I have written about this before. Today I can add an interesting variation on the subject.

The other side of two dimensions

For close to 10 years I was friends with a Vancouver couple of Argentine artists, Nora Patrich and Juan Manuel Sánchez. I met them at tango classes. Sánchez was a worse dancer than I was but he became my mentor in art and we did many colaboraciones where we mixed his drawings with my photographs on one paper.

Juan Manuel Sánchez in his studio in Vancouver

I had no idea who the Mannerists (Manieristas) were until Sánchez gave me a friendly art education. I found out that El Greco was a Mannerist as was my fave Bronzino.

Sánchez was born in 1930 and he died in 2016. I went to visit him at his studio in Buenos Aires a few months before he died. After our chat we went for coffee. I began the conversation with, “The next time I come…” He did not let me finish. He said, “I will not be here.”

Corvus Cuervo - colaboración

 

In his studio I noticed that his memory was spotty. I presented him with a sheet of cardboard (one side was shiny silver) and asked him to draw me one of his trademark nudes. He looked at the sheet and said, “But it has two sides.” I then said, “Da Vinci.” That was all he needed as he had a memory of the da Vinci painting at the National Gallery in Washington DC that has two sides.

I noticed that instead of dating his work 2016 he wrote 916. I was not going to correct him.

For me it is special to have his two nudes framed in one frame. It has this side and an obverse side.

How lucky I was to have met and loved this man!