“Art: It’s great to do it well, if you can … It may be even better just to simply do it.”
Gene Hackman’s words seem like they should be found mounted on a well-lit wall, surrounded by beautiful landscapes and graceful portraits. Instead, they were found scratched on a note, with the word “simply” inputted by a caret symbol, as if to say it was important enough to fix the semantics of the phrase but not the presentation.
The note was found in Gene Hackman’s art studio, tucked in with his sketchbook. The words may have served as a safeguard, describing what awaited within the following pages. Or maybe they were meant as words of encouragement to himself as he prepared to draw. Either way, the words ring true in any artistic context.
Gene Hackman was a beloved actor and director, gracing screens in films such as “The French Connection,” the 1978 “Superman” and “The Firm.” Over the course of his career, he accumulated two Academy Awards, two BAFTAs, three Golden Globes and one Screen Actors Guild Award.
In February of this year, 2025, Hackman passed away. The circumstances were tragic and unexpected. Hackman and his wife passed within a week of each other but weren’t discovered until days later.
The news of this loss struck many who knew Hackman for the wide variety of nuanced characters he brought to life, but greater fans of his knew that he wasn’t just an actor.
He acted, wrote and painted. He was an artist in every sense of the word.
On November 19th, the auction house Bonhams is hosting a live auction of a wide collection of items from the Hackman estate. The collection consists of other artists’ work, Hackman’s notes and, most interestingly, his art.
When you look at Hackman’s paintings, you can’t help but feel as though they are innately special. Not because they are chock-full of meaning and dissonance, but because it seems as though they were never meant to be deeply studied or valued with a high price tag. They are simply the product of a man who had a hobby.
One of Hackman’s paintings being sold in the auction depicts a New Mexico landscape with small houses nestled into the rocky protection of a mountain — much like Hackman’s very own home in Santa Fe.
The painting is simple and beautiful.
Somewhere along the way we’ve forgotten that art can be just that: simple and beautiful.
The nineteenth-century aesthetic movement gave us the slogan “art for art’s sake,” and though it is still tossed around, it is very rarely given the attention that it deserves.
In a digital age where art can be anything from color arranged within a square to a two-hour feature-length story, the media available for us to consume is often over-seasoned and overwrought with meaning and messaging. The flavors are overbearing when sometimes all we want is buttered noodles. Something simple and beautiful.
After his retirement, Hackman’s work served as a prime example of how to do art for art’s sake. In fact, his entire life’s work put this principle into action.
Even when playing corrupt characters in films like “Runaway Jury” and “The Firm,” Hackman managed to elevate each film with performances that highlighted the good in the story.
Needless to say, Hackman did art well, but that doesn’t subtract from the value of his note.
His quote points us to the reason mankind makes art to begin with.
It isn’t so that we can convince the world of the superiority of our own views or prove our talent to ourselves and others, though these motivations often slip through. Instead, our nature is to strive to be like the Creator, and so we strive to create.
The wonder of sitting back to admire the beauty of a sunset, the handiwork of a sovereign Creator, drives us to reach that level of splendor. Whether we try to paint creation or photograph it, God invites us to participate and sit with His art.
There is something so rewarding in seeing something through, start to finish — to see a blank document be filled with words, a white canvas filled with color, or a video editing sequence filled with a story. And at the end of it all, you can step back and say, “That is beautiful.”
