“Robert De Niro on His Father’s Legacy: ‘I Like to Respect Things the Way They Are”
October 14, 2019
Robert De Niro poses next to a painting by his father Robert De Niro, Sr. at the exhibition of Robert De Niro, Sr. paintings at La Piscine in Roubaix, France on June 18th, 2005. Courtesy of Gamma-Rapho via Getty Imagineeres
Robert De Niro might be a tough guy onscreen, but when he talks about his father, Robert De Niro Sr., he softens up. You might have seen the documentary on his father, Remembering the Artist: Robert De Niro, Sr., which details the life of De Niro Sr., an abstract expressionist painter who saw his rise in the postwar New York art scene in the 1940s and 1950s.
While his paintings are on permanent view at De Niro’s New York venues; the Tribeca Grill, Greenwich Hotel and the Tribeca Film Center, he is now honoring the legacy of his father in a new book released by Rizzoli, called Robert De Niro, Sr., Paintings, Drawings and Writings: 1942-1993. The book features over 100 paintings and previously unpublished diary entries by De Niro Sr, alongside an essay by De Niro Jr., among others. De Nir Sr.’s paintings will also be on view on November 14 at the DC Moore Gallery in New York, a solo show, called Intensity in Paint: Installation of Six Works. De Niro spoke to me about preserving his father’s legacy, what movies he saw with his dad and why he calls The Irishman a “scrolling canvas.”
You said in the HBO documentary about your dad, that it’s your responsibility that your dad gets his due. Is this new book part of it?
Robert De Niro: Yeah, of course, the book and even the documentary, which was initially just for the family, or anybody who was interested. It’s for my kids, my grandkids, great grandkids and so on, just so they would know who my father was, their grandfather or great grandfather was, and what a wonderful artist he was.
Is there a reason why you think he was a genuine artist?
He was a real dedicated artist, a real honest, he was prolific, anybody who you talk to who is knowledgeable about art and the art scene would not disagree with that. That’s all.
There’s one photo in the book of him in his SoHo studio, I think it was taken on West Broadway, right?
Robert De Niro’s studio in New York. Courtesy of Rudy Burckhardt
His last studio was on West Broadway, which I have pretty much kept the way he left it. He used to have another one on West Broadway, which was on the ground floor. 55 or 65 years ago. That picture of him in the studio, that was more recent.
What do you remember about growing up there or going to that studio?
The more recent studio is the one that we have, maybe he got in there around 30 years ago, my mother had lived there and she gave it to him. She got a different studio in a different part of SoHo and he took that one.
You’ve kept his studio as it is, so I’m wondering if you’d ever turn it into a gallery or museum?
People were asking me if I’d make it in a way so people can visit it, and I think—yeah, maybe, it’s a possibility, depending on what you have to do. It’s a building where other people live, so you set times when people can go. It’s still a possibility, at this point.
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Growing up with artist parents probably means you grew up with less rules than other people? Did that enable you as an artist, as well?
I don’t know, I mean, maybe in terms of taste in some ways. I like things to be—I like to respect things the way they are. Not so structured or perfect, any of that stuff. Depends on how I apply that, but it’s something that I say ‘well, what’s wrong with just leaving it the way it is?’ There’s nothing to do, it’s fine. It is what it is.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it!
Just keep it simple.
This is similar, kind of the same, but not really, let’s say you go to a restaurant and they change a dish that has been there for years because they have a new chef, and the new chef doesn’t want to make it and the owners allow them, I would imagine, for ego reason, or something, to take that classic salad and change it. To change it, why? Just leave it on the menu!
That’s why you go to that restaurant!
It’s annoying.
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Because you have such a seasoned eye for art, I wonder what was the greatest lesson your dad taught you in life?
As I remember, he said, ‘you like it, you like it, you don’t, you don’t.’ So, it’s that simple. To me, I prefer art that’s more abstract or impressionistic, it’s more of an interpretation of what’s being looked at. It’s a different type of attitude towards art, in a certain way.