Old Guys Painting: David Salle on the Mature Painter’s Letting Go

David Salle | ARTnews | 10th September 2015

Artists are sometimes especially perceptive critics of the work of other artists. David Salle, a prominent American painter, reviews three shows by artists in their late 70’s or 80’s to illustrate how artists change with age. “Painting is one of the few things in life for which youth holds no advantage. …[A] painter’s late work is characterized by letting go—the older painter needs do less.”