Work and Leisure in American Art: Selections from the Collection
Opening September 13, 2015
Lehman Court, Roberts and McMullen Galleries
Dawoud Bey (b. 1953)
Smokey, 2001
C-print, Ed. 2/4 + 2 AP
Gift of Patricia A. Bell 2005.4.11
Since the 1970s, the Chicago-based photographer Dawoud Bey has made
compelling photographic portraits of urban youth, inspired in part by the humanist
documentary tradition of Walker Evans,James Van Der Zee, and others. His
intention is “to set up a reciprocal relationship with the people I was
photographing.” Bey wishes to explore “how young people see themselves
through the lens of race, gender, class, and culture” because “a continuing set of
social clichés and stereotypes cling to this population. Rather than viewing them
through a lens of social problematics that generalizes the individual, which is
often the case, I intend to make a rich and complex description of these
subjects.”
Leon Kroll (1884–1974)
Two Girls at Folly Cove, ca. 1955
Oil on canvas
Museum purchase; Blanche R. Pleasants Fund 1966.65
Leon Kroll was among a number of artists who, since the 1880s, frequented the
art colony in the village of Folly Cove, on the north side of Cape Ann,
Massachusetts. The old world atmosphere and natural beauty greatly appealed
to him and he spent his summers there from 1930 onward. Working outdoors,
Kroll captured what he called “the tang of truth” in this classic portrayal of two
young women by the edge of the water. The careful arrangement of their
generalized, idealized figures into a triangle reveals Kroll’s interest in Greek art
and classical composition.
Vik Muniz (b. 1961)
The Stone Breakers, after Gustave Courbet
(Pictures of Magazines 2), 2013, Digital C-Print, Ed. 5/6
Museum purchase; Acquisition Fund 2013.15a,b
Born in São Paulo, the celebrated artist Vik Muniz is based in New York and Rio
de Janeiro. In this recent series, he recreates art-historical icons using images
and text from magazines; to make them, he creates intricate, large-scale
collages, which he then photographs. Muniz’s The Stone Breakers, after Gustave
Courbet refers to the seminal French Realist painter’s 1849 eponymous painting,
which celebrated the common laborer at work: a radical gesture for the era, in
which painting was dominated by “elevated” historical and mythological subjects
and portraits of the aristocracy. Although studied in every art history course,
Courbet’s Stone Breakers is known today only through black-and-white
photographs because it was destroyed during World War II. Therefore, Muniz
“rescues” this work by recreating it in full color and making compelling parallels
between Courbet’s celebration of the overlooked laborer and his own passion for
social justice.
Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008)
CORE Poster, 1965
Photolithograph, Ed. 169/200
Gift of Beth and George Meredith,2005.23.15
The renowned artist Robert Rauschenberg was first associated with Pop artists
of the 1960s, who regularly incorporated into their work images drawn from
popular culture and advertising. Wishing to “act in the gap between art and life,”
Rauschenberg created a collage-like assemblage of images culled from mass
media. His commemorative CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) poster
celebrated the first congress in civil rights, which took place in 1965. The radical
CORE organization attacked segregation in the South through direct action, such
as demonstrations. The stance of CORE is evoked by two images of President
Kennedy, one showing him pointing a finger, as if inciting the viewer into action.
Fragmented images of a Native American, industrial landscapes, a Civil War
soldier, a highway, and Lady Liberty provide different layers of information that
do not present a particular political message, but rather the artist’s open-ended
experience of fast-paced, contemporary society of the 1960s, rooted in television,
newspapers, and magazines.
Aaron Shikler (b. 1922)
Figure in Blue, 1963-67
Pastel on canvas
Gift of an anonymous donor 1968.13
Aaron Shikler is a noted painter and National Academician, known for his
portraits of prominent American statesmen, including John F. Kennedy and
Ronald Reagan. This more informal portrait reveals an unknown person, perhaps
an art collector,contemplating a painting. The emphasis upon the color of her
dress in the title suggests the impact of James McNeill Whistler, a master of the
pastelmedium in which this work is created.
Walter Shirlaw (1838–1909)
A Misty Day, n.d.
Oil on canvas
Gift of Florence Heywood 1975.19
The Scottish-American artist Walter Shirlaw first achieved prominence with rural
subjects such as Sheep-Shearing in the Bavarian Highlands (1876). Later in his
career, when this work was most likely painted, Shirlaw helped younger painters
to promote French impressionism by cofounding the Society of American Artists
in 1877. The evocation of atmosphere and light, as well as the artist’s use of
broad brushstrokes, suggests the impact of Impressionism upon Shirlaw.
Moses Soyer (1899–1974)
Five Dancers, 1955
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Kahn 1965.24
Along with his twin brother Raphael, Moses Soyer was known as a leading
advocate of humanism and realism in art. Working with one favorite dancer as a
model in various poses, Soyer created this multiple portrait in his New York City
studio. He sought to convey the sense of a dance classroom in a backstage
area. Soyer also aimed for a feeling of intimacy that allies his work with that of
the French master Edgar Degas.
Mahonri Young (1877–1957)
Woodcutter with Bucksaw, 1926
Bronze
Museum purchase; prior bequest of May D. Murray ,1992.73
As a youth, Mahonri Young was fascinated with watching laborers at his family’s
woolen mill. Around 1903 he launched his career as a modern realist sculptor of
workingmen in Paris, where he encountered the work of Auguste Rodin, which
inspired him to reject ideal subject matter in favor of contemporary themes. This
sculpture was part of his last series of small bronzes inspired by laborers in the
country and villages of France. Although Young’s sculptures were made at a time
of labor unrest and union organizing, he insisted that his interest in workers was
not social, but rather in their natural poise and rhythmic tasks.
John Ahearn (b. 1951)
Toby and Raymond, 1986
Oil on fiberglass
Gift of Edward and Hugh Downe, 2010.12
John Ahearn is a widely acclaimed artist who established his reputation with
community-oriented public art projects in the Bronx, where he resided in the
1980s. This sculpture is based on his longstanding relationship with a Puerto
Rican man named Raymond Garcia. Ahearn has observed, “I have always been
inspired by him. We worked out this idea to do a sculpture that included his dog
Toby.” When this work was exhibited in 1986, a reviewer commented on it:
His fiberglass sculptures … continue to be cast from people who are part of his
daily life in the South Bronx…. Ahearn’s form serves his content… If from the
front Ahearn’s young man seems troubled, from the back his dark hooded
sweatshirt rises up over his head in a way that links this street figure to
sculptures of monks from the late Middle Ages.
James E. Allen (1894–1964)
Summer, 1939
Lithograph
Gift of Dr. Julian Hyman for the Collection of Elaine and Julian Hyman, 2013.16.1
James E. Allen was an important printmaker renowned for his etchings and
lithographs that documented the American worker and industry of the 1930s. The
boys relaxing by and in the water form a leisurely counterpoint to the laborers on
the puffing steamship. Likely taking place in the harbor of New York City where
Allen resided at this time, this scene allies the artist with the work of such
American realist artists as Thomas Eakins and George Bellows.
Will Barnet (1911–2012)
Old Man’s Afternoon, 1947
Oil on canvas
Gift of Wyn and William Y. Hutchinson, 2001.22
For over seven decades as painter, printmaker, and teacher, Will Barnet made
uniquely significant contributions to American art. This major early work is a
Synthetic Cubist composition featuring the artist’s father with a parrot
affectionately perched on his head and his grandson, Dickie, playing with the
family cat under a table. Joined to his cat, Dickie’s masklike head is completely
merged with the table as is the parrot with the senior Barnet. Old Man’s
Afternoon is further enlivened by a painting of roosters leaning against the
window, a Paul Klee-like cat face suspended above a rainbow band, and a
yellow patchwork quilt that unifies the composition. As Barnet has commented,
“almost Miróesque [surreal] humor and serious formal ideas” are evident in this
painting.
Harrison Begay (1917–2012)
Old Friends Meeting, n.d.
Opaque watercolor on paper
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John C. Cattus, 1956.115
Harrison Begay, whose Navajo name was Haskay yah Ne yah (Warrior Who
Walked Up to His Enemy), was born on the Navajo reservation in 1917. His
formal art training began while he was a student of the studio program, taught by
Dorothy Dunn, at the Santa Fe Indian School in 1933. This idealized depiction of
American Indian life is done in the “Studio Style,” taught in Dunn’s class, where
students were instructed to paint with a specific flat brush stroke bucolic scenes
depicting traditional and idealized tribal culture and landscapes. These scenes
were very different from traditional tribal art which usually only depicted stickfigure-like people or spiritual beings.
Nell Booker Sonnemann (1918–2004)
Jim Lechay Painting Moses Soyer, ca. 1948
Oil on canvas
Gift of Nell Booker Sonnemann, 1991.25
Nell Booker Sonnemann was an associate professor of art and resident of
Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She created this evocative painting of her friends and
fellow artists, the painters James Lechay and Moses Soyer, in the latter’s studio
in New York City. Also represented in this exhibition, Moses Soyer bequeathed
over 100 works to the Montclair Art Museum in 1974, focusing on figurative art
between the wars. When Sonnemann borrowed this painting from Soyer, he
asked her to return it eventually to the museum, which she did in 1991. The vivid,
sympathetic portrayal of the artists is reminiscent of the work of Moses and his
brother Raphael Soyer
.
Roger Brown (1941–1997)
Talk Show Addicts, 1993
Lithograph, Ed. 20/80
Gift of AT&T Corporation, 2010.13.1
This late-night view of a suburban neighborhood appears to show how
completely television entertainment dominates our leisure time. Identical houses
contain almost indistinguishable, late-night TV viewers watching almost identical
programs. The artist seems to be saying that by immersing themselves in the
same TV experience these disconnected suburbanites have become isolated.
Despite living in such close proximity, television watching has become the only
tie that binds them. They are mesmerized and dominated by the electronic
spectacle. The artist has reduced the size of their homes to mere capsules for TV
viewing. He takes a distant perspective and presents an idealized view of the
world that they are unable to see — the world that they are collectively creating
with their addiction to late-night talk shows.
Jon Corbino (1905–1964)
Race Track, 1936
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mrs. Henry Lang, 1940.106
A highly acclaimed artist for heroic themes revealing the anxieties of America
during the 1930s, Jon Corbino depicted people in disasters such as wars and
floods, as tributes to the perseverance of humanity against unknown forces of the
universe. Working in the style of the 17th century Baroque masters, he was much
admired for his excellent draftsmanship and brilliant, smoldering colors. Corbino
was also known for his love of horses, painting these powerful animals as mythic
symbols from Greek legends or as heroic creatures at the racetrack. Life
magazine dubbed him the modern day Rubens.
Gregory Crewdson (b. 1962)
Untitled, 1999
Laser direct C-print, AP from Ed. of 10 + 2 AP
Museum purchase; partial gift of Jennifer Odell and Robert Nossa, and
Acquisition Fund, 2005.13
Crewdson is an internationally renowned artist and director of graduate studies in
photography at Yale University. He has played a major role both as a teacher
and practitioner of elaborately constructed and staged photography. Among his
many pupils is Justine Kurland, also represented in this exhibition. This work is
from Crewdson’s well-known series Twilight (1998-2002) that has established
him in the arena of American large-scale, staged color photography and explores
the psychological underside of the American suburbs. This work is characteristic
of the images of individuals lost in the reverie of their own unsettling, mysterious
behavior, such as wading, fully dressed in a kiddy pool at night. Shot in
andaround the town of Lee, Massachusetts, this and other surreal images were
carefully constructed, much like sets for a film, with a 35-person crew, in order to
achieve a cinematic feeling.
Currier & Ives
American Homestead – Winter, 1868
Hand-colored lithograph
Gift of George Raimes Beach, 1989.41
American Homestead – Spring, 1869
Hand-colored lithograph
Gift of George Raimes Beach, 1989.52
Active from 1835 to 1907 in New York, Currier & Ives was the most prolific and
popular of American printmaking firms. Established by lithographer Nathaniel
Currier (1813–1888), the company became “Currier & Ives” in 1857 when James
Merritt Ives (1824-1895) became a partner. Catering to the tastes of its vast
middle-class clientele, Currier & Ives produced more than 6,000 popular
subjects, especially sporting and domestic genre scenes. Part of a series
depicting the four seasons, these two views of an American homestead are
typical of the firm’s output, which illustrated every aspect of 19th-century
American life and history. Hand-drawn on limestone, these works were then
printed and hand-colored in an assembly-line manner. Their delicate yet vibrant
hues enhance the charm and appeal of his subjects.
Edward S. Curtis (1868–1952)
Basket Maker, 1912
Photogravure from “The North American Indian” series reprinted by The Classic
Gravure company, Santa Fe, New Mexico, ca. 1980
Gift of the Moore Family Trust, CA, 2010.11.4
Edward S. Curtis was one of the most celebrated photographers of Native
people. A resident of Seattle, in the mid 1890s, Curtis began photographing local
Indians digging for clams and mussels in Puget Sound. Curtis published the 20volume work The North American Indian (1907–1930) to record the traditional
lives and customs of Native Americans in the United States and Canada. By the
time he began his project, Native Americans had endured decades of hostility,
including federal policies of forced assimilation and relocation to reservations.
Yet there is no trace of this historical context in Curtis’s photographs. Indeed,
Curtis retouched many of them to remove modern artifacts, aiming to present the
Native American as untouched by the modern world, a “vanishing race”
preservable only in images. This work is part of a limited edition series reprinted
around 1980 after the Curtis photographic plates were purchased by Classic
Gravure Co. of Santa Fe.
Lois Dodd (b. 1927)
Untitled, 1971
Watercolor on paper
Gift of Lois Dodd, 2015.9.69
Lois Dodd was born in Montclair, New Jersey, in 1927. From 1945 to1948 she
attended The Cooper Union in New York. Dividing her time between New York
City, New Jersey, and Maine, the independent spirited Dodd is known for her
spare, emphatic paintings of her immediate surroundings. This portrayal of her
son Eli reading by the water in Cushing, Maine, where she has spent summers
since 1951, reveals her appreciation of the watercolors of Cézanne with their
blocky, simplified figures and loose, vibrant washes of color.
Edward Lamson Henry (1841–1919)
Street Scene, 1916
Oil on canvas
Bequest of Florence O. R. Lang, 1943.42
Edward L. Henry was a renowned painter of colonial and early American themes
and incidents of quaint rural life. In 1884, Henry moved to the town of Cragsmoor
in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, where he helped to found an
artists’ colony. Henry acquired an extensive collection of antiques, old photos,
and assorted Americana, from which he researched his nostalgic paintings. His
wife, Frances, said that “Nothing annoyed him more than to see a wheel, a bit of
architecture etc. carelessly drawn or out of keeping with the time it was supposed
to portray.” Henry’s “historical fictions,” as evidenced by this quaint street scene,
often portrayed an idyllic, small town, agrarian America, one relatively
unperturbed by Civil War or by the growing phenomena of industrialization,
urbanization and immigration that were taking place during the period in which he
painted.
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
The Bathers, 1873
Wood engraving
Gift of Elaine and Julian Hyman, 2002.18.5
Raid on a Sand-Swallow Colony — How Many Eggs?, 1874
Wood engraving
Gift of Carl Golub,1994.13
Seaside Sketches — A Clam Bake, 1873
Wood engraving
Gift of Elaine and Julian Hyman, 2002.18.3
Seesaw — Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1874
Wood engraving
Gift of Elaine and Julian Hyman, 2002.18.4
Homer’s group of wood engravings on view in this exhibition represents an
important phase of his early career when he was employed as a freelance
illustrator and artist-reporter. This productive period coincided with the flourishing
of the illustrated weekly magazine in America, especially Harper’s Weekly, for
which these illustrations were created. Children and youth are engaged in leisure
time, outdoor activities in the countryside. They epitomize Homer’s preoccupation
after the Civil War with these types of rural subjects as rooted in his own happy
middle-class childhood in New England. These relatively light-hearted scenes
focusing on the unaffected, carefree play of children are typically treated with an
honest naturalism, rather than the idealism and sentimentality prevalent in other
contemporary depictions of childhood.
George Inness, Jr. (1853–1926)
George Inness Sketching Outside His Montclair Studio, ca. 1889
Oil on canvas board
Museum purchase; Acquisition Fund, 1945.109
George Inness, Jr., studied painting with his renowned father, who is depicted in
this painting at work outside his studio in Montclair. Inness, Jr., had moved to
Montclair in 1881, prior to his father’s residence in this town from 1885 until his
death in 1894. The elder Inness lived on an estate called “The Pines,” with its
own cow pasture, cherry orchard, and wheat field. There he painted in a
renovated barn, which was approached by a vine-covered pathway of eglantine,
as seen in this work. Inness often painted outdoors and then completed his
works inside the studio, inspired by his imagination and spiritual appreciation of
nature.
Jasper Johns (b. 1930)
Untitled, 1983
Encaustic on canvas
On long-term loan from the artist
One of the most significant and influential American painters of all time, Jasper
Johns has revived the ancient medium of encaustic (pigments mixed with molten
wax). This work is among the first of what came to be known as the “bathtub’s
eye-view” paintings made from the perspective of someone in a tub. At the
bottom appears the faucet from the Johns’ bathroom. Other evocative elements
include a skull and words taken from a Swiss avalanche warning sign, a linen
basket, and a rendition of the bathroom door with an embedded lithograph of
Johns’ well-known sculpture of brushes in a Savarin coffee can — tools of the
artist’s trade. Hidden within the cross-hatched passages of the mysterious left is
a rotated image of fallen soldiers from the Resurrection panel of the German
Renaissance master Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim altarpiece (1513-15). Thus
this complex painting rewards repeated viewing and suggests the increasingly
subjective direction of Johns’s recent work as he explores themes of mortality
and passing time.
Alfred Kappes (1850–1894)
In the Kitchen, 1884
Watercolor on paper
Museum purchase; Acquisition Fund, 2014.2
The son of a German carpenter, painter, and illustrator, the little known Alfred
Kappes grew up in New York City, where he developed a reputation for his
paintings featuring aspects of urban life. By 1883 he was focusing on African
American subjects, whom he encountered in his New York tenement house and,
as noted by critics, portrayed with great candor and sympathy. Showing a woman
at work, peeling a turnip or potato in a moment of quiet concentration, rather than
posing for the viewer, Kappes imbued his portrayal of her with a sense of
respect. The honest naturalism of his approach is comparable to that of his
better-known contemporary, Thomas Eakins.
Lawrence Kupferman (1909–1982)
The Printer, ca. 1935
Drypoint
Gift of Elaine and Julian Hyman, 2005.17.4
Kupferman studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston from
1929 to 1931. He subsequently exhibited with the Society of American Etchers.
This classic image of a printer standing before a printing press, grasping the
spokes of the press mechanism, typifies the longtime inter ests of the donors
Elaine and Julian Hyman, who were founding members of the New York Print
Club.
Justine Kurland (b. 1969)
Frog Swamp (Covington Louisiana), 2001
Satin laminated C-print, Ed. 4/6
Gift of Patricia A. Bell, 2004.17.1
A resident of New York City, Justine Kurland received a B.F.A. from the School
of Visual Arts and a master of fine arts fr om Yale University, where she studied
with the photographer Gregory Crewsden, also represented in this exhibition.
Kurland is a longstanding traveler, wanderer, and seeker in her own right, whose
itinerant lifestyle intersects with and informs her work. Among her earlier
photographs is this work, in which she asked girls to pose as runaways, foraging
into forests and swimming holes.
Hayley Lever (1876–1958)
Beach at St. Ives, Cornwall, England, n.d.
Oil on canvas
Museum purchase; Acquisition Fund, 1929.3
The Australian-American artist Hayley Lever moved to England in 1899 to further
his career at St. Ives, a fishing port and artistic colony on the Cornish coast that
attracted many aspiring marine painters. In St. Ives, Lever studied Impressionist
painting techniques, as evidenced by the broken brushstrokes and bright colors
of this beach scene. The striped cabanas and fluttering flags further enliven this
scene of rest and leisure. In 1912 Lever immigrated to New York City and was a
resident of Caldwell, New Jersey, from 1930 to 1938.
Reginald Marsh (1898–1954)
Merry-go-round, 1940
Engraving
Museum purchase; Print Fund, 1961.17
Born in Paris, Reginald Marsh grew up in Nutley, New Jersey. After college, he
worked as a freelance illustrator for magazines and newspapers in New York
City. Committed to the unidealized portrayal of people in the city, Marsh
maintained a studio on or around 14th Street for more than 25 years. He worked
directly from life, using sketches and photographs to create studio work and
prints. Marsh’s pictures are often crowded with people in motion — burlesque
queens, Bowery bums, moviegoers, and Coney Island bathers. In Merry-GoRound, a pair of young women ride carousel horses on Coney Island. Despite
the frantic action of the subject, Marsh’s engraving is marked by formal poise and
solid, volumetric rendering — a reflection of the artist’s keen interest in the Old
Masters, on whose principles Marsh felt American artists should base their
depictions of the local scene. Moses Soyer, whose work is also on view, called
him an “American Rubens.”
Gari Melchers (1860–1932)
By the Window, ca. 1924
Tempera on canvas
Gift of Mrs. Henry Lang, 1933.115
At the end of the 19th century, the American expatriate painter Gari Melchers
was among the best-known American artists residing in Europe. He maintained
several studios in addition to his home in a small town in the Netherlands. In the
early 20th century he was influenced by Impressionism. The bright colors, sense
of light, and loose brushwork of this painting evoke this impact, whereas the
intimate subject matter of a woman sewing suggests the influence of historical
Dutch painting.
Joel Meyerowitz (b. 1938)
Central Park, NYC, 1969
Published by Double Elephant Editions, Limited in 1999
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Elaine and Julian Hyman,2006.18.4
Fifth Avenue, NYC, 1968
Published by Double Elephant Editions, Limited in 1999
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Elaine and Julian Hyman, 2006.18.5
The renowned artist Joel Meyerowitz began photographing in 1962. He is a
“street photographer” in the tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank.
Drawing inspiration from them, Meyerowitz used a 35mm camera and black-andwhite film, searching for inspiration in the people, spontaneous gestures, and
everyday incongruities of the street. These photographs of people in New York
City are classic examples of Meyerowitz’s photography, which captures what
Cartier-Bresson called “the decisive moment.” A boy jumps off a bridge in
Central Park in the midst of casual strollers and what appears to be a fashion
shoot. The incongruities of chance encounters are also evident in Meyerowitz’s
humorous photograph of a woman in a miniature car talking with a policeman as
others look on. Meyerowitz has commented on his strolls along Fifth Avenue,
stating that his “affection and wonder about that street never ceases.”
Carl Moon (1879–1948)
Primitive Art, 1914
Silver print
Gift of Mrs. Henry Lang, transfer from LeBrun Library, 1997.18.1E
Isleta Pottery Maker, 1903
Sepia toned silver print
Gift of Mrs. Henry Lang, transfer from LeBrun Library,1997.18.1U
Carl Moon was hired by the Fred Harvey Company as its art director, and was
the photographer for the Santa Fe railroad. While working and living at El Tovar
at the Grand Canyon, Moon photographed countless Native Americans for
postcards and books, published by Harvey. In 1924 he began work on The
Indians of the Southwest the result of his 30-year study of 29 tribes in Arizona,
New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Florence Rand Lang, one of the founders of the
Montclair Art Museum, purchased a complete set for the Museum. Carl Moon
equated introspective moods with creativity in these images of an artist and a
pottery maker from the Pueblo of Isleta, 15 miles south of Albuquerque, New
Mexico.
Jane Peterson (1876–1965)
The Pier, ca. 1917
Oil on canvas
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Marvin Gliedman, 1971.72
Jane Peterson was one of America’s most innovative artists in the early 20th
century. Her paintings of lively city parks, fishing villages on the New England
Coast, and the canals and markets of Venice have affinities to the work of
renowned American artists such as John Singer Sargent and, most prominently,
the paintings of her friend Maurice Prendergast. In Paris she frequented in 1909
the famed salons of the Stein families, where she encountered the daring work
issuing from the studios of Picasso, Matisse, Leger, Braque, and Cézanne.
These European experiences greatly influenced Peterson to abandon the dark
tonalities of the academic traditions in favor of the vivid colors, bold patterns, and
bright light of the avant-garde art, as seen in this boldly painted view of people
sauntering on a pier, likely in the vicinity of Gloucester, Massachusetts. At this
time, Peterson frequented the art colonies of New England, such as Gloucester,
often upon the invitation of her wealthy art patrons.
Ruth Starr Rose (1887–1965)
Merry-go-round, n.d.
Lithograph
Gift of Herbert Scheffel, 1955.6
The little known artist Ruth Starr Rose lived most of her life at Hope House, a
historic 18th-century plantation her father had bought and restored inTalbot
County on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. During the winter months, she stayed
in New York City to study at the Art Students League and learned lithography
from master printmaker George Miller. Rose was an artist with a social
conscience, who chronicled life in the poorer African-American communities of
Maryland’s Eastern Shore, which were a source of cheap labor for the local
fishing industry. Her prints, including this sympathetic study of patrons of a
merry-go-round, recall the social realist Ashcan school of art she had come to
know as a student in Manhattan and bear eloquent witness to her concern over
racial discrimination.
Georges Schreiber (1904–1977)
Studio Mirror, 1951
Oil on canvas
Gift of an anonymous donor, 1960.7
Growing up in war-torn Europe, Schreiber was profoundly affected by the horrors
he witnessed. He later observed, “All this has made me conscious of the times I
live in . . . and the people I live with. It has made me strive with passion for
human understanding in my work.” Immigrating to America in 1928, Schreiber
was an inveterate traveler who made five cross-country journeys, capturing
contemporary American scenes with honesty and attention to detail. Schreiber’s
work reveals the artist to be acutely aware of the world’s brutal realities and
keenly attuned to the characters he portrayed so powerfully, including himself in
this mysterious double self-portrait, evoking the darker, more introspective mood
of many of his works after World War II.
Alice Barber Stephens (1858–1932)
Breakfast, 1890
Watercolor on paper
Gift of Mrs. Arthur Hunter, 1956.114.27
Alice Barber Stephens was an American painter and engraver, best remembered
for her illustrations, which regularly appeared in magazines such as Scribner’s
Monthly, Harper’s Weekly, and The Ladies Home Journal. This watercolor of a
woman eating breakfast was part of a portfolio of works on paper gathered
together and dedicated to Charles Parsons, head of the art department at
Harper’s Magazine. The honest, unaffected naturalism of this scene suggests the
impact of Thomas Eakins, who was Stephens’s instructor at the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts in the 1870s.
James Warhola (b. 1955)
Illustration for Well I Never!, 1990
Watercolor on paper
Gift of LLR Feiwel, 2015.7.6
James Warhola is an American artist who has illustrated more than two dozen
children’s picture books since 1987. He wrote and illustrated Uncle Andy’s: A
Faabbbulous Visit with Andy Warhol (2003) and Uncle Andy’s Cats (2009) about
his famous uncle. This gathering of people around a table is from Susan
Pearson’s book, Well I Never! (1990) about a family farm in Iowa.
Andy Warhol (1928–1987)
Peter Brant and Andy Warhol
Little Red Book, October 1972
Photo album, Polacolor Types
Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, 2013.18
Throughout the 1970s, photography was the backbone of Warhol’s portrayals of
celebrities and art-world figures. Each silkscreen commission created in his
studio was based on original Polaroids Warhol shot himself and subsequently
entered, in particular sequences, into the red Holson Polaroid albums that give
Red Book its name. When Warhol died, he left behind a large amount of private
Polaroid images, of which a small fraction are organized in the Red Books, in
Warhol’s original order. The collection of these Polaroids may relate to Warhol’s
time in Rome, in early 1973, when the films Frankenstein and Dracula were
being shot at the renowned film studio Cinecittà. Featured here, among stars of
the Rome film scene, is Peter Brant, an art collector, film producer, and publisher
of Interview magazine, founded by Warhol in 1969. Also on view is an image of
Andy Warhol eating pasta, with gusto. As he observed in 1975: “Food is my great
extravagance, I really spoil myself.”
Rachel Perry Welty (b. 1962)
Lost in my Life (wrapped books), 2010
Archival pigment print, Ed. 1/3
Gift of Patricia A. Bell, 2012.1
Welty culls the artifacts of contemporary existence, including grocery labels and
answering machine messages, to comment on daily experiences and
relationships. In Lost in my Life, an ongoing series of photographic self-portraits
begun in 2009, she depicted herself immersed in seas of objects that are
normally discarded and which she herself collects. Here, she wrapped a roomful
of books in aluminum foil, transforming the most banal household material into
the stuff of her creative work. As in much of her art, this gesture evokes her
parallel lives as an artist and a mother: two roles that are not so easily balanced,
as the title suggests.
Orrin A. White (1883-1969)
Golf in California, 1932
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mrs. Henry Lang, 1933.15
Based in Pasadena, Orrin White was a California painter known for his
atmospheric, poetic depictions of the San Gabriel Mountains. He was one of the
founders of the Pasadena Society of Artists who proved that Pasadena and the
San Gabriel Valley had developed its own distinct cultural identity apart from Los
Angeles. His landscapes of this “almost limitless region” were praised as
radiating “in their glimpses of the open air, a wholesome pleasure and quiet
force.” In this work he combined the lyrical force of his landscape painting with
the game of golf, a common sport in this region.
Garry Winogrand (1928–1984)
New York City, New York, 1968
Silver print
Gift of Richard and Andrea Stewart, 1982.51.1
This photograph of a pregnant woman hailing a cab is characteristic of renowned
street photographer Garry Winogrand’s pictures of women in public places. He
used a 35mm Leica camera that enabled him to photograph quickly and freely.
Often he focused on chance encounters with women—in parks, getting into cars,
at parties, exiting stores—creating photographs that highlighted the changing role
of women and, at times, the uncertainty of their new place. Winogrand took
hundreds of photographs like this, and in 1975 a small selection was chosen for
a book called Women Are Beautiful. Winogrand stated that he responded to
“their energies” rather than their specific identities since he was not acquainted
with any of them.
Washington Allston (1770–1843)
Evening Hymn, 1835
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. H. St. John Webb, 1961.20
After graduating from Harvard University in 1800, Washington Allston studied in
London with Benjamin West and the Swiss-born Henry Fuseli. In 1818, Allston
returned to Boston as the nation’s foremost artist. One of his most poignant late
works, Evening Hymn demonstrates Allston’s mastery of the glazing techniques
of earlier European painters. The painting depicts an anonymous woman playing
her evening prayer on a lute in front of a Greek temple ruin. Bathed in a “dim
religious light,” this work echoes John Milton’s poem Il Penseroso. Nonetheless,
it is primarily the personal reverie of an artist who insisted upon both highmindedness and imagination.
Benjamin West (1738–1820)
Oliver Cromwell Dissolving the Long
Parliament, 1782
Oil on canvas
Museum purchase; Members Acquisition Fund, 1960.5
In 1759, the young Philadelphian Benjamin West was one of the first Americans
to travel abroad for artistic opportunities unavailable in the Colonies. Aspiring to
be more than a painter of faces, West emerged as England’s premier history
painter during the 18th century. This canvas represents one of five historical
scenes the first Earl of Grosvenor commissioned from West. It depicts an event
of 1653 during which Cromwell (standing to the right of center) and his men
forcibly evicted members of the British Parliament who illegally passed a bill
continuing their power. West clearly articulates the episode by placing the figures
in a shallow space, as if they were actors on a stage. The painting’s classically
balanced composition and clear linear forms also enhance its readability.
Stuyvesant Van Veen (1910–1977)
Foundations of the City, 1937
Oil on masonite
Gift of Adele Block, 2001.18
Stuyvesant Van Veen was a little-known painter who created allegorical and
social realist–style murals in courthouses and public buildings around the United
States. He studied at the Art Students League in New York, where he worked
with Thomas Hart Benton, also represented in this exhibition. This painting of an
urban, industrial scene was a study for a Community Cultural Center mural
proposed for the 1939 World’s Fair by the Architects, Painters
and Sculptors Collaborative. Like Van Veen, most of these artists were employed
by the government during the Great Depression of the 1930s, at a time of great
need when many felt that the development of a socially responsible culture
available to all Americans depended upon federal patronage.
John George Brown (1831–1913)
Music Hath Terms, 1879
Oil on canvas
Museum Purchase; Prior Gift of Mrs. Frank L. Babbott, 1992.3
As the most popular painter of everyday scenes in late 19th-century American
art, John George Brown specialized in depicting street urchins in New York. This
painting may seem realistic, yet the music of the mouth harp, which transports
the young bootblacks away from their impoverished lives, romanticizes thescene.
Arthur B. Davies (1862–1928)
Two Welsh Girls with a Harp, ca. 1898
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mrs. Frederic B. Pratt, 1939.16
Artists like Arthur B. Davies, who specialized in painting dreamlike figures in
idyllic settings, often alluded to music for its non-material charms. This jewel-like
scene is enveloped by a nocturnal light that harmonizes everything. Absorbed in
their own thoughts, these women are enigmatically juxtaposed with a harp, long
associated with angels and classical figures, reflecting the close relationship
between the visual arts and the non-referential, suggestive forms of music at the
turn of the century. Davies himself was the principal organizer of the landmark
Armory Show that introduced modern art to the American public in 1913.
Hilde Kayn (1903–1950)
Swingtime, 1945
Oil on masonite
Gift of Mrs. Frederick Pleasants, 1946.15
As a child in Vienna, Hilde Kayn studied ballet, which may help explain her
attraction to dancing as a subject for artistic expression. Like Swingtime, many of
her dance paintings involve groups of people engaged in dancing as a social
activity. The figures move and sway with a pulsating, dynamic rhythm. The sense
of abandon and escapism, as dancers are swept away to the sounds of swing
music, would seem appropriate to a country just emerging from the horrors of
World War II.
George McNeil (1908–1995)
Deliverance Disco, 1987
Acrylic on canvas
Museum Purchase; prior gift of Harry A. Astlett, 1987.18
Among the most energetic American artists working within an Expressionist
tradition, McNeil was attracted to the vitality of discotheques and disco dancing.
Although he was an elderly artist in the 1980s who did not frequent these places,
McNeil has captured the imagined exuberance of disco dancers in this bold,
joyous painting filled with raucous colors and forms, that are about to explode out
of the picture plane.
Abraham Walkowitz (1880–1965)
Sketch of Isadora Duncan, ca. 1917
Watercolor and ink on paper mounted on board
Transfer from Lebrun Library, 0000.263
Sketch of Isadora Duncan, ca. 1917
Watercolor, ink and graphite on paper mounted on board
Transfer from Lebrun Library, 0000.270
Sketch of Isadora Duncan, ca. 1917
Watercolor, ink and graphite on paper mounted on board
Transfer from Lebrun Library, 0000.273
These watercolors are among thousands of images of Isadora Duncan produced
by pioneering modernist Abraham Walkowitz. They demonstrate his interest in
the modern dancer in motion. The movements of Isadora Duncan were
unprecedented and left Walkowitz awestruck when he saw her dance for the first
time in a private salon in 1907. He recalled that she “was a muse… [and] didn’t
dance according to the rules. She created. Her body was music. It was a body
electric.” Often created as serial images drawn from memory, Walkowitz’s works
provide invaluable documents of Duncan’s mode of dance since she refused to
allow any film records of her performances.
Weegee (1899–1968)
Calypso; At a Club in Harlem, 1946
Gelatin silver print
Museum purchase; Acquisition Fund, 1999.21
Arthur H. Fellig came to prominence in the 1930s as a freelance tabloid
photographer in New York City. Often the first to arrive at a fir e, accident, or
crime scene, he earned the nickname “Weegee” (after the Ouija board) for his
uncanny ability to sense breaking stories. Working quickly and at close range
with a four-by-five-inch Speed Graphic camera, Weegeeproduced skillfully
composed pictures that looked spontaneous. In Calypso he captures the energy
of the 1940s Harlem nightclub scene by zeroing in on a particularly exuberant
patron. Full of enthusiasm, the man literally seems to burst out of the photograph,
as he throws open his suit coat and strains against the rope barricade. The
subject, uninhibited and oblivious to the photographer’s presence, loses himself
in the music.
Ida Applebroog (b. 1929)
Executive Tower, West Plaza, 1982
Three intaglio prints with aquatint, AP from Ed. 8/10
Gift of Beth and George Meredith, 2002.27a-c
Since moving to New York in 1974, Ida Applebroog has become best known for
her multipart, comic-like] paintings and prints that, within the legacy of feminism,
deal with the trivial details of everyday life as if they had the scale and
significance of the subjects of traditional history painting. Featuring self-absorbed
business people, this trio of prints explores and defines issues of contemporary
urban identity in terms of isolation, alienation, and dehumanization. Her works
have been characterized as “images of frozen theatre” dealing with mundane,
private moments, “seemingly familiar images, but without the conventional
narrative flow.” Thus we are caught in the act of intruding upon the intimate
actions of these anonymous actors in the drama of daily life.
Gifford Beal (1879–1956)
Morning, ca. 1920s-30s
Oil on canvas
Gift of Solomon Wright, Jr., 1937.2
A student of William Merritt Chase, Gifford Beal was acclaimed as an American
Scene painter of the sea. This work is likely from his series of fishing scenes
painted in the 1920s and 30s during Beal’s summer sojourns in Rockport,
Massachusetts. In its subject matter and brusque, direct handling of paint,
Morning brings to mind the art of Winslow Homer, whom Beal admired.
Furthermore, the restrained style and somber dignity of the rugged fisherman
reveal the profound respect for these individuals and the labor they engage in.
Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975)
Instruction, 1940
Lithograph
Museum purchase; Acquisition Fund, 1990.10
As a major exponent of American Scene painting, Thomas Hart Benton
attempted to create a style and range of native subject matter that would be
meaningful to as many of his fellow citizens as possible. Inspired by Benton’s
teaching experiences at the Kansas City Art Institute, Instruction typifies his
interest in subject matter based on the common experiences of average
Americans. One of Benton’s students found the model — a preacher who sold
snake-oil medicines in the pool halls of downtown Kansas City. Here he is shown
teaching a boy to read the Bible. Both are silhouetted against a backdrop of old
newspapers and a calendar assembled in Benton’s classroom. It has been
suggested that Benton’s empathetic portrayal of these and other African
American subjects conveys his admiration for their resilience against injustice.
Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975)
Ten-Pound Hammer, 1967
Lithograph
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel C. Draper, 1968.29
Rejecting the abstract modernist art he encountered abroad, Benton, from the
mid-1920s onward, developed a pragmatic, grass-roots American art that
concerned itself with the regional agrarian life of this country, rather than its big
cities. He later commented about this print that it was based on the “Old Story of
my youth — before the steam hammer beat out John Henry.” He was referring to
the 19thcentury African American folk hero John Henry, who was said to have
worked as a “steel-driving man”—a man tasked with hammering a steel drill into
rock to make holes for explosives to blast the rock in constructing a railroad
tunnel. According to legend, John Henry’s prowess as a steel driver was
measured in a race against a steam-powered hammer, which he won, only to die
in victory with his hammer in his hand as his heart gave out from stress.
Louis Betts (1873–1961)
Ladies of Old Lyme, 1932
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mrs. Louis Betts in Memory of Giovanna Betts, 1939.4
Well known as a portrait painter of high society, Louis Betts had studied with
William Merritt Chase, who encouraged him to work outdoors. His pleinair
approach is evident in this vibrant painting of fashionable ladies relaxing in Old
Lyme, Connecticut, a famous Impressionist-oriented art colony. Betts spent his
summers at Old Lyme, absorbing the broad, impressionistic brushstrokes of his
teacher Chase. The effects of the bright sunlight shimmering on the parasols,
wide-brimmed bonnets and flowing chiffon dresses of these women also reveal
Betts’s preoccupation with Impressionism in this work, which was part of a series
featuring Southern belles from a bygone era.
Edwin Howland Blashfield (1848–1936)
After a Day’s Toil, n.d.
Oil on canvas
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Jack M. Singer, 1982.45
Edwin Blashfield was a renowned academic painter and art writer who achieved
international success for his classical decorative mural paintings. This painting
likely dates from his early career, when Blashfield went to Paris to study art and
became a painter of genre pictures, or scenes of everyday life, returning
permanently to America in 1881. A woman is seated in the countryside, perhaps
of France, Belgium, or Italy, where Blashfield travelled. This contemplative work
combines the themes of labor and leisure, as the weary woman rests, spade in
hand and gazes into the distance after a full day of work.
John E. Costigan (1888–1972)
Springtime, 1926-27
Oil on canvas
Museum purchase; Acquisition Fund, 1929.1
John Costigan was a self-taught painter and trained printer known for his bucolic
scenes in an Impressionist style. As with Thomas Hart Benton (also represented
in this show) and other American regionalists, the people who worked the land
held a special affinity for Costigan. He lived on a farm in Orangeburg, New York,
and it was his own wife, children, and farm animals who served as the models for
his paintings. Here, the family attends to the task of herding sheep and goats.
Although employing spontaneous brushstrokes and strong, vibrant colors to
convey the momentary effects of sunlight, Costigan imbues this scene with a
timeless, poetic quality through his careful grouping of humans and animals.
Eanger Irving Couse (1866–1936)
Indian Courtship, 1907
Oil on canvas
Gift of William T. Evans, 1915.9
Eanger Irving Couse was a member of the circle of artists who resided in Taos,
New Mexico, and were attracted to the natural beauty and traditional Native
American cultures of this region. Along with Joseph Sharp and Ernest
Blumenschein, he was a founder of the Taos Society of Artists. This scene of
courtship blends the cultural traditions of the Pueblo and Plains Indians. It
features the courting flute as emblematic of Pueblo cultures and hide clothing as
a distinctive aspect of the Plains Indians. Therefore Couse captured the vitality of
Taos, which was the Pueblo most influenced by Plains culture.
Edward Curtis (1868–1952)
Fishing Camp — Skokomish, 1912
Photogravure from “The North American Indian” series reprinted by The Classic
Gravure company, Santa Fe, New Mexico, ca. 1980
Gift of the Moore Family Trust, CA, 2010.11.5
Celebrated photographer Edward S. Curtis began photographing local Indians
digging for clams and mussels in Puget Sound when residing in Seattle, in the
mid 1890s. He published the 20-volume work The North American Indian (1907–
1930) to record the traditional lives and customs of Native Americans in the
United States and Canada. By the time of this project, Native Americans had
endured decades of hostility, including federal policies of forced assimilation and
relocation to reservations. Yet Curtis eschewed this historical context. Indeed, he
retouched many photographs to remove modern artifacts, aiming to present the
Native American as untouched by modern life, a “vanishing race” preservable
only in images, such as this, of a Skokomish tribal couple outside a typical
summer home made of reed mats, located on the picturesque Skokomish River
in Washington.
Edward Dufner (ca. 1871–1957)
Sunlight and Joy, 1918-1925
Oil on canvas
Gift of Edward Dufner, 1925.2
The American Impressionist Edward Dufner was known for creating a genteel
world of youth and beauty in his paintings, of which this is a typical example. One
of his largest and most ambitious paintings, Sunlight and Joy features children in
summer outfits relaxing and playing on the bank of a pond with ducks swimming
in peaceful solitude. The intimacy and charm of this scene is enhanced by the
bright, high-keyed palette and lively, broken brushstrokes that are hallmarks of
the popular Impressionist style.
Lawrence C. Earle (1845–1921)
Cat in the Cradle, 1891
Watercolor over graphite
Gift of the Estate of Bess Haring, 1965.5
A resident of Montclair from 1895 to 1908, Earle specialized in portraits of old
men, as typified by this tender scene of a little girl playing the string game, cat’s
cradle, with an elderly gentleman, perhaps her grandfather. The renowned 19thcentury landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church proclaimed Earle to be “one of
the best watercolor painters we have”— an observation that is supported by the
technical skill of this work.
William Gropper (1897–1977)
Cotton Pickers, 1952
Oil on canvas
Museum purchase; William Lightfoot Schultz Acquisition Fund and a Friend
1969.6
William Gropper’s experiences growing up in an immigrant family on New York’s
Lower East Side helped inspire his career as an activist cartoonist and a painter
of social concerns. His father’s lack of opportunity to work to his full potential
spawned Gropper’s early distrust in the capitalist system. His sympathy for the
laborer and the underdog is exemplified by this vivid portrayal of several AfricanAmerican field hands picking cotton. In the 1940s, Gropper had traveled through
the South, creating work based on this subject. Commenting on this work,
Gropper observed that he painted the background in one color—“hot (which I call
environment),” likely to evoke the heat of the South. Painting the hard-working
cotton pickers over this background, he allowed much of it to show through to
reinforce his view that “we are conditioned by our Environment.”
Zoltan Hecht (1890–1968)
House Wreckers, 1937
Black chalk and graphite on paper
Gift of Deborah Sole and Peter Rohowsky, 2008.13
Hecht was a realist artist and member of the American Art Congress and the
United American Artists. His focus on labor in his works of urban industrial
scenes is typical of the socially oriented American art of the 1930s. House
Wreckers is rendered in an animated style that underscores the energy of the
subject matter, while the monumentalized workers are depicted as heroic figures.
Winslow Homer (1936–1910)
Making Hay, 1872
Wood engraving
Gift of Carl Golub, 1994.9
Ship Building, Gloucester Harbor, 1873
Wood engraving
Gift of Carl Golub. 1994.11
Gloucester Harbor, 1873
Wood engraving
Gift of Elaine and Julian Hyman,2002.18.1
Homer’s wood engravings on view in this exhibition represent an important phase
of his early career, when he was employed as a freelance illustrator and artist-
reporter. This productive period coincided with the flourishing of the illustrated
weekly magazine in America, especially Harper’s Weekly, for which these
illustrations were created. Children and youth are engaged in leisure time,
outdoor activities in the countryside. In the case of Making Hay and Ship
Building, Gloucester, their leisurely activities are contrasted with the adult world
of work. These prints generally epitomize Homer’s preoccupation after the Civil
War with these types of rural subjects as rooted in his own happy middle-class
childhood in New England. These relatively light-hearted scenes focusing on the
unaffected, carefree play of children are typically treated with an honest
naturalism, rather than the idealism and sentimentality prevalent in other
contemporary depictions of childhood.
Oscar Howe (1915–1983)
Sioux War Dance, ca. 1950
Tempera on panel
Museum purchase; Acquisition Fund, 1954.122
Oscar Howe, one of the best-known Native American artists of the 20th century,
became a professor of art at the University of South Dakota. He trained with
Dorothy Dunn at her Studio School in Santa Fe; his early work emphasized
nostalgic Plains subjects done in the Studio style, which was characterized by
disciplined brushwork — especially control of a firm and even contour line,
attention to minute details and use of flatly applied opaque, water-mixed paints.
Sioux War Dance is an excellent example of Howe’s progression from the flat
Santa Fe Studio style to his signature style of colors and abstract shapes
merging into an overall design.
Eastman Johnson (1824–1906)
Sketch for “In the Hayloft,” ca. 1877-1878
Oil on board
Museum purchase, 1963.2
One of the most important American artists of the 19th century, Johnson began
to establish himself as a painter of contemporary subjects in 1855. After his
marriage in 1869, Johnson extended his subject matter to include personal
domestic imagery of his wife and young daughter. During the summers of 1877
and 1878, he found respite from the heat of New York in visits to the farm of his
sister Harriet and her husband in Kennebunk Port, Maine. There he produced a
series of barn interiors focusing on children playing. This work is a sketch for a
painting in the collection of the San Diego Museum of Art, featuring the children
of some of Johnson’s friends. Demonstrating his growing talent for portraying the
fall of light on moving figures, these works also reinforced 19th-century notions of
the beneficial effects of fresh air and the countryside upon children.
Clare Leighton (1898–1989)
Cutting, ca. 1940
Wood engraving
Museum purchase; Print Fund, 1953.39
Well known for her wood engravings, Leighton was educated at the Slade School
of Fine Arts in London before immigrating to the United States in 1939. Over the
course of a long and prolific career, she wrote and illustrated numerous books
praising the virtues of the countryside and the people who worked the land.
During the 1920s and 1930s, as the world around her became increasingly
technological, industrial, and urban, Leighton portrayed rural workers, as
exemplified by this print of two men cutting down a tree, from her “Canadian
Lumber Camp” series. Each one features rugged French-Canadian lumberjacks
who labor without the use of modern technology in the beauty of the frozen
wilderness. Cutting, which depicts lumberjacks felling a massive tree, combines
the abstract patterning of snow-covered hillocks with the meticulous details of the
teeth of the crosscut saw and the nails in the heel of the lumberjack’s boot.
Clare Leighton (1898–1989)
May: Sheep Shearing, 1933
Wood engraving
Museum purchase; Dorland Fund, 1990.12
Clare Leighton played a central role in the revival of British wood engraving
before immigrating to America in 1939. This work is from the best known of her
many books, The Farmer’s Year: A Calendar of English Husbandry (1933). This
annotated monthly calendar describes, visually and verbally, the cycles of the
seasons and the rites of plowing, sowing, cultivating, and harvesting in the preindustrialized English countryside. In Sheep Shearing, sun glistens on the
sheep’s luxuriant coats and shorn bellies, the workers’ backs, and the newly
mowed fields. Evoking nostalgia for a simpler, more pastoral existence,
Leighton’s work affirmed the creative, restorative power of nature and labor.
Charles Mente (1857–1933)
Potato Harvesters, 1895
Watercolor on paper mounted on board
Gift of Louise S. Hannebach in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Carl Schlachter, 1967.74
Little is known about Charles Mente, an illustrator who studied abroad in Munich
and worked in New York for Harper’s Weekly. This powerful watercolor suggests
his sympathy for the dignity of the potato harvesters.
Charles E. Proctor (1866–1950)
A False Note, 1895
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mrs. Palmer A. Potter in memory of Mrs. E.H. Bennett, 1939.18
Little is known about the genre painter Charles E. Proctor. This humorous scene
features five men playing musical instruments. One sits and plays a cello,
another a trumpet, one a flute, and another a violin. The distressed looks on the
faces of the players indicate that the “false note” is coming from the trumpet
player.
Grant Reynard (1887–1968)
Brahms Sonata, n.d.
Drypoint
Gift of the artist. 1966.50
A former president of the Montclair Art Museum (1955–1967), Grant Reynard
was a well-known artist, illustrator, and lecturer who was closely associated with
musicians and writers. As a young boy, he worked in his father’s music store in
Grand Island, Nebraska. Reynard studied piano, but his stage fright led to his
decision to embrace the visual arts. Reynard moved to Leonia, New Jersey, in
1914 to become a freelance illustrator, attending the Harvey Dunn School of
Illustration. Throughout Reynard’s long career, music was a common subject and
underlying rhythm in his prolific paintings, prints, and drawings.
Faith Ringgold (b. 1930)
Tar Beach 2, 1990
Acid dyes on bleached silk duppioni and Polish cotton, ed. 20/24
Gift of Marion Boulton Stroud, 2002.20.2
Since the 1960s, Faith Ringgold has created artwork addressing political themes
and inspired by traditional handcraft and folklore. In 1980 Ringgold made her first
quilt, Echoes of Harlem, with her mother, Madame Willi Posey, who told her
stories of their ancestors, slaves trained to make quilts on their plantation. This
1990 quilt is related to Ringgold’s story quilt Tar Beach (1988), which she turned
into an award-winning children’s book in 1991. It tells the story of an eight-year
old black girl, Cassie, who spends her time on the rooftops of her urban
landscape in Harlem. There, surrounded by stars, Cassie fantasizes that she can
fly over buildings and claim them for her family. At the end of the tale, Cassie
summarizes her (and Ringgold’s) creative aspirations: “Anyone can fly, all you
have to do is have somewhere to go that you can’t get to any other way and the
next thing you know you’r e flying among the stars.”
John Sloan (1871–1951)
Bonfire, Snow, ca. 1919
Oil on canvas
Museum purchase; Lang Acquisition Fund,1953.37
John Sloan was a highly regarded artist, teacher, and activist. As a member of
The Eight, and the Society of Independent Artists, he promoted opportunities for
artists outside the academic art establishment. Sloan’s realistic depictions of city
life reflect the influence of Robert Henri, who urged artists to work from their
direct observations of contemporary life. His move to Greenwich Village in 1912
provided many such opportunities. After studying works by Cézanne and Van
Gogh at the 1913 Armory Show, Sloan became more concerned with form and
pictorial structure, and his palette brightened considerably. In Bonfire, Snow,
Sloan steeply tilts the picture plane, pushing down the foreground and elevating
the background. The painting’s strong vertical orientation is emphasized by the
soaring flames, the sapling growing in the sidewalk, and the doors, windows, and
bannisters on the buildings opposite. The diagonal lines of the street and curbs
reinforce the dynamic, upward movement of the picture.
Harold Knickerbocker Faye (1910–1980)
Untitled (Amusement Park), ca. 1930s
Crayon and pencil on paper
Gift of Julian Hyman, 2015.8.2
The little known artist Harold Faye was a Social Realist who worked for the
graphic division of the Works Progress Administration during the Great
Depression. Although many of his prints and drawings focused on the darker
aspects of New York City life in the 1930s, Faye also captured the lighter side in
works such as this dynamic view of an amusement park, likely Coney Island, with
the historic Wonder Wheel built in 1920, as well as the famous Cyclone roller
coaster (erected in 1927).