Shane Guffogg and Stanley Dorfman “Shaping Cultural History”

In this episode, Shane Guffogg, and I speak to the most talented and gifted Stanley Dorfman. We weave in and out of his history and also talk to him about his upcoming episode on The art of Art, where Guffogg is the host. The television series explores artists in their studios and what makes them tick. 

Stanely Dorfman has had many lives and some of which have shaped our cultural history of what we know today. For starters, Stanley was the original producer and director of the Top of the Pops in the ’60s at the BBC in London. In tandem, Stanley has also worked with, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, James Taylor, The Who, Led Zepplin, Joni Mitchell, Frank Sinatra, Elton John, Ravi Shankar, Yoko Ono, Jimmy Hendrix, and Linda Ronstadt to name a few. Equally important, in terms of this discussion, is that Stanley started his life as a painter in the late 40’s at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Whereas a young person, he was fortunate enough to meet and become friends with James Baldwin, Alberto Giacometti, Simone De Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre. This conversation was recorded at Guffogg’s Strathmore ranch, 2 ½ hours from Stanley’s home and studio in Hollywood, where he returned to painting some twenty years ago.

Shane Guffogg is an American artist who looks through the lens of humanity at civilizations, both past, and present, and views time as threads that connect all people. His work is a visual language that is informed by the spiritualism of abstraction and the realism of the old masters. These two ideas are usually seen as separate but Guffogg fuses them seamlessly into works that transcend and become testaments to thoughts that inform us of who we are in the 21st century.