Sweet Dreams Al Lachman
by Bob Waite
As a boy growing up in the Bronx, Al Lachman loved two things: stickball and drawing. One day he had been playing stickball all day and it was getting dark. His father, who was a tough union organizer, saw him playing and told him to go inside and draw. Al replied, “But Dad, I’m not inspired.” His father in a gruff manner said, “Get in the house and draw.” Al said, “From that moment I never lacked inspiration.” Al paints everyday and has been since he began his career as an artist 60 years ago.
Al’s education includes Syracuse University, School of Visual Arts NYC, and The Art Students League. There he learned the use of media and began to develop a set of skills. One teacher saw his potential and took him under his wings. He was gruff but a very good painter, and he even allowed Al to watch him paint, an honor not given to other students. Al learned much from watching him paint, but the one lesson that stuck with him his whole life was when his art teacher told him to “pull it together.” Al said, “I never leave a painting that is apart or broken. I always pull it together.”
Al Lachman is an Expressionist, but he is not altogether an Abstract Expressionist. “I learned on my own to be on the edge between the real and the abstract.” So an Al Lachman’s painting has a discernable image that visually represents something like a boat, a house, a barn. Yet it is abstract; details are gone and replaced by how it sits in what Al calls “negative space.” Coloration, often bold, creates a feel and works with the space and the image to bring about a kind of harmony.
To finish reading this feature about Al Lachman, go to page 114 in the Fall 2014 issue of Bucks County Magazine.