Byron Browne in the Thirties: the Battle for Abstract Art

Home , Balcomb Greene, Bauhaus, Jan Matulka, Joseph Solman, Louis Schanker

Byron Browne in the Thirties: The Battle for Abstract Art

April J. Paul

Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 19, No. 4. (1979), pp. 9-24.

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http://www.jstor.org Sun Jan 13 10:39:52 2008 Byron Browne in the Thirties: the Battle for Abstract Art April J.Paul In 1925, by choosing to enter the National Academy of Design, Byron Browne 11907-1961) committed himself to a program of traditional artistic training that disallowed the "modern movement." Extremely talented and im- mensely successful as a student, by the time he graduated in the spring of 1928 Browne had won nearly every prize offered by this conservative school. Yet, as he won award after award for his academic painting, Browne's interests shifted; he began to experiment with an abstraction of forms inspired by the School of Paris. This absorption would eventually establish him as one of the leaders among those few Americans who dared to contest the anti-European "American Wave. " The promise of an early, brilliant ca- reer was considerably dashed, however, by the rising surge of nationalism, which saw the easily understood art of Ameri- can Scene painting become the accepted mode of the day. Seen in the context of the Great Depression, nearly unanimous rejections from museums and dealers, and the verbal violence of art critics op- posed to abstractionist tendencies, Byron Browne's drive toward a newer kmd of art reveals a courageous and tenacious spirit. Browne's art followed several dis- tinct directions in his struggle to free Byron Browne in his studio, 1937. Photographer unknown. himself from a realistic approach and to Photograph: Courtesy of Stephen B. Bnmne. carve a new aesthetic based on abstract principles. These efforts engaged him vertically and horizontally, overlapping food on the table.= through the entire decade of the thirties. at right angles. Painted strips of the same Browne's gloomy prospect was For Byron Brme, as well as for his colors and paint between the strips create somewhat alleviated by the advent of his American contemporaries who were ori- contrapuntal rhythms, as in music, and first one-man show, held in 1933 at the ented toward the School of Paris, the result in a composition which, at first, Eighth Street Playhouse in Greenwich cubist works of Picasso, Braque, and Gris seems wholly abstract. Closer examina- Village. There is no record of whch were of prodigious interest. The Cubists' tion refutes this impression, for refer- works were shown nor of the critical re- use of papiers-collb and collage inspired ences to the human face seem to be em- sponse the exhibition generated, if any. one of Browne's first efforts in the direc- bedded in the complex form on the nght, It would be reasonable to suppose that tion of abstract art. In the collage titled which is not unllkely given Browne's Browne showed his cubist-inspired paint- Fugue, 1930 (fig. l),narrow strips of red, predilection- for the firmre.' ings and perhaps a few pieces of sculp- black, and white paper were pasted In spite of a n&ly total dearth of ture, a medlum in which he continued to galleries and museums wilhg to show work. the works of the few Americans who What a momentous event it was, in dared to paint abstractly, Browne re- that day, for an artist to display his work April 1. Paul received her M.A. in art history mained adamant where his new direc- before the public. Then, as now, an ex- from the University of California, Davis. She tion was concerned. One has only to hibition was of enormous importance, wrote her thesis on Bryon Browne with the aid of a Graduate Research Award granted by think of the social pressures then being but with the economic, social, and cul- the Committee on Fellowships and Graduate directed against this style to marvel at tural situation in such turmoil, one was Scholarships, Davis. She is completing a book such perseverance, for he was now in lucky to exhibit at all. In spite of rock on Browne and is currently in the Ph.D. pro- worse financial straits than durin his bottum prices, the public was disin- gram in art history at The Graduate Center/ student days. Like most artists, he faced clined to buy American works and, with City University of New York. deep poverty that rarely allowed enough few exceptions, neither Browne nor any other artist was able to make a fair living Browne submitted three works to the The PWAP does not help the real through his talent.3 agency to prove his ability and evidently creative artist. In the first place the During President Hoover's adminis- was accepted immediately. His leaning subject matter is dictated to the art- tration, in 1931, attempts were made to toward abstraction did not pass unno- ist. As my work contains little or alleviate the plight of artists in New ticed, for in the files at the National Ar- no emphasis on subject matter I was York City through the formation of the chives a typewritten sheet of paper con- ignored for a long time after the Gibson Committee for the Unemployed. tains the following terse notation: "3rd PWAP began to function and then It was, according to artist Joseph Solman, Class. Has vigorous distorted style which cut off after a period of four weeks. a six-month makeshift program that ac- would be very difficult to place in a pub- This has also happened in many complished little. Later the Committee, lic building." s The word "Easel" was other cases. So here we have a great under the supervision of the College Art handwritten on the page. Browne was art movement in the country with Association, funded another project for assigned to the Easel Painting classifica- the idea of aidmg the artist. As far as hungry, materials-short artists; &s time tion and Mrs. Force gave him his first I and many others are concerned we 100 were given art-related jobs.4 The job, a picture to be titled Music, a figure might be at the North Pole. numbers of unemployed artists, however, painting of large proportions (5 by 3% One case in particular I know of were growing by the thousands. feet), which would be suitable also as a which I should hke to bring to your In order to pressure the national gov- mural for a library or music room. attention. People receiving incomes ernment for subsidies, a number of art- Browne lost no time setting to work on from various sources are getting the ists banded together in 1933 to form the the canvas and by the months end it government check regularly while Unemployed Artists Group, later to be- was nearing completion, as noted in a the ones in need have barely a roof come the famed Artists Uni~n.~Never- progress report dated February 1, 1934. lo over their heads. This is not laying theless, not until after Roosevelt as- His success was short-lived, how- it on too thick as I know from first sumed office in March of that year were ever, for on February 9 Browne received a hand information. Now about the there any massive, concrete relief pro- letter terminating hls employment, ef- case I spoke of. Here is an artist who grams established for all American art- fective the next day. The letter offered receives a steady, reliable and com- ists in order to mitigate their special pre- no explanation other than ". . . owing to fortable income and is employed by dicament. Upon formation of the first restrictions in the number of artists we the PWAF'. This person's contribu- New Deal effort designed for artists, the can employ, and the large number now tion consists of small etchmgs done Public Works of Art Project (PWAP, on our waiting list, we are forced to ter- from photographs of historical build- 1933-1934), Byron Browne applied and minate your employment under this ings. This, you can readily see, does qualified for huing along with hundreds Project, effective Saturday, February 10." not come under the heading of crea- of other artists. The letter was signed Public Works of tive art. The project, in inspecting According to Edward Bruce, director Art Project, New York Regional Com- the works on the fifteenth, finds this of PWAP, the artists were selected on the mittee (of which Mrs. Force was contribution to its ldung. basis first of their need and then, of equal chairman).ll I myself, upon entering the importance, their qualifications as art- Distraught, and no doubt hungry as project, set to work to make a large ists. They were permitted complete free- well, Browne reciprocated with a per- 5-foot canvas of an imaginative na- dom of expression, the only subject mat- sonal letter to Mrs. Force asking if there ter assigned to them being the depiction were any possible way to continue with of all phases of American life. Thus from PWAP. The artist had been cut off after the outset an open door policy seemed to only four weeks and asked: ''Why is such have been established, which included an unjust attitude taken?" (fig. 2).12On abstraction among its styles6Neverthe- March 5, Browne received an answer: less, there were occasions when the work of abstract artists encountered some In reply to your recent letter, the measure of opposition, possibly because Public Works of Art Project can em- of the attitude of the New York Regional ploy only a limited number of artists, Committee's chairman, Juliana Force, and under our new instructions from then director of the Whimey Museum of Washington we must cut down on American Art. Considered by some to our employment week by week from have been a dilettante selected because hstime on, in line with the general of her association with wealthy patrons, curtailment of Civil Works Admin- her choice for this post was a disappoint- istration activities. Under the cir- ment to many.7 cumstances we very deeply regret Late in 1933 Browne, signing his our inability to reconsider our name George Byron Browne although he decision. had dropped the "George" at an earlier Very truly yours, date, wrote a letter directly to Juliana JULIANA FORCE Force seeking employment on the PWAP. Chairman l3 Appealing for help, he complained, ". . . artists who have not even registered Browne wrote yet another letter to are already drawing relief money from the PWAP Regional Office sometime be- the government." He went on to say, "I fore June 1934, the date PWAP officially have stood on line hours in order to regis- disbanded: ter and have received no work. It is very Received your PWAP booklet and discouraging to me as I have no income. readwith interest the items in it. My Fig. 2. Letter from Byron Browne to Mrs. What would you suggest?"* reason for writing is to offer a com- Juliana Force, 1934. Correspondence of the By December 28, 1933, Browne had plaint. The PWAP like the NRA is Region 2 Office with Artists, Records of the received and filled out a PWAP inquiry not above criticism. Public Buildmg Service, Record Group 121, form as to his training and interests. I offer myself as a case in point. NatidArchives Building. Fig. 1. Fugue. 1930. Collage and casein tempera, 15% by 17% in. Collection of Sarah Kinney. Photograph: Stephen B. Brawne.

ture, and not dealing with any sub- given out. art had already taken place. The show ject matter upon the so-called Amer- Sincerely, was one of com romise, for many of the ican scene, which I believe has GEORGEBYRON BROWNE l4 works were far gom abstract. nothing at all to do with art. My idea While some paintings of the new must certainly have been disliked In February of 1935 the Whitney generation of abstract painters were ex- by the committee as I was cut off a Museum of American Art put its name hibited, themajority were works by those whole week before the 15th. As to out on the proverbial limb by installing artists who had already won established the quality of my work: I am the an exhibition titled Abstract Painting in places in the earlier era of American ab- youngest man in America to win an America. In his didactic introduction to straction: Andrew Dasburg, Arthur B. award from the National Academy the catalog, the older abstractionist Stu- Davies, Charles Demuth, Arthur Dove, Exhibition. I had exhibited at the art Davis attempted to explain what the Marsden Hartley, Walt Kuhn, JohnMann, Corcoran Gallery in Washington, pictures represented and what they did Alfred Maurer, Georgia O'Keeffe, Walter Pennsylvania Art Academy, Art In- not.15 Talung his cue from the Armory Pach, Charles Sheeler, Max Weber, Mar- stitute of Chicago, Buffalo Museum, Show of 1913, he stressed the scientifi- guerite and William Zorach, and many and many other shows in different cally experimental approach to abstract more from the first circle. Most had parts of the country. If I am quali- painting which had been taken by many ceased to paint abstractly by 1920. fied to exhibit my work in the best vanguard painters. He felt that it ac- Thrust into this group, like rock shows why does not this great art counted for the geometric character of musicians added to a symphony orches- movement give me assistance. God some of their work. It was unfortunate, tra, were such young upstarts as Arshile knows I need it and would gladly perhaps, that he also felt the period of Gorky, John Graham, Balcomb Greene, take it at half the sum now being greatest activity in American abstract Irene Rice Pereira, and Byron Browne, As if to affix the position of the Federal programs for the unemployed, American vanguard to the lowest rung, the despairing plight of the artist did not the Museum of Modem Art the follow- change. The early thirties saw fifteen ing year organized a large and impressive million unemployed, includmg approxi- exhibition confined to European abstract mately ten thousand artists.21The situa- art. Cubism and Abstract Art, intended tion was compounded for those who were as a historical survey of an important not painters of realistic Americana, of movanent in modem art, inadvertently "a poor art for poor people," as Gorky delivered the wup de &ce to much of termed Social Reali~m.~~The abstract what remained of the American abstract painter thus faced two struggles simul- artists' egos. taneously, one on the social-political In 1936 the Museum of Modem Art front and the other on the artistic front. also sponsored an exhibition of work ex- By 1935 it had become clear to any ecuted under the Federal Art Project; artist who chose to work outside the Byron Browne was among the partici- realm of accepted popular modes of rep- pants. Titled New Horizons in American resentation that altemative locales for Art, it documented the relief organiza- showing his art had to be sought. New tion's first year of activity. Included in it York City's museums, galleries, and were examples of the murals, easel paint- critics seemed nearly united in their ings, graphic arts, and sculpture executed front against abstraction. Finding an by Project artists, presenting a cross audience and combating the general ig- section of work produced in all parts of norance about modem art became the the country.ls Both Holger Cahill, the artists' major problems and their major Federal Art Project's national director goals. Byron Browne and a small group who wrote the introduction to the cata- of abstractionist hends, all of whom had log, and the Museum's director, Alfred encountered similar difficulties in find- H. Barr, Jr., felt that the show revealed ing acceptance, gathered at the stud10 of Fig. 3. Constnzctive Elements, 1934. Oil on certain major trends in American con- Rosalind Bengelsdorf (later Mrs. Byron canvas, 47 by 30 in. Estate of Byron Browne. temporary art.lS The only nonfigurative Browne) in 1935. Realizing the impor- Photograph: Stephen B. Browne. works in the show were color studies of tance of public exposure, they d~scussed proposed murals by eleven New York banding together to try to popularize ab- artists, Browne included, for the Wil- stract art by holding group exhibitions to who showedhis cubist Windowat Night, hamsburg Federal Housing Project in compete with the more popular, tra&- 1934.16The whereabouts of this painting Brooklyn (see page 18).All were titled tional, figurative art forms. is unknown, but it may be reasonable to Abstraction and none was reproduced in The idea spread rapidly by word of believe that it was similar in style to an- the exhibition catalog. Browne's panel, mouth and early in the following year an other cubist-inspired work of the same to be completed in oil on canvas and to even larger group of young abstract art- year in which a "window at night" ap- measure 9% by 15 feet, was executed but ists met at sculptor Ibram Lassaw's stu- pears, Constructive Elements (fig.3). may never have been installed.20 dio. The group now included Burgoyne While it was an admissible victory It is obvious that the exhibition's Diller, Balcomb and Gertrude Greene, for Browne and a handful of his contem- cross sarnphg of American art reiter- Harry Holtzman, George McNeil, Albert poraries, in retrospect the exhibition ated the strength and position of Ameri- Swinden, and Lassaw as well as Browne Abstract Painting in America did little can Scene painting, especially that of Re- and Bengelsdorf. to advance their cause. The Whimey gonalism. It is obvious, too, that the In spite of past failures to breach the would appear to have paid mere lip serv- struggle for abstraction was still a nas- walls of traditional exhibition facilities, ice to the young abstractionists; its cent one centered primarily in New the little group invited John I. H. Baur, seemingly real purpose was to present York. Little if any support for a different then curator of the Brooklyn Museum, an art-historical survey of an art form and newer style could be counted on to view their work in the hope that Baur that, the organizers apparently assumed, from any other quarter of the country; would be sufficiently impressed to give had reached. . its zenith before the 1930s. those who desired change had already them a show. The artists' &sappoint- Exammmg the catalog, one senses a dis- fled eastward. ment was bitter when Baur's decision tinct mood of recalhg a movement al- The exhibition marked the occasion was negative.23Undaunted and perhaps ready relegated to the pages of art history. of Browne's first appearance at the Mu- out of further desperation, the group met Clarence Weinstock, in his review of seum of Modem Art, as it did for all but again in 1936, this time to discuss find- the Whimey show for Art Front, pointed two others of the eleven mural designers, ing a larger number of abstract artists for out what he felt was the essential flaw in namely Jan Matulka and Stuart Davis. a group exhibition in the only gallery that abstract painting and explained why he These Americans' works, however, were would show their work, the Municipal felt thls imposed a limitation on the the choice neither of the Museum's Art Gallery, 62 West 53rd Street. This power of this type of art to affect specta- trustees nor of the director, but were in- gallery was sponsored by the Works tors.17 He held that the artist's metaphor cluded only because they represented Progress Administration's Federal Art (abstraction),like that of the poet's, was paintings produced as a result of a social Project (WPA/FAPI1935-1943), successor incomprehensible unless there were phenomenon, the Depression. The Mu- to the PWAP, in which all members of some discernible element in common seum's acceptance of the idea of Ameri- the group were involved. The gallery re- between the literal thmg to which it re- can abstraction for its own worth would quired a minimum of twenty-five ex- ferred and the nonliteral metaphor. Since not occurwith this exhibition nor within hibitors." The task now lay in quickly this art was nonliteral, i.e. not realistic the decade. Browne and his small group seelung new converts to their cause and painting, its logic and meaning were lost of like-tbkmg artists had to look else- by the end of Novanber they numbered to most viewers. Worse, abstract art was where for an audience that mght appreci- thrrty. open to any meaning the viewer wished ate their seemingly futile labors. Tbvo stormy meetings, held in Harry to attach to it. Despite herculean efforts to speed Holtzman's studio during November A subsequent meeting on January22 admitted to membership Josef Albers, Giorgio Cavallon, Ray Kaiser, George L.K. Moms, and the sculptor David Smith. Moms proposed that A.E. Galla- tin, whose Gallery of Living Art had af- forded the young abstractionists one of their first opportunities to view modem European art, be invited to join. An ex- hbition committee now began to make plans for the group's first show, to be held in the Squibb Gallery, of the Squibb buildmg at 745 Fifth Avenue, where the group arranged to rent the space for two weeks.26A second exhibition, to be held later in 1937, was planned for theMunici- pal Gallery. Most of the American Abstract Art- ists group were impoverished. Had it not been for WPA support, which enabled them to pursue their careers and fur- nished them with all necessary supplies, this American abstract coterie might not have survived. Certainly the existence of such an apolitical group as the American Abstract Artists, whose membership was hted stylistically, would have been precarious without the quasi- security of the WPAEAP. Fortunately George L.K. Moms and Charles G. Shaw, who joined them for the first exhibition, came from affluent families, as did A. E. Gallatin. Gallatin, through his fnend Moms, offered the group one hundred dollars toward the publicity expenses for the Squibb exhibition. Gallatin and Moms would continue to offer intermit- tent help with ghof money. Browne, a founding member, was among the &my-nine artists who partic- ipated in the first annual American Ab- stract Artists exhibition, April 3 - 17, 1937, the largest showing of totally abstract paintings and sculpture that had ever been mounted without museum sanction. Not only was it well attended- some fifteen hundred saw the exhibition -but the sale of a portfolio of lithographs created by the exhibitors was fi- nancially succes~ful.~~Even more slgnrfi- cant was the number of visitors, large for that time, which proved that the group Fig. 4 Head,1934. Oil on canvas, 24 by 16 in. Private Collection. was making itself known to dealers, mu- Photograph: Stephen B. Browne. seum personnel, and the general public as well as to other artists.2sAlthough the Museum of Modem Art had refused a re- 1936, led indirectly to the formation of At last the nucleus of a united group quest to sponsor thls show, its staff the American Abstract Artists group. The materialized. Weekly sessions began on members were invited to come to the first, to whch Holtzman invited every January 8, 1937, and the artists officially duty-third floor of the Squibb Building abstract artist of whom he was aware, adopted the name "American Abstract to see what a determined group of artists included Willem de Kooning and Arshile Arosts" during the January 15th meet- had been able to accomplish without the Gorky. It resulted, however, in a series of ing. It was hoped that the members museum's endorsement. Alfred H. Barr, unfortunate arguments. At a subsequent would be able to hold two large exhibi- Jr., received a personal invitation to at- meeting Gorky, who had challenged tions each year. Balcomb Greene became tend the opening and did visit the Holtrman's leadership in a bid to head the group's first chairman, Rupert Turn- exhibition. the group himself, stalked out, his ego bullwas elected secretary, and JohnOper If the abstract works pleased or at considerably deflated by lack of support became treasurer; twenty-two artists of least interested the public, the critics from the majority. Before the meeting the original duty were recorded, with were another matter. Edward Alden Jew- ended, de Kooning, too, had walked out invitations to join sent to the eight who ell, premier art critic for The New York of the door.25 had been present at previous meetings. Times, called the work clever, accom- Fig. 5. Still Life with Apples, 1935. Oil on masonite, 30 by 38 in. Collection of Francoise and Harvey W. Rarnbach. Photograph: Stephen B. Browne. plished but decorative. He termed the art many in the group were eclectic and found that the show resounded with a generally as academic in its own way as without a positive viewpoint, Kainen native clarity and went on to say: that being shown at the National Acad- recognized the necessity for the abstract I cannot foresee what your group emy, bent upon reshapmg, restating, and artists to band together for mutual de- may be producing in a decade. But in adaptmg ideas first developed by the fense and to try to popularize their the meantime you qua& as the sole School of Paris. It was curious that he organization in America that is dedi- singled out the two solvent members for If abstract art were not being buried cated to the hewlng out of an au- comment: George L. K. Moms and by the press, the critics did little to raise thentic and appropriate cultural Charles G. Shaw. Perhaps they were the its status. On the positive side, however, e~pression.~~ only names he recognized out of the ad- the group's members were seeing a large mittedly obscure display of American abstract works for By the time of the third annual member- Martha Davidson, writing for Art the first time. In that, the exhibition was ship exhibition, the organization had News,said that if the works were those encouraging as well as successful, al- grown to fifty-three members, whose of the imagination, it was the imagina- though little was sold. Moms, who ex- origins were widespread. Such were the tion of the European leaders. While she hibited with the group in the first and beginnings of the annual exhibitions derided the academic dependence on subsequent shows, recalled that the which continue to this day. older formulae, she looked forward to fu- critical reverses were taken in smde and The importance of the American ture exhibitions of the group and, closing were more or less expected. All were Abstract Artists group cannot be overly on an encouraging note, hoped that a aware that the earlier American abstrac- stressed, for not only were they re- creative abstract movement would arise tionists, too, had taken unmerciful beat- sponsible for establishing a permanent from their efforts.30 ings at the hands of a &screditmg press.32 and viable American abstraction but The critic for the more liberally in- Moms, writing after the second an- from their ranks issued the beginnings of clined Art Front, Jacob Kainen, was per- nual American Abstract Artists exhibi- another direction abstractionwould take, haps most generous of all. While he felt tion which was held in February 1938, the style known as Abstract Expression- ism. Had it not been for the groundwork so heroically hd by the American Ab stract Artists, the sensibility for such an offshoot movement would not have been present. The existence of a New York School might have occurred much later or perhaps not at all. Accordmg to Susan C. Larson, the achievements of the American Abstract Artists were of great benefit to the entire art community of New York: they ini- tiated a dalogue between the members themselves, as well as between the members and museums and art critics. Their position became stronger with each suc- cessive exhibition until New York City became the focal point of all avant-garde activity in abstract painting and sculp- Thls position remains intact today. The group's influence and that of abstract art in general eventually spread throughout the country to areas where, even though the art may have been mis- understood, it was at least recognized. Some of the best of Browne's work was shown in these first American Ab- stract Artists exhibitions but it is unfortunate that many entries from the earliest days have been lost.35He showed four paintings in the first exhibition, for example, and none has been traced. Browne extubited with the American Ab stract Artists group through 1946, with the exception of 1940. He then ceased to participate from 1947 through 1953 but returned the following year and continued to take part in every annual there- after until his death in 1961. Since the American Abstract Artists group did not confine itself to a slngle type of abstraction, the participating artists often showed works of widely diverse abstract styles. Browne was known to have included biornorphic and expres- Fig. 6. Non-Objective Composition, 1935-36.Oil on canvas, 35% by 29 in. sionistic styles as well as his lughly- Collection of Cornelia and Meredith Long. structured geometric and cubist-inspired forms. As Larsen correctly noted, the artistic evolution of inhvidual artists with its November 1937 issue. their creators turned away from the con- continued independently of the or- Byron Browne and six other mem- templation of earth. ganizati~n.~~ bers of the fledhg American Abstract One can imagine the consternation The economic debacle of the 1930s Artists found opportunity to use the edi- of the American Abstract Artists, who had encouraged artists to organize into tonal pages of Art Front in the October were having a difficult enough time as it professional groups in order to defend 1937 issue. In the form of a letter to the was without contendmg with the misin- themselves collectively. The Artists &tor, they responded to speclhc narrow terpretations of so influential a spokes- Union, formed in late 1934, was one such views and opinions on the purpose and woman as the Baroness. Two paragraphs organization. Its major purpose was to implications of abstract art expressed by of their letter indicate just how forcefully unite artists in their struggle for eco- the Baroness Hilla Rebay u n the occa- the group wished to set the Guggenheim nomic security and in order to make this sion of the recent establisC ent of the camp straight: ideal a reality, they affiliated with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, CIO as Local 60.37 which she contr~lled.~~One of the Foun- We the abstract artists are, of course, Art Front became the Artists Un- dation's stated purposes was to provide the first to recognize that any good ion's official publication, printing its first for the promotion and encouragement of work of art has its own justification, issue in November 1934. In its pages, art art and, in view of Rebay's passion for that it has the effect of bringing joy- and politics shared equal roles, resulting nonobjective painting, the group had ful ecstasy to a sensitive spectator, in an organ which became an important hoped to enlist her support and that of that there is such a thmg as an es- chronicle of the art world. Among its Mr. Guggenheim. She had said however thetic emotion, which is a particular contributors were Stuart Davis, Robert that abstract art had no meaning, that it emotion, caused by a particular cre- Godsoe, Andre Malraw, Harold Rosen- represented nothug and that it was the ated harmony of lines, colors and berg, Meyer Schapiro, and Moses Soyer; prophet of a desiccated spiritual life, forms. But the forms may not be Joseph Solrnan became editor in chief in sornethmg unearthly -that abstractions ghostly-pure-spirit-suspended as June 1936. Art Front ceased publication were worlds of their own, achieved as Baroness Rebay would wish. Who knows whether the divorce of cos- faces, resistant materials, movement. that infringed upon their lives. cahg mic atmosphere and earthly air is so In February 1936, in New York, the for political action from Washington, the absolute? Who can tell us into what first Artists' Congress was organized. Artists' Congress condemned Italy and reaches the intuitive soul of an artist Germany for unwarranted behavior.39 Browne, along with hundreds of artists Highly political, as were most of the must extend?Perhaps there are some and interested persons, attended the ini- spectators who behold and enjoy a tial meeting where Lewis Mumford ex- organizations that sprang up during the square, more or less, of fine color, horted all artists to form a united front Depression, the Artists' Congress wel- and go away refreshed, but not frozen comed Communist party members as against rising Fascist forces. The mount- well as those of other or no political into the state of sublime non- ing political disasters in Europe were persuasion. Internal politics, however, intellectuality that Baroness Rebay having a profound effect on the spirits of eventually were the cause of the organi- described. the artists and many saw themselves in It is our very definite belief that the role of the protagonist. Stuart Davis, zation's downfall in 1940. Agam artists abstract art forms are not separated one of the most articulate, spoke out regrouped, this time in opposition to the from life, but on the contrary are against both Fascism and war. He was Artists' Congress, to form an organiza- great realities, manifestations of a already a major contributor to the pages tion that is still in existence, the Federa- search into the world about one's of Art Front. tion of Modem Painters and Sculptors, self, having basis in living actuality, Now, for the first time in the United Inc., whose interests lay more in aes- made by artists who walk the earth, States, artists-abstractionists and thetic values than in political plots and who see colors (which are realities), American Scene painters alike-were or- slogans. Byron Browne, Ilya Bolotowsky, squares (which are realities, not Adolph Gottlieb, Balcomb Greene, and ganized to experience professional soli- Mark Rothko became foundmg members some spiritual mystery), tactic sur- darity and to try to influence the events of the Federation. The hstory of these groups and others like them became the history of the ------sgnhcant issues confronting contemporary art and politics in the 1930s. Rarely had there been a time when two such .disparate groups depended upon each other for so much. Browne's continuing development within the abstract style had occupied the whole of the decade. Painnngs such as Constructive Elements, 1934 (fig. 3), Head, 1934 (fig. 4), and Stdl Life with Apples, 1935 (fig. 5), all of which revealed his understanding of geomemc, cubist composition, were followed by works wholly concerned with geometry itself. Constructive Elements merits closer consideration. The basic format is characteristicof a number of paintings of the early 1930s in which Browne strug- gled to break the hold of traditional natu- ralism by exploring cubistic devices of fragmentation. Browne's still life on a table placed in front of a window weds the enclosed, interior space to the roof- top cityscape beyond. The odd assort- ment of objects on the slanted table melds with the external elements, thereby squeezing into a shallow picture plane what would normally be infinite spatial depth. Browne derived his flat, linear, spaual structure from a system of vertical, diagonal, and triangular overlapping planes, none of whch is trans- parent as was so often the case in the work of the French Cubists. Areas of bnght, nondescriptive color emphasize the two-dunensionality of the picture plane. At this point Browne began to lose interest in worlung within the formal cubist idiom and turned instead toward a geomemcized abstraction that af- forded him more freedom from the ob ject. He now directed hls attention toward the expressive properties mher- ent in line, shape, color, and rhythm, Fig. 7. George L. K. Moms. Indian Concretion, 1938. Oil on canvas, 45 by 36 in. Private creating compositions that, although cou lection. Photograph: Helga Photo Studio, Inc., courtesy of Hitschl& Adler Galleries. based on forms derived from nature, ap- Fig. 8. Patrick Henry Bruce. Painting,ca. 1929-30. Oil and pencil on linen, 23%by 36%in. Collection, The Museum of Modem Art, New York. G. David Thompson, Mrs. Herbert M. Dreyfus, Harry J. Rudick, Willy Baumeister, Edward James,and Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Murphy Purchase Funds. pear to deny nature entirely. Examina- the abstract forms that emerged here hsintroduction to the Moms retrospec- tion of several works painted from 1935 have an American stamp. Certainly no tive held at thecorcoran Gallery in 1965, through 1938 will show that Browne's one disputes the roots of American ab stated, 'While Cubism undoubtedly pro- creative impulse allowed the laws of straction, indeed, of all abstract art. Yet vided him with a definite grammar, the movement and harmony to provide mat- the nearly unanimous adverse criticism vocabulary and style of his art have al- ter with new forms. condemning the American abstraction- ways been distinctly Moms." He went Non Objective Composition, 1935.- ists' derivative use of European models on, "For Moms . . . finds themes that are 36 (fig. 6),illustrates Browne's new atti- bespoke, in large part, a press unwilling often hauntingly, romantically American tude toward the supremacy of geometry. to examine and evaluate thoroughly the in flavor." 40 In Painting, ca. 1929-30 Clean-edged, indeed hard-edged, trape- work of the Americans for the innate (fig. 8), by the expatiate Pamck Henry zoidal planes cut into or intersect their differences they displayed. One notes Bruce, large, simplified, geometric com- surroundmg shapes. Small, splintered among their tendencies an uncon- binations are reminiscent of commercial geometric forms act as a galaxy, their strained, independent spirit and a bold posters. His colors, unrnodulated and parts surrounding the large central mass. frankness which communicates itself flat, are the vivid, colored-crayon hues Browne carefully calculated the posi- directly. If Browne's work be considered of the American advertising billboard, tions of the reds, blacks, and whites, the as typical of American abstract painting not the subdued palette of the French, predominant colors, activating the sur- of the day, one especially notes a more among whom he had lived for many face to a staccato rhythm. To all appear- naive, less formal approach to the com- year... Bruce's distinctive, archtectonic ances Browne has completely detached plexity of structure. As regards color, style of geometric abstraction remained hunself from subject matter, allowing Browne used a lighter, brighter palette, an Americanized version of Cubism. the sensuous aspects of shape and color reflecting an dbited, spontaneous Thomas B. Hess, as long ago as 1951, felt to dominate. Browne's work in the neo- attitude not readdy found in the muted that the idea of "sacrosanct originality" cubist tradition could be said to have subtler works of Europeans. was no more than an American myth served as an apprenticeshp for these non- Often the Americans used symbols perpetuated by (especially)art dealem41 figurative, geometic abstractions of the in their abstract compositions whch The unfortunate result of this notion was mid- to late-thirties. could only have been found in paintings to make the possibility of derivation al- Although Browne, and the few fellow by artists of American background. For most unmentionable. Thus, the many artists who strove toward similar resolu- example, George L. K. Moms frequently positive aspects of drawing upon and out tions within the abstract vocabulary, drew upon American Indian motifs such of other traditions escaped the biased worked in traditions already established as the patterns found in Indian Concre- eyes of dealers, critics, and museum in Parisian and other European circles, tion, 1938 (fig. 7). Donelson Hoopes, in curators alike. As an articulate member of the ab- painting was regarded as an elite mode geometric abstraction at its most func- stract vanguard of the 1930s, George L. K. and became a special field for the few. tional. Perhaps Browne had been in- Moms succinctly summarized the major Most painters thus found themselves spired by Neo-plasticist elements found problem. In 1939 Morris wrote: spending long months as assistants to in the work of Mondrian but this is too It is in no way unnatural that any shlledmuralists. (Cooperativeeffort was simplistic an explanation. He and all the large group of artists oriented a major aspect of all Project art.) In 1937 young abstractionists were briefly lun- toward an internal expression should Browne and Willem de Kooning were as- dled by the austere intellectualism of continue in the direction of others signed to assist Femand Lkger on a mural this style, yet its severity and unerno- whom they have admired. The for the facade of the French Line dock on tional approach were unsympathetic to greatest art . . . is very frequently the Hudson Fbver. Unfortunately, the Browne's more romantic natuIe and he derivative; Rubens derived from the plan failed to progress beyond the pre- did not adhere to its dictates for long.48 Venetians, Picasso from whatever liminary drawing stage.@ The large mural is the focal point of might interest him at the moment, A positive result of hsmural ren- the room. On walkmg into Studo D, a and to what such masters have aissance was that several young abstrac- rather small area for a broadcasting stu- learned from others is then added an tionists were given a chance to demon- &o, one is impressed by the artist's use imprint of their own. Intelligent strate their ideas on the large expanses of monochromatic browns and beiges in- derivation is to be co~nmended.~~ of walls and had an opportunity to reach terrupted by wide, powerful, black bars a wider and more permanent audence of paint running vertically through the Browne continued to develop, syn- than through a short-lived ehbition. work. It was a stark work for Browne thesizing and translating international Few Americans were trained in fresco who, at this time, was beginning to soften abstract concepts and techniques into a technique and those who were given his geometry. Various rectihear forms style expressive of hs own sensibility mural assignments most often used oil march across much of the far wall; only and comprehension. Rarely did Browne on canvas and did the work in their own two right triangles and one circle break work without some reference to nature. studios. Byron Browne, Stuart Davis, the overwhelming "straightness" of the From a still life of objects he would de- Arshle Gorky, Karl Knaths, Willem de work. Shades of pale green, deeper green, velop and expand upon natural forms, Kooning, Louis Schanker, and John von gray, and blue are interspersed between distilling from them the ideas of shape Wicht became the initiators of American the predominant browns and blacks, that would determine hsfinal decisions abstract mural ~aintmg.~~ malung the composition literally dance on canvas.&The forms in such works as Depression era artists who painted across the wall. All is muted, clean, flat- Variations on a Still Life, 1935-36 (fig. 9) abstractly were, in many ways, the most tened, and Bauhaus crisp, a ruler and and Afncana (sometimescalled Painting fortllnate of all artists assigned to hs compass framework of precisely defined on Black), 1937-38 (fig. lo), are sugges- Federal agency. Burgoyne Diller, who shapes that anticipate the hard-edged tive of a series of concrete associations: headed the WPAIFAP Mural Division paintings of the 1960s. Close examina- an animal's claw, a piercing bird's eye, a from its inception, was an abstractionist. tion reveals that the ground is partially protruding jawbone or jutting nose, the Rosalind Bengelsdorf Browne recalled composed of pegboard or acoustical tail or fins of fish, or flower stamen and that Diller not only encouraged abstrac- board, a new material at that time. petals. These impressions repeat them- tion in hsmural assignments but openly Wherever Browne encountered the per- selves until, ~erhapssubconsciously on sought transfers of abstract artists to his forated surface, he simply continued the part of the artist, a lund of symbolic division. What is probably most impor- painting as if it were plaster. The result language emerges. For Browne, they were tant, he was influential enough to per- lends an interesting texture, as the detail the rudimentary appearances of an ico- suade the New York City Art Commis- clearly demonstrates (fig. 13). Abuse by nography that would serve hs imagery sion administrators and many private electrical outlets, numerous scratches, for the rest of hs life. Complexities of sponsors to accept abstract art in public and decades of New York soot have structure no longer obscured certain buildings .46 marred the mural's pristine beauty and identities or symbols within Browne's Having the empathy of such a direc- the work is badly in need of restoration. forms, as a careful screening of the geom- tor was exceedingly important for Signed and dated 1938, the finalapproval etry of Arrangement, 1938 (fig. 1l), re- Browne, for the mural project offered and presentation took place the follow- veals. Forms have less precise edges, some of the finest creative opportunities ing year. some even giving way to expressive of the 1930s. It could be counted as one swipes with a semidry brush. Black cir- of the few positive aspects of theDepres- Jewell, writing in The New York cles outlined in whte are set into shapes sion. Larson, in writing about the ab- Times, stated that Browne's mural, while vaguely reminiscent of parts of fish or stract murals placed in New York's neat and trim, was painted out of an birds and a stamen-llke form rises from Williamsburg Housing Project, Fbkers academic sensibility and one whch was the central mass of the painting. Island buildings, Newark and La Guardia by no means A~nerican.~~While hsref- Following the demise of the Public airports, Radio Station WNYC, the 1939 erence did not imply that he considered Works of Art Project, the most effective, New York World's Fair, and others, it unAmerican in the political sense but far reaching and widely known of the speculates that they might have tumed only in its affinity to the basic method as Federal relief agencies was the Works out to be conservative, pedestrian works laid out by Mondrian, Jewell neverthe- Progress Admmstration's Federal Art geared to the prevalent aesthetic taste of less was dismayed that the work was not Project. It also had the greatest longevity, themajority had the Mural Division been of a more figurative nature. surviving well into the Second World placed in the hands of one less sure of By the time Browne had tumed War. Browne and thousands more were hsown artistic position.47 *-two, he had enough confidence in able to remain practicing artists because Wemany of these murals exe- bself to make certain statements of it. The WPA's greatest emphasis rested cuted for the WPAPAP were either de- about hs art and what he wished it to on mural decorations, for public build- stroyed or badly damaged, Abstraction, convey. In hs own introduction to the ings, that stressed social content as in 1938 (fig. 12), a commission Browne re- catalog for hs second one-man show of contemporary examples by the famous ceived from New York City's Municipal paintings at the Artists Gallery, in Feb- Mexican muralists. Another goal of the Radio Station, WNYC, located on the ruary 1939, he stated that he wished that Project, as it was popularly called, that of twenty-fifthfloor of the Municipal Build- no work in the ehbition be considered giving art lessons to the public at large, ing, Chambers Street, survives in situ. abstract or nonobjective, whether or not held an equally important position. Easel The work is a superb example of hs the "object" was discernible, for the pur- Fig. 9. Variations on a Still Life, 1935-36. Oil on canvas, 60 by 48 in. Collection, Whimey Museum of American Art. Gift of anonymous donors. Photograph: Stephen B. Browne. wse in either was the same: tween hs philosophy and that of the lieved, to the Museum's outlook.51The Those who wage the battle of non- Abstract Expressionists. eye-catching handbill named many ex- figurative versus figurative are falsi- The advent of the 1940s found the hibitions sponsored by the Modem fying the real issues in painting. abstract painter, in spite of his gains, still which the group felt should have in- Because a form is not readily recog- suffering the same lack of acknowledge- cluded abstract art. It chastized the insti- nized does not make it plastic. Every ment and appreciation from the same tution further for showing a collection of shape or form that is drawn, painted, quarters. Most New York museums con- Italian Renaissance paintings earlier that sculptured, sawed, or pasted has its tinued to shrug cold shoulders toward year, took on Nelson Rockefeller for his counterpart in nature, or a "man American abstract artists, refusing to financial policies, and, generally, asked made" product, and it is carried into recognize the existence of a movement. and answered numerous well-put ques- the picture either by direct visual The growing influence of a Surrealist tions designed to take MoMA to task. contact or through the memory ilom, coupled with a gradual termina- Several of the more militant members of channels. One cannot paint what tion of WPA/FAF' support for the artists, the group, Browne included, then pro- one has not seen.50 served to heighten an already chronic ceeded to march along 53rd Street, pick- uneasiness. Also, because of the open- eting the Museum during an opening Browne acknowledged the impor- mindedness of the artists' organizations, whlle lsmbuting the large handbill to tance of past art when he concluded by and their involvement with various po- the ehbition bound crowd. suggesting that if present day artists were litical camps, critics took pleasure in The artists had sound reasons for to attain the stature of great artists of the designating abstractionists as leftists, picketing the Museum of Modem Art. past, their same attitude must be re- socialist-radicals, Bolshevists, or worse. Larsen felt that on this day, the major tained, that is, a real interest in the prob Of some artists, of course, this was true, and immediate object of their anger was lems involved in painting and sculpture. but for them and for others adherence to the Museum's current exhibition of Otherwise, Browne, felt, they were only such beliefs relfected an intense effort drawings and cartoons from an evening "picture makers." during the 1930s to find a better way of tabloid called P.M., a show requested by These are curiously provoking pro- living than the miserable existence they an important trustee, Marshall Field. nouncements from one so instrumental faced. As a result of this unfortunate The artists asked, and rightly so, if there in sustaining an art whose expressive labeling, New York University which, were space in the Museum for newspaper powers of color and form overshadowed for twelve years, had bravely allowed drawings, why was there no room for subject matter, when they did not oblit- Gallatin's Museum of Living Art to oc- showing American abstract art? 52 The erate it altogether. After more than a cupy campus quarters, gave two weeks picketing by the American Abstract Art- decade of experimentation in which notice to vacate the premises. ists marked the second time in history Browne began with explicit subject mat- On April 15, 1940, Byron Browne that an American museum had been so ter, learned to free hunself from it, and signed his name together with fifty-one treated. In the case of the Museum of then gradually returned to it, perhaps he members of the American Abstract Art- Modem Art, it would not happen again had never achieved full autonomy from ists, Gallatin included, to a one-page until the early seventies, when two the object - even when his work seemed broadside titled, How Modem is the smkes precipitated the formation of a devoid of references to nature. Browne's Museum of Modem Art! Ad Reinhardt professional staff union. denial of the existence of form outside designed its elaborate typography, using When the fourth annual American nature would be the major difference be- antiquated scripts, appropriate, they be- Abstract Artists exhibition was held at the Fine Arts Gallery, June 30-July 16, 1940, the group's frustration had come to an even angrier head. With an era of protest and picketing then at its peak, the artists decided to publish a proclama- tion of their discontent with the current state of the art world-especially of art criticism-and took the Museum of Modem Art to task by denouncing it as decadent. While this was the only museum attacked, no newspaper employing an art critic escaped unscathed. Instead of the customary catalog or yearbook of their ehbition, the group published a twelve-page pamphlet in which they had collected a number of biased and erroneous art criticisms and opinions clipped from newspapers and magazines covering the previous ten years. They believed the art press to be incapable of understanding or responding to the new generation of artists. The criticisms, printed as they had originally appeared, proved their belief correct. Titled The Art Critics-How Do They Serve the Public! What Do They Say! How Much Do They Know!, the pamphlet was distributed during the two- week long show. Curiously, the critics Fig. 10. Ahcana (sometimestitled Painting on Black), 1937-38.Oil on canvas, 36 by 47 in. who reviewed the show, some of whom Estate of Byron Browne. Photograph: Stephen B. Browne. were quoted, did not refer to the pam- Fig. 11. Arrangement, 1938. Oil on canvas, 38 by 30 in. New JerseyState Museum Collection, Trenton. Photograph: Stephen B. Browne. Fig. 13. Detail of Abstraction, 1938, mural for Studio D, WNYC Radio and TV Broadcasting Station, Municipal Building. Paint on plaster and acoustic board, 6 by 9 ft. Photograph: StephenB. Browne. pl~let.~~Analyzing The Art Critics ...... The great American public has to his dying day. He should not ex- it becomes apparent that Browne and what might be justly termed "a pect his fellow-men to jump up and other members were not dsturbed so baseball mind." The mysteries of pat him on the back. much by the impenetrable position of painting and art in general are not Byron B~owne~~ the press as by their own ". . . . feehg of for them. It is the old story: "I'm isolation and desire for a constructive from Missouri and gotta be shown." Browne's letter to the art editor was dialogue whlch would put aside the ques- Hence cocktail shakers and croon- one of the last times when the artist ex- tion of abstraction as an issue in itself ers. What does all this leave to the posed his private feelings in print. From and begin to make finer and more pro- creative painter? It leaves him to a that time on Browne began to shun the ductive discriminations." 5-1 great extent a solitary figure follow- rallies, organizations, and time consum- ing a most ddficult path, one de- ing meetings in order to devote himself At one point Browne had become so man- the utmost in spiritual and more purely toward the fulfillment of his depressed by the art world and the daily physical courage. I for one have art. Rarely did he again allow his life, frustration of having to combat a preju- steeled myself to this indifference. which became more and more involved dice against which only minimal gains Yes, I have been very grateful for the with the act of painting, to be interrupted seemed to have been won, that he wrote aid given by the Federal Art Projects by emaneous, contradictory forces. One a letter to the editor of The New York but I do not expect people to buy or senses that as he matured and evolved in Times, expressing in vitriolic terms just even to like my pictures. his own direction, Browne decided that what he thought of the public. Obviously If an artist must paint because his greatest statement would lie in the weary of the battle and in no mood to he has been born with that ruthless visual expression which came to him compromise, Browne minced few words inner urge to do so he should couple naturally. The evidence of his dedication when he set forth the course of the it with a tremendous reservoir of is seen in the prolific body of work he has painter as a solitary one: faith and courage, which must last left to the world. Fig. 12. Studio D, Municipal Building, New York City. Photograph: Stephen B. Browne.

gren pointed out that other than the few members picketed the Whimey Museum NOTES commercial ealleries in existence at that building, in which Mrs. Force occupied a time, the oAy showcases for an artist's well-appointed apartment. (See: Browne, This article is adapted from a portion of the work were the Corcoran Biennial and the "The American Abstract Artists," p. author's thesis: Byron Browne: A Study ofHis Camegie International, and later, begin- 224.) All artists were required to submit Art and Life to 1940. Much of her information ning in 1932, the Whitney Biennial of and explain each work to Force and Good- was obtained through the following area cen- Contemporary American Painting. All rich for approval. ters of the Archives of American Art: San were highly competitive and governed by Correspondence of the Region 2 Office Francisco, Detroit (InterlibraryLoan Depart- restrictive regulations that sometimes with Artists, Records of the Public Works ment), and New York. The following micro- made participation difficult. of Art Project, Records of the Public Build- film rolls were of substantial help in preparing JosephSolman, ''The Easel Division of the ing Service, Record Group 121, National this article: NBB1, NBB2, D313, 1021, 1022, Archive Buildmg. P72, X97,1162, NDA18,79. WPA Federal Art Project," in The New Deal Art Projects, p. 115. Ibid. Browne probably never saw this 1. This first known attempt at collage by Irving Sandler, The Triumph ofAmerican evaluation of his work. Browne was thought tohave been the only Painting: A History of Abstract Expres- Knowledge of this work of 1934, whose one in existence of its style and date. sionism, New York, Harper & Row, title had been changed to Music- However, in June 1980 a search of the art- 1970, p. 5. Nocturne, has only recently come to light. ist's apartment (still retained by the es- However, efforts to locate the painting tate) revealed a similar collage of paper Browne, 'The American Abstract Art- have ended unsuccessfully. Final disposi- strips, untitled but signed and dated 1930. ists," p. 224. Her opinion differs from that tion of the work seems not to have been It was found among other works put aside of O'Connor, who stated that the PWAP's noted according to my last communica- by the artist's widow, Rosalind Bengels- idea of quality art required a representa- tion from The National Archives and dorf Browne (1916-19791, for her private tional style as well as the American scene. Records Service, Civil Archives Division, collection. Isamu Noguchi, the abstract sculptor, General Services Administration, Wash- 2. Rosalind Bengelsdorf Browne, "The Amer- never had his designs approved either by ton, D. C., August 21, 1980. ican Abstract Artists and the WPA Federal the New York Committee or the Washing- Correspondence of the Region 2 Office Projects," in The New Deal Art Projects: ton office. See Francis V. O'Connor, Fed- with Artists, Record Group 121. Mrs. An Anthology of Memoirs, Francis V. eral Support for the Visual Arts: The New Force's name did not appear on this letter. O'Connor, ed., Washington, D. C., Smith- Deal and Now, Greenwich, Connecticut, Ibid. sonian Institution, 1972, p. 225. When New York Graphic Society, 2nd ed. 1971, Ibid. Rosalind Bengelsdorf met Browne at an p. 33. Ibid. Artists' Union meeting in October 1934, Mrs. Force chose as her assistant Lloyd Abstract Painting in America, exhibition she recalled that he lived each day on a Goodrich, also of the Whimey. Under her catalog, Stuart Davis, intro., New York, quart of milk, a box of cornmeal, a head of lead the PWAP became a rather autocratic Whimey Museum of American Art, 1935. lettuce, and some raisins. If insufficient in system; she had the power to fire anyone Exhibition dates were February 12-March quantity, it nevertheless was a nourishing who displeased her. Her selection as 22, extended to March 25. diet. PWAP Regional Chairman greatly dis- All efforts to locate the work, so far, have 3. Francis V. O'Connor, ed., The New Deal pleased the Unemployed Artists' Union; failed. First shown at Gallery Secession, Art Projects, pp. 309-10. Marchal E. Lan- Ibrarn Lassaw remembers that in 1933 its 49 West Twelfth Street in Group Euhibi- tion, January 15-February 5, 1934, it was 30. Martha Davidson, "Thirty-Nine Practi- George L. K. Morris: A Retrospective Ex- lent to the Whimey Museum exhibition tioners of 'Abstract' Art," Art News, 17 hibition of Paintings and Sculpture, 1930- by Robert Ulrich Godsoe, Gallery Seces- April 1937, p. 26. 1964, Donelson F. Hoopes, intro., Wash- sion's director. The catalog accompanying 31. Jacob Kainen, "American Abstract Art- ton, D. C., Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1965, the exhibitiondidnot reproduce the paint- ists," Art Front, vol. 3, nos. 3-4, May pp. 6, 13. ing and lists it only as: Number 15, oil on 1937, pp. 25-26. ThomasB. Hess, Abstract Painting: Back- canvas, Collection of Gallery Secession. 32. George L. K. Moms, "The American Ab- ground and American Phase, New York, No installation photograph was taken. Viking, 1951, p. 107. Clarence Weinstock, "Contradictions in stract Artists: A Chronicle 1936-56," in The World of Abstract Art, The American George L. K. Moms, "The American Ab- Abstractions," Art Front, vol. 1, no. 4, stract Artists," in American Abstract April 1935, p. 7. Weinstock also felt that Abstract Artists, eds., New York, Witten- born, 1957, p. 136. Artists: Three Yearbooks, p. 88. Moms the abstractionists were seeking to avoid goes on to quote Hklion: "Art is some- the mounting political pressures in Eu- 33. Idem, "Art Chronicle: Some Personal thing to continue, not to start. . . . It is rope and the hunger and misery of the De- Letters to American Artists Recently Ex- pression on the home front, and that, bom of itself permanently, and cannot hibiting in New York," Partisan Review, be born of anythmg else. Painting is what since these aspects of life were part of the vol. 4, no. 4, March 1938, pp. 36-38. artist's aesthetic experience, he had no provokes painting." His attitude is shared 34. Larsen, The American Abstract Artists by many of today's sensitive and knowl- right to deny them as subject matter. Mr. Group, p. 431. Weinstock clearly stood in the realist's edgeable artists who admit that all grow camp. 35. Geometric Abstraction in America, ex- out of one another and that each pre- New Horizons in American Art, exhibi- hibition catalog, New York, Whitney Mu- ceding generation gives something to the tion catalog, Holger Cahill, intro., New seum of American Art, 1962, p. 12. A tele- next. In a sense, all preceding artists be- York, Museum of Modem Art, 1936, p. 7. phone conversation with the artist's son, come spiritual "fathers," with the newer Ibid., p. 40. Stephen B. Browne (December 29, 1979), generation inheritingall that came before. In a telephone conservation (August 1980) confirms that for the first two exhibitions To dismiss, as some critics have, the only with George McNeil, another of the art- at least (1937 and 19381, this statement avant-garde work then being done in ists who worked on an abstract mural for remains true. America as nothing more than imitative geometric abstraction is to obliterate one the social rooms at the Williamsburg 36. Larsen, The American Abstract Artists Project, he surmised that Browne's mural, of the most important movements of the Group, p. 430. Larsen also states that 1930s from American art history. It would like his, had never been installed. Several nowhere in the records of the group was murals that were put in place have since certainly deny Abstract Expressionism there mention of a "geometric" style. some of its origms. been painted over or mined by graffiti. A This is only partially correct, for as early thorough search to determine whether as 1938, Charles G. Shaw in his essay, "A Browne, Tape Recorded Interview. Browne's work is under the paint remains Word to the Objector," in American Ab- The head of the French Line discovered to be undertaken. stract Artists: Three Yearbooks (1938, Leger was an avowed communist and that American Abstract Artists: 1936-1966, 1939, 19461, New York, Arno, 1969, p. 9, was the end of the matter. Several prelimi- exhibition catalog, Ruth GUM, intro, mentioned "geometric" painting and nary studies did result, all executed by New York, Ram, n. pag. "geometric" pattern. Balcomb Greene in Leger. In all probability neither Browne Sandler, The Triumph ofAmerican Paint- his essay for the same yearbook, "Expres- nor de Kooning had any part in these ing, p. 10, fn. 12, p. 26. sion as Production," p. 31, mentioned studies. Rosalind Bengelsdorf Browne, Tape Re- "geometric" forms and used the adjective Joseph Solman, "The Easel Division of the corded Interview, New York City, August "amorphous" as well. While not specifi- WPA Federal Art Project," p. 116. 26, 1978. It was to her studio that the cally mentioning "geometric style," it is artists brought their work for Baur to clear that hswas precisely what each Browne, "The American Abstract Art- ists," p. 227. inspect. writer meant. The adjectives "abstract," Susan Carol Larsen, The American Artists "non-figurative," and "concrete" appeared Larsen, The American Abstract Artists Abstract Group: A History of Evaluation most often to describe the abstract art Grozzp,p. 196. of Its Impact Upon American Art, Ph.D. styles of the 1930s and continued to be Ilya Bolotowsky remains one of the few unpublished dissertation, 2 vols., Evans- used well into the 1940s. artists who early on embraced Mondrian's ton, Illinois, Northwestern University, 37. 35th Anniversary Exhibition: The Federa- Neo-plastic ideals and never swerved from 1975, p. 220. this commitment. Ibid., pp. 221-28. The exact date is not tion of Modem Painters and Sculptors, known. De Kooning and Gorky never re- Inc., Dore Ashton, intro., New York, The Edward Alden Jewell, "Abstraction and joined the burgeoning organization. Gallery Association of New York State, Music: Newly Installed WPA Murals at Ibid., pp. 229-40. The old Squibb Building 1976, n. pag. Station WYNC Raise Anew Some Old still exists. Its fine lobby ceiling and wall 38. Byron Browne, Rosalind Bengelsdorf, Questions," The New York Times, sect. murals by Arthur Covey, painted in 1930, Herzl Emanuel, Hananiah Harari, Leo 9, p. X7, August 6, 1939. Altogether four remain in sitn. Lances, George McNeil, and Jan Matulka, artists were commissioned to paint mu- Ibid., pp. 242-45. Vaclav Vytlacil, a mem- Letter, Art Front, vol. 3, no. 7, October rals for sound studios, each working out ber of the group, suggested a money 1937, pp. 20-21. In Browne's article for independently the design for one studio. raising scheme. Instead of their publish- The New Deal Art Projects, pp. 230-32, The others were Stuart Davis, Louis ing a catalog for the exhibition, a portfolio she recalled her reaction to Baroness Schanker, and John von Wicht. Together would be produced for which each artist Rebay. The newly-formed American Ab- they planned the omamentation of the would prepare drawings to be made into stract Artists group had arranged for a entire station, coordinating interior deco- lithographs. Five hundred copies of the cocktail party to welcome her to the ration and furniture with the architecture. portfolio, which sold for fifty cents, were United States; Miss Rebay, however, Byron Browne, introduction to the cata- printed. spent her time lecturing to the artists at log of hls exhibition at The Artists Gal- Ibid., 250,262. the gathering. Her attitude, Browne felt, lery, 33 West 8th Street, New York City, Edward Alden Jewell, "American Ab- was condescending and her aesthetic ideas February 28-March 13, 1939. stractions," The New York Times, April unsound. The group felt she was a threat Moms, "The American Abstract Artists: 11, 1937, sect. 11, p. 10. He mentioned to the democracy they practiced among A Chronicle 1936-56," p. 139. their names only within the context of themselves and they did not like her. Space for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Larsen, The American Abstract Artists their being exhibited simultaneously in a Group, p. 328. show being held at the Remhardt Gallery Collection of Non-Objective Painting was where Moms' wife, Suzy Frelinghuysen, foundat 24 East 54th Street. The new mu- Ibid., pp., 343-44, and A. E. Gallatin were also included. seum did not open until June 1, 1939. Ibid., p. 342. Warren Wheelock was the only other art- 39. 35th Anniversa2yExhibition: The Federa- Byron Browne, The New York Times, tist mentioned by the critic. tion of Modem Painters, n. pag. August 11, 1940, sect. 10, p. 7.