Richard Shapiro and The Urge To Make Art

The urge to create, to be creative, to make art, is a fundament of human existence. Certain individuals are possessed by a persistent drive, a need, to be an artist. Some approach art making intuitively, some strategically, some spontaneously, some with great forethought, deliberation, and planning. Regardless of how or why, that drive continues to amaze me.

Which brings me to Richard Shapiro, an artist I recently visited with in Los Angeles. Shapiro’s professional odyssey has included several successful detours: as the owner and operator of more than 30 Budget Rent-A-Car offices, as a founder of The Grill restaurant in Beverly Hills, the owner operator of Richard Shapiro Studio, a home furnishings and interiors store, as an interior designer, as a prominent collector of contemporary art (he made the Art News 100 top collectors list; and was on the board for a time at MOCA), and yes, as an artist.

Shapiro’s work looks like paintings (and they are) but instead of directly applying paint to canvas, he uses polyethylene tarps which he paints and manipulates in ways that make them 3D, recalling the works of Frank Stella or Elizabeth Murray and, at times, Georges Braque. Yet his work remains uniquely his own.

Shapiro was born in Minneapolis, and at age five, his family moved to Los Angeles (Burbank, then Encino). His early exposure to Art was with his parents. As a family, they often went to Monday open gallery night on La Cienega Boulevard. He also took oil painting lessons as a child. However, given that he came from a family of doctors, he went to college thinking he would follow that path. Life proved otherwise.

Pre-med was not for him. Instead, upon graduation, he decided to partner with a close friend in search of a business opportunity. His partner’s grandfather knew Morris Mirkin, the founder of the Los Angeles-based Budget-Rent-A-Car. They ended up buying a single franchise in 1965. Over time, they continued to expand. And in 1984, he decided to start a restaurant, The Grill, located in an alley just steps from Wilshire and Rodeo Drive. It was an instant success.

Shapiro was married with a daughter. In his early twenties, Shapiro had joined a LACMA museum group that visited collectors’ homes. “I remember just really being smitten by seeing private homes and seeing private collections,” Shapiro told me. “And I really felt I wanted to become a collector.”

He began to visit galleries, where he often didn’t get the warmest treatment. However, at the Herbert Palmer Gallery, Palmer’s daughter, Meredith, who had an art history degree from Harvard and was a brilliant dealer, took him on. She took him to the first LA Art Fair, and introduced him to Annely Juda, the London Gallery owner, from whom he bought his first major work of art, a Kurt Schwitters collage.

Shapiro began to read everything about art and the artists who made the work. “I was a real student, and I read everything I could, and I really understood that you have to buy the best examples of these artists.”

His collection grew to include a Robert Rauschenberg Combine, a Frank Stella Pinstripe painting, sculptures by George Segal, Carl Andre, Joel Shapiro, Tony Smith, Gerhard Richter, and Donald Judd.

As a prominent art collector, he became a trustee at MOCA, in the company of such top Contemporary Art collectors as Eli Broad and Cliff Einstein.

In 1992, Shapiro sold his Budget Rent-A-Car business which had grown to more than 30 offices with some 5000 cars and trucks.

At one point in the 1990s, Shapiro decided to become an artist himself. He’d experienced success in his various endeavors and had definite notions about the art he wanted to make.

“For about three years, I really thought that with all the knowledge I had accumulated as a collector, and I’m a creative person, so I really felt like I should try my hand at being an artist in a serious way.” He built a big studio on the property of his home.

Shapiro made large works on painter’s tarps using acrylic, oils, graphite, house paint, staples, all mounted on board, in some ways reminiscent of work by Rauschenberg, and influenced by Arte Povera, that featured the stenciled names of artists such as Twombly, Judd and Pontormo from whose work Shapiro wanted to break free. Shapiro took his portfolio to the Tasende Gallery in Los Angeles, who gave him two shows. Shapiro thought he was a success.

However, Shapiro also soon experienced financial reverses. He had divorced, and when the first dot.com bust brought him severe stock market losses, the ensuing financial instability caused him to sell his Art collection, most of which went to museums. He also stopped making art.

Shapiro’s own home, minutes from the center of Westwood, is an Italianate villa that he has decorated with a mix of Italian antiquities and modern art with an elaborate garden that was inspired by one he saw in Bordeaux. His home and gardens are the subject of a Rizzoli coffee table book, Past Perfect Richard Shapiro House and Gardens).

People began to seek him out to decorate their homes. Sometimes he did entire houses, sometimes he just consulted. He did this without any training, without a degree, without any apprenticeship. Sometimes, the clients weren’t happy. “I wanted to do what I wanted to do instead of what they wanted me to do.” But the store was successful.

When the landlord wanted to triple the rent, he closed the studio. “But I really craved getting back in.” So, he found a space on La Cienega, that was by coincidence, the former location of the Herbert Palmer Gallery, which he ran until he closed it during Covid.

About four years ago, during the pandemic, he decided to return to making art in his studio. Once again, he devotes his days to his art. He returned to using tarps, but not the painter’s tarps he used before. Instead, he now uses polyethylene tarps that he manipulates into works that are three dimensional and that Shapiro calls “Topographies.”

The tarps are painted and manipulated in ways that are gestural and that appear almost like a Stella painting. Others play with ideas from Cubism, deconstructing the organization and direction of the tarps. In working with tarps, Shapiro notes, “I like the idea of having a language that’s original and fresh.”

His recent exhibition at Rhett Baruch Gallery in Los Angeles was a validation of his current path. He is in the studio now most days, all day.

“This is it for me,” Shapiro told me. “I’m 82, and this is my final chapter: I’m not going to be a collector. I’m not going to be a businessman. This is what I love.”