Peter Saul

Interview & Photography by Mart Engelen

Mart Engelen: The art world regards you as one of the last pop artists still alive. What do you make of that?

Peter Saul: Well I guess I am, that’s true. I always thought I was a pop artist even though I was excluded by the taste makers of 1962. I feel that I was a pop artist because I dealt with those subjects and I dealt with them in a cartoony way. And if that’s not pop, nothing is.

ME: Do you also consider your art as political? Because there are not so many artists today who use current political issues in their art. In interviews I have done with artists, they’re always very cautious about using the word ‘political’. Can you explain that to me? I find it very interesting.

PS: Well, I do the whole thing with the hope that it will be interesting to the viewer. The choice of subject is tremendously important. I don’t really view these things as specifically as that. I mean, to me all politicians are celebrities, the same as Jackie Onassis or anyone. I simply use them because I think they’re going to be interesting to look at by the viewer.

ME: Only to look at?

PS: Yes, I personally hunt for the best when I paint a picture, but I don’t insist the picture makes an agreement with me for some point of view. I don’t insist but I hope.

ME: I think you did a painting on Trump; several in fact. Did you see the little one-minute clip by Robert de Niro on Donald Trump? It was so funny.

PS: No, I didn’t. I’m sure! The thing is I don’t personally experience that much art, I’m just busy in the studio and I choose a subject and hope for the best. In the case of Trump, I found him very interesting but I was way too late. I read the New York Times, I had no idea he was going to be president; I thought it was going to be a landslide for Hilary. By the time I got Trump in my head, five thousand artists had already painted him around the world. So I feel like I’m the last artist to get to him. And that’s no advantage, certainly.

ME: Over all the years you have really responded to the situation of the time. So it seems to me that this is important to you.

PS: Well, yes, most of the time I’m first, like with Nixon. I was absolutely the first to really mess him up in a psychotic kind of way, which was a lot of fun.

ME: (Laughs) And you actually hated the guy?

PS: Actually, no. I didn’t vote for him of course, but I didn’t hate him. He suited my art style. When I paint, I like to be extreme and he’s not very liked by intellectuals anywhere so I just did a number on him.

ME: What artists inspired you when you were younger and maybe still today?

PS: Well, over time, different things inspired me. Most of the time I’m inspired by individual pictures I happen to see, often in books, reproductions. I guess until very recently I haven’t been very interested in who painted a picture, I look at the picture. I was very inspired by the 19th century pictures that are on view at the Musée d’Orsay. Around 1990, I began visiting France again, just briefly, and going to that museum and looking at those paintings. That was … read more