Tuesday, January 28, 2014

1934: A New Deal for Artists



National Tour

Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. (February 27, 2009 – January 3, 2010)

Frick Art & Historical Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (January 30, 2010 – April 25, 2010)

Fort Wayne Museum of Art in Fort Wayne, Indiana (May 21, 2010 – August 22, 2010)

Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington (September 16, 2010 – January 9, 2011)

The Mennello Museum of American Art in Orlando, Florida (February 11, 2011 – May 1, 2011)

Oklahoma City Museum of Art in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (May 26, 2011 – August 21, 2011)

Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Montgomery, Alabama (September 24, 2011 – January 15, 2012)

Muskegon Museum of Art in Muskegon, Michigan (February 16, 2012 – May 6, 2012)

Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul, Minnesota (June 2, 2012 – September 22, 2012)

New York State Museum in Albany, New York (October 19, 2012 – January 20, 2013)

Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wisconsin (February 16, 2013 – April 28, 2013)

Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa (September 28, 2013 – January 5, 2014)

Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine (Jan. 30, 2014 – May 11, 2014)



In 1934, Americans grappled with an economic situation that feels all too familiar today. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration created the Public Works of Art Project—the first federal government program to support the arts nationally. Federal officials in the 1930s understood how essential art was to sustaining America's spirit. Artists from across the United States who participated in the program, which lasted only six months from mid-December 1933 to June 1934, were encouraged to depict "the American Scene." The Public Works of Art Project not only paid artists to embellish public buildings, but also provided them with a sense of pride in serving their country. They painted regional, recognizable subjects—ranging from portraits to cityscapes and images of city life to landscapes and depictions of rural life—that reminded the public of quintessential American values such as hard work, community and optimism.

1934: A New Deal for Artists
was organized to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Public Works of Art Project by drawing on the Smithsonian American Art Museum's unparalleled collection of vibrant artworks created for the program. The paintings in this exhibition are a lasting visual record of America at a specific moment in time. George Gurney, curator emeritus, organized the exhibition with Ann Prentice Wagner, who is now the curator of drawings at the Arkansas Art Center.

The program was administered under the Treasury Department by art professionals in 16 different regions of the country. Artists from across the United States who participated in the program were encouraged to depict “the American Scene,” but they were allowed to interpret this idea freely. They painted regional, recognizable subjects—ranging from portraits to cityscapes and images of city life to landscapes and depictions of rural life—that reminded the public of quintessential American values such as hard work, community and optimism. These artworks, which were displayed in schools, libraries, post offices, museums and government buildings, vividly capture the realities and ideals of Depression-era America. “Artists were honored to be paid by the Public Works of Art Project for paintings that would be publicly displayed,” said Gurney. “The program also provided them with a sense of pride in serving their country.”


About the Public Works of Art Project

The United States was in crisis as 1934 approached. The national economy had fallen into an extended depression after the stock market crash of October 1929. Thousands of banks failed, wiping out the life savings of millions of families. Farmers battled drought, erosion and declining food prices. Businesses struggled or collapsed. A quarter of the work force was unemployed, while an equal number worked reduced hours. More and more people were homeless and hungry. Nearly 10,000 unemployed artists faced destitution. The nation looked expectantly to President Roosevelt, who was inaugurated in March 1933.

The new administration swiftly initiated a wide-ranging series of economic recovery programs called the New Deal. The President realized that Americans needed not only employment but also the inspiration art could provide. The Advisory Committee to the Treasury on Fine Arts organized the Public Works of Art Project Dec. 8, 1933. Within days, 16 regional committees were recruiting artists who eagerly set to work in all parts of the country. During the project’s brief existence, from December 1933 to June 1934, the Public Works of Art Project hired 3,749 artists who created 15,663 paintings, murals, sculptures, prints, drawings and craft objects at a cost of $1,312,000.

In April 1934, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., exhibited more than 500 works created as part of the Public Works of Art Project. Selected paintings from the Corcoran exhibition later traveled to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and other cities across the country. President Roosevelt, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and government officials who attended the exhibition in Washington acclaimed the art enthusiastically. The Roosevelts selected 32 paintings for display at the White House, including Sheets’ “Tenement Flats” (1933-34) and Strong’s “Golden Gate Bridge” (1934) (see each below). The success of the Public Works of Art Project paved the way for later New Deal art programs, including the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project.

Nearly 150 paintings from the Public Works of Art Project were transferred to the Smithsonian American Art Museum during the 1960s, along with a large number of artworks from subsequent programs that extended into the 1940s, especially the well-known Works Progress Administration program.

The exhibition is arranged into eight sections: “American People,” “City Life,” “Labor,” “Industry,” “Leisure,” “The City,” “The Country” and “Nature.” Works from 13 of the 16 regions established by the Advisory Committee to the Treasury on Fine Arts are represented in the exhibition.

The Public Works of Art Project employed artists from across the country including Ilya Bolotowsky, Lily Furedi and Max Arthur Cohn in New York City; Harry Gottlieb and Douglass Crockwell in upstate New York; Herman Maril in Maryland; Gale Stockwell in Missouri; E. Dewey Albinson in Minnesota; E. Martin Hennings in New Mexico; and Millard Sheets in California.

Several artists chose to depict American ingenuity.

(Note - all artworks - full credits below)



Ray Strong’s panoramic “Golden Gate Bridge” (1934)

pays homage to the engineering feats required to build the iconic San Francisco structure.



“Old Pennsylvania Farm in Winter” (1934) by Arthur E. Cederquist

features a prominent row of poles providing telephone service and possibly electricity, a rare modern amenity in rural America.

Stadium lighting was still rare when Morris Kantor painted



“Baseball at Night” (1934),

which depicts a game at the Clarkstown Country Club’s Sports Centre in West Nyack, N.Y.

Ross Dickinson paints the confrontation between man and nature in his painting of southern California,



“Valley Farms” (1934).

He contrasts the verdant green, irrigated valley with the dry, reddish-brown hills, recalling the appeal of fertile California for many Midwestern farmers escaping the hopelessness of the Dust Bowl.

The program was open to artists who were denied other opportunities, such as African Americans and Asian Americans.

African American artists like Earle Richardson, who painted



“Employment of Negroes in Agriculture” (1934),

were welcomed, but only about 10 such artists were employed by the project. Richardson, who was a native New Yorker, chose to set his painting of quietly dignified workers in the South to make a broad statement about race.

In the Seattle area, where Kenjiro Nomura lived, many Japanese Americans made a living as farmers, but they were subject to laws that prevented foreigners from owning land and other prejudices. Nomura’s painting



“The Farm” (1934)

depicts a darker view of rural life with threatening clouds on the horizon.


From a Washington Post review: (images added)

So why, if these paintings were supposed to make us feel better, are so many of them so depressing?

For one thing, I doubt whether it is -- or ever was -- the purpose of art to make people feel better. Some art certainly does that. And a bit of it is on view here.



Agnes Tait's "Skating in Central Park"

is one such picture, depicting an almost Currier-and-Ives-style scene of outdoor recreation.

Ray Strong's "Golden Gate Bridge" (above)is another, in the way it celebrates the can-do spirit of those who designed and built the engineering marvel despite setbacks. (A storm on Halloween 1933 had washed away a trestle.)

Escapism is a popular theme. See



Paul Kirtland Mays's "Jungle,"

which is anything but American, or



Julia Eckel's jolly "Radio Broadcast,"

which drew attention to the popular diversion of live radio theater.



Erle Loran's chilly "Minnesota Highway" looks to a blue horizon.

But a far more common temper is that found in Kenjiro Nomura's "The Farm" (above)



or Robert A. Darrah Miller's "Farm,"

both of which feature barns sitting empty and dark, devoid of people and animals...

It's there in such obvious pictures as



"(Underpass-New York),"

a painting-over-photograph by an unidentified artist that is among the show's most starkly lovely images.

But it's also there in such pieces as



Paul Kelpe's "Machinery (Abstract #2),"

the show's only nod to abstraction, and a formal study of now-stilled gears. Other street scenes show darkening shadows and emptying sidewalks. Even pictures that are populated, such as



Saul Berman's "Riverfront,"

depicting New York shipyards, show workers engaged in little besides the busywork of shoveling snow.


From an excellent article on the show:

PWAP artists captured a variety of daily routines characteristic of where they lived. In



Subway

Lily Furedi (1901–1969) created a sympathetic view of her fellow New Yorkers taking their daily ride below the streets of Manhattan. She focused particularly on a musician who has fallen asleep in his formal working clothes, holding his violin case. The artist would have identified with a musician because her father, Samuel Furedi, was a professional cellist. Such depictions of urban New York abound in PWAP works, since there were far more artists working in the New York region than in any other.

Artist E. Martin Hennings (1886–1956) chose to celebrate the West, painting images of Native American life and the Southwestern landscape. Though much of his early life was spent in Chicago, he moved permanently to New Mexico in 1921 at the age of thirty five, becoming a member of the Taos Society of Artists three years later. Hennings felt a deep love for Taos in particular. In his painting



Homeward Bound

he painted two Native Americans from Taos Pueblo, the man wrapped in a traditional white blanket while the woman wears a colorful shawl. Hennings linked the two figures to their home landscape by likening them to the tall native sunflowers that stand behind them, silhouetted against the sky with their long stalks gracefully intertwined. This serene painting with its figures in traditional garb calmly going home speaks to Hennings' admiration of the area and its people, and to the endurance of Native American traditions, even in the face of the worst challenges.

From a Smithsonian Magazine article:
But the exhibition also underscores a salient fact: when a quarter of the nation is unemployed, three-quarters have a job, and life for many of them went on as it had in the past. They just didn't have as much money. In



Harry Gottlieb's Filling the Ice House,

painted in upstate New York, men wielding pikes skid blocks of ice along wooden chutes. A town gathers to watch a game in Morris Kantor's Baseball at Night (above). A dance band plays in an East Harlem street while a religious procession marches solemnly past and vendors hawk pizzas in



Daniel Celentano's Festival.

Drying clothes flap in the breeze and women stand and chat in the Los Angeles slums in



Tenement Flats by Millard Sheets;

one of the better-known artists in the show, Sheets later created the giant mural of Christ on a Notre Dame library that is visible from the football stadium and nicknamed "Touchdown Jesus."

If there is a political subtext to these paintings, the viewer has to supply it. One can mentally juxtapose



Jacob Getlar Smith's careworn Snow Shovellers

—unemployed men trudging off to make a few cents clearing park paths—

with the yachtsmen on Long Island Sound in



Gerald Sargent Foster's Racing,

but it's unlikely that Foster, described as "an avid yachtsman" on the gallery label, intended any kind of ironic commentary with his painting of rich men at play. As always, New Yorkers of every class except the destitute and the very wealthy sat side by side in the subway, the subject of a painting by Lily Furedi; (above) the tuxedoed man dozing in his seat turns out, on closer inspection, to be a musician on his way to or from a job, while a young white woman across the aisle sneaks a glance at the newspaper held by the black man sitting next to her.


Publication



A catalog, fully illustrated in color and co-published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and D Giles Ltd. in London, features an essay by Roger Kennedy, historian and director emeritus of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History; individual entries for each artwork by Wagner; and an introduction by the museum’s director Broun.




Artworks in the exhibition: Credits and additional images


Section 1: American People




1. Ivan Albright
The Farmer's Kitchen, about 1934
Oil on canvas, 36 x 30 1/8 inches (91.5 x 76.5 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor



2. Robert Brackman
Somewhere in America, 1934
Oil on canvas, 30 1/8 x 25 1/8 inches (76.5 x 63.9 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor



3. Kenneth M. Adams
Juan Duran, 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 40 1/8 x 30 1/8 inches (102.0 x 76.5 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


4. J. Theodore Johnson
Chicago Interior, 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 28 x 34 inches (71.2 x 86.4 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


5. E. Martin Hennings
Homeward Bound, 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 30 1/4 x 36 1/4 inches (76.8 x 92.1 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


Section 2: City Life


6. Lily Furedi
Subway, 1934
Oil on canvas, 39 x 48 1/4 inches (99.1 x 122.6 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service


7. Carl Gustaf Nelson
Central Park, about 1934
Oil on canvas, 31 7/8 x 44 inches (81.0 x 111.8 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


8. Millard Sheets
Tenement Flats, 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 40 1/4 x 50 1/4 inches (102.1 x 127.6 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service


9. Daniel Celentano
Festival, about 1933-1934
Oil on canvas mounted on fiberboard, 48 1/8 x 60 1/8 inches (122.3 x 152.8 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor



10. Ilya Bolotowsky
In the Barber Shop, 1934
Oil on canvas, 23 7/8 x 30 1/8 inches (60.6 x 76.5 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


Section 2: Leisure



11. Gerald Sargent Foster
Racing, 1934
Oil on canvas, 22 1/8 x 34 1/8 inches (56.2 x 86.6 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service


12. Agnes Tait
Skating in Central Park, 1934
Oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


13. Julia Eckel
Radio Broadcast, 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 40 1/8 x 55 5/8 inches (102.0 x 141.2 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


14. Morris Kantor
Baseball at Night, 1934
Oil on linen, 37 x 47 1/4 inches (94.0 x 120.0 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Gift of Mrs. Morris Kantor


15. Attributed to Martha Levy
Winter Scene, 1934
Oil on fiberboard, 21 1/2 x 27 3/8 inches (54.6 x 69.5 cm)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


Section 3: Labor



16. Earle Richardson
Employment of Negroes in Agriculture, 1934
Oil on canvas, 48 x 32 1/8 inches (121.8 x 81.6 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


17. Jacob Getlar Smith
Snow Shovellers, 1934
Oil on canvas, 29 7/8 x 40 1/8 inches (76.0 x 101.9 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


18. Harry Gottlieb
Filling the Ice House, 1934
Oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor



19. Douglass Crockwell
Paper Workers, 1934
Oil on canvas, 36 1/8 x 48 1/4 inches (91.7 x 122.4 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor




20. Pino Janni
Waterfront Scene, 1934
Oil on canvas, 40 1/8 x 53 3/4 inches (101.8 x 136.6 cm)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor



21. Tyrone Comfort
Gold Is Where You Find It, 1934
Oil on canvas, 40 1/8 x 50 1/8 inches (101.9 x 127.3 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service




22. Harry W. Scheuch
Workers on the Cathedral of Learning, 1934
Oil on canvas, 30 1/8 x 26 1/8 inches (76.5 x 66.5 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


23. Harry W. Scheuch
Finishing the Cathedral of Learning, 1934
Oil on canvas, 40 1/4 x 30 1/4 inches (102.3 x 76.9 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


Section 4: Industry
24. Arnold Ness Klagstad
Archer Daniels Midland Elevator, 1933-1943
Oil on canvas, 22 1/4 x 28 1/8 inches (56.6 x 71.4 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


25. Raymond White Skolfield
Natural Power, 1934
Oil on canvas, 34 1/8 x 36 1/8 inches (86.8 x 91.8 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


26. Ray Strong
Golden Gate Bridge, 1934
Oil on canvas, 44 1/8 x 71 3/4 inches (112.0 x 182.3 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service



27. E. Dewey Albinson
Northern Minnesota Mine, 1934
Oil on canvas, 40 x 50 1/8 inches (101.6 x 127.2 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


28. Austin Mecklem
Engine House and Bunkers, 1934
Oil on canvas, 38 x 50 1/4 inches (96.5 x 127.6 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor



29. Max Arthur Cohn
Coal Tower, 1934
Oil on canvas, 22 1/8 x 28 inches (56.2 x 71.2 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


30. Carl Redin
At Madrid Coal Mine, New Mexico, 1934
Oil on canvas, 30 x 38 inches (76.2 x 96.5 cm)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


31. William Arthur Cooper
Lumber Industry, 1934
Oil on canvas, 24 1/8 x 29 7/8 inches (61.3 x 75.9 cm)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


32. Karl Fortess
Island Dock Yard, about 1934
Oil on canvas, 32 1/4 x 48 1/8 inches (81.8 x 122.2 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


33. Paul Kelpe
Machinery (Abstract #2), 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 38 1/4 x 26 3/8 inches (97.0 x 67.0 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor



34. Joe Jones
Street Scene, 1933
Oil on canvas, 25 1/8 x 35 7/8 inches (63.7 x 91.1 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


Section 5: The City



35. Thomas James Delbridge
Lower Manhattan, about 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 26 1/8 x 30 1/4 inches (66.3 x 76.9 cm)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


36. Unidentified
(Underpass--New York), 1933-1934
Oil on photograph on canvas mounted on paperboard,
19 7/8 x 23 7/8 inches (50.6 x 60.8 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the
Internal Revenue Service through the General Services Administration



37. Charles L. Goeller
Third Avenue, about 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 36 x 30 1/8 inches (91.4 x 76.4 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor



38. Beulah R. Bettersworth
Christopher Street, Greenwich Village, 1934
Oil on canvas, 30 1/8 x 24 1/4 inches (76.5 x 61.5 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service



39. Herman Maril
Sketch of Old Baltimore Waterfront, 1934
Oil on fiberboard, 18 1/8 x 14 1/8 inches (46.0 x 36.0 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


40. John Cunning
Manhattan Skyline, about 1934
Oil on canvas, 32 1/8 x 48 1/8 inches (81.5 x 122.2 cm)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


41. Saul Berman
River Front, 1934
Oil on canvas, 16 x 24 inches (40.7 x 61.1 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


42. Robert A. Darrah Miller
Farm, about 1934
Oil on canvas, 22 x 28 1/8 inches (55.9 x 71.5 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


43. Paul Benjamin
Cross Road--Still Life, about 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 28 1/4 x 26 1/4 inches (71.6 x 66.6 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service


44. Arthur E. Cederquist
Old Pennsylvania Farm in Winter, 1934
Oil on canvas, 30 1/8 x 40 1/8 inches (76.5 x 102.0 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


45. O. Louis Guglielmi
Martyr Hill, about 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 22 x 32 inches (55.9 x 81.4 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


46. Erle Loran
Minnesota Highway, 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 30 1/8 x 36 inches (76.5 x 91.5 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


Section 6: The Country


47. Kenjiro Nomura
The Farm, 1934
Oil on canvas, 38 1/4 x 46 1/8 inches (97.2 x 117.1 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor



48. Gale Stockwell
Parkville, Main Street, 1933
Oil on canvas, 28 1/4 x 35 3/8 inches (71.8 x 90.0 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor

Section 7: Nature


49. Paul Kirtland Mays
Jungle, 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 42 1/4 x 75 1/2 inches (107.3 x 191.7cm)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service



50. Alice Dinneen
Black Panther, 1934
Oil on canvas, 30 1/8 x 24 1/8 inches (76.5 x 61.4 cm)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


51. Ila McAfee Turner
Mountain Lions, 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 36 1/8 x 42 inches (91.9 x 106.8 cm)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


52. Winthrop Duthie Turney
Selection from Birds and Animals of the United States, about 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 32 x 36 1/8 inches (81.3 x 91.6 cm)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the General Services Administration


53. Leo Breslau
Plowing, 1934
Oil on wood: plywood, 29 7/8 x 35 7/8 inches (75.8 x 91.2 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


54. Paul Kauvar Smith
The Sky Pond, 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 42 x 50 1/8 inches (106.8 x 127.4 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor



55. Charles Reiffel
Road in the Cuyamacas, about 1933-1934
Oil on canvas, 40 1/8 x 50 3/8 inches (101.9 x 128.0 cm)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor


56. Ross Dickinson
Valley Farms, 1934
Oil on canvas, 39 7/8 x 50 1/8 inches (101.4 x 127.3 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor

Joseph Wright of Derby: Bath and Beyond


The Holburne Museum
Great Pulteney Street
Bath, England
25 January 2014 - 5 May 2014.

Joseph Wright ‘of Derby' (1734-1797) lived and worked in Bath between November 1775 and June 1777. This brief and little-known episode in Wright's life marked a crossroads in his career, yet it has never been explored in detail. ‘Joseph Wright of Derby: Bath and Beyond' will place Wright in the context of the many artists, musicians, writers, business people and scientists living and working in the Georgian spa and present for the first time a comprehensive view of his life and work during those eighteen months. The exhibition and accompanying catalogue will also go ‘beyond' to examine the effect of his time in Bath and his travels in Italy on Wright's later work.



Vesuvius in Eruption, with a View over the Islands in the Bay of Naples c. 1776-80
Oil on canvas, 122 x 176.4 cm © Tate, London 2013

"I have taken the Liberty to give this Letter of Introduction to my Friend Mr. Wright of Derby, Who since his Return from Italy is come to Bath, & Designs to settle there."
Erasmus Darwin, 22 November 1775

Wright came to Bath to paint portraits, hoping to build on the success of Thomas Gainsborough who had recently left for London. The exhibition will include the three remaining portraits that the artist certainly made in Bath, including his painting of the elderly Rev. Thomas Wilson with the young daughter of Catharine Macaulay, the radical historian:



Joseph Wright, The Rev. Dr. Thomas Wilson and his adopted Daughter Miss Catherine Sophia Macaulay, 1776 (Chawton House Library)

Whilst in Bath Wright worked up landscape studies he had made in Italy, producing spectacular views of Vesuvius in Eruption and the dazzling firework displays of Rome, the highlight of a visit to the artist's studio in Brock Street. It was whilst in Bath that he first began to explore subjects from sentimental contemporary literature, which in turn have a strong impact on his portrait composition, and the exhibition will include some of his most beautiful depictions of figures alone in the landscape.

The Derby Museum, which holds the world's largest and finest collection of Wright's work, gave generous loans to this exhibition which will include



The Indian Widow,



The Alchymist


and some beautiful drawings.

Other lenders include the National Gallery, Musée du Louvre, Tate, the British Museum, the Walker Art Gallery and the Fitzwilliam Museum.



© Self-portrait Wearing a Feathered Hat. C.1770 Derby Museum

This exhibition will travel to Derby Museum and Art Gallery.

Nice review

Judy Chicago: Circa ’75


The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) presents Judy Chicago: Circa ’75, on view January 17–April 13, 2014. The exhibition features 13 paintings, drawings, sculptures and mixed media works by innovative feminist artist Judy Chicago (b. 1939). Throughout her career, Chicago has been creating art with the intention of influencing and changing societal norms. Her iconic body of work from the 1970s, including preparatory art for



The Dinner Party, (The Dinner Party: mixed media: ceramic, porcelain, and textile; permanent installation at the Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art)

demonstrates her firm belief in the power of art to highlight women’s creativity and overcome traditional gender inequalities. This exhibition honors Chicago’s commitment to feminist ideals on the occasion of her 75th birthday.

“Judy Chicago has been a friend and ally to the National Museum of Women in the Arts since its opening in 1987,” said NMWA Director Susan Fisher Sterling. “Given Chicago’s commitment to honoring women, it is fitting that she be fêted at the sole museum in the world devoted to the creative contributions of women.”

Born Judy Cohen in Chicago, this pioneering feminist artist jettisoned her birth and married surnames in 1970, legally adopting the neutral “Chicago.” This act of independence ushered in a decade of artistic innovation and exploration. This exhibition examines a selection of her art that paralleled and influenced the U.S. feminist movement of the 1970s.



Judy Chicago, Pasadena Lifesavers Red #5 (detail), 1970; Gift of Elyse and Stanley Grinstein

On view in Judy Chicago: Circa ’75 is a work from the “Pasadena Lifesavers” series of paintings from 1969–70, marking Chicago’s break with the often emotionally disconnected aesthetic of Minimalism. Seeking to convey what it was like to be a woman through abstracted forms, Chicago perfected the use of spray paint (usually associated with the masculine realm of auto-body work) on canvas, a medium that allowed her to create shapes that appear to turn, dissolve, pulse and vibrate, evoking emotional and physical sensations.

During this decade, Chicago also developed vivid, abstract “central core” imagery—constructing pictorial space from the center of the composition—seeking to create a new abstract visual vocabulary that she felt more adequately expressed a woman’s point of view. Along with this new imagery, Chicago wanted to reclaim forgotten women from the annals of history, literally making them visible through art.

Driven by her realization that “too much of women’s cultural production has been lost,” Chicago began researching women in history—artists as well as writers, scientists, women’s rights advocates and others. “My work is all about overcoming erasure and ensuring that women’s achievements become a permanent part of our cultural history,” said Chicago.

This mission would find its ultimate manifestation in The Dinner Party, completed in 1979. She created a series of artworks recognizing “Great Ladies” of the past, which culminated in the iconic installation, which is now housed permanently at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. “Great Ladies” works on view in Circa ’75 include preparatory drawings



(Emily Dickinson



and Virginia Woolf) (1976)



and a test plate (Virginia Woolf) made for The Dinner Party. (1978)



Virginia Woolf place setting from The Dinner Party


ABOUT NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS

Founded in 1981 and opened in 1987, NMWA is the only museum solely dedicated to celebrating the achievements of women in the visual, performing and literary arts. The museum’s collection features 4,500 works from the 16th century to the present created by more than 1,000 artists, including Mary Cassatt, Frida Kahlo, Alma Thomas, Lee Krasner, Louise Bourgeois, Chakaia Booker and Nan Goldin, along with special collections of 18th-century silver tableware and botanical prints. NMWA is located at 1250 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., in a landmark building near the White House. It is open Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. and Sunday, noon–5 p.m. For information, call 202-783-5000 or visit www.nmwa.org.






Copley retrospective in the Museum Frieder Burda






Stripes, rhombuses, chequers or hearts are the shapes William N. Copley uses to humorously depict the battle of sexes. He cryptically sets his figures in an environment of lush decoration. From 18 February 2012 to 10 June 2012 the Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden Germany, presented a comprehensive retrospective of the American artist (1919 to 1996). More than 80 works by the artist are shown. From the mid 40ies on, as a gallery owner, artist, author and editor, Copley acted as an important mediator between surrealists and the pop art movement and certainly was one of the most unconventional celebrities of the arts scene.

In the tradition of dada, surrealism and American pop art, William N. Copley ironically deals with the erotic game between man and woman in all its facets. When asked whether he had a theory on his style, he answered in a 1968 interview: “No, it just seems as if I were doomed to explore the tragedy of man and woman. That probably is chaplinesque.





William N. Copley
Kiss me
1965
oil on canvas
99 x 81 cm
Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012




William N. Copley
Nuit puerto ricain
1978
acrylic and leather on canvas
168 x 140 cm
Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012





William N. Copley
West
1974
160 x 276 cm
acrylic on canvas
Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012

”Just as the solo exhibitions Polke, Richter and Baselitz, previously shown at the Museum Frieder Burda, this special exhibition is based on the works from the collection Frieder Burda. Frieder Burda started collecting works by Copley at a very early stage and now owns a considerable number of works that are shown together for the first time. The exhibition is completed by international loans and works from the estate of the artist some of which are publicly exhibited for the first time.

Copley’s life was not a straight line: his parents passed away early, Copley himself was found on the threshold of a New York hospice in 1919. Two years later, he was adopted by Ira and Edith Copley, wealthy news paper publishers from Illinois. Between 1932 and 1936, Copley was at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, then two years at Yale University. In 1940 he joined the US Army, went to Italy and Africa as a soldier, returned home as a reporter and grew fond of surrealism. In 1947 he taught himself to paint. First, simply to enhance his writing skills, as he wanted to become an author.

A poet should work visually, Copley thought, and a painter poetically. He had deleted the melodious vowels from his name and from then on made the unutterable CPLY his brand and signed his pictures with it.

In Los Angeles he founded a gallery to promote surrealist artists, but failed financially. Copley bought some of his works himself and thus laid the foundations for his art collection which later became one of the most important surrealist collections with works by Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Max Ernst, René Magritte and Yves Tanguy.

The dashing free spirit Copley traveled frequently: from 1951 in Paris, he rated Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and René Magritte among his friends before he returned to the US ten years later and became part of the New York arts scene. He maintained relations with Christo, Roy Lichtenstein and later also with Andy Warhol.

Götz Adriani was the curator of this comprehensive retrospective that paints a new picture of the artist’s various facets, especially through a series of aquarelles never before publicly exhibited.

Adriani describes Copley as follows: “A minimalist with baroque features who remained faithful not only to his peculiar subjects, but also to his cunningly steered artlessness during all his artist life. Mostly, he stuck to clear-cut picture punch-lines and a rather graphical approach. He achieved a remarkable variety in composition and color with his combination of contentual standards and highly abstract abbreviations.”




William Colpey, Marilyn, 1965, Oil on canvas, 89 x 117 cm, private collection



William Copley, Untitled (Car), 1970, acrylic on canvas, 147,5 x 114,5 cm, Museum Frieder Burda

Copley spent the last ten years of his life rather isolated. He used the living room of his house for painting and sailed around in a boat. In 1996 he died at the age of 77 from a stroke. What remains is his work: a keen and entertaining picture of the attraction between men and women.



A comprehensive catalog in german and englisch was published with texts by Götz Adriani, Georg Baselitz, William Copley, Billy Copley, Judith Irrgang, Andy Warhol and others. Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg - Berlin. 256 pages 180 colour images. ISBN 978-3-9811606-4-2




William N. Copley
My Motherland Can Fuck Your Fatherland, 1975
acrylic on linen
44 7/8 x 57 3/4 inches
114 x 146.7 cm
PK 15706




William N. Copley
Untitled, 1982
acrylic on linen
25 x 42 1/2 inches
63.5 x 108 cm
PK 15096


More images here