A Cellist Elevated by His Bath: Philip Gladstone (2007)

He had been in there for nearly an hour. Long enough for the water to cool, for the steam to disappear from the mirror, for the afternoon to slip into something approaching evening. He ought to have got out. There were things to do, people who might be waiting. But he had never been particularly good at doing what was expected of him.

Instead, he pointed at the cello.

There is nothing quite so exciting as a young guy in a bath. Especially one who brings his cello.

A Cellist Elevated by His Bath was painted in 2007 by American artist Philip Gladstone, whose work I’m beginning to think deserves considerably more attention.

Born in Philadelphia, Gladstone is known for his evocative figurative paintings, often featuring the male nude as protagonist, muse and general cause of distraction. He now paints full-time in a renovated barn studio at his antique farmhouse in rural Maine. Not a bad setting for an artist with such a particular eye for the male form.

This painting belongs to his long-running Tubs Series, in which bathers, animals and assorted objects find themselves in antique tubs that feel less like bathroom fixtures and more like protective, womb-like spaces. The results are surreal, dreamlike and just a little absurd.

And then there is the cello. The pose. The pointing finger.

I have questions. But I’m not sure I want answers.