AT UR8ANA-GHAMPAIGN ARCHITECTURE The person charging this material is responsible for .ts return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below '"" """"""'"9 "< "ooks are reason, ™racTo?,'l,°;'nary action and tor di,elpl(- may result in dismissal from To renew the ""'*'e™«y-University call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN I emp^rary American Painting and Sculpture University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1959 Contemporary American Painting and Scuipttfre ^ University of Illinois, Urbana March 1, through April 5, 195 9 Galleries, Architecture Building College of Fine and Applied Arts (c) 1959 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois Library of Congress Catalog Card No. A4 8-34 i 75?. A^'-^ PDCEIMtBieiiRr C_>o/"T ^ APCMi.'rri'Ht CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN PAINTING AND SCULPTURE DAVID D. HENRY President of the University ALLEN S. WELLER Dean, College of Fine and Applied Arts Chairman, Festival of Contemporary Arts N. Britsky E. C. Rae W. F. Doolittlc H. A. Schultz EXHIBITION COMMITTEE D. E. Frith J. R. Shipley \'. Donovan, Chairman J. D. Hogan C. E. H. Bctts M. B. Martin P. W. Bornarth N. McFarland G. R. Bradshaw D. C. Miller C. W. Briggs R. Perlman L. R. Chesney L. H. Price STAFF COMMITTEE MEMBERS E. F. DeSoto J. W. Raushenbergcr C. A. Dietemann D. C. Robertson G. \. Foster F. J. Roos C. R. Heldt C. W. Sanders R. Huggins M. A. Sprague R. E. Huh R. A. von Neumann B. M. Jarkson L. M. Woodroofe R. Youngman J. W. Kennedy W. B. Kuhlman E. J. Zagorsk A. M. Levinc \. \'. Ziroli E. Jordan, Secretary J. G. Lynch H. : ACKNOWLEDGMENTS LA GALERIA ESCONDIDA. TAOS, NEW MEXICO FAIRWEATHER-HARDIN GALLERIES, The College of Fine and Applied Arts CHICAGO, ILLINOIS is grateful to those who ha\e made loans CHARLES FEINGARTEN GALLERY, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS of paintings and sculpture to this exhibition FINE ARTS .ASSOCIATES, NEW YORK CITY and acknowledges the cooperation of the G GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY following collectors, museums, and galleries MR, AND MRS. ROBERT GARDNER, ACA GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS THE ALAN GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY GRAND CENTRAL ART GALLERIES, INC., NEW YORK CITY BABCOCK GALLERIES, INC., NEW YORK CITY BODLEY GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY GRAND CENTRAL MODERNS, NEW YORK CITY , GRACE BORGENICHT GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY MR. ADOLPH GREEN, NEW YORK CITY II MR. AND MRS. HENRY H. BRIGHAM, DALZELL HATFIELD GALLERIES, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA MR. AND MRS. PHILLIP .\. BRUNO, EDWIN HEWITT GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY NEW YORK CITY MR. JOSEPH H. HIRSHHORN, NEW YORK CITY . CALIFORNIA PALACE OF THE LEGION OF HONOR, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA lOLAS GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY I MR. ALLEN CASE, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA MARTHA JACKSON GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY LEO CASTELLI GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY KANEGIS GALLERY, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS MR. AND MRS. THOMAS COAD, DR, MORTON KLEIN, BEVERLY HILLS, Ij PORTLAND, OREGON CALIFORNIA I THE COLLECTORS GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY M. KNOEDLER AND COMPANY, INC., CONTEMPORARIES GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY NEW YORK CITY . INC., CONTEMPORARY ARTS, INC., NEW YORK CITY SAMUEL M. KOOTZ GALLERY, || NEW YORK CITY ' M. H. DE YOUNG MEMORIAL MUSEUM, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA KRAUSHAAR GALLERIES. NEW YORK CITY THE DOWNTOWN GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY LANDAU GALLERY, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA ILLINOIS ANDRE EMMERICH GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY MR. J, PATRICK LANNAN, CHICAGO, JIR. AND MRS. HERBERT LEE. BELMONT, ROKO GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY MASS.\CHUSETTS PAUL ROSENBERG AND CO., NEW YORK CITY MAIN STREET GALLERY, CHIC.\GO, ILLINOIS SAIDENBERG GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY MRS. IRVING M.\THE\VS, MR. A.\D HARRY SALPETER GALLERY, INC., SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS NEW YORK CITY GALLERY. YORK CITY PIERRE M.ATISSE NEW BERTHA SCHAEFER GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY MELTZER GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY SCULPTURE CENTER, NEW YORK CITY MR. AND MRS. JOHN METZENBERG, MR, STANLEY SEEGER, JR., FRENCHTOWN, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS NEW JERSEY MIDTOWN GALLERIES, NEW YORK CITY JACQUES SELIGMANN AND CO., INC., THE MILCH GALLERIES, NEW YORK CITY NEW YORK CITY ART GALLERY, BOSTON. BORIS MIRSKl CARL SIEMBAB GALLERY, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS MASSACHUSETTS TIBOR DE NAGY GALLERY. .NEW YORK CITY MR. AND MRS. ROLLIN C. SMITH, JR.. NELSON GALLERY OF ART ATKINS MUSEUM, DARIEN, CONNECTICUT KANS.AS CITY, MISSOURI MR. HERMAN SPERTUS, GLENCOE, ILLINOIS MR. AND MRS. ROY R. NEUBERGER, NEW YORK CITY STABLE GALLERY. NEW YORK CITY MR. AND MRS. KENNETH NEWBURGER, STABLES GALLERY, T.\OS, NEW MEXICO HIGHLAND PARK, ILLINOIS SWETZOFF GALLERY, BOSTON, NORDNESS GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY MASSACHUSETTS OVERTON ART GALLERIES, COLORADO SPRINGS, CATHERINE VIVIANO GALLERY. NEW YORK CITY COLOR.\DO .MR. SHERLE WAGNER, NEW YORK CITY GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY BETTY PARSONS MAYNARD WALKER GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY PERIDOT GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY MR. L. ARNOLD WEISSBERGER, NEW YORK CITY FRANK PERLS GALLERIES, BEVERLY HILLS, MR. AND MRS. ALLEN S. WELLER. CALIFORNIA URBANA, ILLINOIS PERLS GALLERIES, INC., NEW YORK CITY WEYHE GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY MR. AND MRS. DONALD PETERS, NEW YORK CITY WILLARD GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY POINDEXTER GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY WORLD HOUSE GALLERIES, NEW YORK CITY FRANK K. M. REHN, INC., NEW YORK CITY ZABRISKIE GALLERY, NEW YORK CITY C. V. DONOVAN JURY OF SELECTION vv f doolittle J. D. HOGAN PURCHASE AWARDS 1948 1949 1950 1951 LEONARD BECK CLAUDE BENTLEV MAX BECKMANN WILLIAM BAZIOTES EUGENE BERMAN LOUIS BOSA DEAN ELLIS BYRON BROWNE RAYMOND BREININ FRED CONWAY FREDERICK S. FRANCK ADOLPH GOTTLIEB JOSEPH DE MARTINI JOHN HELIKER ROBERT GWATHMEY CLEVE GRAY WILLIAM J. GORDON CARL HOLTY HANS HOFMANN MORRIS KANTOR PHILIP orSTON RICO LEBRUN CHARLES RAIN LEO MANSO HAZEL JANICKI ARTHUR OSVER ABRAHAM RATTNER MATTA KARL KNATHS FELIX RUVOLO HEDDA STERNE GREGORIO PRESTOPINO JULIAN E. LEVI YVES TANGUY ANTHONY TONEY KURT SELIGMANN LESTER O. SCHWARTZ BRADLEY WALKER JEAN XCERON TOMLIN 1952 1953 1955 1957 SAMUEL ADLER ROBERT L. GRILLEY RALPH S. DU CASSE DAVID ARONSON TOM BENRIMO VNEZ JOHNSTON FRANK DUNCAN JACOB EPSTEIN CAROL BLANCHARD GYORGY KEPES LEONARD EDMONDSON ELIAS FRIEDENSOHN CARLYLE BROWN LAWRENCE KUPFERMAN MORRIS GRAVES JOHN HULTBERG WILLIAM CONGDON THEODORE J. ROSZAK MARGO HOFF WOLF KAHN WALTER MURCH BEN SHAHN ROGER KUNTZ CARL MORRIS RUFINO TAMAYO MARGARITA WORTH GEORGE RATKAI CHARLES UMLAUF KARL ZERBE NICHOLAS VASILIEFF Many of the works of art in this exhibition are for sale. Visitors are cordially invited to obtain in- SALES formation from the attendant at the desk in the West Gallery. The Image of Man in Contemporary Art E\'er\ period has produced its own image of man. Man has had many different conceptions of himself throughout the ages, and one of the surest indications we have of this is the actual pictured image which the artist has left of man. This is not just a question of style (though there are styles in human bodies and in indi\idual faces, just as there arc in the garments that clothe bodies and the hats that surmount faces), but it is a funda- mental problem. Man"s image of himself ine\ itably reflects his whole conception of the universe which surrounds and sustains him, and no less surely shows the relationship of one individual to another. There have been a few periods which produced images of man so powerful that we have never been able to forget them, e\en long after the conditions which made su(h images possible have \anished. The question "What is man?" has bothered us for a long, long time, and probably it will ne\er be answered. But the question "What does man think he is, what does he think about himself?" ran be analyzed, and is constantlv being approached from man\ different angles: sociological, : 10 scientific, psychological, statistical, humanistic. Here is a field in which the artist has produced a body of significant material which is positive and definable. Certainh our knowledge of what man thinks himself to be, of the role which he assumes in his total scheme of things, is implicit in the image of himself which he lca\es behind him. In his excellent book The Principles of Art, the English philosopher R. G. Collingwood defined this side of the role of art as follows It [art] must be prophetic. The artist must prophesy not in the sense that he foretells things to come, but in the sense that he tells his audience, at risk of their displeasure, the secrets of their own hearts. His business as an artist is to speak out, to make a clean breast. But what he has to utter is not, as the individualistic theory of art would have us think, his own secrets. As spokesman of his community, the secrets he must utter are theirs. The reason why they need him is that no community altogether knows its own heart; and by failing in this knowledge a community deceives itself on the one subject concerning which ignorance means death. For the evils which come from that ignorance the poet as prophet suggests no remedy, because he has already given one. The remedy is the poem itself. Art is the community's medicine for the worst disease of mind, the corruption of consciousness. More recently, Walter Abell in his remarkable book The Collective Dream in Art has treated art as the collective unconscious of mankind, and has based a whole psycho-historical theory of culture on the relations which have been disclosed in this way between the arts, psychology, and the social sciences. Once the culture and the spiritual climate within which a distinctive image of man was formed have changed, it is impossible for an artist to handle the style which evolved to express such an image without reflecting these changes. Even when a determined eflfort is made to continue or to recapture or even to copy an outworn image, an exhausted tradition, the changed conditions prevailing at the time of the creation of the new work inevitably make themselves felt.