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A rising star in the 1950s and 1960s, Bostelle exhibited
internationally and had dealers clamoring for his work. But he
decided, in the late 1960s, that he didn't need the gallery
world. So he withdrew to his Pocopson, Pa., studio (a
tumble-down 1920s dance studio which he dubbed The
Aeolian Palace), and simply painted what he wanted.

Since 1947, Bostelle painted what he called "shadows,"
working mainly with oils on plywood panels, paper and
canvas. The dark figures -- stretched, overlapped, broken
free from the people and animals who cast them -- are his
way of encapsulating human emotion in its purest form. By
removing suggestions of the third dimension from his art,
Bostelle simplifies his figures down to their essence.

These shadows, often life-size or larger, are as strong and
timeless as prehistoric cave paintings. But his works also
have a sinister edge that unnerves some viewers. Many of his
themes, like the recurring "Dark Crowd," symbolize makind's
darkest instincts. Still, there is humor -- grim humor -- in his
work, if you know where to find it. Bostelle's works are wry
and double-edged, and most of them become clear only if
you talk to him about their meanings.

When he was only 16, Bostelle befriended primitive artist
Horace Pippin and convinced the elderly painter to sit for a
portrait. Today, that portrait is in the collection of the
National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Bostelle quit
school at 17 and schooled himself in painting, studying the
masters and learning to draw. He worked as a house painter,
truck driver, gardener and steelworker, among other trades.

"Crowds have always frightened me," Bostelle once
wrote. "Once as a child, I was almost killed watching a fire
on Matlack Street. A woman grabbed me just in time to
keep me from being pushed off a railroad trestle. My first
idea for painting crowds came from observing a huge
gathering of Japanese at Osaka. They were soldiers being
dismissed from the army -- poor, wretched mass of humanity
-- dirty, disheveled, with nothing but a few remnants of
clothing. There was no order, only an artistic order made by
their grouping."

"My art concerns the human condition in my time -- the
paradox of life. I see people theatrically, as on a stage --
fractured and distorted by the times, politics, technology, loss
of individuality. Life is at the same time more beautiful and
more terrible than it has ever been." "I have been told that my
paintings during my 'gothic' period projected an image of me
as being despondent. When people came to the studio, they
were surprised to find me so cheerful.

"One of the most amusing comments on the paradoxical
nature of my 'celebrations of life' came from Franz Bader on
a lovely spring day when I arrived with the paintings for my
exhibit. He studied the mostly black, Gothic works I had
propped around his chair, walked to the window through
which the sun was shining brilliantly, and quipped: 'Well, we
can always call the show 'To Hell With Spring.'"

"I've never had much vanity," Bostelle has said. "But ego?
I don't think you can work in the arts without considerable
ego, especially when you're struggling to become. I believe
very much in the 'nerve of failure' -- daring to do something in
spite of the fact that it may fail utterly. No artist worth his salt
is without a number of artistic failures scattered among his
major achievements."

"When I was 18, I had some studies at the Pennsylvania
Academy, because I desperately wanted to draw from a life
model," Bostelle said of his one and only stint of training. "I
had no instruction. I took two courses, during which I
learned to talk to girls in the hallway and learned to fence."
Having learned to paint a likeness, Bostelle gradually trained
himself to "unlearn."

"When you start out, you learn your trade, all the details,"
he said. "But you can perfect too much, especially if you are
too connected to the modern world. You must gradually
unlearn your past."

Bostelle married, had four children, nursed his wife, Mary,
through years of debilitating Alzheimer's disease
(heartbreakingly detailed in his book, 'Hob House') and
worked -- his paintings turning blacker as Mary's condition
worsened. "It seemed to me that death is so close," he said.

Bostelle counted many people among his friends, and
entertained them with hour after hour of debate, ranging from
art to sports to history to movies to the relative merits of past
presidents -- all with good humor and the boundless joy he
found in exchanging ideas.