Mansard Roofs I Have Loved
Philip Koch, Mansard Roof, oil on canvas, 22 x 44 inches, 2017 Last Thursday evening I put the final touches on my latest painting (above). Then on Friday morning I viewed an Edward Hopper painting in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's American Watercolor in the Age of Homer and Sargent exhibition that reminded me how Hopper's influence has often steered me in my choices of what to paint. When I was a kid I'd see these mansard roofs in the old sections of downtown Rochester, NY and wondered about them- they seemed radically different than the California-modern house I was growing up in. To my young eyes they were unfathomably old and mysteriously exotic. But even then I had to admit they created a more striking silhouette against the sky than more ordinary buildings. My painting stemmed from some drawings I made on location in Buffalo, NY as part of my being Artist in Residence at Burchfield Penney Art Center (BPAC). Tullis Johnson, one of BPAC's Cu