ATELIER 17 and Modern Printmaking in the Americas ATELIER 17 and Modern Printmaking in the Americas
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ATELIER 17 and Modern Printmaking in the Americas ATELIER 17 and Modern Printmaking in the Americas DOI 10.11606/9788594195319 Organization Carolina Rossetti de Toledo Ana Gonçalves Magalhães Peter John Brownlee ebook UNIVERSIDADE DE SÃO PAULO Museu de Arte Contemporânea — MAC USP Terra Foundation for American Art São Paulo 2019 São Paulo (Partial or total part of this work is permitted, provided that the source and authorship is cited, prohibiting any use for commercial purposes) © 2019 – Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo Avenida Pedro Álvares Cabral, 1301 • 04094-050 • Ibirapuera • São Paulo/SP email: [email protected] - www.mac.usp.br Catalog drawing elaborated by the Library Lourival Gomes Machado do Museu de Arte Contemporânea da USP Atelier 17 and modern printmaking in the Americas / organization Carolina Rossetti de Toledo, Ana Gonçalves Magalhães, Peter John Brownlee. São Paulo: Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, 2019. (MAC Essencial, 16), 225 p. ; il. ISBN 978-85-94195-31-9 DOI 10.11606/9788594195319 1. Printmaking – America. 2. Modern Art – America – 20th Century. 3. Atelier 17. 4. Universidade de São Paulo. Museu de Arte Contemporânea. I. Toledo, Carolina Rossetti de. II. Magalhães, Ana Gonçalves. III. Brownlee, Peter John. CDD – 769.9 This exhibition is organized by the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo and the Terra Foundation for American Art. The exhibition and its publication are made possible with the generous support of the Terra Foundation for American Art. Book Credits Organization: Carolina Rossetti de Toledo, Ana Gonçalves Magalhães and Peter John Brownlee Authors: Ana Gonçalves Magalhães, Ann Shafer, Carolina Rossetti de Toledo, Christina Weyl, Claudio Mubarac, Heloísa Espada, Peter John Brownlee, Priscila Sacchettin, Ruth Fine and Silvia Dolinko. Labels: Carolina Rossetti de Toledo and Taylor L. Poulin Work Cover: Stanley William Hayter, Tarantela, 1943 • © HAYTER, Stanley William/AUTVIS, Brasil, 2019 Photographic Register: Ding Musa Documentation Preparation: Alecsandra Matias de Oliveira, Carolina Rossetti de Toledo and Taylor L. Poulin Registrars: Cristina Cabral, Fernando Piola, Marília Lopes, Michelle Alencar and Shari Felty Review: Edméa Neiva Translation: Cid Knipel Moreira Graphic Design/Art Editing: Elaine Maziero Electronic Publishing: Ana Beatriz Rodrigues and Roseli Guimarães Organization and Realization Co-organization e Sponsorship Support 2 3 Carlos Roberto Ferreira Brandão Director, MAC USP In an unprecedented partnership, Terra Foundation for American Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo (MAC USP) come together to introduce the exhibition Atelier 17 and Modern Printmaking in the Americas, along with an international conference and a minicourse. The show brings together 53 works in printmaking from both MAC USP and US institutions, with Terra Foundation granting the resources that made possible the exhibition and the catalog, including the loan of works from its own collection and from two other museums: the Brooklyn Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. MAC USP, FAPESP and CAPES took the charge of providing the funds for the conference and bringing to São Paulo art historian Christina Weyl, the minicourse lecturer at the museum. The exhibition has its origins in the research by Carolina Rossetti de Toledo for her Master thesis on the Nelson Rockefeller (1908-1979) donations to encourage the creation of modern art museums in Brazil. The research has found that the engravings now gathered in the MAC USP collection here exhibited were donated to the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (MAM) by Rockefeller in 1951. The experiments made by Atelier 17 go far beyond the borders of the United States of America and Europe, with echoes on the production of Brazilian artists at the time, such as Geraldo de Barros and Lívio Abramo (these names having large presence in the MAC USP collection). In summary, the research that supports the exhibition and its developments sheds light on a significant chapter in the Brazilian art and the exchanges that have made possible the putting together of the MAC USP collection. 4 Elizabeth Glassman President & CEO Terra Foundation for American Art Businessman and art collector Daniel J. Terra (1911-1996) only began collecting prints during the final years of his life. In a very short time, however, he was able to assemble a small but representative collection of important impressions by some of the United States’ greatest printmakers. The holdings include, among others, Mary Cassatt, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arthur Wesley Dow, John Marin, and, of course, Stanley William Hayter. Dan Terra, a man committed to international conversation, would certainly be pleased to see prints from his collection exhibited in dialogue with their counterparts from Brazil. In this regard, Nelson Rockefeller’s 1951 gift of U.S. prints to the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo has provided a marvelous opportunity to assess key trends in mid-twentieth century printmaking as these ideas percolated throughout the Americas, partly a result of Hayter’s influence, which this exhibition also seeks to examine in greater depth. We are particularly enthusiastic to present these rarely seen works from the Terra Foundation collection, especially in conversation with prints by Brazilian artists from the same period. In addition we thank the Art Institute of Chicago and the Brooklyn Museum for their generous loans. Furthermore, we welcome the opportunity to work again in the cosmopolitan art milieu of São Paulo, where in the 2015-2016 season we partnered to present the award-winning exhibition, Paisagem nas Américas: Pinturas da Terra do Fogo ao Ártico, co-organized by the Pinacoteca of State of São Paulo, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Terra Foundation. In fact, it was during the opening of that exhibition that this current project was first discussed between the exhibition’s curators. Since that time, our connections with Brazilian colleagues and institutions have only grown. It is especially gratifying that through projects such as this, colleagues from across the Americas engage deeply in ways that will surely lead to future conversations in Brazil and across the continents. This exhibition has been a close collaboration between curators, registrars, designers, and educators at MAC USP and the Terra Foundation for American Art. With its bilingual publication, an international conference, and related mini-course, the exhibition also fulfills our goal to align the use of our collection with teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Thus, we thank our partners at the MAC USP for this rich partnership, so expertly layered with lectures, classroom teaching, and the close study of objects. 5 SUMMARY Ana Magalhães 08 Atelier 17 in the Tropic of Capricorn. The Museum of Modern Art (MAM), São Paulo Biennial, and American Printmaking as Viewed from Brazil Peter John Brownlee 16 Print Diplomacy: Prints in the Collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art Carolina Rossetti de Toledo 21 American Prints at MAC USP: Itinerary of a Collection Ruth Fine 33 Art is Something You Pass On Ann Shafer 48 Atelier 17 and its Founder, Stanley William Hayter Christina Weyl 67 Shifting Focus: Women Printmakers of Atelier 17 Priscila Sacchettin 83 Lívio Abramo: Learning and Teaching Heloisa Espada 96 The Collection of Prints by Geraldo de Barros at MAC USP and some Hypotheses About his Passing Through Atelier 17 Silvia Dolinko 109 Hayter with Airs of Tango. Presence and Impact of Atelier 17 on Argentine Printmaking in Mid-20th Century Claudio Mubarac 128 New and Old Journeys of the Engraving Print Fred BECKER • Floresta Aérea IV (Aerial Jungle IV), 1948 134 6 Minna CITRON • Lula sob Pier (Squid Under Pier), 1948 137 Arthur Wesley DOW • Moonrise, c. 1898-1905 140 John FERREN • Sea Forms, 1937 143 Sue FULLER • Hen (Galinha), 1945 146 Stanley William HAYTER Tarantela (Tarantelle), 1943 149 Cinq Personnages, 1946 152 Rockwell KENT • Flame, 1928 155 Armin LANDECK Studio Interior nº 1, 1935 158 Alleyway (Passagem no Beco), 1948 161 Blanche LAZZELL • Still Life, 1919 [block cut], 1931 (printed) 165 Boris MARGO • The Sea (O Mar), 1948-49 168 John MARIN • Brooklyn Bridge nº 6, 1913 172 Seong MOY • The Little Act on Horseback (Pequeno Ato a Cavalo), 1949 175 Gabor PETERDI • Sign of the Lobster (Marca da Lagosta), 1947-1948 178 Walter ROGALSKI • Fiddlers (Caranguejos), s.d. 181 Louis SCHANKER • Carnival (Carnaval), 1948 184 William ZORACH • Mountain Stream, 1915 187 Ruth Fine • Glossary 192 List of Works 194 7 Atelier 17 in the Tropic of Capricorn. The Museum of Modern Art (MAM), São Paulo Biennial, and American Printmaking as Viewed from Brazil1 Ana Magalhães 1 This publication is a record of both the exhibition and the international conference, organized in partnership between the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo (MAC USP) and the Terra Foundation for American Art, which takes as its theme Atelier 17 as a hub of modern printmaking between the United States and Brazil in the 1950s. It was made possible by two elements: scholarly research and the resources to support the loans, not only from the Terra Foundation, but from two other institutions in the United States: The Brooklyn Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. Support from the Terra Foundation was also given to provide all the resources to the preparation of the exhibition and respective publication, whereas MAC USP, as a counterpart, searched for resources to the conference and to bring art historian, Christina Weyl, to give a minicourse at the Museum, between April 15 and 18, 2019. Through this partnership, São Paulo will see for the first time the impressive collection of American prints gathered by the Museum of Modern Art (MAM) through important donations, in comparison to a group of works that give the Brazilian audience a panorama of the making of American print collections, in those years, and their impact on the Brazilian artistic milieu.