Pop’s High Modernist

Two recent exhibitions, bracketing Wesselmann’s long career, celebrated a sometimes overlooked Pop painter whose sensuous but disciplined work owes as much to Matisse as to mass-media imagery.

BY RICHARD KALINA

Still Life #35, 1963, oil and on canvas (in four sections), 120 by 192 inches overall. Estate of Tom Wesselmann. om Wesselmann, one of the original - duced imagery, has become the basis for much spiritual aspirations of the Abstract Expression- All photos this article, unless otherwise Tists, died in 2004. This past spring two near- art made today. Pop’s familiarity to a very broad ists, but also the finely tuned sensibilities of the noted, courtesy L&M Arts, New York. ly simultaneous gallery exhibitions in New York public makes Wesselmann’s work, both new and European modernist tradition. Even for those were devoted to his work. L&M Arts presented old, seem up to date despite its period referenc- who didn’t hate Pop art, it just seemed too easy; “Tom Wesselmann: The Sixties,” which featured es. This familiarity, unfortunately, can also make an art form, as Clement Greenberg believed, that pointed in its critique of contemporary society, his earliest Pop work, and Robert Miller Gallery the early work appear to contemporary eyes to was intrinsically minor. It took some time to see and constructed with considerable formal and showed his last series, the “Sunset Nudes”—a be less innovative than it really was. It is difficult that most of the Pop artists were just as formally technical sophistication. group of paintings and drawings that the artist in our irony-tinged and media-saturated world adroit, historically informed and esthetically The L&M and Miller exhibitions spanned more finished between 2002 and 2004. It is clear that to fully grasp how unnerving this sort of art ambitious as their predecessors. Wesselmann than 40 years, but the art in them demonstrates Pop art, with its interest in commercially pro- was when it was first seen. To use images from was typical in this regard. His work broke rules an admirable consistency. Wesselmann, like many advertising, the movies, comic books, newspa- and flouted decorum, but it was also rooted in of the Pop artists, was a prodigious worker, with Tom Wesselmann: Sunset Nude with Matisse pers and popular magazines, especially in a cool, the deep and nourishing ground of numerous exhibitions to his credit every year. He Odalisque, 2003, oil on canvas, 120 by 100 inches. jokey, ostensibly impersonal manner, seemed an (in his case in an abiding interest in Matisse). developed, however, a coherent set of themes Courtesy Robert Miller Gallery, New York. affront to those who valued not just the heroic While funny and seemingly offhand, it was quite early on, and through multiple variations stuck

124 December 2006 Art in America 125 For Wesselmann, nudes in the L&M show) to later, cool takes on Abstract image seems to resist integration into the paint- In another photo fragment, we see a woman’s were sturdy signifiers Expressionism. Beginning in the mid-’80s, Wessel- ing. In this work, a blonde nude with skin deeply hands coming in from the top right, cradling a mann embarked on an extensive series of works tanned, except for the stark white area left by her chunk of blue cheese swaddled in aluminum that held their meaning that translated exuberant yet highly accurate ges- doffed bikini, reclines on a red, white and blue bed. foil. The background features a window with whether presented as tural drawings into large-scale painted steel and Behind her to the left, on a light orange wall, rests a segment of lawn visible beyond, an actual wholes or fragments. aluminum cutouts; a single, restrained example, a shield emblazoned in patriotic stars and stripes. red-and-white potholder attached to the wall, the monochromatic Bedroom Brunette with Iris- To the right, a curtain is pulled back to reveal a and a painted depiction of a white stove front, Though partly based on es (1998-2004), was included in the Miller show. tropical beach scene. The figure is taken from a equipped with real knobs. It is a classic example pinup photos, most were But Wesselmann is best known for his paintings of vertical photograph of a pinup girl, and while Wes- of early, in-your-face Pop, both a tribute to and a drawn from models. the nude female figure. His “Great American selmann has tweaked things somewhat—turn- slap at American consumerism. ing her on her side, taking off the swimsuit, and Still Life #35 (1963) is even punchier. Execut- heightening the tonal contrast of the skin—the ed at billboard scale (10 by 16 feet), the photo- figure seems a bit stiff and out of place. (A piece collaged painting puts together a six-pack of painted a month before and not in the show, Great Royal Crown Cola, a loaf of bread (its packaging American Nude #36 [1962, Worcester Museum overwhelmed by the image of a cute but some- of Art], uses the same image but with the bikini what demonic-looking little girl devouring a slice intact. The effect is no different.) of the product), two lemons, a pack of cigarettes, Wesselmann’s small drawings in thinned acryl- a can of Libby’s beef stew and a Pan Am jet ic and pencil, such as Nude with Tongue Out Great American Nude #92, 1967, Liquitex and assemblage on panel, 48 by 66 inches. floating over a city in a cloudless blue sky. The (1966) and Study for Great American Nude #95 Private collection, New York. painting screams at you—its colors are harsh, (1967), or the larger late charcoal works—Fri- the images are pushed up to the picture plane, day Nude Drawing (2000) and Study for Sunset and everything is huge. My favorite painting in Nude, Floral Blanket (2003)—display an engag- white teeth. The painting is about 7 feet long. sized picture. It shows us a tabletop covered this group, though, is a 4-foot tondo, Still Life ing spontaneity and great technical skill, and are It is in equal parts soothing, sexy and scary. with a checked cloth (painted by the artist), #34 (1963), which combines images of a straw- certainly beautiful things in themselves. Wessel- An air of fetishism inhabits paintings like this, upon which rests a huge, formed-plastic loaf of berry ice cream soda, a pear, two walnuts, a pack mann drew continuously as an ongoing means of and also Wesselmann’s numerous portray- white bread, the front slices of which protrude of Lucky Strikes, a vase of roses and a cut-out notation and a pathway to invention. It was also als of disembodied feet (in the L&M show, three-dimensionally from the painting’s surface, metal image of a Coke bottle. The background an integral part of his painting method. Drawing Bedroom Painting #17, 1968-70) or breasts (Bed- and collaged photographic reproductions of two is a thickly painted slab of glowing orange, fur- slowed both the perceptual and the executing room Painting #8, 1968). A particularly telling giant ice cream sodas, three apples and two ther animated by arcs of yellow, red and blue. A processes, enabling him patiently to coax out the example is a 1970 assemblage (not shown), bowls of cereal. perfect contour. This control of contour allowed Bedroom Tit in Box. It consists of depictions Bedroom Painting #17, him to achieve an illusion of depth and substance of an orange, a cosmetics bottle, a rose in a 1968-70, oil on canvas, with the least possible amount of modeling; he small vase and a cigarette in an ashtray. What 773/4 by 971/2 inches. was able to maintain flatness without sacrificing distinguishes this work is the opening at Private collection. verisimilitude. In this he closely followed Matisse’s the top, where a live woman’s breast is example. Wesselmann’s mastery of line-driven meant to be inserted. form made it easier to break up compositions and Looking at Wesselmann’s ten- reassemble the pieces into vibrant interlocking dency to separate out body parts, pictorial structures. He was also able to leave we have an example of a clas- out elements (the eyes and nose, as in Great sic modernist synecdoche, in American Nude #51, 1963, for example) while which the part stands in for Great American Nude #38, 1962, oil and collage on board, 48 by 60 inches. retaining a sense of the figure’s integrity. In fact, Collection Stavros Merjos and Honor Fraser. and reinforces the whole. the act of removal served to emphasize that The elliptical mode is an which remained—in this case, the mouth. It is essential part of Cub- interesting to compare Wesselmann with Larry ism. Seen psychologi- with them. In this he differed from Roy Lichten- Nudes,” which first appeared in 1961 (the title is Rivers, who also effectively highlighted body cally (or Surrealistical- stein, another highly productive artist, who took an interesting variant of that staple of 1950s cul- parts, not by outright omissions but by elegant ly), however, one gets on a variety of subjects and made them his by ture, the Great American Novel), launched his blurring and conspicuous partial erasure. the sense of a fetishis- casting them in his own crisply graphic mode. A career, and the “Sunset Nudes” concluded it. Mouths and lips seemed to have had a par- tic preoccupation with painting by Mondrian, Matisse or de Kooning, a ticular fascination for Wesselmann. He was the part instead of the generic kitsch landscape, a comic book image, an or Wesselmann the nude was a sturdy signi- scarcely alone in this. A famous precedent is whole. Taken together, ornamental entablature, or a group of American Ffier, a subject that held its meaning whether Man Ray’s 1934 painting of a giant pair of floating these two readings gen- Indian motifs would be fed, as it were, into the he presented it as a whole or, as he was wont lips, A l’heure de l’observatoire—les Amoureux. erate considerable inter- Lichtenstein machine, and come out a Lichten- to do, as a fragment. Though based on the sort Closer to Wesselmann’s time there were de est and a little unease. stein. Even though Wesselmann had a recogniz- of pinup poses found in magazines like Playboy, Kooning’s “Women,” which were often built able style—surfaces so smoothly painted and Wesselmann’s figures, for the most part, were around their mouths, and also important works f Wesselmann had stayed graded that they almost seemed airbrushed, drawn from the model rather than copied from by and , all of Iwith his interiors and crisply sliced edges, and bright, saturated colors photographs. This is a key element in Wessel- whom drew inspiration from movie and adver- still lifes of consumer goods, with sharp chromatic contrasts—what most read- mann’s art, for drawing allowed him to exercise his tising images. Lip-shaped paintings of giant he might be seen differently ily identifies a Wesselmann is his subject matter. fragmenting, collage sensibility while preserving mouths, often languorously smoking cigarettes, today, joined with Rosenquist in a He touched on a variety of topics, from landscapes pictorial unity. On the occasions that Wesselmann are some of Wesselmann’s most striking imag- humorous but biting dissection of the to household interiors and still lifes (as in the worked with a figure taken from a photograph, as es. Mouth #2 (1966) depicts two smiling, softly visual signs of modern material culture. early and assemblages, well represented he did in Great American Nude #38 (1962), the painted, luscious red lips and a row of perfect Still Life #25 (1963) is, at 4 by 6 feet, a good-

126 December 2006 Art in America 127 Despite Wesselmann’s esselmann’s ambition never flagged as he Sunset Nude with Wgot older. The “Sunset Nudes” contains his Matisse Self-Portrait, interest in the largest single panel paintings since the 1960s. The 2004, oil on canvas, 72 ephemera of consumer paintings in this group are also among his most by 75 inches. Courtesy Robert Miller Gallery. goods, his heart lay chromatically declarative and state in no uncer- with the deeper tradition tain terms his allegiance to Matisse. Sunset Nude with Matisse Odalisque (2003) measures 10 of psychologically feet high by more than 8 feet wide. A cascade of charged, formally hot oranges, yellows and reds, tempered by a few complex realist painting. cool greens and blues, it features a seated blonde Wesselmann odalisque, hands crossed behind her head, her left knee hiked up. Behind her on an circular canvas is notoriously difficult to work orange and green striped chair, and echoing the with, but Wesselmann pulls off the composi- other’s pose, sits an odalisque taken straight from tion with great verve. one of Matisse’s Nice pictures. Except for a verti- For all of his early interest in the imper- cal that might possibly be part of a frame, there sonal ephemera of consumer culture, Wessel- is no sense that the women inhabit two different mann’s heart lay with the deeper tradition spatial spheres. The Matissean woman seems in of psychologically charged, formally complex fact to be more detailed and “lifelike” than the realistic painting. He was more overtly Pop Wesselmann nude, whose modeling is flatter than the sculptor George Segal, his colleague and more schematic. The latter has, as do the for many decades at the Gallery, other “Sunset Nudes,” a sharply delineated area but, like Segal’s, Wesselmann’s work spoke of white corresponding to the portions of the body less to issues of emotional distancing and closest to the viewer, and her body is edged with mechanical reproduction and more to ques- a thick red line reminiscent of the bold lines that tions of desire, feeling, empathy and beauty. surround the figures in Matisse’s 1905 painting For many years both he and Segal, although The Joy of Life. Any doubt about who Wesselmann highly regarded, extensively exhibited and thought was looking over his shoulder would be well-collected, were cast as backup players to immediately resolved with a glance at Sunset those who were seen as the first rank of Pop Nude with Matisse Self-Portrait (2004). There’s a artists. In spite of his long and distinguished grisaille himself in the upper right career, Wesselmann has not yet had a museum corner peering in at a highly schematic nude in retrospective in the U.S. An issue with Wessel- turquoise stockings. Thinking of these last Wes- mann’s art has been the overt eroticism of his selmann works, enlivened with palm trees, warm nudes. There is no getting around the sexual blue seas and glowing sunsets, I can’t help recall- charge of a work like Great American Nude ing that great late Matisse painting, Memories #92 (1967). In it a woman with an open mouth of Oceania, a work that evokes the warmth and and prominent breasts lies spread-eagled on pleasure of both the tropics and of memory. a leopard-skin bedspread. She wears one gray Wesselmann was an artist who, thanks to his stocking, and her pubic hair is an applied wiry disciplined work habits and the length of his thatch. That kind of frank sexual presentation career, was able to explore a variety of approaches might at one time have offended a variety of to his preferred subjects and deal with each of viewers and made museums nervous, and per- them in depth. Something that distinguished the haps it still does. Considering, however, what Pop artists was their grasp of scale. This was one gets shown in galleries and museums these of Wesselmann’s great strengths. Not only was he days, Wesselmann’s art today comes off as a able to work effectively in small, medium and bit racy, at most. quite large formats, but he knew how to adjust Issues of public relations and career man- the size of the elements within his paintings to agement aside, I believe it is Segal’s and achieve maximum impact. These exhibitions, Wesselmann’s clear and essentially nonironic which bracketed Wesselmann’s career and could appeal to both the emotions and the esthetic be considered a retrospective of sorts (even sense that has stood in the way of greater though three decades of his work were omitted), acclaim. This may ultimately turn out to be let us see that. But there are many big Wessel- their strong suit. Segal’s relationship to prom- mann works that would look best in a museum inent figurative sculptors like Kiki Smith and setting. The two shows under consideration, Robert Gober seems evident, and I would satisfying and well curated as they were, not be surprised to see Wesselmann’s work, served to whet our appetites for something with its combination of formal elegance and more substantial. ■ psychological obsession, gain admirers among savvy younger artists as well. In fact, this “Tom Wesselmann: The Sixties” was on view at L&M Arts [Feb. 23-Apr. 15], and “Tom Wesselmann: Sunset Nudes” was past March Interview magazine published an at Robert Miller Gallery [Mar. 9-Apr. 22], both in New York. appreciation of Wesselmann by the very up-to- the-moment artist Tom Sachs. Author: Richard Kalina is a painter who writes about art.

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