Posted by Cathy Gowdy on Saturday, June 05, 2010 at 11:07:59 :
San Francisco Chronicle
Wednesday, May 16, 2001
Section D, page 6
MANSFIELD
[photograph]
Artists, musician and novelist, born Alan Mansfield Perkins, died at the age of 52 on May 7th, 2001 after a long struggle with cancer. Born September 15, 1948, Mansfield attended Putney School and the San Francisco Art Institute. By 1966, he was exhibiting and selling paintings in North Beach galleries.
With the coming of the psychedelic revolution, Mansfield's work underwent a transformation. He rejected painting and focused on entirely white Plaster-of-Paris torso sculptures embellished with hair and found objects, including rope, recording tape, piano keys, fractured oboes and violins. These "White Sculptures" were written up in the San Francisco Chronicle and were shown with the work of Annie Leibovitz at the Sun Gallery, and one-man shows at The Three Voids, The Emperor's Gate, and the Lucien Labaudt Gallery. Many of the sculptures were built into yachts and Pacific Heights mansions.
Brilliant, energetic and disciplined, Mansfield presided for many years over a legendary San Francisco household of artist, poets, musicians and world travelers in Glen Park and the Mission District. Daily jam sessions drew musicians from all over San Francisco's exploding music scene. Philosophical and aesthetic discussions were constant, driven in part by Mansfield's insatiable intellectual curiosity and the many talented people that lived and passed through.
Mansfield played alto saxe in a series of ensembles for over 20 years. His energetic playing was heavy on electronics and displayed a strong linear structure with influences that ranged from Miles Davis and Pharaoh Sanders to Jimi Hendrix.
By 1970 Mansfield's visual art had moved to silkscreen printing, utilizing rainbow fountains and high contrast photographic mandalas in a hybrid of psychedelic art with strong Tibetan Buddhist influences. Enamored of fusion jazz and rock and roll and with a growing contempt for the gallery/museum scene, Mansfield began to focus on creating art for musicians and the public that listened to them. He felt the artist had to reach a mass audience, and did much of the artwork for posters promoting Miles Davis, Weather Report, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and other jazz musicians appearing at San Francisco's famous Keystone Korner. He had personal encounters with Carlos Santana, Alan Watts, Timothy Leary, Grace Slick and many jazz musicians.
Mansfield refused to submit album cover artwork through normal corporate channels, preferring instead to send his work directly to the artist as a gift. As a result, his work could be seen hanging in music studios and the homes of musicians around the country. Album cover credits included Journey's second album, "Next" and several works for Sun Ra. In 1973, Mansfield produced the cover art for McCoy Tyner's "Echoes of a Friend." His art work was awarded the best jazz album cover of the year in Japan.
In 1979, Mansfield's art work moved into a new generation of post-psychedelic, high gloss pop images and collages that were a blend of silkscreen, airbrush and photography. His darkroom techniques provided a unique and compelling color saturation, and one of those, the King Tut image, was used by the group ZZ TOP on their EP "Sleeping Bag". That album's success and a world-wide tour led to Mansfield images on tee shirts, tickets, hats and peripheral goods.
In the early 1990s, Mansfield moved to Mill Valley and turned to literature. Influenced by Salman Rushdie, Michael Ondaatje, Nabokov and Arundati Roy, he wrote six novels of sexual and philosophical adventure, often set in Asia. Titles include "Rhapsody of the Minotaur" and "Sister Andrea." At the time of his death, Mansfield's novels remain unpublished.
Mansfield is survived by his daughter Sophia, his partner Elyse Derbes, his brother David Perkins, and his sisters Anne Starr and Robin Otto. He is mourned by a host of friends.
Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha
|
powered by SpudBoard |