Gregory Gillespie

Remembering Realist Artist

By: Charles Giuliano - Sep 21, 2014

Gregory Gillespie

Seemingly
A career year
Traveling Retrospective
Nice Catalogue
Good essays
Full page ads in glossy magazines
Reviews and features
What could be better
Shocked to read
Over breakfast in a booth
New York Times
Gregory Gillespie
Found hanged in his studio
Self inflicted
The pain of discovery
For Peggy and their daughter
How ever to explain
Post project blues
A lifetime of fighting depression
Clues
Such obvious hindsight
That artful tomb he displayed
Niche for his ashes
Amusing when we talked about it
Now not so
Just when he had it all
The outsider
Finally accepted
Too late to overcome
The acidic doubts
Corroding vulnerable psyche
The work survives
Those now so poignant self portraits
All future assessments
Layered
Reconfigured by tragic details
Such a violent demise
In that empty studio
Far too painful
To continue spinning its straw into
Gold

May 20, 2000