Amanda Lear « A picture is never finished »

 Amanda Lear shortly before the opening of her exhibition in Zurich. «I enjoy every day. When you have negative thoughts, only bad luck happens.”

From Jean Claude Galli Editor People . . .

Three hours before the vernissage there is still a wild chaos – and in the middle of it all the artist is sitting and resolutely directing the many helpers who are hanging up her paintings in French. Amanda Lear (82) is the epitome of a dazzling figure. Cultural manager Claudio Righetti (56), who has known her for over 30 years and who organizes the exhibition on Oetenbachgasse in Zurich, which runs until December 16, in cooperation with the Efficiency Club, describes her as a “cult figure, muse and style icon”. In the 1970s, Lear sold 25 million records as a singer with disco hits such as “Follow Me” or “Blood and Honey”. Before that, she was a successful mannequin, as models were called back then. She was in a relationship with David Bowie (1947-2016) and with Brian Jones (1942-1969) from the Rolling Stones, who dedicated a song to her in 1967 (“Miss Amanda Jones”). And for 15 years she lived with Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), who, despite fierce resistance, made her see herself primarily as a painter.

Lear met the Spanish surrealist in the 1960s as an art student in London. «When I met Salvador, I was already painting. But I earned my money as a model. But I knew what Dalí thought of models. He saw them as inferior objects of desire. That’s why I didn’t say: ‘I’m a mannequin’, but: ‘I’m a painter. I paint pictures, so we are actually colleagues.’ He said curtly: ‘We are not colleagues, Madame. Women can’t paint, they have no talent for it’», she recalls.

“That’s why I wanted to prove myself in particular.”Amanda Lear

He was very macho, which of course upset her. “That’s why I wanted to prove myself. His comment: ‘I don’t want to see your pictures. Never even think of showing them to me.’ That’s why I stopped painting until the pressure got too big and one day in his studio I picked up the brush again. It was the first time he saw me paint. He came, stood behind me and said: ‘Mmh, mmh, c’est pas mal … pour une femme.’» But he didn’t really like it. She felt that. “He just didn’t believe that women could express themselves in painting and art in the same way as men. But he was old too. And other men have this problem as well.” That’s why women still have a hard time and have to be very persistent, like Louise Bourgeois, for example.

“I never really liked Salvador’s pictures”

Dalí’s artistic rigor shaped Lear. “He told me that once you’ve created a masterpiece, you can walk away forever. I would have liked to have landed a really big hit, but I didn’t want to have to die immediately afterwards. I’m too happy to live for that.” That’s why she’s been sabotaging her own pictures ever since, so they’re not perfect. “Because I am very afraid of dying. Maybe that’s why I never really liked Salvador’s pictures. I must have feared them because they were so good.”

Away from painting, however, the attraction was mutual and total. “Amanda is an angelic being. Her dragonfly-like eyes see what is hidden from others », Dalí enthused about her.

Over the years his influence waned and Lear developed his own style of painting. She has been exhibiting in galleries since the 1980s, most recently in Switzerland in Bern in 2019. She prefers to paint in Provence. «Do you know Avignon with that wonderful light? When I paint there, I have completely different things on my mind than when I look out the window here in Zurich. Everything is so gray and drab, you understand? The inspiration comes all by itself there.”

Men’s buttocks: Round, tight, powerful

Many of her paintings show naked bodies. “I don’t find them erotic,” she says. “They are what they are.” One of her specialties are men’s bottoms – round, tight, powerful. She likes that very much. But she has a problem in this regard: “I hardly find any models for it. There are already young men who are getting in touch. But when I tell them they have to undress to model, they suddenly shy away and make trouble.” She doesn’t know why. She wonders if they’re afraid she might want something else from them besides painting them? “Écoutez – that’s long gone, believe me,” she says and laughs out loud. “I just want a good picture, that’s all.”

Lear has been successful in a wide variety of fields in her career, not only in music but also in the theater and as a TV presenter. But it was always clear to her: “Painting remained my great love.” And she knew that if her youthfulness and the energy to dress up again and again should ever be over, then painting would remain with her. You don’t have to wear makeup to paint. You don’t need expensive studios, spotlights and backdrops. “Painting is something very personal, intimate.” And that’s why you’re more vulnerable. You open your heart. Put on paper what is going on in your own heart. On the stage she plays a role, in painting she is herself. «I want to show my feelings, my fears, my sleepless nights. As a painter, I’m never sure. And a picture is never finished.”

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