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Feature magazine article on Larry's art. |
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It wasn't long before the radiance and excitement expressed through his work caught the eye of locals and visitors alike. First came a commission from the Virgin Isle Hilton, then from Bluebeard's Castle—to provide tropical landscapes for all their rooms. Incidentally, so many of his originals mysteriously went missing after guests checked out that hotel managers were forced to bolt his work to the walls.
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| Bluebeard's Castle Hotel. |
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Larry followed by displaying his work in restaurants, clubs and hotels across the islands. Within the first year, more than six hundred new collectors had acquired his works.
His renown spread to the United States and Europe, and by 1970, 3,500 paintings hung throughout the world—from the private collections of Charles Revson (the founder of Revlon Cosmetics) to the Danish Royal Family. Larry became a local celebrity, with tourists literally posing outside his mountainside home for snapshots. The Gluck name was also widely repeated on a national scale, in the pages of the New York Herald Tribune, and on the airwaves, with interviews broadcast on CBS and NBC.
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| Home on Peter Mountain Road, 1965. |
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Larry and friend James Dickey (far right), then Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress, and who went on to write Deliverance. |
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| Mirage D' Esprit oil painting, "Sophie". |
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As Larry was growing in renown he was also growing as an artist. Returning to oils, he developed a wholly new and original style, "Mirage D' Esprit"—truly unique paintings which appear simply as a pure field of color, but upon further examination, a face emerges, or a beautiful nude... like spirits alighting from the canvas. Hard to capture in words and even harder to successfully photograph, they are among Larry's most sought after creations. Ironically, if Larry had learned anything in art school, it was that he couldn't succeed as a representational painter; and here he was, living with more success than he'd ever dreamed possible... a success he wanted to pass on to others.
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| And so, along with their two children, Larry and Sheila relocated to Los Angeles, and in 1975, opened their own art school, Mission: Renaissance.
Classes began in their home on Mount Washington. By word of mouth and Sheila's efforts, they packed their house with 100 students a week. The most unforgettable of these students was a man with a passionate desire to paint, but who possessed absolutely no natural talent. Larry struggled to teach him, but again and again the eager novice blundered and made no progress. Others would have labeled him hopeless, but Larry persisted. He was forced to examine the art of drawing and painting more closely than he'd ever done before. |
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Larry teaches at home, Mount Washington, Los Angeles, 1975.
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