The artist Bradford Salamon embraces his entire life in his artwork, from his childhood and teenage years—watching cartoons and films, surfing in SoCal, playing in bands, and engaging with friends—to the present. These experiences and influences are recollected and rendered in his current exhibition at the Hilbert Museum, a collection of 47 paintings and illustrations from the past four decades that include the artist’s friends, scenes from his life, and favored images from his childhood. These incorporate actual and fictional characters from the artist’s memory catalogue: R2-D2 from Star Wars, David Bowie, Gidget, Bob Dylan, Betty Boop, Andy Warhol,
Alfred E. Neuman, and Walt Disney. 

Yet his painterly subjects are often his colleagues as well. A series of portraits include California artists Don Bachardy (2007), Alex Couwenberg (2012), Tony DeLap (2015), and Mark Ryden (2015) demonstrate Salamon’s intuitive approach with Couwenberg and DeLap in intense poses but Bachardy relaxing. His empathetic portrait, Clare #11 (2015) portrays Clare Dowling, daughter of artist Tom Dowling, on the cusp of her teenage years. His domestic scenes bring viewers to intimate worlds of friends and family. Expectations (2009) also features art colleagues, a pregnant Julie Perlin Lee standing proudly in her living room, while her husband David Michael Lee looks on admiringly and a bit quizzically. An art history Easter egg is revealed in the title of the book the husband is reading combined with the vessels on the sideboard behind and between the couple.

Bradford J. Salamon, Dude Descending a Staircase, 2019. Oil on canvas,The Hilbert Collection
of California Art.

In another domestic scene, Sinisi Family Holiday (2017), the artist and his friends, the three Sinisi boys, stand with their mother alongside a camper scheduled for a cross-country trip. Salamon enjoyed hearing stories of their adventures when they returned home. White Rabbit (2016) illustrates the artist’s wife Kathy, his mother-in-law, and daughters Lauren, Sarah, and Monet, with the smiling Lauren spanning a doorway, while several feet above the floor. The painting (including a rabbit referencing procreation) expresses the artist’s penchant to see artistry in amusing situations. Similarly witty is one of Salamon’s most important paintings, Dude Descending a Staircase (2019), depicting a disheveled Jeff Bridges walking down a staircase. 

Yet another painting suggests Salamon’s devotion to his Southern California roots, his Monday Night at the Crab Cooker (2016). This illustration of Salamon, Mark Hilbert, co-founder of the Hilbert Museum, and Gordon McClelland who curated “Forging Ahead,” enjoying a meal, is resonant with Orange County associations, as the Crab Cooker is a long favored eatery. The painting also depicts an important aspect of Salamon’s life, as the trio often meets for dinner at the storied, demolished, and resurrected Newport Beach eatery.