Walter Robinson, Untitled, 1982 Medium, enamel on paper, 7 x 5 in. (17.8 x 12.7 cm.)
Back sometime in the 1990’s Walter was moving from his place on W. 14th Street in the aftermath of a divorce & was having a kind of rummage sale of stuff from his studio apartment.
I came by & picked out two of his square format, mini spin paintings & have no recollection of what I paid for them.
I’ve always meant to get them framed since they were pure ‘Walterese,’ a play of sorts on Damien Hirst’s massively successful spin paintings series from circa 1992.
Looking back, I wrote some pieces for Artnet when Walter was at the helm & at one point, almost joined him at the behest of publisher Hans Neuendorf but decided to stick with Art + Auction & its commanding editor-in-chief Bruce Wolmer.
Those days, of course, are long gone and there’s a kind of death row feel to Walter’s passing, given that his former attack dog roving art critic Charlie Finch (also of Coagula infamy) died a suicide at age 69 in August 2022.
August was a cruel month for that clique of art world covering crowd with Art + Auction ace investigative reporter turned war correspondent Steven Vincent getting kidnapped and murdered in Basra, Iraq in August 2005 at age 50 and just a few days after his first piece on the conflict was published on the op-ed page of the New York Times.
screenshot of “Some Mischief Still” on artnet.com, Walter Robinson, acrylic on canvas, 30 by 24 in. (76.2 by 61 cm.)
Super-editor & brilliant pundit Bruce Wolmer, whose screen saver jockeyed between the Simpsons & Sean Connery in a white dinner jacket as James Bond passed away from complications of diabetes in August 2007 at age 69.
Not to be so death side oriented but the flurry of online obits for Walter got me going in this rather dark direction.
Wrapping up on the brighter market side, Walter has 46 entries on Artnet’s price data base topped by “Some Mischief Still” from 2017 that fetched $13,800 (est. $2-3,000) at Sotheby’s “The Hoarder Part II” online auction in December 2020. The hoarder of course was none other than Kenny Schachter.
Walter’s wicked humor and wit won the day.