The 40 paintings displayed in Michael Manente’s recent solo exhibit at the Piedmont Center for the Arts show that the 74-year-old Oakland artist has learned well from his favorite commercial and fine artists.
The masterful artwork of Edward Hopper, Wayne Tebow, Edward Ruscha, portraitist John Singer Sargent and sports photographer/illustrator Robert Riger, depicted in paintings and drawings or captured in photos, render lessons informing a central tenet of his work (mikemanente.com): “One brush stroke can accommodate a lot of information but only if it’s put in the right place and it’s the right color,” he says.
Concerning the Piedmont Center for the Arts (PCA) and attendance at his Feb. 2-10 exhibit there (piedmontcenterforthearts.org), Manente says “It was the best opening I’ve ever had. The response was incredible. I generally sell urban landscape, but this time I sold 10 paintings, mostly of the Oakland trails with filtered light coming through the redwoods.
“PCA is unbeatable. It’s nirvana to have the opportunity to show art in a space that’s like a small museum. Galleries are fine, but I like the PCA because you’re allowed to curate your own show.”
It’s fortunate that Manente’s paintings have scaled down from previous projects that over the years have included theater backdrops, old-time painted billboards and outdoor murals.
Having painted sky-high, large-format advertisements while working for former West Coast billboard company Foster & Kleiser and images of iconic figures such as Reggie Jackson, Christie Brinkley and the “Marlboro” man after founding his own Masterpiece Sign Painting company, Manente now works most often on canvases tacked to his studio wall.
“It’s a tiny space, so I paint, let it dry, roll it up,” he says. “It took forever to stretch and frame all the paintings for the show.”
Self-curating the images freed Manente to select only paintings he thought “worked” and to build a loose travelogue narrative of places he inhabited during the peak years of the COVID-19 pandemic. The images start close to his home of 45 years in Oakland’s Dimond district, journey across the bay to San Francisco, slide into the Peninsula and even jump to Paris.
“When the pandemic lockdowns broke, we went to France. I love to travel and find the people wherever I go the most fascinating.”
A young bride posing for a wedding photographer in the Parisian district of Montmartre captured his attention and resulted in a portrait.
“I usually paint trade workers and unhoused people, but her porcelain skin and expression of beauty — I just had to paint her.”
Manente grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and says the “no-nonsense” steel belt city and its Cleveland Browns team were early influences, in addition to his parents, on his choice to become a professional artist. His stay-at-home mother was a talented sketch artist; his father managed a cinema theater and put together newspaper ads announcing the upcoming films. When the Monday morning papers arrived, Manente pounced on the sports section.
“There would be Riger’s photographs, and I’d draw the players,” he says. “By the time I was in fourth grade I was pretty good and getting encouraged. The teacher had me paint a wall mural above the blackboard when Hawaii became a state. In fifth grade, I did a mural of the Cuyahoga River (a major Ohio tributary).”
Eventually earning a bachelor of fine arts degree at Ohio University and a master of arts at Kent State University, Manente and his wife, Cindy Manente, moved to the Bay Area in 1978. His wife was a school teacher in the Diocese of Oakland’s Catholic schools while Manente in 1991 established and operated his sign painting company. Together, they are the parents of three adult sons.
Many artists steer away from large-format artwork, but Manente says he has always found mural painting magnetic, fascinating, energizing.
“I’ve never been intimidated by or afraid of painting large. I started doing scenery in college, and I just jumped into it. You use big brushes and buckets and buckets of paint. I love working in the studio now, but then, I loved being outside, working big.”
On canvases far smaller, Manente continues to address extremes of scale; depicting sprawling vistas in urban landscapes, finding singularity in still-life paintings of chairs and their shadows and unfolding time-spanning maps in the weathered faces of people whose lives have included as many downs as ups. Manente says balancing decay and beauty without sentimentality is essential.
“In my work an aging building painted with a soft edge is often juxtaposed by something sharply modern, like an automobile or a glass building.
“I love those old buildings, but they’re going to lose the battle. Many are gone already and are condos or housing developments. I see their strength. Even though they will lose the battle, they’ll give it their best shot.”
The same can be said about the people featured in his portraits. “The Gardener” and other paintings of a woman he knows only as Sheila draw attention to her expressive face.
“It was elastic,” he recalls. “You could tell instantly when she was distressed or happy.”
Manente eventually selected her image for the People of Oakland mural that he and his youngest son, John Manente, painted about 12 years ago on the entire south wall of the Oakland building housing Haley Law Offices at 17th Street and San Pablo Avenue.
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“She came to see it, and told me she was part Indian and once belonged to an Indian dance crew.”
Another image in the series, “The Vendor,” shows a man he met only a few times.
“He gave me a jolt. When I thanked him, as I walked away, he told me his name was Charles. I felt so disappointed that I’d been carried away by my interest in art and hadn’t had the courtesy to ask. After that, I learned not to approach people as art projects.”
Manente says the mural’s colors are fading and that he and his son plan to return to the location to paint new images.
He already has one portrait identified. His favorite bartender has the throwback-push-forward contrast he recognizes as dynamic. Her Jean Harlow-style platinum blond hair, dramatic makeup, lengthened eyelashes and multiple tattoos bring him to say, “She’ll be terrific up there, larger than life.”
Lou Fancher is a freelance writer. Reach her at lou@johnsonandfancher.com.