Summer 2023 Art & Antiques

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SUMMER 2023

F O R C O L L E C T O R S O F T H E F I N E A N D D E C O R AT I V E A R T S

A M E R I C A N R E A L I S M | O S C A R H OW E | L AV I N I A F O N TA N A | LO U I S E N E V E L S O N

James Brooks

William Lumpkins (1908-2000)

Mescalero Apache Dance, ca 1930s, Oil on canvas, 44 x 40 inches

505.982.1533 addisonrowe.art [email protected]

The Patriot, watercolor on rag paper, 22 x 30 inches

INGRAM FINE ART Wiscasset, ME (843) 789-9565

GALLERY 2 Rockland, ME (843) 789-9565

www.stephenhodecker.com

Maria Garcia Photogram 1968-73 Gelatin Silver Print, 10 x 7 15/16 in. Signed in pencil on verso (Inv# 87301-C)

Kati Horna Untitled - Collaboration with Jose Horna, Mexico 1962 Gelatin Silver Print, 10 x 8 in. Signed in pencil on verso (Inv# 71561)

Marilyn Bridges Perfect Spiral, Nazca, Peru 1979, printed 2005 Gelatin silver print 16 x 20 in. Signed in pencil on verso (Inv# 105768-C)

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From its beginnings to Abstract Expressionism and beyond, the work of James Brooks is reassessed at the Parrish Art Museum BY LILLY WEI

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Exceptional Creative Lavinia Fontana, a Bolognese painter of the Cinquecento, broke barriers for women artists all while demonstrating extraordinary talent BY ASHLEY BUSBY

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Subject and Style

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A new exhibition at the Muskegon Museum of Art reexamines American painting as it confronted the modern world and modern art BY JAMES D. BALESTRIERI

On The Cover: James Brooks, Eastern, 1982 Lithograph, 30 1⁄4 x 22 1⁄8 [detail] Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, N.Y., Gift of Carole and Alex Rosenberg

VOLUME XLVI

NUMBER 7

ARTANDANTIQUESMAG.COM

BR OOKS I MAG E : PARR I SH ART M US E UM , WAT E R MIL L, N.Y. , GI FT OF M RS. FA IR FIELD P ORT ER ; FO NTANA FO NDAZI ONE RITI RO SAN P ELLEG RI NO. P HOTO : EQ UIP E FOTOSTUDIO BOLOG NA; AM ERI CAN R EALISM : COLL EC T IO N O F TH E F L IN T I NST IT U T E O F ARTS , F L INT, M ICH IGAN . M USE UM P U RCHAS E W ITH FUNDS F RO M AN ANO NY MOU S DON OR IN H ONO R OF BAR B ARA AND THE LATE BRUCE MACKEY, 2011.322

A Marvelous Thing

july/august 2023

36 OBJECTS OF DESIRE

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A vase by glass artist Chris Tarpley; A hybrid of sculpture and furniture by Chris Schanck.

E D I TO R

Lorna Dryden C R E AT I V E D I R E C TO R

IN PERSPECTIVE

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Mark Snyder

More extensive coverage of the best auctions, museum exhibitions, and gallery shows from

C O P Y E D I TO R

Roger Harris

around the country—as well as our annual

A S S O C I AT E A R T D I R E C TO R

Santa Fe coverage.

Emma C Dryden C O N T R I B U T I N G P H OTO G R A P H E R S

Randall Cordero Ted Morrison

EXHIBITIONS

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“Dakota Modern: The Art of Oscar Howe,”

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an exhibition on view until September 17th at

multi-faceted perspective on the man, his art, and the dynamics of the cultures in which he lived.

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A new show at Fort Worth’s Amon

Carter Museum of American Art, “The World Outside: Louise Nevelson at Midcentury,” is presenting 50 of Nevelson’s works and will be open to the public August 27, 2023— January 7, 2024

“Remedios Varo: Science Fictions”

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Rebecca Allan Ashley Busby James Balestrieri William Corwin Dian Parker Scarlet Cheng Sarah Bochicchio Elizabeth Pandolfi Lilly Wei Dawnya Bartsch Gabriel Almeida Mario Naves Barbara MacAdam Henry Adams D. Dominick Lombardi Jonathan Kandell Sheila Gibson Stoodley Chris Shields Jonathon Keats Jonathan Lopez Dana Micucci Carter Ratcliff

(July 29-November 27, 2023), an exhibition

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at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIoC), brings welcome attention to a lesser-known artist with ties to Surrealism whose work stressed the transformative and fantastic capacities

[email protected]

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The 55.22-carat ruby Estrela de Fura.

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Reprint Department 910.319.7771

of artistic creation.

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the South Dakota Art Museum, offers a

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

In the Shadows of Whiteside, oil on cavas, 24” x 72”

Autumn’s Majesty II, oil on cavas, 42” x 66”

SHOWING AT:

Pivot Point Gallery, Knoxville, TN Crossnore School Fine Art Gallery, Crossnore, NC The Art Gallery, Luray, VA

RAYMOND BYRAM

566 McGuire Rd. Pisgah Forest, NC 28768 828-877-6509 • raymondbyram.com

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objects of desire

contemporary classicism Glass artist Chris Tarpley is a curiosity seeker and adventurer in both his life and his art. His lifelong inclination to travel, while seeking out new and ancient cultures, and his formal art education have led Tarpley to create pieces coveted by collectors and museums alike. Tarpley, who was raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and comes from a multi-ethnic family, draws on childhood experiences, world travels, and formal studies to play with traditional techniques and motifs in unforeseen ways. “My personal aesthetic has generally leaned towards the classical,” writes Tarpley of his work. “Archaeology has fascinated me since early childhood, and I’ve always been attracted to the design sensibilities of the ancients.” Having worked as a foundryman, lapidary, sculptor, silversmith, and glassblower, Tarpley integrates these various skills with different media into his present work. Combining glass, metal, and precious stones, he turns these raw materials into ethereal forms that capture and refract light. It was when Tarpley took a class by famed glass artist Michael Glancy on electroforming at the Pilchuck Glass School that he discovered his passion for this technique that has become a hallmark of his work. Electroforming is a highly skilled process in which electric currents are used to adhere metal to objects. This vase, Pieces of Taipei, showcases many of the elements Tarpley, who now lives in Taiwan, is known for. Here he has recreated an ancient pottery form in gem-like tones,

“In my work, I am elaborating upon time-honored motifs that draw the eye into pleasing rhythms,” writes Tarpley, whose work can be found in museum collections such as the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe. “By translating these historical shapes and designs into glass and copper, I am ‘contemporizing’ the antique.” Pieces of Taipei is on view at Habatat Galleries in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

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C O U R T E S Y H A B ATAT G A L L E R I E S

artfully encasing it with his take on a classical and repetitive design in pure copper.

objects of desire

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objects of desire

Biomorphic Forms Is Chris Schanck a designer or an artist? He is both, but Does it matter? he asks. Schanck, who has emerged as a leading figure in the world of design over the past decade, has said that he views himself as an artist who found his way through design. Hybrids of sculpture and furniture, Schanck’s bold constructions blend biomorphic forms with elaborately crafted symbolism and draw upon influences ranging from Brutalist and Art Deco architecture to ancient Egyptian, Anatolian, and Aztec iconography. His pieces look as if they might have come from either a galaxy far, far away or possibly an underwater wonderland. Despite overt references to fantasy and metafiction, -

Schanck’s furniture and decorative pieces are grounded in the reality of human existence. “In my work, I take inspiration from the people and forms around me and

irregular, they are a spectacle of imperfection, and they shine in their own alien skin,” says Schanck, who is continuously inspired by the tenacity of the immigrants in the Detroit neighborhood in which he lives and works. Born in Pittsburg and raised in Dallas, Schanck received a BFA degree from the School of Visual Arts, New York, and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a school that also produced several design legends including Charles and Ray Eames. Schanck’s Shuddering Cabinet is a chest of drawers, around 6 feet tall, that looks as if it has risen from the sea floor or perhaps is being devoured by an unknown organism. The gold and pink cabinet is an excellent representation of Schanck’s work and philosophy. Made of wood, steel, polystyrene, polyurea, aluminum foil, and resin, it is available for viewing at the Freidman Benda gallery in New York. Schanck’s work has appeared, in addition to other places, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Dallas Museum of Art, and New York’s Museum of Arts and Design.

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C O U R T E S Y O F F R I E D M A N B E N DA A N D C H R I S S C H A N C K ; P H OTO G R A P H Y B Y C L A R E G AT TO

dip them into a futurist skin. These pieces are proudly

JUN

Art-world news and market updates, exhibitions and events.

Western Masterpieces speaking to a gathered group of his fellow tribe members to express his warranted distrust of the American government’s treaty, this piece was so beloved by Terpning and his family that it has been kept in the family’s private collection until now. A second major offering is Maynard Dixon’s The Pony B o y (e s t . $2 -3 , 0 0 0 , 0 0 0). Painted in 1920, this work

nity to obtain artworks that have been off the market for decades. One of the top attractions of this year’s auction is the 20 08 painting Paper That Talks Two Ways—The Treaty Signing (est. $2-3,000,000) by Howard Terpning. Depicting a Native American man

m a rk s a t ra n sit ion for Dixon’s style, moving from the Impressionism and postImpressionism of his earlier paintings to one that integrates certain aspects of Modernism—specifically, simpler, more delineated images and cleaner colors. This sale marks the second time the painting has changed ownership in

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more than 100 years. There will also be a number of exceptional Western landscape paintings on offer, including Henry Farny’s 1910 The Trail Over the Pa s s (e s t . $ 4 0 0 60 0,0 0 0). I n t h is painting, a train of Native American riders armed with rifles are riding toward the viewer on a snow-covered mountain trail, while massive peaks tower over them on both sides. The perspective is unusual, as the viewer is in an almost aerial position, floating above the scene. A very different landscape work, Edgar Payne’s Desert Sky (est. $250 350,000), showcases the dramatic play of light and shadow, as well as the bright colors, so unique to the Southwest. Two-thirds of the canvas’s vertical space is given over to the sky itself, blue and filled with billowing clouds.

Below, several riders follow a trail in shadow, while sunlight floods the mesas in the background. Taking a more narrative approach, Philip R. Goodwin’s The Law of the Wilderness (est. $200-300,000) shows a family of bears ransacking two settlers’ supplies in an overturned canoe next to a river. The white settlers are walking toward the bears warily, guns raised. The compositional placement of the bear family, not to mention the care

given to depicting the baby bears drinking and pawing through a sack, while the mother bear is raised up protectively, places the viewer’s sympathies squarely with the animals.

C O U R T E S Y C O E U R D ’A L E N E A R T AU C T I O N

T H E COEU R d’A lene A r t Auction, one of the most significant auctions in the world for historical and contemporary art of the American West, will take place July 15 in Reno, Nev. Featuring paintings and sculpture by many of the most sought-after artists in the genre, this year’s auction will offer an unusual number of masterworks for sale, giving serious collectors the opportu-

IN PERSPECTIVE

Double Feature

C O U R T E S Y R I O B R AVO F I N E A R T

RIOBRAVOFineArt in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, will present two exhibitions by very different artists this summer. The first is a collection of Polaroid photographs by the abstract painter H. Joe Waldrum, who was also the founder of RioBra-

voFineArt. The second is a show of abstract paintings by the Beulah, Colo.-based artist William Bertrum Sharp, an underrecognized painter whose intense privacy during his lifetime prevented much of his work from being shown. Although Waldrum’s Polaroids were mainly taken as color studies for his paintings, the photos are works of art in themselves, as well. In Color Study with Poppy, Waldrum captures a drooping poppy with the attention and framing of a portrait artist. Another, Rio Hondo Front Elevation, shows a small Southwestern church in the evening, with a striking interplay of light and shadow. Waldrum is connected to

the Sharp show, as well—in the 1960s, Waldrum came across some of Sharp’s paintings during a visit to Pueblo, Colo. He became an avid supporter of Sharp, organizing a solo exhibition of his work at the McNay Art Institute in San Antonio, Tx. in 1966. The paintings on view

here will be taken from Waldrum’s personal collection of Sharp artworks, and include pieces like the forest scene Beulah Valley. Here, a stormy gray sky hangs over gray abstract mountains, while bare winter trees are washed into the foreground.

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IN PERSPECTIVE

*UDIÞWLSummer BISBEE, ARIZONA’S contemporary, graffiti, and street art museum, the Artemizia Foundation, is hosting a series of exhibitions this summer in its new gallery space, Gallery 818. Guests can also view major works from international artists in its museum space, which houses an impressive permanent collection. Viewers will be able to see works by the Italian digital and body artist Sofia Cianciulli (on view June 24-Aug. 6), whose art explores female representation. In her photograph Untitled—Self-Portrait (2022), Cianciulli uses an imprint of her body in paint and a translucent barrier to create a veiled image of her own form. Later, from Aug. 12-Sept. 24 the gallery will host works by the papercut and animation artist Andrew Benincasa. Aside from the gallery exhibitions, visitors to the Artemizia can also see works from their permanent museum collection, which features artists from around the globe.

From Spain, the street art duo PichiAvo creates largescale installations and murals that merge classical art, Greek and Roman mythology, and graffiti aesthetics. In Orphi c al Hy m n to t he G ra c e s (2018), three painted classical female statues are posed casually together against a wildly colorful graffiti background, while pale shadows of color and lettering decorate their bodies. Another artist who blends graffiti and street art with other forms is the anonymous Canadian artist Stikki Peaches. In their Noto r io u s L BG

(2023), a portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is adorned with tattoolike drawings and graffiti symbols. T he C h i ne s e a r tist Li Hongbo also has works in the foundation’s museum, including the stainless steel sculpture Seasons of t h e F l o w e r ( 2 0 21) . Hongbo is best known for his works in paper, wh ich reinvent the form to create kinetic works that can expand and contract; however, he is also a highly skilled metalworker. T his p i e c e w a s first

shown in New York at the Eli Klein Gallery in 2021. The American street artist

Caledonia Curry, who goes by Swoon, also has works on view. Widely recognized as the first woman to gain serious recognition in the maledominated street art world, Swoon’s portraits and drawings can be found on many buildings worldwide as well as within art museums including the Tate Modern and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Her massive wood and block print piece Sonia—Mandala Box (2021) is on view at the Artemizia. Additional artists in the Artemizia’s permanent collection include Shepard Fairey, Ai Weiwei, Annie Leibovitz, Jeff Koons, Blek le Rat, and Lubaina Himid.

C O U R T E S Y A R T E M I Z I A F O U N DAT I O N

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COURTESY THOMASTON PL ACE AUCTION GALLERIES

Auction House THOMASTON PLACE Auction Galleries in Thomaston, Maine will host two auctions this summer featuring artworks by an international roster of artists, folk art pieces, and antique and historic decorative items. The auctions will take place July 7, 8, and 9 and August 25, 26, and 27. Among the works on offer are a painting by Jean-Baptiste Corot, Le Chariot d’Arras. This 19 th century pastoral realist piece depicts a farmer driving a wagon through the countryside, while glimpses of the city rise up in the distance. The juxtapositioning of the rural wagon and the smoky urban landscape seem to indicate not just a moment in the farmer’s life, but a moment in history too, as the farmer’s world moves toward industrialization. The Lebanese poet and artist Etel Adnan will also be represented, with her untitled impasto painting of mountains underneath a sunny sky. The bright colors and simplicity of form are characteristic of much of Adnan’s la nd s c ap e pa i nt i ng s , which critics have said are interwoven with her poetry and prose. Outsider artists whose work will be available include the deeply significant Bill Traylor, a Black artist who was born into slavery and began making art in 1939, when he was in his late 80s. He is the only known artist who was enslaved at birth to produce a large body of work. The piece available is a drawing of a man and dog dancing, with the artist’s signature prominent at the top of the canvas. In addition to the artwork, guests will be able to acquire historically significant items like inscribed first editions of Hemingway and a 1792 signed George Washington letter. There will also be a selection of Sevres porcelain as well as mid-century furniture.

KATHLEEN FERGUSON-HUNTINGTON “Adventures in the Silk Road” Through July 23rd

Pieces Of Eight, 2022, gouache, 18” x 13”

627 Paseo del Pueblo Sur, Taos, NM 87571 www.thewrightcontemporary.com SUMMER

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IN PERSPECTIVE

Art by the Beach

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s t el l a r g a m e . T h e image appeared on the cover of “The Saturday Evening Post” in September of 1948. New York’s Bill H o d g e s G a l l e r y, which specializes in works by historically significant AfricanA merican artists, will also exhibit at the fair. One work on offer is Exodus (1972) by Norman Lewis, a Black artist who worked in New York City from the time of segregation through to his death in 1979. This abstract pie c e showcases Lewis’ use of black, which he was k now n for, as well as his transition into u si ng more , and brighter, color. A sculptural piece by Hans Van de Bovenkamp, Who Are You to Tell (2011), is on offer from RL Studios in Charlotte, N.C. Van de Bovenkamp is best known for

his monumental sculptures in bronze, stainless steel, and aluminum, and is counted among the most significant contemporary abstract sculptors today. Van de Bovenkamp is one of five artists who will be inducted into the Hamptons Art Fair Hall of Fame this year. Work by another posthumous Hall of Fame inductee, the abstract expressionist John Ferren, will be available from New York’s Findlay Galleries. A Rose for Rose (1962) is a fluid, dynamic expression of color and form that is exceptional. A piece by the iconic Werner Drewes, one of the “founding fathers” of American abstractionism, will be available from Denver’s William Havu Gallery. The Red Band (1977) is a fine example of the Bauhaus-educated artist’s later non-objective abstract work, which evolved from his earlier interest in figurative cubist forms. The gallery is also curating a solo exhibition of Drewes’ work , “ We r n e r Drewes: Pioneering American Abstraction” at the fair.

C O U R T E S Y R L S T U D I O S ; C O U R T E S Y W I L L I A M H AV U G A L L E R Y; C O U R T E S Y T H E I L L U S T R AT E D G A L L E R Y; C O U R T E S Y F I N D L AY G A L L E R I E S ; C O U R T E S Y B I L L H O D G E S G A L L E R Y

This July 13-16, the Hamptons Fine Art Fair in Southhampton will welcome 130 national and international galleries showc asi ng more t ha n 10,0 0 0 works of art at the Southampton Fairgrounds. Featuring major works of post-war and contemporary art, as well as a focus on emerging artists, the fair is expected to attract more than 12,000 attendees over the course of the weekend. Visitors to the fair can also take part in themed celebrations and exhibitions, including a celebration of Picasso, an exhibition of Robert Motherwell’s paintings, a fossil art display, and a curated collection of comic narrative art. The Illustrated Gallery in Fort Washington, Penn. will bring offerings including Norman Rockwell’s The Dugout (Chicago Cubs in Dugout) (1948), a hu morous illustration of the baseball team watching their teammates in what appears to be a less-than-

IN PERSPECTIVE

The first U.S. exhibition on the use of copper in the Arts and Crafts Movement, “The First Metal: Arts and Crafts Copper” is on view at the University of Oregon’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, Ore. Including works from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, the show spotlights handwrought copper works by Arts and Crafts artisans working in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries. The Charger (1896) by John Pearson is one fine example of how these artisans focused on both beauty and simplicity, with a repeating fish motif circling the rim of the piece, as well as at rest in the center. A f ull color c atalogue is available f ro m th e m u s e u m . Both the exhibition a n d c at a l o g u e a re made possible by support from Margo Grant Walsh.

Maine Duo THE FARNSWORTH Museum in Rockland, Maine is hosting a unique exhibit of works by two major artists with local ties this summer. “Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth: Rockland, Maine” will show watercolors made by both artists, decades apart, in Rockland. This show marks the first time these two artists have been shown together in 20 years. B ot h a r tists d rew g reat inspiration from the area’s landscape and architecture, as we can see in Hopper’s Haunted House (1926) and Wyet h’s Untitled ( D ragon Cement Plant) (1958). Seeing their paintings together will allow visitors to gain a deeper understanding of both the similarities in style between Hopper and Wyeth, as well as the differences that make each artist so unique and timeless.

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C O L L E C T I O N O F T H E W Y E T H F O U N D AT I O N O F A M E R I C A N A R T © 2 0 2 3 A N DREW W YETH/ ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIET Y (ARS); ©2023 HEIRS OF JOSEPHINE N. HOPPER / LICENSED BY ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIET Y (ARS), NY

M A R G O G R A N T WA L S H T W E N T I E T H C E N T U R Y S I LV E R A N D M E TA LW O R K C O L L E C T I O N , G I F T O F M A R G O G R A N T WA L S H .

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Dick Wray American Painter

Untitled, 2005, Oil on Wood, 60 x 44 inches

An international contemporary fine arts gallery, based in Houston, Texas, Deborah Colton Gallery represents the Art Estate of Dick Wray. Please contact us with any inquiries about Dick Wray’s works.

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ASTORIA FINE Art in Jackson Hole, Wy. is pioneering a new series this summer called The Summer Masterpiece Series. Unique to the gallery, this series is the result of a challenge Astoria issued to its 40 artists: create a new, museumquality and museum-scale masterpiece to be released during the series. The result is 40 new masterpieces by 40 different artists, which the gallery will release three at a time every 10 days. The artworks will be on view through September 24. While Astoria represents artists from around the world, many of them draw inspiration from the American West. Greg Scheibel, a Montana-based painter, is one such artist. His October Afternoon depicts a clear creek running through the prairie, with craggy mountains rising up in the background. Allison Leigh Smith, a wildlife artist who also works as a wildlife rehabilitator, is presenting Prairie Tale Ending, a portrait of three deer on aluminum. Smith’s work often combines digital manipulation, photography, and her experience in textile design with her original paintings to create wildlife art that is unique and unusual. Grace in Motion by Jerry Markham is another wildlife work, depicting horses galloping across the prairie. Markham’s paintings are characterized by both their realist attention to form and detail, and a lightness and looseness that spurs the imagination and allows plenty of room for viewer interpretation.

COURTESY ASTORIA FINE ART

2445 North Boulevard, Houston, Texas 77098 Phone: 713-869-5151 [email protected] www.deborahcoltongallery.com

40 Artists, 40 Masterpieces

IN PERSPECTIVE

T H E M E T R O P O L I TA N M U S E U M O F A R T, G I F T O F M A D DY A N D L A R R Y M O H R , 2 0 1 1 ; © F R A N K B O W L I N G , DAC S , LO N D O N & A R S , N E W YO R K , 2 0 2 2 ; © A L A S TA I R L E V Y, C O U R T E S Y S F M O M A ; C O U R T E S Y T H E A R T I S T; © F R A N K B O W L I N G , DA C S , L O N D O N & A R S , N E W YO R K , 2 0 2 2 ; P H OTO : © C H A R L I E L I T T L E W O O D ; R I S D M U S E U M , N A N C Y S AY L E S DAY C O L L E C T I O N O F M O D E R N L AT I N A M E R I C A N A R T; © F R A N K B O W L I N G , DA C S , L O N D O N & A R S , N E W YO R K , 2 0 2 2 ; P H OTO : C O U R T E S Y R I S D M U S E U M O F A R T, P R O V I D E N C E R I ; S H E L D O N I N W E N TA S H A N D LY N N FA C T O R , T O R O N T O ; © F R A N K B O W L I N G , D A C S , L O N D O N & A R S , N E W Y O R K , 2 0 2 2 ; P H O T O : J S P A R T P H O T O G R A P H Y, C O U R T E S Y H A L E S G A L L E R Y

London to New York THE SAN Francisco Museum of Modern Art is hosting a major exhibition of paintings by the abstract, experimental artist Frank Bowling, “Frank Bowling: The New York Years, 1966-1975,” through Sept. 10. The show is co-organized with the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and spotlights the evolution of Bowling’s work throughout t h is i mpor t a nt period of his artistic development. Bowling, who was born in British Guyana, spent his formative educational years in London, winning a scholarship to London’s Royal College of Art in 1959. He moved to New York in 1966, where he not only developed his signature boundary-pushing artistic style, but also taught, wrote for several important art journals as a critic and scholar, and curated the important exhibition of leading Black abstract artists “5+1.” Today, Bowling still maintains studios in both New York and London. “Frank Bowling: The New

York Years” gives visitors the opportunity to view more than 40 of Bowling’s paintings, including a selection provided

by the SFMOMA of works produced between 2018 and 2020. In addition to the works themselves, the exhibition includes a large selection of archival materials: interviews with the artist recorded in New York and London, several of his lesser-known “map” sketches, and film footage and photographs from Bowling’s 1968 trip to Guyana. In addition, a companion gallery to the exhibit showcases artists from Bowling’s circle, including the artists featured in “5+1.” Works by his peers and contemporaries Jasper Johns, Larry Rivers, and Alma T homas a re also on view. A l l toget her, the exhibition consists of nine thematic galleries, with the works arranged loosely chronologically. Several paintings are large scale, including one that measures 20 feet wide, a nd m a ny show t he varied techniques that Bowling used, from silkscreening to stencils and spray painting. P i e c e s l i k e Tw o B l u e s , T he Te r m i nal Illness (1973) and D o u g h l a h G . E . P. (1968 -71) show the ar tist’s exploration of meaning through color; for examples of Bowling’s mingling and expansion of abstraction and figuration, visitors can look

to pieces like Mother’s House and Night Storm (1967) and Night Journey (1969-70). T h roug hout B owl i ng ’s career, he offered a voice in the ongoing artistic debates around process-based abstraction and the role of Black cultural identity in artmaking. This exhibition, by presenting his work in tandem with those whom he influenced and was influenced by, aims to expand our understanding of Bowling’s important contributions to the art world—not just as an artist himself, but as someone who elevated and continues to elevate other Black artists and speak to the complexity of being a Black artist, curator, and art teacher within the predominantly White art world. SUMMER

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SANTA FE SPOTLIGHT

CARVING STONE ON E OF Sa nt a Fe’s most established and well-known galleries, Nedra Matteucci Galleries, will open a show by the renowned Native sculptor Doug Hyde on Aug. 12, Doug Hyde: Collection of Unique Stone Sculptures. The show will remain on view until Sept. 2. Hyd e i s of N e z Pe rc e , Assiniboine, and Chippewa heritage and began his artis-

tic career working in stone before adding bronze to his repertoire. While he still works extensively in bronze, stone is the material that he feels the most attuned to. Hyde says

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Visitors to Ned ra Matteucci Galleries can also take in works by the gallery’s many other historical and contemporary artists. The current owner, Nedra Matteucci, purchased the gallery from its original owner, Forrest Fenn, in 1988. Fenn’s gallery was widely acclaimed. Matteucci made numerous sig n ificant i mprove ments and the gallery continues to be renowned for a tradition of excellence. For one, Matteucci established the gallery’s backyard— originally, the gallery had been a private home—as an outdoor sculpture garden. This provides not only a scene of peace and beauty for visitors, but a venue for showing monumental scu lpt u res b y m aj o r a r t i s t s . Today, the gallery gives visitors opportunities to see works by some of the finest artists working in the Southwest and beyond. Among those is E. Irving Couse, whose Crane Hunter shows a Native A merican pat ie nt ly a nd at t e nt ively watching two cranes, waiting his chance to strike. The color palette is heavily orange, yel-

low, and brown, creating the feel of a quiet autumn day. The Taos landscape painter Chris Morel paints beautiful New Mexico land- and riverscapes, like Rio Puebla at

Agua Piedra (2022), while those searching for modern pieces can look to 20 th century artists like Hans Paap, and his 1956 painting Taos Indian Wrapped In Salmon Colored Blanket (1956).

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that since he was young, he’s felt stones talking to him, telling him what they want to be. A winner of multiple national art awards including the Award for Sculpture from the Autry National Center of the American West, Hyde’s work can be found in the Smithsonian’s Cultural Resource Center, the Heard Museum, and the Museum of the Southwest, among others. H i s s c u lp t u r e W he n t he D a n c e i s O ve r i n bl ack steatite depicts a Native couple at the end of an evening, standing together in front of an old pickup. Hyde often carves animal subjects, as well, as in Watching Shooting Stars. Here, a bear is seated on what looks like a rocky outcropping, presumably taking in the beauty of a dark night sky.

SANTA FE SPOTLIGHT

Southwest Transcendentalism

COURTESY ADDISON ROWE GALLERY

ADDISON ROWE Gallery in Santa Fe will present works by the Transcendental painter William Lumpkins through the end of the summer. Familyowned and operated for more

than 40 years, the gallery specializes in Transcendental art, as well as other Southwestbased schools. Lumpkins grew up in New

Mexico in the early years of the 20th century, and was educated at home by a tutor with a strong interest in Eastern philosophy. Lumpkins later developed his own commitment to Z en B udd h i sm , wh ich played a major part in his artistic expression. In addition to his art, Lumpkins was also an architect who was instrumental in developing the “Santa Fe Style” P u eblo - i n spi re d hom e designs that can be found throughout New Mexico. He also built his first passive solar-powered home in 1935. He began participating in the Transcendental Painting Group, which was founded

by Raymond Jonson and Emil Bisttram, in 1938. He shared the group’s mission to express spirituality through art, and did so through both figurative and abstract pieces. Add i son Rowe G a l ler y will showcase several of these works, including his landscape piece North of the Capitans

(1932). This sketch-like watercolor depicts a view of the New Mexican landscape with the Capitan mountains softly rising in the background. Lumpkins’ abstract work Blocks and Disk (1967) hints at the artist’s other career as an architect, with geometric shapes connecting and intersecting almost like a blueprint. Up and Over III (1993), another abstract offering, will also be on view.

COURTESY RED MESA GALLERY / JEFF VORACEK; CO U RTE SY W H ITEH AW K ; CO U RTE SY S TE V EN S FI N E A RT

Fine Indigenous Art TWO MAJOR art shows will take place in Santa Fe this August: The Objects of Art & American Indian/Tribal Santa Fe, from Aug. 10-13, and the Whitehawk Antique Indian & Ethnographic Art Show Aug. 11-14. Together, the shows will welcome more than 150 dealers in world indigenous and Native American art. In addition, a new show has been added this year: Pop-Up Vintage to Contemporary Aug.17-20, that occurs at

the same time as SWAIA Indian Market. One ticket allows entry to all three shows. The Objects of Art show will be held at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe, while the Whitehawk show will take place at the Santa Fe Convention Center, with venues connected by a shuttle to allow guests to easily visit both. Participating dealers specialize in textiles, jewelry, sculpture, furniture, fashion, woodcarving, beadwork, pottery, and fine art and offer a huge variety of pieces that will appeal to casual browsers as well as motivated collectors. Red Me sa G a l ler y, which specializes in Navajo weavings, offers a bright red Navajo child’s blanket, while Stevens Fine Art will offer the serigraph Sanc-

tuario by Americ a n pri nt m a ker Norma Basset t Hall. T he print depicts what looks to be a mother and child making their way into a pueblost yle Catholic church, framed by two graceful, overhanging trees that seem to protect the figures as they make their way inside. In addition to the works on view from the dealers, the Whitehawk show will also feature the special exhibit “Elegant Vessels: a Century of Southwest Silver Boxes.” The exhibition features more than 100 silver boxes by artisans including the Zuni Pueblo stone carver Leekya Deyuse, thought to be the first Zuni

carver to create exclusively for the commercial market. Four Navajo silver boxes with leaf, bear, and frog carvings by Deyuse will be on view, along with boxes by L eo Poblano (Zuni Pueblo), Kenneth Begay (Diné), Morris Robinson (Hopi), and Fred Peshlakai (Diné).

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SANTA FE SPOTLIGHT

SUMMER SALES The Santa Fe Art Auction, the premier auction house in one of the premier fine arts communities in the U.S., is hosting two major auctions this July and August featuri ng Nat ive A mer ic a n a nd Spanish and Hispanic art: New Mexico Now: Spanish Colonial to Spanish Market on July 21-22, and American Indian and Tribal, Classic to

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the collection of distinguished Spanish Colonial scholar and collector Paul Rhetts, who has written several books on the subject. The final auction of Santa Fe Art Auction’s summer season, the American Indian and Tribal auction, will include pottery, textiles, paintings, beadwork, and katsinas. Because this will be one of the largest sales of Native A merican art the Santa Fe Art Auction has ever hosted, the event will be broken up into a series of sales organized by genre. Among the paintings are several by artists who studied under Dorothy Dunn, the founder of Santa Fe’s Studio School at the Santa Fe Indian School in 1932 , including the 20 th century gouache on paper, Eagle Hunting Hare (est. $2,000 - 4,000) by the

Diné artist Gerald Nailor. A remarkable work by contemporary Tlingit glass artist Preston Singletary will also be available—a glass container in gold and black that is designed to mimic a woven basket. Featuring intricate patterns and sharply defined details, the piece is an excellent example

of Singletary’s use of nontraditional materials to create interpretations of traditional indigenous designs. Pot ter y col le c tors w i l l be able to acquire works by Maria Martinez, Fannie Nampeyo, Russell Sanchez, Nancy Youngblood, and Tony Da.

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C onte mporar y on Aug. 8-12. New Mexico Now: Spanish Colonial to Spanish Market will coincide with Santa Fe’s famous Spanish Market, and is the only auction in the country to focus on both historic and contemporary Hispanic and Pueblo fine and decorative arts. Among the pieces for sale is an 18th century Spanish Vargueño (with 19 t h c ent u r y st a nd) (e st . $20,000-25,000). This portable desk was a kind of writing cabinet, designed with a hinged, fold-out writing surface that also functions as a lid or closure. Another work on offer is a carved wooden statue, Obispo (ca. 1860 90, est. $8,000-12,000) by the 19 th century artist Juan Ramon Velazquez. Among the paintings available will be a landscape by 20 t h c ent u r y a r t i st Rod Goebel, Hondo Geometry ($1,500 2,000). Visitors can also bid on retablos, or devotional paintings; bultos, which are wooden sculptures of saints, Jesus Christ, or the Virgin Mary that are supposed to grant divine intervention to the owner; as well as other New Mexican folk arts like straw crosses and crucifixes. Part of the sale will consist of items from

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Outside Art

M U S E U M O F I N T E R N AT I O N A L F O L K A R T, M U S E U M O F N E W M E X I C O F O U N DAT I O N , G I F T O F T H E F R I E N D S O F F O L K A R T, F O L K A R T F L E A M A R K E T, A . 2 0 1 6 . 5 2 . 9 ; M U S E U M O F I N T E R N AT I O N A L F O L K A R T, M U S E U M O F N E W M E X I C O F O U N DAT I O N , G I F T O F T H E F R I E N D S O F F O L K A R T, F O L K A R T F L E A M A R K E T, A . 2 0 1 6 . 5 2 . 9 ; M U S E U M O F I N T E R N AT I O N A L F O L K A R T, G I F T O F T H E F O L K A R T S O C I E T Y O F A M E R I C A , A . 2 0 1 8 . 2 1 .1

C O U R T E S Y K AY C O N T E M P O R A R Y A R T

KAY CONTEMPORARY Art in Santa Fe will host the exhibition “Nature’s Architecture” Sept. 22-Oct. 5. Featuring metal sculptures by Kevin Box and plein air paintings by Nathanael Gray, the show is organized around themes of nature and wildlife, as both artists draw great inspiration from the landscape, flora, and fauna that surround them in their work and daily life. G r ay ’s p l e i n a i r p r a c tice involves hiking deep into nature, whether in the woods or on a beach, to capture fleeting moments in time. He paints quickly, concerned far more with interpreting the feeling of a particular spot than an accurate visual recreation. Gray’s painting Snow in the Valley

shows his technique beautifully, with thick, textural brushstrokes depicting the pale winter sky as well as the deep blue and white mountains in the distance.

see an origami-esque rabbit and crane goading a tortoise to walk with a leaf tied to a stick. And in Conversation Starter (2018), Box plays with space in fascinating ways while winking at

For those in Santa Fe during the summer, the gallery will also host a “meet the artist” event on July 1 from 1-3 p.m. During that time, Nathanael Gray will be painting Kay Contem-

Box’s sculptures use metal to create unusual, whimsical pieces. In his collaborative piece with artist Beth Johnson, Caravan-mini (2019), we

the viewer: a floating pair of scissors is caught in the act of snipping an envelope, which is perched on a rock. In other words, rock, paper, scissors!

porary Art’s sculpture garden. The paintings he creates during this time will be showcased along with his other works in the September exhibition.

Wooden Masterpieces T H IS SUM M ER, the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe is hosting “With the Grain,” an exhibition of woodcarvings by modern and contemporary Hispanic artists. Rather than solely focus on the fine artists whose work is included in this show, the exhibition also looks at the larger story of woodcarving in New Mexico, from the local woods they used as materials, to the subjects they chose to create. Featuring artists from the early 20 th century through to today, the exhibition’s title is inspired by the way these woodcarvers worked with their materials. By going “with the grain” and embracing their wood’s imperfections—knots, cracks, twists, etc.—they were

able to carve pieces that were not only deeply connected to their medium, but also wholly unique. Patrocinio Barela was one of those artists famous for taking this approach, and the exhibition includes 35 of his pieces. One, Resurrection (pre-1940), was carved under the auspices of the WPA Federal Art Project, and displays Barela’s talent for metaphori-

cal subject matter. Among the contemporary pieces are works by Barela’s descendant, Daniel Luis Barela. Holy Family Bulto (2004) depicts Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus in a deep embrace, with faces that radiate love and contentment. By using shape and form to communicate the closeness of the three, Barela infuses an

unusual degree of emotion into this work. A not her New Mex ican woodcarver, Sabinita Lopez Ortiz, uses aspen and cedar to create the intricate Tree of Life (2014). The explosion of leaves from each branch feels joyous and generative, almost as if the tree itself were bursting into life. The exhibit will be on view through Sept. 4. SUMMER

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DIRECTOR’S CUT Santa Fe’s Morning Star Gallery, which has specialized in antique Native American art for more than 35 years, is hosting its annual summer exhibition and sale from Aug. 7 through Sept. 4. Titled “Director’s Cut,” this season’s exhibition will feature a selection of fine Pueblo pottery and Plains art. The gallery hosts these major exhibitions each August, when Santa Fe’s art community is alive with collectors, tourists, and art connoisseurs. Among the items available are 19th century objects including an Upper Missouri beaded boy’s shirt; an Arapaho ledger drawing depicting a fight between a Native American on horseback and a green-uniformed soldier; and a beautifully decorated Arap-

aho parfleche envelope, or storage bag. Visitors can also see the gallery’s large selection of high-quality antique pottery, including items like a 19 th century Santa Ana Pueblo jar. These jars were used to carry water, food, and seeds, and are notable for being painted in polychrome. Pueblo pottery is famous for its beautiful decoration, as well as for the coil-and-scrape method of building. These traditional designs are still used today by contemporary Pueblo potters like Anthony Baca and Johana Herrera (Santa Clara Pueblo), Teresa Fragua (Jemez Pueblo), Madeline E. Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo) and Harriet Tafoya (Santa Clara Pueblo). Morning Star Gallery also represents many contemporary Native American artists who work in a variety of forms, including painting and pottery, as well as Navajo and Zuni jewelry. A rtists include ledger artists Dolores Purdy (Caddo/Winnebago), and Dwayne Wilcox (Oglala

Summer in Santa Fe July 6-9 International Folk Art Market folkartmarket.org

Lakota), potter and painter Diane LewisGarcia (Acoma Pueblo), and jeweler Fritson Toledo (Navajo). The founding principle of the gallery was to cohesively apply the tenets of connoisseurship across the diversity of material available

from Native North America—bead and quillwork from the Plains; pottery, textiles, jewelry and Katsinas from the Southwest; and baskets from the Great Basin and California. Over the last few years the gallery has expanded their areas of expertise and product line to include antique New Mexican furniture and devotional art.

July 29-30 Traditional Spanish Market spanishcolonial.org

August 17-20 Pop-Up Show objectsofartshows.com August 19-20 Santa Fe Indian Market swaia.org 34

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C O U R T E S Y M O R N I N G S TA R G A L L E R Y

August 10-14 Objects of Art & Whitehawk

SANTA FE SPOTLIGHT

C O U R T E S Y [C O N TA I N E R ] T U R N E R C A R R O L L C O N T E M P O R A R Y A R T | S A N TA F E

REVOLUTIONARY WOMAN SANTA FE’S unique art spac e C ON TA I N E R Turner Carroll, an art institution-meets-commercial-gallery-meets private collection, is opening “Hung Liu: Memory and Revolution” on July 28. Founded by and connected to Turner Carroll Gallery, CONTAINER brings touring museum exhibitions to Santa Fe while allowing private collectors to purchase artworks directly from these exhibitions. Hung Liu was born in China in the famine year of 1948, and first experienced displacement as an infant, when her mother fled their city with the six-month-old Hung Liu in her arms. As the artist grew up, she—like so many—

idealized the world of the West and the opportunities that she thought must be available there. Hung Liu immigrated to the U.S. in 1984, and unfortunately found that her expectations were far from accurate. Both as a woman, and as a Chinese person, she experienced the discrimination and stereotyping that were and continue

to be pervasive. Partly as a result of these realities, Hung Liu often focused on women as her artistic subjects, as in Relic VIII (2004). In many of her works, she explores not only these disillusionments, but the raw reality of the immigrant experience itself. This is on display most literally in pieces like Laundry Lady (1995), which shows

a Chinese woman in front of a laundry sign, working one of the jobs that Asian immigrants were most expected to perform. In Travelogue (2004), she takes a pointed look at American culture’s idealization of immigration.

C O U R T E S Y D E R R E L L T. LO P E Z ; C O U R T E S Y T H E W R I G H T C O N T E M P O R A RY

INTREPID TAOS THE WRIGHT Contemporary in Taos, NM, is a new venture, just north of Santa Fe, that aims both to showcase underrepresented artists in New Mexico and to highlight adventurous work from any part of the globe. Three summer exhibitions exemplify that agenda. “Isabelle Plat: Portraits d’u sage in Conversation” occupies the two main gal-

leries (through July 23rd) and presents nine of the Parisbased artist’s re-inventions of portraiture, using clothes donated by friends and human hair collected from styling salons. Because in other contexts some of the works can even be worn or used as furniture, she thinks of these as “usable portraits.” Kathleen Ferguson-Huntington, who spent 12 years in Qatar teaching art and design, is an indefatigable traveler who became fascinated with the legendary Silk Road du ring her years in the Middle East. Her evocations in gouache

recall the goods and landmarks of that storied route. Though she is firmly rooted in New Mexico, she takes viewers on a fantastic voyage that recalls the vibrant colors and exotic iconography of Persian miniatures and antique maps (through July 23rd). “Seen and Unseen: Visions of Indigenous Identity” is a group show of works by con-

temporary Native American artists reflecting the ways representation of a self are constructed from a tribal heritage and a consciousness of the many mediums at the disposal of a postmodern practice. Artists in the show grapple with the question: “What does it mean to see and be seen as an Indigenous American?” (August 5th–September 10th).

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exhibitions

Dakota Modern OSCAR HOWE CREATE D NATIVE ART AN D U N DE RSTOOD ITS POWE R IN A NON - NATIVE CU LTU RE BY JAM E S D. BALE STR I E R I

Casein on paper, 24 ⁄4 x 33 ⁄8 in. 3

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5

A LOST PAINTING might be the best way to begin to appreciate the art of Oscar Howe (Yanktonai Dakota, 1915–1983). A perennial favorite at the Indian Annual competition at Tulsa’s Philbrook Art Center (now the Philbrook Museum of Art), Howe would win numerous awards and serve as juror, but the fiery letter he sent after his now-lost painting Umine Wacipi (War and Peace Dance) was disqualified in 1958 demonstrates how the artist struggled to make his art relevant in two worlds: the traditional Yanktonai Lakota world of his native South Dakota and the art world and market which were, and still are, dominated

by whites. “Dakota Modern: The Art of Oscar Howe,” an exhibition on view until September 17th at the South Dakota Art Museum, offers a multi-faceted perspective on the man, his art, and the dynamics of the cultures in which he lived. Although Umine Wacipi remains lost and, thus, unavailable for the exhibition, the essence of the controversy surrounding the painting is very much present— in the integrity of the artworks on display and in the text of the exhibition catalogue. Umine Wacipi (War and Peace Dance) failed, according to information

U N I V E R S I T Y A R T G A L L E R I E S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H D A K O TA , P C O H 4 ( O . H . 7 6 . 0 2 4 ) © O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY. ; P R E S S I M A G E S C O U R T E S Y O F T H E N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F T H E A M E R I C A N I N D I A N A N D T H E O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY.

Calling on Wakan Tanka, 1962.

O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY C O L L E C T I O N , U N I V E R S I T Y A R T G A L L E R I E S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H D A K O TA , H F O H 1 © O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY. ; U N I V E R S I T Y A R T G A L L E R I E S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H D A K O TA , H F O H 6 ( O . H . L . 4 0 ) © O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY. ; O S C A R H O W E P A P E R S , R I C H A R D S O N C O L L E C T I O N , A R C H I V E S A N D S P E C I A L C O L L E C T I O N S , U N I V E R S I T Y L I B R A R I E S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H D A K O TA . ; P R E S S I M A G E S C O U R T E S Y O F T H E N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F T H E A M E R I C A N I N D I A N A N D T H E O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY.

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reprinted in the catalogue, to conform to rules such as: “The use of symbols that are not used by the artist’s own tribe, or related to the subject matter of a given painting is deplored. . . . The jury feels strongly that the use of pseudo-symbols detracts, rather than adds, in any painting.” Howe’s letter, excerpts of which are also in the catalogue, was righteously indignant. The full letter is well worth seeking out, but a few lines convey the tone: “There is much more to Indian Art, than pretty, stylized pictures. . . . Every bit in my paintings is a true studied fact of Indian paintings. . . . Indian Art can compete with any Art in the world, but not as a suppressed Art. . . . [O]ne could easily turn to become a social protest painter.” Howe’s letter led to new prizes for sculpture and “non-traditional” art in categories that were overwhelmed with entries. Because of Howe’s protest, the Indian Annual would become the first true gathering place of Indigenous Modern art. We do, however, have another 1958 painting, a related but somewhat less

ab s t r ac t work , ent it led U m i n e Dance. Compare Umine Dance with Sioux Water Boy (ca. 1939), a painting that begins to challenge the Santa Fe, or Studio, style—which favored Native motifs and symbols arranged geometrically, and statically, against a neutral background. Howe absorbed the Studio style as a student at the Santa Fe Indian School from 1934-1938. But just a year later, Sioux Water Boy is reaching out tentatively towards the expression of move m e nt a nd rhythm, while two decades later, Umine Dance makes music visual, representing song and rhythm so powerful that it uproots the vegetative world, which is represented by the blue figures at center, right, and left. Where the Sioux water boy draws life from Nat u re, the dancers in Umine Dance take Nature

Clockwise from left: Abstraction after Wakapana, 1973. Casein on paper, 24 7⁄8 x 20 3⁄16 in.; Buffalo Dance, 1955. Casein on paper, 22 7⁄8 x 19 1⁄8 in.; Oscar Howe, seated in front of a selection of his paintings at South Dakota State University, March 30, 1958.

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exhibitions

Casein on paper, 18 x 25 in.

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as their partner. Once you know that the Indian Annual was deeply invested in the Studio style, you can see why they rejected Howe’s work—and you can appreciate Howe’s visceral reaction. The story of Oscar Howe’s life further illuminates his struggle to live and thrive in two worlds. Days spent with his grandmother as he convalesced after a childhood illness exposed him to stories of their people, known collectively as the Ochéthi Šakówin peoples—the Santee, Yankton, and Lakota of the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Howe’s art would emerge from her stories. Even so, Howe became a devout Episcopalian, an academic, and married a German woman. He no longer felt comfortable at home on the reservation and became distant from his family, as well as from the privations they suffered.

On the other hand, he often renounced the impact of Euro-American Modernism on his work; however, his master’s thesis and the drawings and paintings that illustrated his ideas demonstrate a keen interest in the Modernists and their ongoing influence on his facture. As the excerpt from his 1958 letter shows, Howe never wanted to be or be seen as a social protest artist. Instead, the subjects of his paintings are the rituals and ceremonies of the Ochéthi Šakówin peoples. In his work, Native spirituality is not a subject for anthropologists or historians; it is very much alive, immanent in the people and in the universe that surrounds them. Woman Scalp Dancer is a 1964 painting in the medium of casein, a fact worth mentioning because Howe gravitated towards casein and tempera, flat paints

O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY C O L L E C T I O N , U N I V E R S I T Y A R T G A L L E R I E S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H D A K O TA , H F O H 1 © O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY. ; U N I V E R S I T Y A R T G A L L E R I E S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H D A K O TA , H F O H 6 ( O . H . L . 4 0 ) © O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY. ; O S C A R H O W E P A P E R S , R I C H A R D S O N C O L L E C T I O N , A R C H I V E S A N D S P E C I A L C O L L E C T I O N S , U N I V E R S I T Y L I B R A R I E S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H D A K O TA . ; P R E S S I M A G E S C O U R T E S Y O F T H E N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F T H E A M E R I C A N I N D I A N A N D T H E O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY.

Dakota Medicine Man, 1968.

U N I V E R S I T Y A R T G A L L E R I E S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H D A K O TA , V E R M I L L I O N , H F O H 3 8 ( O H L 5 5 ) © O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY. ; U N I V E R S I T Y A R T G A L L E R I E S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H D A K O TA , V E R M I L L I O N , O H 2 4 8 © O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY. ; U N I V E R S I T Y A R T G A L L E R I E S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H D A K O TA , P C O H 5 3 © O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY. ; G A R T H G R E E N A N G A L L E R Y, N E W Y O R K © O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY. ; P R E S S I M A G E S C O U R T E S Y O F T H E N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F T H E A M E R I C A N I N D I A N A N D T H E O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY.

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he employed to create overlapping fields of color with a lightly sanded appearance that approximates Native painting on hide. Howe loved to interpret Native hair, especially the hair of Native women, seeing it as a source of creative power. In this painting, the

scalp dancer’s hair has a charged, jagged frequency and amplitude, as if it is electromagnetic and sonic all at once. The same energy pulses in the dancer’s hands. They seem to give birth both to the underworld and to the world taking shape in the form of abstract

Clockwise from top left: Sioux Women Grooming, 1967. Casein on paper, 22 1⁄2 x 30 1⁄4 in.; Untitled (Man with briefcase), 1954. Painted design maquette for Corn Palace murals. Tempera on paper, mounted on cardboard, 18 x 9 in.; Sioux Water Boy, ca. 1939. Gouache on paper, 11 ⁄4 x 9 1⁄2 in.; Umine Dance, 1958. Casein and gouache on paper, mounted to board, 18 x 22 in. 3

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Below: Cunka Wakan (Dakota Horse), 1966. Casein on paper, 19 3⁄4 x 22 5⁄8 in.

mountains and clouds. If you see something of Matisse here, particularly in the alternating gray and white stripes of her dress, remember that Matisse was a keen student of Native American forms—masks of the Arctic Yupik people, among others. We might say that Oscar Howe is reappropriating appropriated motifs. Something of the 20th-century mural tradition arises out of Woman Scalp Dancer so it comes as no surprise that Howe executed a number of murals in his career. Untitled (Man with briefcase), is a 1954 study for the murals he painted in and on South Dakota’s Corn Palace. In the various panels of the mural, Howe sought to unite Natives and whites in his art through depictions of their activities and modes of transportation. The style, as seen in this study, combines aspects of the Studio style with WPA, Art Deco approaches. The painting is thoroughly modern yet somehow thoroughly Native, a dis40

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N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F T H E A M E R I C A N I N D I A N , 2 7/ 0 2 1 7 © O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY. ; U N I V E R S I T Y A R T G A L L E R I E S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H D A K O TA , V E R M I L L I O N , P C O H 8 ( O . H . 7 6 . 0 0 4 ) . ; P R E S S I M A G E S C O U R T E S Y O F T H E N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F T H E A M E R I C A N I N D I A N A N D T H E O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY.

Above: Fighting Bucks, 1967. Casein on paper, 20 1⁄4 x 26 15⁄16 in.;

O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY C O L L E C T I O N , U N I V E R S I T Y A R T G A L L E R I E S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H D A K O TA , V E R M I L L I O N , H F O H 4 9 . ; C U T L E R FA M I LY C O L L E C T I O N © O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY. ; U N I V E R S I T Y A R T G A L L E R I E S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H D A K O TA , P C O H 6 ( O . H . 7 6 . 0 1 8 ) © O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY. ; P R E S S I M A G E S C O U R T E S Y O F T H E N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F T H E A M E R I C A N I N D I A N A N D T H E O S C A R H O W E FA M I LY.

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tillation of urban American forms to their essences, as seen through a Native lens. Later in his career, Howe turned, at times, to rigorous abstraction and a 1973 painting, Abstraction after Wakapana, is one of the most accomplished and inter-

esting works from t h is p er iod. T he repeated and varied shapes might be windows looki ng out i nto t he n ig ht sky; pea ks and valleys forming; rivers, lakes, a nd seas as seen from the air; deserts; the earth itself. In one of Howe’s meticulous notes (reproduced in the exhibition catalogue), the artist records a conversation with a medicine man in which north is yellow, south is white, west is black, and east is red. Perhaps, in Abstraction after Wakapana, which has no white areas, south is where we stand, watching the creation of the universe in the other three directions. Making meaning of Abstraction after Wakapana is a gift Oscar Howe left for us, an invitation for us to take part in the act of creation, even as it sends a clear signal—that Indigenous Art will never be “suppressed Art.”

Clockwise from top left: Woman Scalp Dancer, 1964. Casein on paper, 23 3⁄4 x 16 1⁄8 in.; Origin of the Sioux, ca. 1955. Casein on paper, 25 1⁄2 x 14 in.; Courting, 1970. Casein on paper, 26 3⁄8 x 21 7⁄16 in.

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Louise Nevelson: The Architect of Shadow AN EXHIBITION AT TH E AMON CARTE R M USE U M OF AM E RICAN ART WILL FEATU RE WORK OF “TH E G R AN DMOTH E R OF E NVIRON M E NTAL ART” B Y D I A N PA R K E R

wood painted black.

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“IT’S INCREDIBLE, really, that when you’re creating there is an added energy that surpasses anything else. If you have great desires you have energy. If you don’t, you’ll have a nice life.” These words were spoken by the sculptor Louise Nevelson when she was in her 80s. She is an electrifying testament to that statement. Her indefatigable energy spawned a prodigious amount of work up until her death in 1988 at age 88.

A new show at Fort Worth’s Amon Carter Museum of American Art, “The World Outside: Louise Nevelson at Midcentury,” is presenting 50 of Nevelson’s works. The exhibition, available to the public August 27, 2023—January 7, 2024, will be composed of five thematic sections that highlight Nevelson’s work from the late 1930s to the early 1970s as choreographer, visionary, community builder, printmaker,

T H E M U S E U M O F C O N T E M P O R A RY A R T, LO S A N G E L E S ; G I F T O F M R . A N D M R S . A R N O L D G L I M C H E R © 2 0 2 2 E S TAT E O F LO U I S E N E V E L S O N /A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K .

Night Landscape, 1955,

P E T E R A N D B E V E R LY L I P M A N . P H O T O C O U R T E S Y S T O R M K I N G A R T C E N T E R B Y J E R R Y L . T H O M P S O N © 2 0 2 2 E S TAT E O F L O U I S E N E V E L S O N /A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K . ; A M O N C A R T E R M U S E U M O F A M E R I C A N A R T, F O R T WO R T H , T E X A S ; P U R C H A S E D W I T H F U N D S F R O M T H E R U T H C A R T E R S T E V E N S O N AC Q U I S I T I O N S E N D OW M E N T.

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and environmentalist. Among the works featured are Lunar Landscape (1959–60), all-black wood sculpture; Royal Tide I (1960), gold-painted wood; Rain Forest Column XXXI (1967), all-black wood; Transparent Sculpture I (1967-68), made of plexiglass; in addition, there will be a display of 20 lithographs. From the museum’s press release: “The exhibition reveals how Nevelson’s encounters with ‘the world outside’ fueled her imagination and ingenuity—from the Colonial Revival and the ‘discovery’ of American folk art in the first half of the twentieth century; to muralism and Mayan iconography in her travels through Mexico and Guatemala;

to New York’s modern dance scene; to Los Angeles’s print-art revolution; to media coverage of environmental crises and the Space Race.” Nevelson made sculptures, ceramics, lithographs, numerous drawings, as well as large-scale public works for Rockport, Maine; San Francisco; and especially her beloved New York City. New York was where she found her passion by picking up discarded, often broken, pieces of wood on the streets – debris she called them– liquor crates, barrel tops, heavy banisters, handrails, pillars, and pedestals. Painting and assembling the parts into columns and walls, she soon became known for her allblack, all-white, or all-gold painted wood sculptures. She also worked with plexiglass, mirrors, aluminum, and steel.

Left to right: Royal Tide I, 1960, painted wood.; Lunar Landscape, 1959–60, painted wood.

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Clockwise from immediately above: Column from Dawn’s Wedding Feast, 1959, wood and paint.; [Untitled], ca. 1935, painted plaster.; Case with Five Balusters, 1959, wood and paint.

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That same year, 1960, she had her first one-woman show in Paris. The 1960s also saw her first museum sale, Young Shadows, to the Whitney. During this period, she was in her first Venice Biennale (the 31st Biennale), the Whitney hosted her first retrospective, and she joined Pace Gallery, where she exhibited throughout the rest of her life. In short, the 1960s were the decade during which Nevelson became known, after being continually ignored in the male-dominated art scene of Abstract Expressionism of the 1940s and 1950s. Born in 1899 in Kyiv, Ukraine, Nevelson moved with her family to Rockland, Maine,

T H E M E N I L C O L L E C T I O N , H O U S TO N © 2 0 2 2 E S TAT E O F LO U I S E N E V E L S O N /A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K . ; A M O N C A R T E R M U S E U M O F A M E R I C A N A R T, F O R T W O R T H , T E X A S © 2 0 2 2 E S TAT E O F LO U I S E N E V E L S O N /A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K . ; C O L L E C T I O N WA L K E R A R T C E N T E R , M I N N E A P O L I S ; G I F T O F M R . A N D M R S . P E T E R M . B U T L E R © 2 0 2 2 E S TAT E O F LO U I S E N E V E L S O N /A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K .

She showed her work whenever she could in the 1950s. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until 1960 that she had her first big break, when she was chosen for a prominent group show, “Sixteen Americans,” at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The curator, Dorothy Miller, selected for the exhibit work by heavy hitters; Jasper Johns, Robert Rosenberg, Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, and other male artists. Besides Nevelson, Jay DeFeo was the only other woman chosen. A collection of Nevelson’s work was presented as Dawn’s Wedding Feast; it was a group of wood assemblages all painted white, including original embedded bent and rusty nails.

A S H E V I L L E A R T M U S E U M ; G I F T O F H A N S & PAT T Y S C H L E I C H E R . I M A G E J O H N S C H W E I K E R T © 2 0 2 2 E S TAT E O F LO U I S E N E V E L S O N /A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K .

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Untitled, 1958, paint and wood.

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Untitled, 1963, lithograph.

because I destroyed so much. If I looked back I would have destroyed myself.” She was first and foremost an artist; work was the only thing that mattered. One can look at the number of artistic creations that Nevelson produced to see evidence of her passion and dedication, as well as her evolution as an accomplished artist. In her 20s, she studied acting and modern dance. “Dancing frees your mind and opens it to sculptural possibilities,” she once said. She attended the Art Students League in Manhattan and then went to Munich to study with Hans Hoffman, who told her she would never be an artist and that she was wasting her time. In the early 1940s, Nevelson moved

The work is like the woman: regal, projecting authority and grace, complex, sophisticated, and powerful. 46

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A M O N C A R T E R M U S E U M O F A M E R I C A N A R T, F O R T W O R T H , T E X A S © 2 0 2 2 E S TAT E O F LO U I S E N E V E L S O N /A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K . ; I ,

Left to right: Untitled [I], 1967, lithograph.;

when she was 5 years old. She was re c o g n i z e d e ve n then as “destined for greatness” by the writer Sholem Aleichem. Her father was in the lumber business and in Maine ran a junkyard where Nevelson would tinker for hours. In 1920 she moved to New York City with her young husband, Charles. They had two children; however, Nevelson didn’t want to be a mother or a wife, and they eventually divorced. Her mother took the children, for which Nevelson felt terrible guilt the rest of her life. When she was 80 she said, “I can’t afford to look back

W H I T N E Y M U S E U M O F A M E R I C A N A R T; P U R C H A S E D W I T H F U N D S F R O M H O WA R D A N D J E A N L I P M A N © 2 0 2 2 E S TAT E O F L O U I S E N E V E L S O N /A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K . D I G I TA L I M A G E © W H I T N E Y M U S E U M O F A M E R I C A N A R T/ L I C E N S E D B Y S C A L A /A R T R E S O U R C E , N Y. ; C O L L E C T I O N WA L K E R A R T C E N T E R , M I N N E A P O L I S ; G I F T O F T H E A R T I S T © 2 0 2 2 E S TAT E O F LO U I S E N E V E L S O N /A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K .

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to lower Manhattan and began to make her assemblages. She worked for a time as Diego Rivera’s assistant on his murals. In 1954, she produced her first series of wood landscape sculptures–monumental pieces matching the scale of large canvases by the mostly male abstract expressionists. She was friends with Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Virgil Thomson, John Cage, Edward Albee, Merce Cunningham, and many others. She lived and worked in New York until her death in 1988. For five decades she never stopped creating. Nevelson was called the “Grandmother of Environmental Art.” She forged a new art form fusing surrealism, constructivism, minimalism, foreshadowing Frank Stella and David Smith. She understood the possibilities for sculptures’ function, such as a place of rest, respite, peace. The chapel in Saint Peter’s Church at the Citicorp Center in Midtown Manhattan is an example of this awareness. The walls are graced with her white-painted assemblages. “The abstraction allows me to transcend Christian imagery, to the essential point where all religions meet.” The Chapel of the Good

Shepherd is open to the public. The work is like the woman: regal, projecting authority and grace, complex, sophisticated, and powerful. In 1958, she created Sky Cathedral, which MoMA purchased. It rises over 11 feet tall and 10 feet wide, in allblack painted wood. “Black is the most aristocratic of colors,” she said. “It is all colors.” In 1983, she designed the set for Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice for the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. In 1985, she received the National Medal of Honor as “the originator of environmental sculpture.” She also received honorary degrees from Harvard and Smith. She has had 260 solo exhibitions worldwide. Louise Nevelson was a force of nature. Her power lay in the strength of her conviction that nothing would stop her from work; it was her life, her raison d’être, her lifeblood. She made environments for the spirit. As she said, “The only reality I recognize is my reality. It’s through the work.” She called herself “The Architect of Shadow.” Amon Carter’s groundbreaking exhibition of her midcentury sculptures and works on paper, The World Outside, will enlighten us all.

Left to right: Night-Focus-Dawn, 1969, painted wood.; Rain Forest Column XXXI, 1967, wood and paint.

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Mystic Messages REMEDIOS VARO COMPOSED IMAGINATIVE CANVASES THAT EMBODY CREATIVE PR ACTICE AS A MEANS OF SHARING GREATER COSMIC TRUTHS , BOTH SCIENTIFIC AND ESOTERIC B Y A S H L E Y B U S B Y

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“REMEDIOS VARO: Science Fictions” (July 29-November 27, 2023), an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIoC), brings welcome attention to a lesser-known artist with ties to Surrealism whose work stressed the transformative and fantastic capacities of artistic creation. In the words of one contributor to the exhibition catalog, Varo provides us with “an alternate world where the rules are different and the potential for the impossible is the norm.” The Spanish-born artist (1908-1963) was encouraged in her creative pursuits by her engineer father. As a child, she devoured lit-

erature both scientific and mystical, accompanied her father to the Prado, and showed early talents as a draughtswoman. At age 17, Varo enrolled at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid. There, she first encountered Surrealism in the works of Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel. At the outset of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, fellow artist Óscar Domínguez introduced Varo to French Surrealist poet Benjamin Péret with whom she began a creative partnership and love affair. As wartime tensions swelled and artists were targeted by Franco’s Nationalist army, Varo and Péret

C O L L E C T I O N E D U A R D O F. C O S TA N T I N I © 2 0 2 3 R E M E D I O S VA R O , A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K / V E G A P, M A D R I D .

Armonía (Harmony), 1956.

M U S E O D E A R T E M O D E R N O . I N B A L / S E C R E TA R Í A D E C U LT U R A © 2 0 2 3 R E M E D I O S VA R O , A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K / V E G A P, M A D R I D . P H OTO : R O D R I G O C H A PA . ; . .

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fled in 1937 to Paris, where she was ushered into the Surrealist inner circle. Over the next three years, Varo easily embedded herself in the group, exhibiting internationally and publishing work in the group’s journals. In 1941, following the outbreak of World War II, Varo and Péret fled to Mexico. Despite a split from Péret in 1947, Varo found a new community in exile in which to thrive. She counted artists Leonora Carrington and Kati Horna among her closest friends. The three met frequently, often in one another’s kitchens, testing recipes, dabbling in witchcraft, and sharing their imaginative approaches to image-making. In 1952, Varo married fellow refugee Walter Gruen, who provided the artist with the emotional and financial stability needed to devote herself fully to her art. Varo’s output swelled in the last decade of

her life, but she died suddenly from a heart attack in 1963. In this exhibition, visitors have the opportunity to look closely at paintings from this last decade of the artist’s life. Curators argue that while Varo’s late work bares a connection to Surrealism, her creative approach was uniquely her own. The exhibition catalog examines 17 works at length, teasing apart the artist’s scientific and mystical sources, while recognizing her use of techniques that skate the boundary between Surrealist automatism and purposeful application. In support of this dual focus, the catalog includes the first published inventory of her library, as well as a “taxonomy” of the artist’s working methods—the result of careful study by conservationists at AIoC. The exhibition’s subtitle, “Science Fictions,” seeks to

Above, left to right: Ciencia inútil, o El alquimista (Useless Science, or The Alchemist), 1955.; La huida (The Escape), 1961.

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of the Birds), 1957.

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highlight the ways in which Varo’s works are a sophisticated amalgam of ideas—scientific and mystical—typically viewed in opposition. Varo populates her otherworldly spaces with creators of various ilks—musicians, alchemists, explorers—all of whom serve to metaphorically represent a quest for spiritual understanding. In Creation of the Birds (1957), Varo depicts a human-owl hybrid at work in a strange laboratory. The creature draws a bird that flies off the page when struck by astral rays focused through a prism grasped in the artist’s left hand. The artist’s palette draws its pigment from a towering vessel with a long armature that extends toward the night sky. The cosmos here pow-

ers the very materials of creation, pumped though a device that appears equally scientific and alchemical. In her paintings, Varo hoped to serve as a kind of creative mediator for the palpable magic that she saw in everyday existence. Many of her works closely parallel the writings of Russian mystic George Gurdjieff; work from as early as 1945 shows an engagement with his ideas. In his teachings, Gurdjieff argued that human beings are caught up in a kind of waking sleep that prevents them from achieving enlightenment. Followers attempted to do “The Work” to unite their physical, emotional, and spiritual selves. For Varo, Gurdjieff’s ideas about “objective art”

M U S E O D E A R T E M O D E R N O . I N B A L / S E C R E TA R Í A D E C U LT U R A © 2 0 2 3 R E M E D I O S VA R O , A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K / V E G A P, M A D R I D . P H OTO : R O D R I G O C H A PA .

Creación de las aves (Creation

P R I VAT E C O L L E C T I O N © 2 0 2 3 R E M E D I O S VA R O , A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K / V E G A P, M A D R I D . P H OTO : J A M I E M . S T U K E N B E R G , S T U K E N B E R G P H OTO G R A P H Y. ; P R I VAT E C O L L E C T I O N © 2 0 2 3 R E M E D I O S VA R O , A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K / V E G A P, M A D R I D . P H OTO C O U R T E S Y O F S OT H E B Y ’ S , I N C . © 2 0 2 3 . ; M U S E O D E A R T E M O D E R N O . I N B A L / S E C R E TA R Í A D E C U LT U R A © 2 0 2 3 R E M E D I O S VA R O , A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K / V E G A P, M A D R I D . P H OTO : R O D R I G O C H A PA .

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Above, left to right: Exploración de las fuentes del río Orinoco (Exploration of the Sources of the Orinoco River), 1959.; Hacia la torre (Toward the Tower), 1960. Below: Tauro (Taurus), 1962.

were most attractive; he posited that art was capable of revealing profound knowledge. In The Juggler (1956), Varo presents an overt reference to her interests in the occult, drawing the iconography of her magician from the first card of the tarot’s Major Arcana. This card, traditionally associated with the unification of the physical and spiritual planes, is a shrewd analog for Gurdjieff’s teachings. She also permeates the work with additional mystical significance through her selection of materials. The composition, also known as “The Magician,” is one of five in which she incorporates inlaid mother-of-pearl, a material often used by shamans in Pre-Columbian rituals, here utilized for the pentagon-shaped face of the magician. The artist’s work is often infused with personal significance, but such tales are presented as part of a revelation of cosmic existence. The Escape (1961) is the third work in a triptych—along with Toward the Tower (1960) and Embroidering the Earth’s Mantle (1961)—that depicts a young girl who, according to Varo, “resists hypnosis.” This SUMMER

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(Embroidering the Earth’s Mantle), 1961.

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girl eventually breaks free from tradition, represented by a nun in the first panel and the cloister-like setting of the second panel. In the final panel, the girl is now joined by a male partner—perhaps a reference to the chemical wedding and alchemical transmutation. She soars upward toward a glowing mountaintop, a metaphor for Varo’s own experiences with exile and her quest for a higher state of consciousness. The surface treatment of the work also offers opportunities for careful study and appreciation. Varo manipulates her media in a careful unification of chance methods such as the grattage used to comprise the craggy surface of the mountain alongside instances of careful execution such as the minute, incised strokes used for the girl’s hair

and her umbrella-like travelling vessel. This balance of perceived technical oppositions— improvisatory and planned—further emphasizes the messages of potential harmony that run throughout the artist’s oeuvre. Varo saw art as a revelatory practice capable of revealing truths about oneself and the universe. As AIoC curator Caitlin Haskell notes, Varo’s work contains “messages sent out to the universe.” Over the four months during which these paintings will be on view at the museum, “Remedios Varo: Science Fictions” will allow viewers an occasion to engage with such messages, to understand the artist, and perhaps to reflect on their own quest for selfrealization.

P R I VAT E C O L L E C T I O N © 2 0 2 3 R E M E D I O S VA R O , A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K / V E G A P, M A D R I D . P H OTO : J A M I E M . S T U K E N B E R G , S T U K E N B E R G P H OTO G R A P H Y.

Bordando el manto terrestre

C O L L E C T I O N E D U A R D O F. C O S TA N T I N I © 2 0 2 3 R E M E D I O S VA R O , A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K / V E G A P, M A D R I D .

exhibitions

Simpatía (Sympathy), 1955.

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Ballarat, 1978, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 in.

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PA R R I S H A R T M U S E U M , WAT E R M I L L , N .Y. ; G I F T O F T H E J A M E S A N D C H A R LOT T E B R O O K S F O U N DAT I O N

From its beginnings to Abstract Expressionism and beyond, the work of James Brooks is reassessed at the Parrish Art Museum

PA R R I S H A R T M U S E U M , WAT E R M I L L , N .Y. ; G I F T O F T H E J A M E S A N D C H A R LOT T E B R O O K S F O U N DAT I O N

Ashawagh, 1970, silkscreen, 22 x 30 in.

While James Brooks was one of the pioneering first-wave Abstract Expressionists who settled in the South Fork of Long Island long before it became synonymous with the “One Percent,” he is now among the least known of them— yet highly visible during his lifetime in the United States and abroad, his work a part of many eminent collections. The bar, of course, is inordinately high, given the fact that the relevant free-wheeling, hard-drinking, hard-working cohort included his friends Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner (with Brooks and his

wife Charlotte Park, also an artist, moving to Montauk in 1950 to be closer to them and later to Springs in 1954), as well as Willem and Elaine de Kooning and other legendary artists. The Parrish Art Museum’s “James Brooks: A Painting Is a Real Thing” (August 6—October 15, 2023), whose guest curator, Klaus Ottmann, calls Brooks the most underrecognized artist of importance in America, aims to rectify such an oversight with a reappraisal of Brooks’s achievements through the lens of current aesthetic criteria and the renewed enthusiasm for abstract painting. Featuring over 100 paintings, prints, and other works on paper—many seen for the first time as part of a gift to the Parrish Art Museum by the James and Charlotte Brooks Founda-

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A Marvelous Thing

tion—the exhibition offers a fine-grained picture of an adventurous, much-traveled artist whose life was composed of chapters spanning most of the 20th century and its tumultuous shifts. Brooks was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1906 and died in Brookhaven (Long Island), New York, in 1992. He studied art at Southern Methodist University and the Dallas Art Institute; his early body of work focused on industrial sites, buildings of small towns, and workers in places such as Montana, Idaho, and Oklahoma— painted in the regional style of the American Southwest and West. He became an extraordinarily adept printmaker, a skill that helped support him when he moved to New York in 1926, beginning his career during the years of the Great Depression. In New York City, like so many other aspirants, he attended the Art Students League in Manhattan. He was eager to be at the center of things, vowing to cast off his provincialism. One mark of his success was an invitation in 1933 to participate in the Whitney Museum’s first Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Sculpture, Watercolors, and Prints (later, more succinctly known 56

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PA R R I S H A R T M U S E U M , WAT E R M I L L , N .Y. ; G I F T O F T H E J A M E S A N D C H A R LOT T E B R O O K S F O U N DAT I O N . ; PA R R I S H A R T M U S E U M , WAT E R M I L L , N .Y. ; G I F T O F C H A R LOT T E PA R K B R O O K S .

Above: Irridon, 1965–1968, acrylic and crayon on canvas, 33 x 43 1⁄4 in. Below: Untitled, d ca. 1950, ink and crayon on paper, 22 x 25 in.

PA R R I S H A R T M U S E U M , WAT E R M I L L , N .Y. ; G I F T O F T H E J A M E S A N D C H A R LOT T E B R O O K S F O U N DAT I O N .

A Marvelous Thing

Buildings, 1933, oil on canvas, 24 x 18 in.

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lithograph, 30 x 22 in.; Eastern, 1982, lithograph, 30 1⁄4 x 22 1⁄8 in.

as the Whitney Biennial), the first of many invitations, including one in 1963 to present a retrospective of his work. He also took part in the groundbreaking “9th Street Exhibition” in Greenwich Village in 1951, “Younger American Painters” at the Guggenheim in 1954, and “12 Americans” at the Museum of Modern

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Art (MoMA) in 1956. Around this time, he became deeply interested in mural painting—in Renaissance frescoes and those of the Mexican muralists— attending lectures by José Clemente Orozco (with Philip Guston) and contacting Diego Rivera, whom Brooks managed to watch at work. (Rivera was painting a series of murals downtown.) He joined the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1936 as a muralist. Brooks’s best-known commission (and the program’s last and most ambitious) is Flight (1938-1942), a 235-foot-long, 12-foothigh, 3-panel mural for the rotunda of the Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia Airport in Queens. Brooks, always curious—and thorough, took flying lessons in order to experience the sensation of flight as a pilot. However, he didn’t like flying, he said, because he was either terrified or bored. Flight narrated humanity’s dream of flying from the beginnings of civilization to the present, referring to ancient and indigenous myths, to Icarus and Daedalus, historical figures such as Leonardo da Vinci and the Wright brothers, and depictions of contemporary aircraft, combining the influences of the School of Paris, abstract forms, the Renaissance, and Social Realism. One stalwart, toga-draped figure in the central panel is particularly heroic, his arms outstretched, one enormous workmanlike

PA R R I S H A R T M U S E U M , WAT E R M I L L , N .Y. ; M U S E U M P U R C H A S E , R O B E R T L E H M A N F U N D A N D F R I E N D S O F T H E C O L L E C T I O N F U N D . ; PA R R I S H A R T M U S E U M , WAT E R M I L L , N .Y. ; G I F T O F T H E J A M E S A N D C H A R LOT T E B R O O K S F O U N DAT I O N . ; PA R R I S H A R T M U S E U M , WAT E R M I L L , N .Y. ; G I F T O F C A R O L E A N D A L E X R O S E N B E R G .

Clockwise from below: Untitled, d 1952, oil on Osnaburg cloth, 30 1⁄4 x 39 1⁄8 in.; Concord, d 1975,

PA R R I S H A R T M U S E U M , WAT E R M I L L , N .Y. ; G I F T O F T H E J A M E S A N D C H A R LOT T E B R O O K S F O U N DAT I O N . ; .

A Marvelous Thing

Above: Comac, 1970, lithograph, 28 1⁄4 x 20 1⁄4 in. Below: Elybrook, k 1983, oil on canvas, 60 x 60 in.

hand sketching plans for a flying machine, head flung back, looking upward toward a darkened but diaphanous sky sparkling with stars. The mural was completed in 1942 but painted over in 1952, during the height of the McCarthy Era, with no explanation—although it was most likely too socialist in style and content to be condoned by the government. Rediscovered in the late 1970s, the mural was restored and rededicated in 1980 and is now on permanent view. Brooks served in the United States Army, enlisting in 1942, and was designated a combat artist, assigned to Cairo. He traveled extensively throughout the Middle East—Egypt, Palestine, Syria—his time there documented in pencil drawings, watercolors, and gouaches of soldiers, military equipment, and local sites with quite a few included in the Parrish exhibition. He was decorated and discharged in 1945, returning to New York to catch up with his peers, finding himself in a new art world. He admired Matisse, experimented with Pollock’s drips, with accident, with Cubism and Surrealism, his semi-abstractions from the period summoning to mind Joan Miró, Paul Klee, and Yves Tanguy. Miró was of continual interest to him, most evident in a lightness of touch and a sense of visual whimsy that appears throughout his work in brushwork, line, and shape. Irridon (1965-68) is one example, its SUMMER

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paper, 23 x 29 in.; Xeres, 1954, oil on canvas, 19 x 14 in.; The Springs, 1971, lithograph, 29 155⁄16 x 21 155⁄16 in.

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two disarming daubs of pale blue interrupted by a black stroke, the vibrato of the modulated ground charging the ambience, creating a psychological narrative of sorts, the strokes personified. That personification is echoed in an untitled 1967 acrylic work on paper, its five black strokes also suggesting figures of sorts, the brushmarks recurrent in form, in particular the ones that resemble a hook, a reversed comma. One of his experiments in this transitional period was the use of grain sacks of Bemis or Osnaburg cloth. Their loose weave permitted the pigments to soak through to the other side, which became the genesis of the painting, discovering staining as a technique years before it became part of abstraction’s general vocabulary, seen in three works here, including a mostly green gestural work from 1952. Brooks said that working for the WPA and the military forced him to make figurative work, but he was more interested in abstraction, as most contemporary artists who considered themselves in the vanguard were by then, committing himself to non-representational art in 1949. Brooks was soon in the thick of the culture wars of the times, enshrined in the front row of the iconic photograph of “The Irascibles” published in Life magazine in January 1951, seen by countless people and part of the archive of Abstract Expressionism. He was one of the signers of the open letter drafted in 1950 by Adolph Gottlieb (aided by Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko) for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s president,

PA R R I S H A R T M U S E U M , WAT E R M I L L , N .Y. ; G I F T O F R I C H A R D I . A D R I A N . ; PA R R I S H A R T M U S E U M , WAT E R M I L L , N .Y. ; G I F T O F T H E J A M E S A N D C H A R LOT T E B R O O K S F O U N DAT I O N . ; PA R R I S H A R T M U S E U M , WAT E R M I L L , N .Y. ; G I F T O F M R S . FA I R F I E L D P O R T E R .

Clockwise from below: Untitled, d 1964, gouache and crayon on

E B R O O K S F O U N DAT I O N . Y. ; G I F T O F T H E J A M E S A N D C H A R LOT T PA R R I S H A R T M U S E U M , WAT E R M I L L , N .

A Marvelous Thing

Untitled, d 1940s, gouache on paper, 10 3⁄4 x 14 in.

denouncing the museum’s bias against abstract art in its selection for the exhibition “American Painting Today—1950,” leading to the photo shoot in which Brooks and Pollock had driven to Manhattan from the Springs (Long Island) expressly to participate. It seemed a decisive break with his past work, as the transition from representational to non-objective for many painters no longer bound them to external reality and its template, but to the dictates of the work itself, to the materiality of the painting and what the painting required, allowing him an exhilarating new, if perhaps daunting freedom. Even so, this work also retained connections with his past compositions, abstract forms replacing identifiable objects but often retaining a similarity of balance, such as the prioritizing of the center, whether by means of positive or negative forms, or an arrangement of forms that suggest his earlier landscapes or architectural imagery, structural elements that seem hard-wired. A striking untitled painting from 1953 displays a textured welter of forceful white vertical strokes, attacked—not too strong a word—by blood red slashes from a red crayon. From there, his palette begins to sing in a higher register, with a new brightness and lyricism. The gorgeous coral and teal blue Ballarat (1978) dazzles,

as does Eastern (1982). The latter is a lithograph dominated by an array of precariously close-in-value tonalities of red, their dissonance checked by shapes in grey, black and white. Some suggest torn paper as if collaged, the black alternating between figure and ground, while playful squiggles of paint in the upper right corner either dance in the dark as space, or pin the black in place, defining it as a surface. In two other major works from the period, Cambria and Elybrook, both painted in 1983 (with Elybrook in oil and Cambria in acrylic, which Brooks began to use instead of oil by the late 1960s), the palette is more sombre, mysterious, with a range of blues, maroons, and blacks, but whether light or dark, both are seductive, their vitality barely contained, the colors and forms pushing against each other as he searched for new resolutions, finding “eloquence” in the attempt. Brooks, who could be both matter-of-fact and poetic, once said that the “painting surface has always been the rendezvous of what the painter knows with the unknown…” insisting that the work of art is a collaboration between the artist and the canvas and the only subject of painting is what occurs there. “It’s a marvelous thing,” he said. “Paintings are made with paint.” SUMMER

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I M A G E : M U S E O D AV I A B A R G E L L I N I , B O L O G N A , I TA LY.

Lavinia Fontana, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, 1600, oil on canvas, (unframed) 123 x 97 cm, (framed) 171 x 142 x 25 cm.

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exceptional creative I M AG E , N AT I O N A L G A L L E R Y O F I R E L A N D .

Lavinia Fontana, a Bolognese painter of the Cinquecento, broke barriers for women artists all while demonstrating extraordinary talent

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n exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland, “Lavinia Fontana: Trailblazer, Rule Breaker” (on view through August 27th), highlights the groundbreaking achievements of a lesser-known, late Cinquecento painter from Bologna. To be certain, Fontana was an exception to the socio-political position afforded to women at the time. The word “exception” has both negative and positive connotations. Read as “exception,” the artist is in contrast to the rule—a woman working beyond the restrictions of her sex. Read as “exceptional,” we associate the talent with being unusual or rare—a comment

upon skill. Lavinia Fontana was no mere “exception”; she was an “exceptional” artist. As NGI curator Aoife Brady argues, she was not simply an artist “prevailing” beyond her sex but rather one of “prodigious skill in painting” that begs (re)consideration. Much of the previous scholarship on Fontana has focused on her biography, understanding her work as an achievement that resulted from her specific circumstances. Born in 1552 in Bologna, she was the daughter of Prospero Fontana (1512-1597), who was known for large-scale fresco commissions and a series of portraits of Pope Julius III from the 1550s. (Prospero Fontana, a con-

By Ashley Busby Lavinia Fontana, The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, 1599, oil on canvas, (unframed) 251.7 x 326.5 cm, (framed) 284.5 x 358.7 x 12 cm.

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exceptional creative

and lacework along with an intricate ruff. Golden ribbons wind through her braided up-do, and two beaded coral necklaces finish her styling. Nearby, a woman stands holding an open volume of sheet music. The inclusion of the text further stresses the artist’s musical skill, and the large bound format may also reference her family’s work in publishing. Along the back wall, a doorway provides a glimpse into a studio area with an easel, a reference to Lavinia Fontana’s artistic training. The portrait format at the virginal is also a likely reference to an earlier self-portrait (SelfPortrait at the Spinet, painted in 1561) by another accomplished woman painter of 16th-century Italy, Sofonisba Anguissola, who served as a portraitist in the court of Phillip II of Spain (1559-1573). Lavinia Fontana’s skill as a painter, and especially her affinity for careful detail, is evident in this early self-portrait. This proficiency likely convinced Prospero Fontana to extend his daughter’s training. Unfortunately, around 1568, he encountered financial difficulties and, in his mid-fifties, struggled to keep pace with demand for his work. Providing young Lavinia with further training was likely a financial decision; he had no sons, and she showed evidence of the necessary talent to serve as an aid in his workshop. In 1577, Fontana negotiated special conditions for his daughter’s marriage to Gian Paolo Zappi that allowed her to pursue a professional career. According to the marriage agreement, Zappi

Venus and Mars, c. 1595, oil on canvas, (unframed) 140 x 116 cm, (framed) 161 x 137 cm.; Lavinia Fontana, Galatea and Cherubs Riding the Stormy Waves on a Sea Monster, r c. 1590, oil on copper, (unframed) 48 x 36.5 cm, (framed) 61 x 72.5 cm.

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P H OTO © 2 0 2 3 C A S A D E A L B A F O U N DAT I O N . ; P R I VAT E C O L L E C T I O N .

temporary of Giorgio Vasari, also opened his own school, training several major Bolognese painters including Ludovico and Agostino Carracci.) Her mother, née Antonia de Bonardis, had connections to the city’s printing industry, and her family ran one of the largest publishing houses in Bologna. In short, Lavinia Fontana’s upbringing provided clear connections to the city’s intelligentsia and the art world. Scholars note that Prospero Fontana may have never intended for his daughter to become one of the first professional female artists in Bologna. The earliest dated work by Lavinia Fontana was completed at age 23—relatively old for a professional artist. Still, she would have been provided with basic training in art as a teenager. Training in in the so-called “courtly arts” of music, drawing, painting, and writing was seen as a positive attribute, making a young woman more attractive to potential suitors. The artist’s Self-Portrait at the Virginal (1577) serves as a record of this early training. Seated at center before a virginal or spinet, the subject (the artist) has fingers raised and flexed as though dancing across the keys; however, she sits in three-quarter view and stares directly at the viewer. Such visual engagement with the viewer suggests not only that she is skilled enough to play without looking but also that she is aware that she is the subject to be gazed upon. Her dress matches such expectations. Indeed, the artist presents herself not in ordinary daywear but rather in impressive finery. Her gown’s soft red color is complemented by pearl

ACCADEMIA NAZIONALE DI SAN LUCA , ROMA . PHOTO: MAURO COEN.

exceptional creative

Lavinia Fontana, Self-Portrait at the Virginal, 1577, oil on canvas, (unframed) 27 x 23.8 cm, (framed) 47 x 44.5 x 6 cm.

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Lavinia Fontana, Assumption of the Virgin with Saints Peter Chrysologus and Cassian, 1584, oil on canvas, (framed) 252 x 166 cm.

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the way for these later generations of women artists in the city. Much of Fontana’s commissioned work was in portraiture. Her family’s publishing connections served as a means to earn commissions in academic portraiture, including Portrait of Carlo Sigonio (c. 1578). In the painting, Fontana depicts the historian surrounded by items indicative of his profession—a desk laden with manuscripts and students gathered outside his doorway. He

ARCHIVIO FOTOGR AFICO MUSEI CIVICI DI IMOL A .

received no dowry and would move to the Fontana home where his teenage wife, Lavinia, already had access to a studio. (The earlier mentioned selfportrait, painted in 1577, was a gift for Zappi’s father prior to the marriage.) The elder Zappi, like Prospero Fontana, recognized his future daughter-in-law’s potential, allowing the marriage to proceed without a dowry—based on the new bride’s earning capacity. Despite the arranged nature of their union, Lavinia and Gian Paolo Zappi appear to have enjoyed a great partnership. While she painted, he spent most of his time caring for and educating the couple’s 11 children (only four of whom survived to adolescence). Having had her first child in 1578, she would spend much of the next 18 years—and a large part of her professional career—pregnant. Her husband’s willingness to serve as caregiver surely made her professional career easier to navigate. Zappi also served as business manager, navigating economic contracts not entrusted to women during the era. Lavinia Fontana’s location in Bologna also certainly contributed to her ability to embark upon a career as an artist. The city’s patron saint of artists, Catherine of Bologna (1413-1463), was a nun, author, and manuscript illuminator. Her cult was officially recognized by Pope Clement VII in 1524, confirming a supportive cultural context for female artistic expression. Bologna was also an anomaly in terms of access to education for women. The city’s university, the oldest in Europe, saw admittance for female students as early as the 13th century. While women remained barred from membership in Bologna’s guild system, by the end of the 18th century, the city had produced some 68 known female artists. Fontana’s successes almost certainly paved

ARC H IVIO FOTOG R AFICO D EL M US EO CIVICO DI M O D ENA . PH OTO: PAO LO TER ZI .

Lavinia Fontana, Portrait of Carlo Sigonio, c. 1578, oil on canvas, (unframed) 122 x 95 cm, (framed) 141 x 111 x 5 cm.

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canvas, (unframed) 157.5 x 120 cm, (framed) 189.8 x 152 cm. Above: Lavinia Fontana, Cleopatra, 1605, oil on canvas, (unframed) 87.3 x 71 cm, w c. (framed) 100 x 84 cm. Below: Lavinia Fontana, Portrait of a Widow,

glares at the viewer, an inquisitive but authoritative look upon his face, and his right hand gestures to invite discourse. The artist also masterfully captures texture and detail. Sigonio wears a rich damask vesto with long fur lapels. The sitter’s coarse graying beard stands in stark textural contrast to his starched collar. Unlike other major Italian cities during the era, Bologna was not dominated by a single major patron family such as the Medici clan in Florence. As a result, Fontana had access to a diverse patron base. In the 1580s, Bologna also saw relaxed sumptuary laws, which prescribed codes of dress, display, and consumption. This meant that jewels and elaborate fashions were now legally and socially acceptable. Silk production was also the single largest economic driver in the city. Thus, the display of such wares served as evidence of the sitter’s contributions to the local economy—and Fontana specialized in portraits that featured ostentatious displays of costume and ornament. Fortunately, clients deeply trusted the artist, and many of them allowed her to take their jewels back to the studio in order to best capture on canvas the particulars of fine workmanship. This mastery of detail 68

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1595, oil on canvas, (unframed) 66 x 52 cm, (framed) 78 x 64 cm.

(especially as it applies to the subject’s attire) is well demonstrated in the artist’s Portrait of Costanza Alidosi (c. 1595). The wife of a local senator, Alidosi’s elaborate finery stands as a demonstration of her family’s social position. Her black velvet overgown opens to reveal a damask underskirt. Gold fastenings, meticulous embroidery, and sumptuous jewels (a beaded headpiece, three rings, two strands of pearls, and ruby drop-earrings) are all rendered with startling accuracy. Resting in the sitter’s lap is a tiny spaniel—a symbol of wealth and fidelity, as well as a reference to Bologna’s breeding industry. While Fontana excelled in portraiture, she also tackled other subject matter, including themes both biblical and mythic. Her Assumption of the Virgin with Saints Peter Chrysologus and Cassian (1584) was the artist’s first documented public commission, making her the earliest female artist to complete large-scale work of the type. The intricate embroidery, painted scenes, and rich silks of the saints’ robes demonstrate the same extraordinary ability seen in her portraits.

N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F W O M E N I N T H E A R T S , WA S H I N G TO N , D . C . ; G I F T O F WA L L A C E A N D W I L H E L M I N A H O L L A DAY. P H OTO : L E E S TA L S W O R T H . ; P E R G E N T I L E C O N C E S S I O N E D E L L A D I R E Z I O N E M U S E I S TATA L I D E L L A C I T TÀ D I R O M A — G A L L E R I A S PA DA . ; C O L L E Z I O N I D ’A R T E E D I S TO R I A D E L L A F O N DA Z I O N E C A S S A D I R I S PA R M I O I N B O LO G N A . P H OTO : M A R C O B A L DA S S A R I .

At left: Lavinia Fontana, Portrait of Costanza Alidosi, i c. 1595, oil on

NAL GALLERY OF IRELAND. R O M A — G A L L E R I A S PA DA . ; I M A G E , N AT I O E Z I O N E M U S E I S TATA L I D E L L A C I T TÀ D I PER GENTILE CONCESSIONE DELLA DIR

exceptional creative

Above: Prospero Fontana, Portrait of an Astrologer, r c. 1575, oil on canvas, (unframed) 100.3 x 82.3 cm, (framed) 122 x 105 x 7 cm. At right: Lavinia Fontana, Portrait of a Gentleman in Armour, r late 1590s, oil on canvas, (unframed) 89 x 65 cm, (framed) 124 x 100.2 x 8.5 cm.

The artist also created inventive takes on then-popular biblical stories and motifs, including her Judith with the Head of Holofernes (1600), one of three works picturing the female hero from the Old Testament Apocrypha. Here, Fontana’s Judith is modelled as a self-portrait, much like the more well-known paintings of Judith by Artemisia Gentileschi. Fontana’s Judith is poised and triumphant. She confidently grips a scimitar—held aloft in her right hand—while clutching the head of her slain foe in her left. The artist contrasts the violence of the beheading with the beauty of the subject’s gown and jewelled accessories. Historians also note that Fontana was the first woman painter to address the female nude. Her Venus and Mars (c. 1595) is a novel take on the amorous affair of these two celebrated figures from antiquity. Mars stares intently at his lover, one hand firmly grasping her buttocks. Venus twists to stare at the viewer, seemingly acknowledging their erotic behavior and further heightening the titillation of her nude form and their post-coital surroundings. Perhaps the most impressive painting in the National Gallery’s exhibition is Fontana’s The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon (1599), which has undergone recent conservation. The work is one of Fontana’s largest (251.7 x 326.5 cm) and provides ample space for the artist to lavish attention upon the costumes of the gathered figures, including the over-the-top styling of Sheba’s female retinue—personages who take up almost half of the avail-

able space of the composition. Their dresses are a swirl of intricate embroidery, filigree lacework, dazzling jewels, and candy-colored silks. The titular meeting of the Old Testament royals appears at left, and curators provide a new possible reading for the work as portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Ferrara. Countering earlier accepted identifications for the figures, the exhibition substantiates such a reading in comparison portraits and other historical source materials. The work also provides evidence of Fontana’s skill and achievement as an artist, her mastery of multiple painting genres, her inventive compositions that link past subjects with the conditions of Cinquecento Italy, her impressive work as a colorist, and her extraordinary attention to detail in the rendering of costume, texture, and ornament. Lavinia Fontana built an enviable career in Bologna working for the city’s elite. She excelled as a portraitist but also made other major artistic contributions. After her father died, Fontana and her family moved to Rome in 1603 at the behest of Pope Clement VIII; she served as a portraitist at the Vatican until her death in 1612. Her career and successes were, not unlike other women artists of the era, viewed as an exception to her sex, to the expectations of society, and to the (masculine) definition of the artist. Still, Fontana and her work exhibit tendencies that far exceed her classification as a mere anomaly. She was truly exceptional, highly skilled, and an exemplary trailblazer for the women artists who followed in her footsteps. SUMMER

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A New Exhibition at the Muskegon Museum of Art reexamines American painting as it confronted the modern world and modern art

Zoltan Sepeshy, Woodward Avenue No. 11, 1931, oil on canvas, 25 x 30 in.

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C O L L E C T I O N O F T H E F L I N T I N S T I T U T E O F A R T S , F L I N T, M I C H I GA N ; G I F T O F PAT G L A SCO C K A N D M I C HA EL D. HA LL I N M EM O RY O F CO LLI N GA B R I EL HA LL , I N L A N D ER CO LLEC TI O N .

and

O F A R T S , F L I N T, M I C H I G A N ; C O U R T E S Y O F T H E I S A B E L F O U N DAT I O N , I N L A N D E R C O L L E C T I O N . COLLECTION OF THE FLINT INSTITUTE

After having a glance at the images of the artworks on the pages of this essay, you would be forgiven for flipping back to the title of the featured exhibition, “American Realism: Visions of America, 1900-1950,” and asking, in all seriousness: Just what exactly is “American Realism”? Unless, of course, we want to consider realism—and reality—in ways that exceed style and strict mimesis. By 1900, the year that marks the beginning of the period covered by the exhibition, which runs through August 27th at the Muskegon Museum of Art, photography had already made strong inroads into perceptions of verisimilitude or lifelikeness. While painters have always sought to depict the truths beneath the surface realities of the world, photography compelled them to seek new ways to do so. After 1950, Pop Art and hyperrealism would strive to reproduce reality, especially mundane reality, at scales large and small, making art out of perceived reality in order to scrutinize that reality. However, from 1900 to 1950, American artists seemed to agree on one thing—that painterly realism had to create and maintain

By James D. Balestrieri Henry Wilmer Bannarn, Ironing Day, 1949, gouache on board, 20 x 16 in.

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Subject and Style

a healthy distance and distinction from photographic reproduction. Drawing as it does on artworks from the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Flint Institute of Arts, and the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, as well as from Muskegon’s own holdings, one of the signal achievements of “American Realism: Visions of America, 1900-1950” is that it serves as a reminder of the strength of the collections in Michigan museums. The exhibition is divided along the lines of certain themes: “Black America,” which embraces the Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance; “Changing Times,” having to do with the Progressive Era, urban growth, immigration, and industrialization; “New American Art,” beginning with the explosive introduction of European Modernism at the 1913 Armory Show in New York; “The Changing Face of Journalism” which describes the intersection of political illustration and the artistic urge to capture real people in everyday life; and “Women in America,” a visual chronicle of the suffrage movement and the increasing presence of women outside the home. All but one of these themes clue us in not only to the meaning of 72

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the term American Realism but also its application. Apart from “New American Art,” the themes refer to the subjects of art, the “what,” as opposed to anything having to do with the “how” of art (e.g., style, approach, paint handling, technique, impulse, inspiration). Our outlier, “New American Art,” lets us know that Modernism will exert a heavy influence on the “how” of American Realism. Following the themes and considering the works in the exhibition in pairs offer insight into the dialogue between Realism in terms of subject and Modernism in terms of style. Beginning with “Black America,” imagine hanging Henry Wilmer Bannarn’s 1949 Ironing Day beside Charles Henry Alston’s Untitled (Couple), which was painted at about the same time, circa 1945-1950. That they were important painters of the Harlem Renaissance will come as no surprise; that they shared a studio and opened an art school together may come as something of a shock, given the disparities in their approaches. Bannarn’s version of American Realism in Ironing Day hearkens back to “The Ten,” to the gritty realities depicted in

C O L L E C T I O N O F T H E M U S K E G O N M U S E U M O F A R T, P U R C H A S E D I N H O N O R O F T H E 1 0 0 TH A N N I V E R S A R Y O F T H E M U S K E G O N M U S E U M O F A R T T H R O U G H T H E 1 0 0 TH A N N I V E R S A R Y A R T A C Q U I S I T I O N F U N D A N D T H E S H A W A N D B E T T Y W A L K E R F U N D .

Robert Riggs, Chemical Plant, Wyandotte, Michigan, 1950, tempera on panel.

C O L L EC T I O N O F T H E M U S K EG O N M U S E U M O F A R T, M U S E U M P U R C H A S E , T H R O U G H T H E G I F T O F T H E A N D R É A E R N E E S TAT E . ; C O L L E C T I O N O F T H E M U S K E G O N M U S E U M O F A R T, M U S E U M P U R C H A S E , T H R O U G H F U N D S F R O M T H E M M A A C Q U I S I T I O N F U N D O F T H E C O M M U N I T Y F O U N DAT I O N F O R M U S K E G O N C O U N T Y A N D T H E H AC K L E Y P I C T U R E F U N D .

Subject and Style

Above: Reginald Marsh, Tunnel of Love (Spooks), 1943, oil on hardboard. Below: Guy Pène du Bois, Locked Jury, ca. 1950, oil on canvas.

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the works of John Sloan, George Luks, and others. Realism is in the details, sketched out though they may be. The woman bears down on the iron, her bare feet pressed flat against the worn linoleum. The curtains, parted to reveal a bleak factory, are threadbare; the towels are frayed. The tilted perspective increases the sense of claustrophobia. Contrast this with Alston’s Cubistic portrait, Untitled (Couple), in which inner reality is expressed in an arrangement of planes. As close as the man and woman are physically, the realism in the portrait derives from Alston’s use of lines and colors to express the oppositions in their relationship. The woman stares out at the viewer while the man reads or dozes. Vital yellows, greens, and oranges compose and surround the woman; darker versions of those colors and a deep blue compose and surround the man, who is as exhausted, seemingly, as the artist’s palette. A thick diagonal line divides them. This, too, is American Realism, only here it is channeled through Modernism. Though neither Virginia Cuthbert’s Movie Palace (1936) nor 74

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Zoltan Sepeshy’s Woodward Avenue No. 11 (1931) can be said to be strictly journalistic, each painting intends to chronicle a specific moment in a specific place at a specific time—journalistically, as it were. Nor does either work engage in overt politics, as we might expect from the theme, “The Changing Face of Journalism.” Cuthbert’s painting echoes aspects of the WPA photography projects—think Walker Percy and Dorothea Lange—condensing time to a glowing event horizon around the unknowable black hole of the present. She seems to want us to ask: What’s so important about this moment? and then realize that it is one of billions of present moments, the countless “nows” we go through without noticing what is around us. If you zoom in on the posters and placards in front of the “Rialto” movie theater—a “palace,” site of escape and dreams in 1936 DepressionEra America—you can read the titles of the films: Tough Guy, about a rich kid who runs away from home and finds friendship among mobsters with hearts of gold; Next Time We Love, about a well-to-do

COLLECTION OF THE K AL AMAZOO INSTITUTE OF ARTS , ACQUIRED THROUGH THE GENEROSIT Y OF AN ANONYMOUS DONOR .

Charles Henry Alston, Untitled d (Couple), ca. 1945–1950, oil on canvas.

C O L L EC T I O N O F T H E M U S K EG O N M U S E U M O F A R T, M U S E U M P U R C H A S E ; G I F T O F T H E L . C . A N D M A R G A R E T WA L K E R F U N D .

Subject and Style

William James Glackens, Woman with Watch, ca. 1914, oil on canvas.

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couple’s struggle to maintain their love while careers separate them; and A Face in the Fog, in which a woman reporter becomes the target of a killer. Cuthbert’s interest in the dichotomy between real life and the silver screen sees her on the cusp of her turn to magic realism later in her career. As opposed to condensing time, Sepeshy compresses perspective in Woodward Avenue No. 11, thereby elasticizing the cars

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whizzing by on this famous Detroit street at speeds far exceeding the 45 MPH limit on the sign. Zepeshy, who would become Director of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, seems, in this painting, to be informed by the aim in Italian Futurism to depict speed, velocity, and the sheer vertigo of modern urban life. The subject of the painting is the speed of modernity, speed that turns reality into a passing blur. Signs and billboards compete for the attention of drivers, lining the road at either side with enticements to “Dine & Dance at the Wigwam,” drink “Strong Beer,” and buy a stole for your doll at “Marks Furs.” Two paintings—both by men, ironically—seem to capture the spirit of the “Women in America” theme. Reginald Marsh’s Tunnel of Love (Spooks) revisits a classic Marsh subject—the Coney Island boardwalk, carnival. For Marsh, carnival finds its cognate: carne—that is, meat. In this 1943 painting, a woman—easily the most confident figure in the work—is on a date with a timid man, while a lecher in a straw hat leers ravenously. She looks out at the viewer, somewhat bored and bemused by the clumsiness of the whole scene and seems ready to break into her own rendition of “Is That All There Is?,” the classic Peggy Lee torch song. On the surface, then, Tunnel of Love (Spooks) finds us in a Hollywood horror comedy, a B-picture of the era. But the year, 1943, places the moment in the middle of World War II—a year when the outcome was far from certain. Able-bodied American men were away, leaving behind those who were too old, too infirm, essential workers, or deft shirkers. Slim pickings for young

C O L L EC T I O N O F T H E M U S K EG O N M U S E U M O F A R T, M U S E U M P U R C H A S E ; G I F T O F T H E L . C . A N D M A R G A R E T WA L K E R F U N D . ; C O L L EC T I O N O F T H E F L I N T I N S T I T U T E O F A R T S , F L I N T, M I C H I G A N ; C O U R T E S Y O F T H E I S A B E L F O U N DAT I O N , I N L A N D E R C O L L E C T I O N .

Above: Charles E. Burchfield, Steel Mill Homes (Blast Furnace), 1919, watercolor. Below: Virginia Cuthbert, Movie Palace, 1936, oil on canvas, 25 x 30 in.

IS MARKIN. S Y LVA N B U C H M A N I N M E M O R Y O F M O R R ITUTE OF ARTS; GIFT OF MR. AND MRS. COLLECTION OF THE K AL AMAZOO INST

Subject and Style

Brooklyn Bridge, ca. 1930, oil on canvas.

women as death, even if it takes the comic form of carnival death, hovers nearby. The work is almost amusing and yet, in the context of what was going on in countries around the world, it’s sobering. The “Spooks” in the title, perhaps, are the ghosts of the young men who aren’t there, the ghosts of war. Instead of the all-male jurors seen in “12 Angry Men,” the 1957 film directed by Sidney Lumet, Pène du Bois’s 1950 canvas, Locked Jury, reveals eleven angry men and one unflinching woman. Her steely stillness tells the story; she is the lone holdout. The men are virtually indistinguishable from one another. Their identical suits, ages, and air of bourgeois respectability, nevertheless, are distorted by exasperation, anger, and the threat of violence—just look at the man at far right, fist poised to backhand the woman from behind. We know they think women shouldn’t be allowed on juries, yet her close-fitting ensemble and poise mark her as someone not to be trifled with, someone who isn’t going anywhere. If Realism, especially American Realism, refers to subject, what then of the other “Realisms:” surrealism, hyperrealism, magic realism, photorealism, and so on? Are these, too, all about subject and not at all about style? Not really. These Realisms, once they acquire their “sur-,” “hyper-,” “photo-,” and “magic” qualifiers, share something in the space between the dreams some purport to represent and the “more real than reality” examination of everyday events and mundane objects others undertake. That something, especially after

World War II, is sharp-edged drawing and flat fields of color; it is almost as if artists sought inspiration in lithography as a counterpoint to photography. Virginia Cuthbert’s late works—you should really look them up—offer excellent examples, while Robert Riggs’s otherworldly sphere in Chemical Plant, Wyandotte, Michigan, a painting done in 1950, opens the door between illustration and Pop Art. Compare Riggs’s work with Charles Burchfield’s Steel Mill Homes (Blast Furnace), a 1919 watercolor that has a kind of Merrie Melodies/1930s animation feel—the homes and factory seem as if they might come to life and sing and dance—and you will see American Realism’s “Changing Times” for yourself. American Realism, then, might be said to start with subject and move to style, employing techniques from a medium that itself was once thought to challenge painting—printmaking—in order to subvert the authority of photography. “American Realism: Visions of America, 1900-1950” reminds us that realism, though it might seem simple, is a term that is often bandied about without much thought. But realism is much more than a representation of reality, much more than mere mimesis. The reality of the subject, it might be said, comes to life in the eye of the artist, while the realism of the artistic treatment resides in the eye of the beholder— nestled next to beauty. When it works, we become acutely aware that the “nows” of our lives are provisional moments of transitory beauty and wonder. SUMMER

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record-breaker

55.22-carat Estrela de Fura Ruby

COU RTESY SOTHEBY ’ S NEW YORK

NOT ONLY did the largest gem-quality ruby make its auction block debut, but it sold for a record breaking $34.8 million at a recent Sotheby’s auction. “It’s difficult to express the range of emotions I felt when I first laid eyes on the Estrela de Fura,” said Quig Bruning, Head of Sotheby’s Jewels, Americas and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa). “But to put it simply, I was entranced. With its unprecedented size, piercing color, and rare degree of optical transparency and clarity, it truly deserved the record-breaking price today, as it now joins the ranks of the world’s most legendary gemstones.” Known as the Estrela de Fura, the 55.22carat stone was cut from an exceptional 101carat rough stone discovered at Fura Gems’ ruby mine in Mozambique in July 2022. In its “masterfully crafted, newly formed state,” expert stone cutters polished and whittled down the stone to almost half its original size, sculpting a flawless cushion-shaped ruby in a dark red hue known as Pigeon’s Blood. A report from the Swiss Gemmological Institute said that the process had “resulted in vivid red hues to multiple internal reflections.” The stone was exhibited along with others for sale in various cities—including Dubai, Singapore and Geneva—before the New York sale. The Estrela de Fura or “Star of the Fura” in Mozambique’s official language, Portuguese, was acquired by a Middle Eastern private collector for the unprecedented amount. Not only has this sum established a new world auction record for a ruby, but it has also set a record for any colored gemstone ever sold at auction. In 2015, the Sunrise Ruby, a 25.59-carat stone found in Myanmar, brought in $30.3 million at an auction in Geneva. The first mention of Mozambique rubies

by gemologists was noted in the early 1990s; however, the country’s ruby mining industry only emerged a little more than a decade ago, in 2009, when a massive deposit of stones was discovered in the country’s north. Mozambique is now one of the world’s largest ruby-mining countries.

Offered by: Sotheby’s New York, June 8, 2023 Sold for: $34.8 million

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