William Remick, 61; abstract artist was inspired by music

William E. Remick worked on large paintings in his South End studio while listening to music -- sometimes a single movement of a Dmitri Shostakovich string quartet over and over as he applied layer after layer of color to the canvas.

"He was an abstract painter, very formal, and yet as time went on he became much more interested in kind of an abstract expressionist interpretation of music," said Bill Flynn of Dorchester, an artist and a friend of more than 30 years. "Music was a big part of his work, almost an underlying structure of it."

Once he looked at one of Mr. Remick's paintings "and I swear it was like looking at a Charles Ives piece," Flynn said, likening his friend's textured abstract art to the work of the New England composer of symphonies, sonatas, and songs.

Mr. Remick, who was as adept in the world of accounting as he was in art, took his life Dec. 11 in his studio, which was part of the apartment where he lived, said Leslie Wilcox, his companion of 23 years. He was 61.

"He was surrounded by his paintings," Wilcox said. "I've been telling people that even though that's where he left, he wanted to leave this earth surrounded by his work. He was happiest there."

As a boy he seemed headed for a career in accounting and worked at John Hancock right out of high school before attending college. An artist for more than three decades, Mr. Remick paid his bills at first by alternating a year of accounting work with a year of painting, and then by freelancing as a consultant who helped companies adapt to computer accounting software.

An artist's studio was his preferred milieu, however. He was at home with the smell of paint, the sound of classical music, and the words of historians and philosophers such as Walter Benjamin and Emil Cioran.

"He starts out with the canvas on the floor," Wilcox said. "He does pencil, he does veils of washes, he does pastels and colored pencil. And then a lot of times he gets it all wet and crinkles it, then he stretches it out on a large stretcher, so it would keep that crinkled texture, and that would be part of the layering. Then he puts on all the layers of oil paint. Layer and layer and layer of paint. Some are opaque; some are translucent."

The result was a painting of such deep texture that viewers might feel they could step inside, she said.

Mr. Remick, who was named for an uncle who was killed while fighting in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II, was drawn to history, to reading about the excesses of inhumanity expressed in wars.

"He was just so devastated about World War II, the Holocaust, Darfur, Iraq," Wilcox said.

While creating his last series of paintings, "Lamentation for Wars' Victims," he listened repeatedly to Shostakovich's "String Quartet No. 8 in C minor," which the composer dedicated to the victims of war and fascism.

"When you see his paintings they're beautiful," Wilcox said. "There is a sad component, there is a deep anguish, and many different layers. At the same time, they're not morose -- they're somehow celebrating the human spirit to survive. The paintings are very, very beautiful."

Mr. Remick was born in Roxbury, the second of three sons. His father drove a bus and his mother worked for the Salvation Army. The family moved to Canton, where he graduated in 1962 from Canton High School.

He played euphonium with the Salvation Army and developed the love of classical music that years later became part of his art and the compassion that became part of his daily life.

"We were always brought up to reach out to other people's needs as you can," said his brother Robert of Duxbury. "If there's a need, you try to do what you can to try to meet it."

After high school, he worked in the insurance field and attended Bentley College before becoming passionate about art. He enrolled at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, working by day and studying at night and on weekends. Mr. Remick graduated with a bachelor of fine arts degree from Tufts University and the Museum School in 1978, receiving a fifth-year certificate from the Museum School the following year.

His work is part of the collections at the Fogg Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, the DeCordova Museum, and the Boston Public Library, Wilcox said, and also hangs in many private collections.

Mr. Remick, who had battled depression for years, was simultaneously known for his humor.

"He had this wonderful, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor about him, very subtle and sneaky," Wilcox said. "He loved to laugh."

Flynn said he and his friend would walk down Newbury Street and stop when they came to a particularly flat piece of sidewalk. There, they pitched quarters.

"It was amazing how others would jump in," he said.

Though he often preferred the solitude of the studio, Mr. Remick was an easy person with whom to spend time, Wilcox said.

"He was just a compassionate and sensitive and gracious person," she said. "And so intelligent. He was one of these people who would really listen to what people had to say."

In addition to Wilcox and his brother Robert, Mr. Remick leaves another brother, Doug of Sevierville, Tenn.

Wilcox will host a memorial gathering at 1 p.m. today in their home and studio in the Hub Building on Washington Street in Boston.