plywood is bolted. Next comes a layer of masonite, over which Sultan adheres squares of vinyl tiles to form a grid. Using this four-foot square as the standard unit, the artist then combines squares to make the actual composition. In the next step, Sultan applies several layers of tar over the edges of the support, sometimes leaving some of the tiles exposed. After the tar has dried (this may take up to two weeks), the artist has a matte black veneer on which to play. Employing knives and a blowtorch, he scores, gouges, burns, and manipulates his surface, outlining his image. Then he rebuilds the surface, using spackle, latex, and paint. The complexity of Sultan’s arduous procedure contrasts with the simplicity of his subjects, and yet technique and image work harmoniously as a whole. . . .

During the mid-1970s, conventional wisdom’s dismissal of new painting ensured that Sultan’s admirers would emerge from the sparse ranks of the highly sophisticated. Them as the decade ended, conventional wisdom announced that painting was back, and Sultan suddenly acquired a high profile. As figurative painting flooded the New York art world, his picturemaking looked prescient, not quirky, and the calm but substantial weight of his worked served them well in a scene crowded with physically aggressive art. In 1979, Julian Schnabel had shown big, boxy paintings covered with shards of crockery. Soon after, Robert Longo presented works that combined painting, low-relief sculpture, and assemblage. Painting had become theatrical, even operatic. Even those painters who worked in the traditional way, with paint and canvas, tended toward grandiosity. By the standards of the 1980s, Sultan’s paintings are big but not huge. Yet they had no difficulty in standing up to the brash, jostling competition, for they are not merely weighty. They have grandeur of scale. They are monumental, even when they picture something as small as a goldfish.