John Updike Discusses Warhol's Striptease, Leonardo's Materials

John Updike Discusses Warhol's Striptease, Leonardo's Materials

(Interview. Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News.
The opinions expressed are his own.)

By Edward Nawotka

Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- In another life, John Updike might
have been a cartoonist instead of the author of 52 books,
including 23 novels.

A Pennsylvania farm boy who went to Harvard, Updike
contributed drawings to the Harvard Lampoon and spent a year
studying art at the Ruskin School of Art and Design in Oxford,
England. It wasn't until he joined the staff of the New Yorker
magazine in 1955 that he committed to just writing.

His latest work is ``Still Looking'' (Knopf, 222 pages,
$40), a collection of 18 essays on American art, from Winslow
Homer to Jackson Pollock. It is a companion volume to 1989's
``Just Looking.''

Now 73, Updike doesn't do extensive book tours. He spoke
with Edward Nawotka by phone from Boston, near to his home in
Beverly Farms, Massachusetts.

Nawotka: It's been 16 years since your previous collection
of art criticism. All this time you've continued going to
exhibits and reviewing various shows for the New York Review of
Books. Is that correct?

Updike: I usually write about two exhibits a year, usually
for the New York Review. Mr. Silvers, the editor, continues to
flatter me with the implication that I'm some kind of an art
critic.

Innocent Amateur

Nawotka: All along, you've maintained that you're an
amateur?

Updike: I don't have any connection with the art world as
such. I don't live in New York. I don't go to the galleries. So
I do come to the shows with a certain innocence, about as much
as an average showgoer.

Nawotka: This book ranges from John Singleton Copley to
Edward Hopper. Do you have a favorite?

Updike: Hopper. Some of the earlier ones, the New York
ones, when you're looking in a window. I like the way he sees
America.

Nawotka: You seem to have a strong relationship to the
Abstract Expressionists. In (1963's) ``The Centaur,'' the main
character is an expressionist painter, and in (2002's) ``Seek My
Face,'' there is a characterization of Lee Krasner, Jackson
Pollock's wife.

Updike: Yes, there was an attempt to imagine what it was
like to be a woman in the Abstract Expressionist scene. I'm
attracted to it because it was the most spectacular and dramatic
group movement in my lifetime. And for the first time, the
American colonies were bringing artistic news to Europe.

Macho Art

Nawotka: It was also quite masculine, macho.

Updike: It was macho, perhaps the last unembarrassed macho
art movement we have.

Nawotka: I understand you had an encounter with Andy
Warhol, of whom you write a short appreciation in this book.

Updike: I met him at some party. He was wearing a tuxedo
and I remarked that I didn't expect to see him in a tuxedo. So,
he unbuttoned his pants to show he was wearing blue jeans
underneath the tuxedo pants. I thought it was quite a Warholean
moment, a 3-D, surreal event.

Nawotka: If there was a particular artist from history that
you could spend some time with, who would that be?

Updike: It would have been nice to been able to advise
Leonardo that his ``Last Supper'' wouldn't last the way he was
painting it.

Reckless Chemistry

Nawotka: You mean you'd advise him to use better materials?

Updike: I don't know what he did wrong, but many painters
I've discovered in my limited self-education have used ruinous
methods. Including some of the Abstract Expressionists. Certain
things by Rothko are deteriorating with great speed. It wasn't
the Abstract Expressionist style to worry about posterity. They
used what materials they could and were quite reckless in their
chemistry, though the Pollocks hold up quite well. He did use
hardware store paints to great effect.

Nawotka: Have you collected art?

Updike: My present collection includes some things I've
been given, a Steinberg, and Andrew Wyeth had given me things
which I framed. By and large, I'm not a collector. I think the
amounts of money people expect to get is alarming.

Nawotka: Too disproportionate to what a writer might get
for a short story?

Updike: Oh, yes, or a poem. You can write quite a wonderful
poem and get just $60 for it, so you tend to harbor your pennies
if you're a writer.

Nawotka: Would it be far out to guess your next project is
a novel?

Updike: It is a novel. It even has a title: ``Terrorist.''
As a writer, you find that the older you get, the more removed
you get from the action. But I'm still trying to take the pulse
of the country.