Sam McKinniss’s Neighborhood

a sam mckinniss painting in a gilt frame with a little plaque underneath, joe santo, class passing, depicts a fey young white guy in a cream jacket, blue shirt, yellow tie, khakis, sitting with his legs crossed, a groomed dog in his left arm, and holding a glass of white wine in the floppy palm of his right hand, evincing a world weary pout as he looks toward the painter or viewer. behind him is a deep brown paneled wall. a painting from mckinniss's undergraduate days, it sold in 2015 and again in 2024.
Sam McKinniss, Joe Santos, Class Passing, 2006, 29 1/4 x 39 1/4 in.,

I’ve been wanting some Sam McKinniss painting in my life, and I did not see the show he just had in LA. So I looked through the auction internet, and found this great, odd, early painting of actor Joe Santos? Is that what I’m seeing? A 2006 painting of Joe Santos looking like an Instagram Birkinfluencer? Did it really sell at the Auction Barn last August for just $900? Was everyone at the beach? WTF is happening?

Only when I was looking for the backstory, and looking at the back of the painting, did I realize it had actually sold once before, in 2015. For $1800, also in Random, Connecticut. The first seller had the invoice and McKinniss’s CV and artist statement in a folder taped to the hanger wire. Very responsible.

Which is all fine. But in 2006 Sam was still an undergrad, finishing his BFA at the University of Hartford. His first solo show, at the Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford, was only in 2007. It was titled, Portraits. What else was in this show? Is it in the new book?

[a bit later after ordering the book update]: It might be in the book. In a conversation with Natasha Stagg, McKinniss explains that he used to take photos of “people in his life” that he would turn into paintings “in a diaristic way, not dissimilar to examples set by Nan Goldin, Jack Pierson, or Mark Morrisroe, the Boston School.” This practice extended into the mid-2010s, while it’s not so clear when McKinniss began painting from iconically found paintings. So maybe we should be more awed at an early, incredibly deep cut publicity photo of young actor Joe Santos in a regional production of Brideshead Revisited, than a glamor shot of one of McKinniss’s classmates doing Insurance Executive Realness.

That question will have to wait, because check out the painting that came up for sale right before Sam’s in 2015:

a lowell nesbitt painting of alex katz's studio in 1972 is dominated by a deep purple brown floor, with some incisions like it's wood, but maybe it's painted concrete, anyway, it's glowing with light from the left side of the frame. three wooden folding chairs, two and a stool, dot the floor artfully, while the empty white wall along two sides is actually flecked with the remnants of paint. the only seemingly unpainted thing is the white canvas leaning against the wall, which is painted white. to its left is a very low, long cabinet of paint jars, not extremely painted. this nine foot wide painting somehow did not sell in 2015 or 2016 at an estate auction in connecticut.
Lowell Nesbitt, Alex Katz’s Studio – 72, 1972, oil, 65 x 95 in., somehow didn’t sell in 2015 OR 2016?

Nine feet wide? This painting by Lowell Nesbitt of Alex Katz’s studio is an absolute unit. And look at that floor. That wall. That blank canvas. Those chairs. OK, maybe not the chairs so much, but actually, yes, the chairs, too. Like so many of Nesbitt’s paintings, it’s odd, slightly off, and beautiful. And the kind of thing that could hang a Sam McKinniss painting next to.

Previously, related: ‘You can imagine yourself owning it.’
Pictures Sam Makes; Wade Guyton Simulacrum Facsimile Object; Bankruptcy Lawler