I love Snoopy and cherish the Peanuts strip for life-Charles Schulz was a genius and one of the greatest artists to have lived-he had such a huge impact on America and the world and made it such a better place, and continues to influence and entertain years beyond his passing. I’ve painted several appropriations of the Peanuts gang, and am always amazed at the Picasso-like essentialization of human (and dog!) form, almost completely distorted but super iconic, relatable, compelling, and bittersweet fun…

Snoopy and The Red Baron seems really appropriate for our times, this is a recent painting that was so edifying to paint with the backdrop of the news and pandemic. Snoopy has such joie de vivre and represents this side of creator Schulz but also in his anthropomorphized form, humanity and its indomitable spirit to survive. Here, under clear blue skies Snoopy senses invisible (?!) danger looming, and watches his back but still persists forever forward (or heading right to left, maybe returning home!). His goggles create eyes and brows of worry, but his I persistently cool demeanor doesn’t portray any panic or alarm, just a watchful eye to the skies and continued hope to defeat the Red Baron, a menace that somehow embodies in name a more orange contemporary of our times!

Wistful and wanting, and always up for a dance or a kiss, Snoopy is an American hero who strives to succeed and bless those around him. This was great fun to paint but edifying too, making me search back and wonderfully read the old strips, and put me in the mindset of my youth, where I was then as now trying to copy after the master! I had an old book of Peanuts characters collaged into Victorian prints of Santa and more, an uncanny juxtaposition of iconic vs. subjective rendering, and feel this is like a rosebud for my work, forever trying to make cartoons and allegory into “fine art” while retaining the spirit of the cartoon brought into the lush world of painting and that history, for the future! Curse you Red Baron, but Snoopy, and humanity will proudly (and prudently, carefully, joyfully!) will live on!