Ted Diamond (American 1938-1985)

Ted Diamond was an artist who spent much of his life, obsessed with death and suicide, eventually taking his own life in 1985 at forty-seven years of age.

Although Diamond briefly studied at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, he did not enjoy a conventional education or a career as a trained artist. Most of the work was executed while he was living in a public psychiatric hospital in the Boston area, but even under these harsh conditions he found precious moments to paint.

A group of intimate paintings in gouache mounted on black paper in several notebooks were found in his room after his death by a supporter and friend who has kept them safe for nearly 30 years.  An exceptional discovery, the energy of these tempera paintings, and their handling results in powerful scale beyond their humble size, a function of emotional and neurotic content elevated by coloristic and painterly mastery. All are either self-portraits or renderings of other psychiatric patients encountered on the wards in his hospital stays. These remarkable works have never been seen publicly until now.