Living Large
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 by
Tom Chalkley
4/21/2004
If you liked Haussner's,
you'd love us," says Richard
Rist, sporting a bemused
smile as he leads a quick
tour of his home-based
gallery, the Large Art Co.
The collection on display in
Rist's Northeast Baltimore
house is, in fact, quite
reminiscent of the late
Highlandtown restaurant's
trove of kitsch and
classicism, only the pieces
are less crowded and, as the
name indicates, larger.
Rist's sunny office is
dominated by a bronze eagle
with a six-foot wingspan,
and it's encircled with
Frederic Remington horses
and cowboys of all sizes,
also cast in bronze. Half a
dozen enormous paintings
loom above the statuary:
impasto street scenes, a
huge nude with coyly
positioned hands, a
Klimt-esque portrait, a
mysterious scene that looks
like the cover of a fantasy
novel.
Elsewhere in the house, the
eclectic originals jostle
with copies of famous and
semifamous European works:
David's "Napoleon Crossing
the Alps," Monet's "Water
Lilies," and more Klimt and
Klimt-esque pieces. The
unifying theme is, quite
unapologetically, the scale.
You can imagine these
pictures hanging in
restaurant stairwells or
floating over vast sofas in
cathedral-ceilinged living
rooms.
"I love art, I want to be
part of the art scene, but
I'm not the artsy-fartsy
kind," Rist says. Of the
work on display, he says,
"It is what it is. I have no
pretensions about it." He
does, however, have
ambitions. He'd like to
display and sell even bigger
works, including murals. He
wants to donate a couple of
sculptures to the community.
He has invited the Herring
Run Artists Network --the
local art gang--to meet at
his office, under the gaze
of the large eagle. He sees
the gallery as a way to
stimulate community life.
By his own account, Rist has
lived an adventurous 43
years, pursuing a variety of
careers--sailor,
stockbroker, market
researcher, and software
developer--none of which
heralded his present
venture. Born and raised in
Towson, he moved to rural
North Carolina at the age of
14 to live with his divorced
father. A few months later,
his father was murdered.
Unwelcome at his
stepmother's house, he
struck out on his own,
surviving on Social Security
checks and minimum-wage
jobs. To avoid getting sent
to a foster home, Rist
learned to keep a low
profile and take care of
himself. At 18, he was
managing a small-town
convenience store; at 19, he
was offered a chance to be a
district manager for the
retail chain. He didn't take
it.
"I had this epiphany about
my situation," he says.
"Where I lived, people's
highest aspirations included
becoming a supervisor at a
local furniture factory. . .
. I quit my job and joined
the Navy." His maritime
service coincided with early
confrontations between the
United States and Islamic
terrorists. In 1981, he was
on one of the U.S. ships
that sailed into Libya's
Gulf of Sidra, defying Col.
Muammar Qaddafi's threat to
destroy the fleet.
"We were sitting ducks,"
Rist says. "It was pretty
scary."
But at all the European
ports of call, he would go
see museums and parks while
his mates sought out the
bars. For a hungry kid from
the boonies of North
Carolina, the sights of
Paris, Rome, and Florence
were overwhelming. Most of
all, he loved the public
sculpture. (It's strange, he
notes, that so much American
art tends to be "small to
midsize," while Europeans go
for the big effects.)
Returning to the states, he
enrolled at the University
of Baltimore and fell in
love with city life. He
threw himself into
extracurricular activities,
starting a fraternity--the
school's first after many
fratless years--and
spearheading campaigns to
support local homeless
shelters. (He traces his
concern about homelessness
to the vulnerability he felt
as an orphaned teenager.)
Prospective frat brothers
had to spend a night on the
brick plaza where the statue
of Edgar Allan Poe sits. As
the group's leader, Rist
felt obligated to spend a
whole week bedding down on
the benches.
Throughout his post-naval
trajectory, Rist collected
art--especially large
art--for his own enjoyment,
and he soon realized that
there weren't very many
galleries that catered to
such monumental tastes as
his. In the mid-'90s, while
he was working on an
economic research project at
Towson University, he began
thinking out loud about
starting an art dealership.
His wife, Karen, then
pregnant for the first time,
talked him out of taking the
entrepreneurial plunge. In
retrospect, he says, he's
glad his wife talked sense
into him. But while he
focused on other projects,
the art idea simmered.
Rist and two colleagues
developed software for
cataloguing the job skills
in a given population and
matching employers with
people in need of work. The
somewhat unexpected success
of that software product,
now used by several
Baltimore City agencies,
allowed Rist to revisit his
large-art concept. He and
his wife bought a
century-old clapboard house
at 6500 Old Harford Road,
made the move from the
county to the city, and went
scouting for a storefront.
Finding nothing suitable on
the main drag, Rist took a
neighbor's suggestion and
turned part of his home into
showrooms. A bronze horse,
which the Rists placed on
their front lawn when they
bought the place, serves as
the gallery's de facto
signboard. The Large Art Co.
opened for business in
August 2003.
While the horse has become a
minor roadside attraction,
off-the-street trade has
never matched Large Art's
Internet sales at www.
LargeArt. com. The company's
hottest items are bronzes:
animals, barefoot children,
western themes, nudes. He
sells a lot in Florida,
California, upstate New
York, and the Washington
suburbs. Rist orders the
statuary from several
American foundries, while
most of his paintings come
from overseas. (The rather
titillating nude in the
office, for example, was
produced in an obscure
Chinese village called
Xiamen by a native craftsman
who signs his work
"Mosley.'' All his Chinese
artists, Rist notes, use
Anglo pseudonyms.)
It may take a while for
Large Art to gain its full
momentum, but Rist is
confident of his marketing
plans--and of the vast pool
of consumers just waiting to
find out about art that is,
as he puts it, "big,
reasonable, and available."
There are no guarantees, but
Rist says (with another
bemused smile), "I've never
been one to be fearful of
the unknown."
Click here for original
Baltimore City Paper
article. |
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Questions?
Contact us at:
Large Art
6500 Old Harford Road
Baltimore, MD 21214
(800) 785-4Art (4278) toll free
(410) 426-3844 local and direct
(410) 426-3945 fax
info@largeart.com
email
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