores, bars and apartment buildings around Sheridan Square caused the stand off to happen where it did.  The West Village was the source for piano bar entertainment back in the late 1940's.  Maries Crisis, Grove Street, and The Duplex were all just across the street from another very old bar the Lion's Head which is just next to the wall that started Stonewall. The Gay Landmark bookstore is on Christopher and Hudson and was there 25 years ago, long before the street was declared Gay.  The man who started Stonewall was called "Black Madonna, Black Marsha".  He was a popular drag queen and always a fixture on the Street.  He started it and he was killed down by the pier at the foot of Christopher just this last Summer.  His body was found floating in the river.  

      Now in Sheridan Square you have the statues to mark Stonewall.  There was a commotion this last summer when the statues were dedicated because the statues were done by a non-gay artist.  The statues are life casts of two men together standing and two women together sitting.  There is no plague marking the title or artist.  I wondered why the statues do not get any graffiti on them.  I think the city painted the statues with subway car paint, the stuff that you can remove all graffiti from.  Sometimes there's a hat on one of them and another is holding something.  

     Sheridan Square is the center of the West Village.  To mark the spot is Village Cigars and the two billboards above it.  You can always tell what year it is by the billboards.  In 1976 there was a billboard of "Hibiscus and the Screaming Violets".  Hibiscus was his stage name but he was the consummate entertainer in the vein of Voquing today.  His day name was George Harris and it was he who was seen putting the flower into the soldiers gun during the peace rally in Washington in the seventies.  George was a flamboyant entertainer at heart, raised by two parents, who were also entertainers, along with five other siblings.  They all lived in a classic ten by forty tenement apartment.  Each child had a bunk along one wall about two thirds the way up that they decorated.  

     George was one of the first to die of aids.  Hibiscus and the Screaming Violets was his last production.  There was recently a play written about his life.  His brothers and sisters wrote,  produced it and it played at La Mamma's this last year.  

     At the foot of Christopher is a fenced in concrete dock. It used to be a nice dock with a open view but now it is sterile with a chain link fence around it, like a holding cage for people.  Anyone can go there but next to it going uptown is a falling down old wood pier.  It's fence in but their is always one of the son gods that comes down with the wire clippers to cut the fence everyday and then all the men go out. People go out there to be naked.  That goes on all summer long.  The block association does not want this to go on so it wires up the fence every night.  There used to be some empty buildings on the next pier also going uptown.  It was in those buildings that Tennessee Williams  lived in the fifties.  The building always was a place for drifters to live in and tricks to be had.  

     I went swimming at the end of the pier this last summer.  It was the first time in fifteen years living there.  I didn't but my head under water and took a shower afterwards!  The water seemed clear.  It's a whole lot better than it was except for the heavy metals.  The whole edge along the river used to be a nice railing but it has fallen into disrepair and has been replaced by a road barrier.  They are slowly repairing the rivers edge.  Starting in Wall Street and Battery City the waterfront is undergoing a revitalization.  The vitalization has reached just below Christopher Street Pier to the air ducts of the Holland Tunnel.  They have laid in a beautiful park around the ducts.  The West side highway, a six lane roadway, travels the length of the West side.  Between the highway and the waters edge is about hundred feet.  A parking lot used to be the use for this space before the city gave it back to the pedestrians.  It used to be the only free unrestricted place in the city to park your car.  Now it is a open space where they have a summer market.  It is a real bizarre.  Everybody comes in with their stuff and the fair sort of lends itself to local people putting up their wares. The feeling is real folksy.  Of course that is because of regulation on who gets to come in.  

     Every year they have the Gay dance on the nice pier during Gay Pride Week.  They really pack them in for that event.  There is a little street called Weehawken and it turns into the back room during the festival.  It is a little street running three hundred feet from Christopher St. to the next street uptown.  Lots of behavior going on and it hasn't changed much since aids.  The guys don't seen to care at all.  The only comment you get is how could those men be doing that.  Blow jobs, no rubbers, the whole shi bang.  Booths are set up on the street and it becomes rather dark on that street.  I think it's mostly a golden shower place during the fair.  I wouldn't doubt that there was a guy laying along the wall being pissed on.  I didn't see it. Surly there was nothing there that doesn't happen in the bedroom of the straight world and since it's a man's world, men do it outside.  

 The Duplex, a piano bar, is in a new place now.  It was on Grove Street next to Maries Crisis but it moved to a new location in a triangle building formed by 7th Avenue and Christopher Street just across from Sheridan Square.  A old kiosks used to be there.  The building started around 1986 took forever to build probably because of the historical codes for buildings in the district.  Across the street in front of Village Cigars is a plaque in the sidewalk that makes mention that this spot has never been given to the city.  This probably means that you don't have to abided by the building codes.  

     The park marking Sheridan Square wasn't always like it is now.  In the recent past the place was quite seedy.  The whole park has been rebuilt even to the newly laid brick sidewalks and state of the art benches that are configured to not allow you to sleep on them.  They put benches in the center and lock the gate at night occasionally.  It has been restored to the old way.  It looks old but it wasn't like that, there was a old falling down fence and the sidewalks were concrete.  

     The neighborhood is slowly reverting back to a upscale area where every shop has a shop keeper.  It used to be that way in the late forties and early fifties.  Then it went into slow period of decline because of families moving out to the suburbs which made it really cheap to rent apartments.  You could change your apartment every year, nobody locked their doors.  Artists had taken over.  Artists painted on the street. Drug store Johnnies where there.  Slowly it was the late fifties and the  beat nicks were there. Living was easy.  Nobody wanted to live there because all the hippies were there.  Washington Square Park bred the folk song.  Love was free.  New York University was buying up all the buildings.  It was a college neighborhood.  

     Most of the shops were thrift stores.  Local people selling whatever they had.  The village reached it's low point financially and its high point fun wise.  Flower power was Queen.  The Lindsey administration had gone out and the city was broke.  Because of government spending, rents and living rose all throughout the eighties, bringing the same apartment that was $150 in 1976 to $700 in 1993. Local shop keepers were driven out because of the rising rents.  Only the high priced,  high volume stores and franchised stores could survive.  Upscale people started moving in because the Village was the most desirable place to live in the city and all the good apartment were taken mid-town.  More and more buildings were redone to take advantage of the higher rents.  

     With the upscale tenants comes a stronger block association and that means Christopher Street will be tamed down.  With people paying eight hundred dollars for a small apartment right on the river don't want to contend with a large group of gay men drinking beer from paper bags and milling about.  The people living on Christopher Street didn't have anything to do with its becoming the gay street.  At first it was hard to accept getting spit at and harassed being a straight couple walking down Christopher Street.  Then people started accepting one another which started getting a more younger gay crowd.  But that led to the poorer gay men spending more and more time milling about on the street.  Voguing started then from boys standing around dishing one another.  Black Madonna was murdered because of this phenomenon.  The pier just got too dangerous.  Christopher Street is now really ethic gay New York and it's going to stay that way.

Tom lived at 89 Christopher Street #2 for twenty years from 1976 to 1996. The first several years he worked on Madison Avenue in advertising. After producing several master works in oil painting he left Madison Avenue. Tom filled ten sketch books during this period. More were lived in the beginning while Tom was learning.

The sketches here were in Tom's second from last sketch book. There are still a few pages left in the back. During this period Tom was working in Greenville, South Carolina for a year on several commissions and would from time to time return home to NYC. He finally finish work in Greenville and spent his last full summer in New York City in 1991. Tom spent much of his time on the road spending summers in Nantucket and winters in Palm Beach before getting married and moving back to his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Monte Carlo Nude

Pencil on paper, 8" x 10.5", 1991

Sketched from life during a portrait commission in Monte Carlo. This may have been the selected composition. The subject was drawn in the nude for novel reasons. She was never intended to be nude, it just made for a good sketch.

Museum Nude

Pencil on paper, 10.5" x 8", 1991

This drawing was sketched from life in the Cincinnati Art Museum. It was just before Tom left for Europe. He was painting two portraits in Monte Carlo. Tom feels that sketches like these firm up in your mind what it is that you are looking at while you look at it.

Monte Carlo Date

Pencil on paper, 8" x 10.5", 1991

This drawing is  rough composition for a portrait of a casino winner.

Brooklyn Bridge, New York City

Pencil on paper, 10.5" x 8", 1991

This drawing was sketched from life from a small park across the East River. The composition was part of some research drawings done for a commission.

Croquet in Central Park I

Pencil on paper, 10.5" x 8", 1991

This artwork was drawn from life during a gray day in upper Central Park on the West side where there are several croquet courts. The players normally dress in white.

Croquet in Central Park II

Pencil on paper, 10.5" x 8", 1991

This drawing was sketched from life.

Earth Day 1991

Pencil on paper, 8" x 10.5", 1991

This drawing was done in Tom's apartment on Christopher Street, New York City on Earth Day. Tom has done several other still life's with Earth Day themes.

Ellen

Pencil on paper, 10.5" x 8", 1991

This drawing was sketched from life.

John Wallowitch TV Show

Pencil on paper, 10.5" x 8", 1991

This drawing was sketched from life. Tom was a cameraman when present on the set. John's show is still on as a local cable call in show.

Museum Nude II

Pencil on paper, 10.5" x 8", 1991

This drawing was sketched from life in front of the painting.

Christopher Street Pier, New York City

Pencil on paper, 10.5" x 8", 1991

This drawing was sketched from life. Tom was working on a great oil painting of New York City Harbor.

Rivera Cafe, Greenwich Village, NYC

Pencil on paper, 10.5" x 8", 1991

This drawing was sketched from life from Sheridan Square Park just at the crossroads of Seventh Avenue and West 4th Street.

Sheep Meadow, Central Park, New York City

Pencil on paper, 10.5" x 8", 1991

This drawing was sketched from life.

Subway Line-Up

Pencil on paper, 8" x 10.5", 1991

This drawing was sketched from life in the New York City Subway.

Village Cigars

Pencil on paper, 10.5" x 8", 1991

A venerable store smack dab in the center of Greenwich Village. This drawing was sketched from life from the park across the street. Tom has drawn and painted this view many times.

Monte Carlo Gaming Table I

Pencil on paper, 8" x 10.5", 1991

This drawing was sketched from life.

Monte Carlo Gaming Table II

Pencil on paper, 8" x 10.5", 1991

This drawing was sketched from life from the edge of the gamming tables in Monte Carlo. Tom was able to do two such sketches before he was asked to stop by casino guards.

Museum Study

Pencil on paper, 10.5" x 8", 1991

This drawing was sketched from life in front of an oil landscape painting in a museum. Tom began his study of art by copying paintings in museums.