Grain of Sand by Mati Klarwein 1963 - 1965

quad-a quad-b quad-c quad-d Grain of Sand - Mati Klarwein
Grain of Sand - Mati Klarwein - 1963 - 1965
Click on any quadrant to see detail of that quadrant and play spot the sixties celebrity!



For a long time I had wanted to paint a picture that you could hang up on a wall any which way, a rotating universe with no ups or downs.  I projected it as a sort of painted musical comedy movie with a sanskrit swinging cast of thousands, starring Marilyn Monroe, Anita Ekberg, Ray Charles, Pablo Picasso, Brigitte Bardot, Roland Kirk, Cannonball Adderly, Ahmed Abdul Malik, Wonderwoman, Delacroix's girl in the cemetry, Litri and his bullshit fighters, Florence of Arabia, Socrates, Dali, Rama, Vishnu, Ganesh, the Zork and a Milky Way of playmates.  It was 1962 and I had a special crush on Marilyn.


This inner circle is a mirror image of the outer.  This painting features in the 'Summer of Love' exhibition, which is coming to New York's Whitney Museum of American Art in May 2007 - see News & Events for more details.  The title is a reference to Blake:


To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

(William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence")