Edward Hopper and Contemporaries, Awash in the Modern
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SundayArts N BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE JANUARY 20, 2019 | BOSTONGLOBE.COM/ARTS SHOWTIME Frankie Shaw TELEVISION eing a single woman is certainly nothing new on TV, unless (right) stars you’re so old you’ve forgotten about “That Girl” or you’re with Rosie consciously blocking out the idiocy that was “2 Broke Girls” O’Donnell on and the adorability outbreak that was “New Girl.” the Boston- But a few recent shows, the best of which are “Insecure,” based Awoman Showtime “Fleabag,” “Better Things,” and, returning on Sunday at series 10:30 p.m., Showtime’s “SMILF,” have succeeded in pushing “SMILF.” the old single-and-dating-as-a-woman concept to a deeper level of intimacy. Two on the verge Bof them — “Better Things” and “SMILF” — up the ante further by making those single women mothers. We follow all these women from the barroom to the bed- Shaw digs deeper into desperation room to the bathroom, and we’re privy to their identity quests, their takes on cul- turally bred gender games, and their feelings before, during, and after sex. The in a much-improved ‘SMILF’ shows aren’t coy in the least; Honesty is their virtue. “SMILF” premiered in 2017, and it added a new element: poverty. Created BY MATTHEW GILBERT | GLOBE STAFF and sometimes written by Frankie Shaw, who is originally from the Boston area, “SMILF” gives us a heroine — Shaw’s Bridgette Bird — who can barely afford the grimy studio apartment in Southie that she rents for herself and her son (who is, ‘‘SMILF,’’ Page N7 Ty Burr ART Putting it in Hopper and contemporaries, black and white awash in the modern Early January film-centric By Murray Whyte culture columns like this GLOBE STAFF have a tendency to ramble HARTFORD — One thing about Edward Hopper: You can because, except for Decem- take the artist from the gloom, but not the gloom from the artist. ber Oscar-wannabes, the That’s the thought that imprinted on my viewing of a small suite month is walking death in of Hopper watercolors at the Wadsworth Atheneum recently: the moviehouses and Sun- bright and sunny scenes of Cape Cod, rendered in the most dance hasn’t happened yet quaint and fussiest of paints, made brooding, moody, bleached- (I head for Park City on out. Never mind the locale or the medium, I suppose. Hopper’s Thursday). But a few things have been on got to be Hopper, and if you needed further proof, here it is. my mind, and one of them is black and Not to dwell, though, on America’s premier artist of the disaf- white cinema. fections of modernity, whose trademark scenes of urban isolation Oh no, is he going to talk about “Roma” counterweighed the rising optimism of the industrial era’s eco- again? Well, just for a bit, or, rather, about nomic explosion. At the Wadsworth, he’s one among many enlist- how the Alfonso Cuarón movie and the Bos- ed to recover the medium itself from its twee reputation. ton-area release of Pawel Pawlikowski’s ach- HOPPER, Page N5 ing Iron Curtain love story “Cold War” have me thinking of the things a black and white “Marshall’s House” by Edward movie used to mean, what it means now, Hopper. and what that’s worth in cultural value. 2018 HEIRS OF JOSEPHINE HOPPER/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NY For decades, of course, black and white photography was how we captured and fixed reality via machine-based technology (as op- posed to painting). B&W photos in the news- Inside paper and the images on a movie screen were the accepted representation of the COMEDY BOOKS BUZZSAW physical world and processed as such by the human brain. This had nothing to do with FROM LAW FATEFUL BIRDS REINVENTING preference and everything to do with chem- TO LAUGHTER OF A FEATHER AGENRE istry: The silver halides of a photographic plate or a film strip only turn dark when you Lucas Brothers took A poultry farmer is Teen sex comedies on expose them to light, and color at first came strange path en route trapped by tragedy in Netflix, Hulu have strenuously, and expensively, afterwards, to their blossoming ‘An Orchestra of more than one thing through dye baths, tinting, filters, and won- BURR, Page N7 comedy career | N3 Minorities’ | N12 on their mind | N8 JANUARY 20, 2019 Boston Sunday Globe N5 Art 108 Stitches CHARLES E. BURCHFIELD FOUNDATION Repositioning watercolor painting uHOPPER with angular shadows, feels rig- Charles Burchfield’s “Looking plants a scrubby telegraph pole Continued from Page N1 id and joyless, a pair of Marin Thru a Bridge,” from 1938, a mid-frame, for further fracture. Watercolors, it needs hardly paintings are kinetic, alive, and bleak, sludgy view of a railyard There’s a point here, I think, be said, are the Sunday paint- free: a roiling aquamarine sea in the artist’s hometown of Buf- that the exhibition makes in the er’s weapon of choice: Blurry in “Green Sea, Cape Split, falo. It surprises on a couple of loveliest of ways: that art histo- seascapes and flowery fields lit- Maine” (1941), or robust points. Burchfield’s later work ry can be narrowed down to a ter many a garage sale, coast to swipes of pale color coalescing —allwatercoloronpaper,some fine point, and being Modern Get everything baseball straight coast. Here, curator Erin Mon- into a forest and lake scene in as large as 6-by-6 feet — is idio- was a broader enterprise than roe makes a case: In the right “Big Wood Island,” from 1914. syncratic, bursting with vitality many of us might know. Isn’t from the desk of Alex Speier. hands, watercolor is a sharply Standing in front of them, and totally unique. that the truth, as canons ex- pointed arrow in an experimen- you can feel the spontaneity of It feels almost as though the pand to include so many things tal modern painter’s quiver. It the moment crackling: Marin, medium was made precisely for left in the margins? Make them Globe.com/newsletters can be immediate, spontane- one of Alfred Steiglizt’s circle of him: Bright forest glades filled alittlewiderstill,maybe,and ous, demanding: When paint- early American Moderns — with birdsong (which the artist we might look at that next ga- ing with water, there’s no scrap- Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Ke- painted as sound waves) are flu- rage sale a little differently. ing, smoothing over, painting effe, Arthur Dove — was the idly alive; heavy-limbed trees, out; a brush stroke is a brush furthest thing from a fussy tra- haloed in beatific light, seem al- Murray Whyte can be reached stroke, mottling the paper for ditionalist. To bolster the point, most to pulse. Here, though, at [email protected]. good and forever. One false the show is cleaved neatly in Burchfield is static and bleak, Follow him on Twitter move, and the whole thing gets two, rural and urban, exorcis- showing even his sunny dispo- @TheMurrayWhyte tossed. (Though Stuart Davis’s ing watercolor’s plein-air cliche sition could buckle now and jazzy little piece here, “Gas more fully. In the gallery filled again under modernity’s load. Pumps,” 1935, a dizzyingly live- with cityscapes, Marin’s cut- He makes a good compan- ly harbor scene that’s as precise and-paste watercolor collage ion for Hopper — something I as anything he ever did with oil, “From the Bridge” (1933) brims never thought I’d say — whose Coming to the beautiful… makes it look easy.) with hectic energy, edging to- “Customs House, Portland,” If you’re John Marin, you’re ward abstraction. from 1927, hangs across the content to leave tracks as you That’s a take I hadn’t imag- way. Hopper being Hopper, the go. Right next to Hopper, whose ined — watercolor, light as air, washed-out street scene, “Marshall’s House,” a razor- recast in a heavy brew of urban bleached in bright gray light, sharp scene of a Cape cottage claustrophobia. Here’s another: isn’t quite dour enough; he Charles Burchfield’s “Looking Thru a Bridge” (top), Stuart Davis’s “Gas Pumps” (left), and John Marin’s “From the Bridge” (below) are in “American Moderns in Watercolor: Edward Hopper and His Contemporaries.” ART REVIEW AMERICAN MODERNS IN WATERCOLOR: Edward Hopper and His Contemporaries At the Wadsworth Atheneum, 600 Main St., Hartford, through March 17. 860-278-2670, www.thewadsworth.org 2018 ESTATE OF STUART DAVIS/LICENSED BY VAGA AT ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY LynnAuditorium.com 2018 ESTATE OF JOHN MARIN/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. 781-599-SHOW 1-800-745-3000.