“It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism. There is no such thing as good painting about nothing.”

This is a story about David Seculoff, who, disguised as a mild-mannered, part-time doorman during the day, becomes a mild-mannered clarinetist and abstract painter off the clock. And, shhhh ... he is reticent to talk about any of it. He doesn’t even practice it all that much, so let’s just keep it between us, okay?

This sixty-ish, cosmopolitan painter - reluctant to talk about his work, tight-lipped for sure and a challenge to enquiring journalists anywhere - is nonetheless, an unsung talent deserving of attention.

And, with such - responses, we’re left to string together a mosaic of underlining elements that might help us address his painted works which have been shown and collected internationally as well as most recently at Artlink.

His paintings, large, 4 by 5-foot expanses on special paper (he needs to secure it out of Chicago; it’s unavailable here and no local outlets will order it for him, duh?) absorb his deep, but not dark, brooding colors. He applies the paint via a roller, but sometimes it’s nudged or dripped. The images resemble cast imprints from peeling billboards and posters. They mimic the residue of weathered exterior walls or eroded pedestrian pathways, all the while incorporating geometric, hard-edged shapes.

Born of highly driven immigrant Macedonian parents, Seculoff was exposed to music and art appreciation from the onset. His parents, particularly his father, were determined to provide an old-world upbringing including the fine arts, and he and his five siblings were exposed to music and literature.

After working in several trades including a career as a baker, the elder Seculoff and his wife opened a restaurant originally called The Palace of Sweets, later Tom and Johnnies, on West Main Street, with Mrs. Seculoff doing the cooking. Years later the family sold the business, and it is now the site of O’Sullivans.

During his school days (he eventually played in the band and orchestra during high school at Central Catholic) David pursued the clarinet and was able to master it to the point that he played with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic under his mentor, the former renowned conductor, Igor Buketoff.

From there he graduated to extra curricular classes in Chicago and parlayed a scholarship to the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California following a stint in the Army during the Korean War. Although he maintained his abiding interest in music at USC (he actually played a bagpipe at one point), Seculoff considered becoming a writer and ended up earning his undergraduate degree in the Humanities. Two years later he would earn a MFA.

Although he himself never took a painting class from him, Seculoff remembers the legendary painter Richard Diebenkorn, mostly from stories through friends who took his classes at USC.

“It made sense to me,” he recalled “that Diebenkorn would require his students to produce a painting each day of class. It was a way to teach younger artists not to be precious, to loosen up and not to be so attached. I’m not certain the students liked it.”

Interestingly, while living in Hermosa Beach Seculoff became a neighbor of the famous artist and would occasionally catch a glimpse of him working on a piece on his balcony.

“I was far too timid to ever approach him,” Seculoff remembered.

“It was an interesting period then in all the arts,” he continued. “Charles Lloyd (the jazz saxophonist) was a classmate. Together with friends I’d go to the Lighthouse to hear whatever group was headlining there.”

To earn extra money the young Seculoff would play occasional gigs, but he preferred doing portraits of USC sorority girls where he could refine his emerging talent for figure drawing. The work was satisfying and rewarding, but sometimes only after the portraits were found agreeable by the girl’s father. (“Too much cleavage, not enough cleavage.”)

While completing his graduate work Seculoff worked as a teaching assistant, and after graduation he found employment at the County Museum and Municipal Art Gallery in Los Angeles. Years later Seculoff would return to the West Coast and work for museums and galleries in San Francisco and Pasadena.

After settling in the Washington area, he found jobs with the Smithsonian and Hirschhorn where he served as a curatorial assistant. In one memorable episode he and a colleague were dispatched to meet with Clyfford Still’s widow in the hopes of negotiating the rights to his works. “I don’t remember exactly how it turned out. She demanded that all the works be displayed together in one room. That would be a very rare concession.”

Wanderlust and the chance to meet up with friends took Seculoff to Berlin, where he took classes at the Hochscule Fur Bildende Kunste in the late 1960s (he speaks flawless German). There he worked a variety of jobs and helped support himself playing the clarinet. Again he immersed himself in the German culture and attended opera, recitals, the theater, both Brechtian productions as well as those of the expatriate Living Theatre.

“One of my most interesting jobs was working as a department store display designer,” he recalled. “I’ve always had a fondness for beautiful objects, though I’ve never become a serious collector.”