Cedar Bar - Some history and a painting
In the Mid 1950s the topic of Abstract Expressionism dominated the American art scene and spirited conversations among artists. The Cedar Tavern was the meeting place and the watering hole in Manhattan for these artists like Jackson Pollock, William de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and a few lesser known but equally brilliant artists like Peter Anthony Narducci. The Cedar was located on University Place and 8th Street in Greenwich Village.
So what could I at 20 year old in the 1980s in New Jersey know about the Cedar Tavern?
Let me tell you a story of a bold and colorful window full of abstract paintings. They were displayed masterfully and very out of place in a second story window among the shoe maker and dry cleaners on main street in Denville, NJ. Every time I went past it I would look up and enjoy the magnificent work. One Saturday, moved to go up the narrow old stairway I knocked on the door. It was the home and Studio of Peter Anthony Narducci. It actually took me several times of persevering, calling, chancing that he would be open, and knocking on his door before I actually met him weeks later. He was a recluse who suffered from agoraphobia therefore rarely ventured out and let very few people in. He was a small framed old Italian man with a warm smile who never came to the door without a proper hat and jacket. He had great enthusiasm, and I was lucky enough to be let into his world.
As a young academic and studied painter with a little college and over zealous spirit, I showed him my latest work. He asked me several questions and within minutes I realized that I didn’t know anything. Being the kind of person that I am I took it upon myself to research (do my homework) and do my best to know what I was talking about before our second meeting. I guess that impressed him and so we made it a weekly thing. He taught me, challenged me, mentored me, bettered me and eventually befriended me. He helped give me the confidence I needed to pursue abstract painting. Narducci marveled at the boldness at which I approached a canvas and saw something in me that was pure and special.
Pieter Anthony Narducci
In the end I would set up my palette and sit down to paint in his studio. Narducci would break out a bottle of Rhine Wine (usually Thunderbolt or Ripple) smack it down at the foot of my easel and say lets get stoned. At that we would both break out in laughter because we were both pretty straight laced and neither of us really drank… And so I would stay for a few hours and nurse my way thru half a glass of wine while he talked about old times at the Cedar Tavern (Cedar Bar as he called it). I painted, and painted as if it was flowing out of me. He talked about Bill (William de Kooning) and his close friend Franz (Franz Kline), the girls, the drinking and the passionate arguments as if they happened yesterday. He took me right in. It’s amazing to me now to realize that I had the privilege of learning directly from a founder of the Abstract Expressionist movement. Tony Narducci died in March of 1999, and I miss him to this very day.
Artists at the Cedar Tavern, 1959. We often wrote poems while listening to the painters argue, Frank O’Hara
In the late 1980s I entered a few of my works into the International SOHO Art Competition and won an award for the painting of the Cedar Bar.
Until recently I had never put the painting up for acquisition. It is very special to me and to date one of my most significant works. You can see the painting for sale and on display at the Strazza Gallery in Sugar Loaf, NY
For more on these subjects we recommend the following book: NAT TATE an American Artist: 1928-1960 by William Boyd
www.narducciart.com
