Cherry blossoms filled the air, swept by the May wind, and a friend said, “Oh, I thought it was snowing.” That, Darragh Park said, was the effect he tried to get across in his paintings. He wanted to convey the pink cascade before it gained definition as blossoms or snowflakes — and to convey the friend’s face at the same time.
Darragh, who died Friday (April 2009) of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, said he had “a vision of vision.” As a motorcyclist he learned on entering a curve that he had to focus “beyond my immediate destination if I was to operate the machine smoothly and stay alive.” He had to be able to divide his sight between two points and let “the rest of [his] vision” take in everything between them. The beauty of his paintings is a beauty achieved by the supremacy of vision. How cruel that of all ailments, he had to suffer the progressive deterioration of his eyesight.
Darragh did the cover of “An Alternative to Speech,” my first book of poems: a wraparound black-and-white cityscape in the rain: the traffic, human and vehicular, on the corner of 25th Street and Ninth Avenue. Darragh was devoted to James Schuyler and did the covers for Schuyler’s “Collected Poems” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and for “The Diary of James Schuyler” ed. by Nathan Kernan (Black Sparrow): both are portraits of the poet. Darragh must have done covers for other books, and I would be grateful for details from anyone who has them.
— DL (from the archive; first posted April 19, 2009)
After graduation, Darragh taught English in a private school in Sierra Leone, an experience which triggered an interest, and later graduate study at Columbia, of African art and culture.
When Darragh returned to America, he came to terms with his being gay. He let his life style evolve, quit his job, and began studying painting under the tutelage of the Long Island painter, Robert Dash. Through Dash, he became part of a circle of artists and writers based in Manhattan and the Hamptons. One particular friend of his in this group was the Pulitzer Prize winning poet, James Schuyler, for whom he illustrated several book covers and eventually became his literary executor.
Darragh’s early artwork was strongly influenced by the landscape painter, Fairfield Porter, whom he knew and who, after viewing his paintings, offered him encouragement. Darragh’s focus shifted from landscapes to cityscapes, especially panoramic scenes in Miami and street scenes with pedestrians and traffic in Manhattan. One especially successful series of paintings was of the Empire State Building, which he painted at different times of day and night and in changing illuminations.
Darragh had a series of successful shows at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York. Alfred Corn, reviewing a 1994 show of his in Artnews, wrote, “There are few things more satisfying than witnessing a moment in the development of an artist when she or he takes a quantum leap into uncharted territory and surprises us with a new sense of mastery.” The leap referred to was Darragh’s new painterly attention to physical vision. He was intrigued by how the eye sees both small areas in sharp focus and blurred abstractions in sight’s periphery. Interpreting this visual phenomenon in his paintings became almost an obsession. The forms in a painting would slide from abstraction to realism and back again. His last works became so large in their dimensions as to be hard fit in standard gallery settings.
When Darragh moved from Manhattan to Bridgehampton, Long Island, another creative expression emerged: landscaping and gardening. He built a pond, put in a variety of native plantings, and developed a network of pathways through the luxuriant vegetation. Wildlife thrived in this environment. Darragh cared for every tree, bush, and flower as if it were a personal friend and kept knew all the birds that came and went through the seasons. In a letter to me one February, he wrote:
“My companions, this year, are the gold finches, now dusky gold, who have chosen to hang in here to my huge delight. Watching their loping Matissian flight pattern as they pass in front of me is a constant lift. A flicker family is in residence, most awe-inspiring. The big tree with its ghost-like great gray bones is often studded with cardinals. Visitors gasp!”
I have many memories of Darragh Park, but perhaps the most vivid was zooming through the empty streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn on the back of his motorcycle on a cold mid-winter Sunday morning en route to Coney Island.
In his last several years, Darragh’s mind and health began to fail and it became increasingly difficult for him to manage his daily life and needs. When the situation worsened, he came to what must be the most difficult and unfortunate decision some people face: to continue living or not. On April 17, 2009, he chose the latter. >>>
—by David Grant Noble, January 5, 2023
http://webpage.pace.edu/erichie/groundwater/u3.html); and a full-color cover for “Mecox Road” (http://webpage.pace.edu/erichie/groundwater/p3.html). >>> — Rosanne Wasserman
>> — Nathan Kernan
See also https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2009/04/darragh-park-continued.html
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Author: The Best American Poetry
