The Triptych Paintings(Marc Salz) from 1987 to 1997

Starting in 1987, I began a series of paintings consisting of three panels following a triptych format. These pieces were in part taking elements from early 14th century Renaissance religious panel painting. The Sienese artists at that time used either a single panel or multi panel predellas to display their narratives images. My own paintings were shapes cut out of one sheet of masonite and mounted on thick wood supports. In 1987 I had taken a trip to Holland with my family and then was interested in the roof section of the Dutch houses in Amsterdam and Haarlem. The notches on the top part of the triptich paintings grew out of this architectural detail from these sometimes narrow row houses. In addition, I was looking at the work of Russian icon painters(Andrei Rublev). The paintings received good exposure at the time and were shown in Philadelphia and New York(the Dolan Maxwell gallery and the More gallery) as well as the 1989 Chicago International Art Exposition. The last larger triptychs were in a one person show at Millersville University's art gallery in Pennsylvania and a show at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. By 1997, I felt the need to move on to other shaped formats and that change developped into the "Narrative Abstractions" and then the "Talmudic Abstractions" series in 2001.