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Article: Real Life in Sultan's Still Lifes
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- May 19, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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I FEEL safe calling Donald Sultan's paintings, now on view in a
Corcoran Gallery of Art retrospective, transporting in their
loveliness. But that's not the way that Sultan would describe them.
"They're meant to haul images," he says, in a blunter but no less
apt description of his handsome, oversize pictures of flowers, fruit,
buttons, vases and dominoes.
The artist's well-turned phrase--which calls to mind the image of
a dusty, fat-wheeled semi towing a flapping tarp-load of beauty--is
perfect. For his art is both vessel and cargo, both container and the
thing contained. On one hand, they're pictures, on the other,
they're honking big objects, dropping all pretense of illusion along
with ...