Art sans pretension

In a career spanning over five decades, the enigmatic Hollywood actor Anthony Quinn (1915–2001) appeared in more than 150 films, earning critical acclaim, including two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor for Viva Zapata! (1952) and Lust for Life (1956).

Tall and rugged, the barrel-chested ‘method’ actor possessed a commanding screen presence characterised by a raw and elemental virility. His notable films included La Strada, The Guns of Navarone, Zorba the Greek, and Lawrence of Arabia, among many others. “I see the character, and try to get inside his clothes,” he explained his approach to acting. “I try to fit myself into the character rather than make the character fit me.”

Besides acting, Quinn nurtured a lifelong passion for painting and sculpting. As a young boy, he earned money by drawing portraits of movie stars. Even during his successful acting career, he dedicated time to sketching and sculpting, often transforming found pieces of wood and stone into intricate sculptures, which he would later rework into larger pieces.

Quinn found beauty in everything, be it a small pebble or a piece of wood. His widow, Katherine Quinn, recalled that for Quinn, creativity was part of everyday life. “He saw beauty and art in the simplest things. A simple flower arrangement, the way pictures hung on a wall, the care with which a tree was pruned.”

A prolific artist, Quinn executed many expressionist portraits and self-portraits, as well as abstract geometric and organic forms. His work often revealed traits of cubism and post-impressionism. “I steal from everybody, Picasso, Kandinsky, Matisse, Miro,” he would candidly acknowledge. “I steal, but only from the best… I’m much more honest in my painting than I am as an actor.” He also liked sculpting better than painting. “You have more freedom in sculpting.”

Defying categorisation

Critics and observers noted that Quinn defied categorisation in both his acting and artistic endeavours. Creating a parallel universe for himself, he sought to find solace and refuge within the creative process. For him, making art was not merely a hobby or pastime; it was a serious pursuit fuelled by an inner vision. “I paint because I have a vision,” he once said. “A vision of order and beauty. And since I don’t find order and beauty in life, I’m going to have to create it for myself.”

On straddling the two professions, he confessed: “On stage and in film, I speak the words of the author, move to the movements of the director, behind the mask of a makeup artist, against the backdrop of a set designer. With my artwork, I am my own master and make my own personal statement, free to explore the limits of my own imagination.”

Art historian Pamela Karimi observes that Quinn’s unpretentious art simultaneously captured the essence of his real being, a man of intense curiosity and sympathy toward humankind, and his performative being, an esoteric, shamanistic, and provocative fictional character. “His onscreen performance occupies the true and natural essence of his characters; by the same token, his art displays the marrow of human form.”

A voracious reader, Quinn maintained a library of over 10,000 books on wide-ranging subjects of art, science, history, and philosophy. He was also an avid art collector. By the end of his life, his collection had over 3,000 objects, including his own paintings, sketches and sculptures as well as rare books, artworks, and African masks acquired during his world travels.

‘One hell of a character’

Despite his many accomplishments, Quinn never forgot his humble beginnings. Born in Mexico to a Mexican mother and an Irish father, he grew up in poverty in East Los Angeles.

Losing his father at a young age, he took on various odd jobs, including farmhand, boxer, preacher, and shoe-shine boy. “No one who has ever gone hungry,” he later remarked, “can escape the fear of going hungry again.”

Quinn was ‘one hell of a character’ as his co-star Gina Lollobrigida pointed out. He fathered 13 children by three wives and three mistresses. When he married for the third time, he was 70 and his wife was 23. He became a dad at 81, when his eldest daughter was 56. Always forthright in thought and action, he candidly admitted, “I think I’m lucky. I was born with very little talent but great drive.”

When Quinn passed away from cancer on June 3, 2001, aged 86, in Boston, The Guardian paid tribute thus: “There were few better noble savages in Hollywood movies.”