06/11/2026
In 1861, Edouard Manetâs âThe Spanish Singerâmade him famous â a working-class guitarist on a bench, painted at monumental scale with radical directness, surrounded by onions and a wine jug. It was his first acceptance into the Paris Salon, his first honorable mention, and a provocation: grand-scale painting had been reserved for mythology, history, and nobility, not a street musician with a jug of wine at his feet. It changed everything.
Itâs clear, David Saunders took notes.
Saundersâs âSpanish Guitarâ borrows Manetâs exact vocabulary â the figure, the bench, the props â and recomposes it with a striking twist. Saunders works with a signature technique, physically incising the canvas with carved lines that define the figure, the bench, the onions, the jug. The figure himself is painted not naturalistically, but in warm gold; making him more icon than man, more symbol than subject. And the guitar? Itâs the one element he doesnât carve. Itâs simply painted â luminous, fully realized, the most present thing in the room. The man recedes into myth. The instrument steps into the light. Saunders doesnât just reference Manet â he reorders what the painting is about.
âSpanish Guitarâ by David Saunders, 50 x 54 inches, Oil on incised canvas, 1992
On view through June 21 at Grenning Gallery, 26 Main St. Sag Harbor.
