DOCSLIB.ORG

West Coast Abstract Expressionist

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
West Coast Abstract Expressionist Works in the Exhibition West Coast Edward Dugmore James Kelly Abstract Expressionist Art 1960-C, 1960 San Andreas, 1955 Oil on canvas Oil on canvas Selections from The Menil Collection 80 x 93 inches 853/8 x 663/4 x 11/4 inches Gift of Herman Spertus Gift of Sonia Gechtoff Sonia Gechtoff Walter Kuhlman Untitled, 1956–57 Untitled, 1959 Pencil on paper, mounted on board Oil on canvas 61 x 40 inches 601/8 x 50 inches Gift of the artist Bequest of Jermayne MacAgy James Kelly Clyfford Still October 3, 1959 Untitled, 1946 Oil on paper Oil on canvas 281/2 x 221/2 inches 51 x 327/8 inches Gift of Sonia Gechtoff Bequest of Jermayne MacAgy James Kelly Clyfford Still October 4, 1959 1947-H, no.2,1947 Oil on paper Oil on canvas 221/2 x 281/2 inches 631/8 x 403/4 inches Gift of Sonia Gechtoff Bequest of Jermayne MacAgy James Kelly October 5, 1959 Oil on paper 221/2 x 281/2 inches Gift of Sonia Gechtoff Cover: Sonia Gechtoff, Untitled, 1956–57. Pencil on paper, mounted on board, 61 x 40 inches. The Menil Collection, Gift of the artist. The exhibition is funded in part by the City of Houston. THE MENIL COLLECTION The Menil Collection 1515 Sul Ross Houston, Texas 77006 713-525-9400 March 31–July 9, 2006 www.menil.org fter the Second World War New York City emerged to rival Inarguably, the most influential of the artists Douglas recruited was AParis as a center of artistic innovation due in large part to the Clyfford Still, who permanently joined the staff of the CFSA in 1946. advent of the first distinctly American movement, Abstract Many of the artists who enrolled in CSFA did so using the tuition Expressionism. Combining the influences of Surrealism, European money granted to ex-servicemen by the GI Bill. Older than the typical abstract movements, and non-western art, the movement was not art student, they brought the experiences of war to their painting, and defined by a single style, but rather by an emphasis on the act of perhaps more importantly, a determinedly anti-authoritarian attitude, painting itself and thus on the painter as an individual. Often charac- which eschewed any single theoretic or aesthetic program. While terized as ‘heroic’ due to its large scale and energetic brushstroke, Douglas resigned from the faculty of the CSFA in the summer of 1950, abstract expressionism became a symbol of American freedom and Still moved from the Bay Area shortly thereafter, the influence of celebrated as eagerly in popular press as it was by professional art individualism espoused by the Abstract Expressionists remained vital. critics. Although so closely associated with the city that its adherents Well into the 1950s, younger artists from the area continued to were often referred to as the “New York school,”Abstract Expres- reinterpret the ethos of the action painters in personal ways. sionism reached well beyond the confines of Manhattan. The group The CSFA was not the only force in play in San Francisco. While of artists exhibited in “West Coast Abstract Expressionist Art: Douglas revamped the school, Jermayne MacAgy, as director of the Selections from The Menil Collection” illustrate the extent to which Legion of Honor, organized an astounding array of exhibitions. Her this movement took hold across the United States. first “Contemporary American Painting” exhibition included works by Like New York and all great cities, San Francisco (and its over 200 artists. She was noteworthy for both her dramatic installations surrounding “Bay Area”), has long occupied a unique place in the and the broad scope of her interests, which extended to everything world’s imagination. It was known by the mid-twentieth century for from modern and contemporary, to ancient, non-western, and folk its geographic beauty, cosmopolitanism, and tolerance for radical art. The eclectic exhibition schedule she organized included, among lifestyles, and it remains so today. It was not, however, known as a numerous others, “Boxing and Wrestling in Art,” “Objects of Utility: center for the visual arts. California in general was deemed too isolated, 1951 BC–1951 AD,”and “Period Pieces, an Exhibition of Packaging.” too far away from New York or Europe to produce artwork of any A few of the many modern artists she featured were Joseph Albers, significance. Despite its reputation, however, by the early 1940s, the William Baziotes, Joseph Cornell, Robert Motherwell, Georgia O’Keeffe, Bay Area boasted a small, but progressive group of artists and institu- Jackson Pollock, and Dorothea Tanning. tions committed to the ideals of modern painting. Together Douglas and Jermayne MacAgy made a distinct mark on Central figures in the development of this emerging art scene the art of the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1955 John and Dominque de were the art historians Douglas and Jermayne MacAgy, who arrived in Menil hired Jermayne to direct the museum of the Contemporary Arts San Francisco in 1941. Recently married, the couple moved from Ohio Association (now the Contemporary Arts Museum) in Houston and where they had both been active at the Cleveland Museum of Art. later to chair the art history department at the University of St. Thomas, Douglas was invited to be a curator at the San Francisco Museum Houston. The de Menils developed a profound relationship with of Art, while his wife, Jermayne, took a job at the California Palace Jermayne MacAgy, who would strongly influence both the building of the Legion of Honor. In 1945, Douglas was appointed director of and displaying of their collection. Three of the paintings included in the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA, now the San Francisco Art “West Coast Abstract Expressionist Art” were left to The Menil Collection Institute), which at the time was suffering from declining enrollment when Jermayne died in 1964. The remaining six works were gifts to the and financial difficulties. Determined to revitalize the struggling museum selected over the years by its founding director, Walter Hopps, institution, Douglas assembled a first-rate faculty of local and visiting a native Californian and kindred spirit to the visionary aesthetic of artists, and established a direct link to New York by inviting Ad Jermayne MacAgy. Reinhardt and Mark Rothko to teach summer sessions at the school..
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Oral History Interview with Edward Dugmore, 1994 May 13-June 9
    Oral history interview with Edward Dugmore, 1994 May 13-June 9 Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a tape-recorded interview with Edward Dugmore on May 13, 1993. The interview was conducted at Edward Dugmore's home in New York by Tram Combs for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Interview ED: EDWARD DUGMORE MD: EDIE DUGMORE [MRS. DUGMORE] TC: TRAM COMBS Tape 1, Side A (45-minute tape sides) TC: This is an interview for the Archives of American Art, conducted by Tram Combs for the Archives with Edward Dugmore. There will be three voices on the tape. This is Tram Combs speaking. ED: This is Edward Dugmore. MD: And this is Edie Dugmore. TC: Edie is Mrs. Dugmore. She is sitting in on the interview for information that doesn’t come immediately to mind, and any disagreements about [our accuracy]. [all chuckle] Ed, tell us about your background, your family. ED: Okay, I was born in 1915. I have two brothers, approximately four years apart. Older brother and a younger brother. TC: Their names? ED: There’s Leonard, and then myself, and then Stanley is the youngest. My father came over from England, and my mother, and he was a photographer. TC: With your mother? MD: No. ED: No, he didn’t do that; that’s right.
    [Show full text]
  • Caroline Huber
    ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG ORAL HISTORY PROJECT The Reminiscences of Caroline Huber Columbia Center for Oral History Research Columbia University 2015 PREFACE The following oral history is the result of a recorded interview with Caroline Huber conducted by Alessandra Nicifero on May 29, 2015. This interview is part of the Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project. The reader is asked to bear in mind that s/he is reading a transcript of the spoken word, rather than written prose. Huber – 1 – 1 Transcription: Audio Transcription Center Session #1 Interviewee: Caroline Huber Location: Pasadena, California Interviewer: Alessandra Nicifero Date: May 29, 2015 Q: Okay, so my name is Alessandra Nicifero. I’m here with Caroline Huber. It’s May 29, 2015. Thanks for agreeing to be here. Huber: You’re welcome. My pleasure. Q: So why don’t we start talking briefly about where you were born, where you grew up? Huber: I was born outside of Philadelphia. I grew up in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, which is about twenty minutes from downtown Philadelphia. I lived there until I went off to college and then lived up and down the East Coast until I moved to Houston. Now I’m out here in California. Q: So when did you discover art? What’s your first memory of it? Huber: Well actually when I was young I used to draw a lot. I took art classes in the fifth or sixth grade after school and really loved it. It was just something I really loved to do. Then I stopped doing it and then I took some more in high school.
    [Show full text]
  • Hans Ulrich Obrist a Brief History of Curating
    Hans Ulrich Obrist A Brief History of Curating JRP | RINGIER & LES PRESSES DU REEL 2 To the memory of Anne d’Harnoncourt, Walter Hopps, Pontus Hultén, Jean Leering, Franz Meyer, and Harald Szeemann 3 Christophe Cherix When Hans Ulrich Obrist asked the former director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Anne d’Harnoncourt, what advice she would give to a young curator entering the world of today’s more popular but less experimental museums, in her response she recalled with admiration Gilbert & George’s famous ode to art: “I think my advice would probably not change very much; it is to look and look and look, and then to look again, because nothing replaces looking … I am not being in Duchamp’s words ‘only retinal,’ I don’t mean that. I mean to be with art—I always thought that was a wonderful phrase of Gilbert & George’s, ‘to be with art is all we ask.’” How can one be fully with art? In other words, can art be experienced directly in a society that has produced so much discourse and built so many structures to guide the spectator? Gilbert & George’s answer is to consider art as a deity: “Oh Art where did you come from, who mothered such a strange being. For what kind of people are you: are you for the feeble-of-mind, are you for the poor-at-heart, art for those with no soul. Are you a branch of nature’s fantastic network or are you an invention of some ambitious man? Do you come from a long line of arts? For every artist is born in the usual way and we have never seen a young artist.
    [Show full text]
  • With Dada and Pop Art Influence
    With Dada and Pop Art Influence The non-art movement • 1916-1923 • Reaction to the horror of World War I • Artists were mostly French and German. They took refuge in neutral Switzerland. • They were angry at the European society that had allowed the war to happen. • Dada was a form of protest. • It’s intention was to provoke and shock The name “Dada” was chosen because it was nonsensical. They wanted a name that made the least amount of sense. • They used any public forum to spit on: nationalism rationalism materialism and society in general Mona Lisa with a Mustache “The Fountain” “The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even” George Groz “Remember Uncle Augustus the Unhappy Inventor”(collage) Raoul Hausmann “ABCD” (collage) Merit Oppenheim “Luncheon in Fur” Using pre-existing objects or images with little or no transformation applied to them Artist use borrowed elements in their creation of a new work • Dada self-destructed when it was in danger of becoming “acceptable.” • The Dada movement and the Surrealists have influenced many important artists. Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) became one of the most famous artists to use assemblage. His work is both surreal and poetic. A 3-D form of using "found" objects arranged in such a way that they create a piece of art. The Pop American artist, Robert Rauschenberg, uses assemblage, painting, printmaking and collage in his work. He is directly influenced by the Dada-ists. “Canyon” “Monogram” “Bed” “Coca-cola Plan” “Retroactive” • These artist use borrowed elements in their creation to make a new work of art! • As long as those portions of copyrighted works are used to create a completely new and different work of art it was OK.
    [Show full text]
  • Jackson Pollock & Tony Smith Sculpture
    Jackson Pollock & Tony Smith Sculpture An exhibition on the centennial of their births MATTHEW MARKS GALLERY Jackson Pollock & Tony Smith Speculations in Form Eileen Costello In the summer of 1956, Jackson Pollock was in the final descent of a downward spiral. Depression and alcoholism had tormented him for the greater part of his life, but after a period of relative sobriety, he was drinking heavily again. His famously intolerable behavior when drunk had alienated both friends and colleagues, and his marriage to Lee Krasner had begun to deteriorate. Frustrated with Betty Parsons’s intermittent ability to sell his paintings, he had left her in 1952 for Sidney Janis, believing that Janis would prove a better salesperson. Still, he and Krasner continued to struggle financially. His physical health was also beginning to decline. He had recently survived several drunk- driving accidents, and in June of 1954 he broke his ankle while roughhousing with Willem de Kooning. Eight months later, he broke it again. The fracture was painful and left him immobilized for months. In 1947, with the debut of his classic drip-pour paintings, Pollock had changed the direction of Western painting, and he quickly gained international praise and recog- nition. Four years later, critics expressed great disappointment with his black-and-white series, in which he reintroduced figuration. The work he produced in 1953 was thought to be inconsistent and without focus. For some, it appeared that Pollock had reached a point of physical and creative exhaustion. He painted little between 1954 and ’55, and by the summer of ’56 his artistic productivity had virtually ground to a halt.
    [Show full text]
  • Artist Resources – Joseph Cornell (American, 1903-72)
    Artist Resources – Joseph Cornell (American, 1903-72) The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation Joseph Cornell Study Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum “Everything meant something to him, and everything was about his work, and everything was special. I mean, he was someone who used things in his work that were sometimes esoteric and sometimes ordinary, but in either case once his glance hit it, it was special,” reflected Harry Roseman, Cornell’s studio assistant in a 1999 interview about his first meeting and studio memories with Cornell. “One thing about being there and knowing him and being with him is this: in how we respond to things we have a choice as to whether to keep our self- conscious coolness and our analytical ability or to go with something. To suspend disbelief. It's a kind of faith, in a sense.” 177 of Cornell’s creations were on view in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s 2007 retrospective. In 2014, Christie’s auctioned a stellar collection of Cornell box constructions owned by prominent Chicago art collectors Ed and Lindy Cornell, ca. 1940 Bergman. The auction house details the pieces in-depth in a video interview with scholars. London’s Royal Academy celebrated Cornell’s fanciful constructions in the 2015 exhibition, Wanderlust. Over 80 boxes, assemblages, and collages were brought together with the artist’s films to explore his love of nature and dreams of travel. Digital resources include a series of podcasts in which scholars discuss Cornell’s creative identity and his relationship to Surrealism; and a photo tour of Cornell’s studio with curator Sarah Lea.
    [Show full text]
  • Ernest Briggs' Three Decades of Abstract Expressionist Painting
    Ernest Briggs' Three Decades its help in allowing artists of the period to go to school. They were set of Abstract Expressionist Painting free economically, and were allowed to live comfortably with tuition and supplies paid for. The Fine Arts School would last about 3 years Ernest Briggs, a second generation Abstract Expressionist painter under McAgy. The program took off due to the presence of Clyfford known for his strong, lyrical, expressive brushstrokes, use of color and Still, Ad Reinhardt, along with David Park, Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer sometimes geometric composition, first came to New York in late 1953. Bischoff and others. Most of the students at the school, about 40-50 He had been a student of Clyfford Still at the California School of Fine taking painting, such luminaries as Dugmore, Hultberg, Schueler and Arts. Frank O’Hara first experienced the mystery in the way Ernest Crehan, had had some exposure to art through university or art school. Briggs’ splendid paintings transform, and the inability to see the shape But there had been no exposure to what was going on in New York or in as a shape apart from interpretation. Early in 1954, viewing Briggs’ first Europe in the art world, and Briggs and the others were little prepared one man show at the Stable Gallery in New York, O’Hara said in Art for the onslaught that was to come. in America “From the contrast between the surface bravura and the half-seen abstract shapes, a surprising intimacy arises which is like The California Years seeing a public statue, thinking itself unobserved, move.” With the entry of Still, the art program would “blow apart”.
    [Show full text]
  • Helen Pashgianhelen Helen Pashgian L Acm a Delmonico • Prestel
    HELEN HELEN PASHGIAN ELIEL HELEN PASHGIAN LACMA DELMONICO • PRESTEL HELEN CAROL S. ELIEL PASHGIAN 9 This exhibition was organized by the Published in conjunction with the exhibition Helen Pashgian: Light Invisible Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Funding at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California is provided by the Director’s Circle, with additional support from Suzanne Deal Booth (March 30–June 29, 2014). and David G. Booth. EXHIBITION ITINERARY Published by the Los Angeles County All rights reserved. No part of this book may Museum of Art be reproduced or transmitted in any form Los Angeles County Museum of Art 5905 Wilshire Boulevard or by any means, electronic or mechanical, March 30–June 29, 2014 Los Angeles, California 90036 including photocopy, recording, or any other (323) 857-6000 information storage and retrieval system, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville www.lacma.org or otherwise without written permission from September 26, 2014–January 4, 2015 the publishers. Head of Publications: Lisa Gabrielle Mark Editor: Jennifer MacNair Stitt ISBN 978-3-7913-5385-2 Rights and Reproductions: Dawson Weber Creative Director: Lorraine Wild Designer: Xiaoqing Wang FRONT COVER, BACK COVER, Proofreader: Jane Hyun PAGES 3–6, 10, AND 11 Untitled, 2012–13, details and installation view Formed acrylic 1 Color Separator, Printer, and Binder: 12 parts, each approx. 96 17 ⁄2 20 inches PR1MARY COLOR In Helen Pashgian: Light Invisible, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2014 This book is typeset in Locator. PAGE 9 Helen Pashgian at work, Pasadena, 1970 Copyright ¦ 2014 Los Angeles County Museum of Art Printed and bound in Los Angeles, California Published in 2014 by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art In association with DelMonico Books • Prestel Prestel, a member of Verlagsgruppe Random House GmbH Prestel Verlag Neumarkter Strasse 28 81673 Munich Germany Tel.: +49 (0)89 41 36 0 Fax: +49 (0)89 41 36 23 35 Prestel Publishing Ltd.
    [Show full text]
  • California Modernism After World War Ii
    1 CALIFORNIA MODERNISM AFTER WORLD WAR II So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars’ll be out, and don’t you know that God is Pooh Bear? The evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty. JACK KEROUAC, ON THE ROAD POSTWAR EXCHANGES Most historical accounts of cultural and artistic developments in the United States after World War II have offered little information about trends affecting artists across the country. In the rush to figure out who did what first and to locate it geographically—usu - ally in New York— the historians have ignored the fluid interchanges between the two coasts, and cultural opportunities offered on either of them in these postwar years.
    [Show full text]
  • American Pop Icons Christine Sullivan
    I # -*-'- ,: >ss;«!«!«:»•:•:•:•:•: •••••• » - ••••••••••••# fi I»Z»Z , Z»Z»Z» m AMER1CANP0PIC0NS Guggenheim Hermitage museum Published on the occasion of the exhibition Design: Cassey L. Chou, with Marcia Fardella and American Pop Icons Christine Sullivan Guggenheim Hermitage Museum. Las Vegas Production: Tracy L. Hennige May15-November2,2003 Editorial: Meghan Dailey, Laura Morris Organized by Susan Davidson Printed in Germany by Cantz American Pop Icons © 2003 The Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation, Front cover (detail) and back cover: New York. All rights reserved. Roy Lichtenstein, Preparedness, 1968 (plate 16) Copyright notices for works of art reproduced in this book: © 2003 Jim Dine; © 2003 Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York; © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein; © 2003 Claes Oldenburg; © 2003 Robert Rauschenberg/Licensed by VAGA. New York; © 2003 James Rosenquist/Licensed by VAGA, New York; © 2003 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © 2003 Tom Wesselmann/Licensed by VAGA, New York. Entries by Rachel Haidu are reprinted with permission from From Pop to Now: Selections from the Sonnabend Collection (The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, 2002). Entries by Jennifer Blessing and Nancy Spector are reprinted from Guggenheim Museum Collection: A to Z (Guggenheim Museum, 2001); Artist's Biographies (except Tom Wesselmann) are reprinted from Rendezvous: Masterpieces from the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Guggenheim Museums (Guggenheim Museum, 1998). isbn 0-89207-296-2
    [Show full text]
  • William Baziotes Sketchbooks (Microfilm)
    William Baziotes sketchbooks (microfilm) Archives of American Art 750 9th Street, NW Victor Building, Suite 2200 Washington, D.C. 20001 https://www.aaa.si.edu/services/questions https://www.aaa.si.edu/ Table of Contents Collection Overview ........................................................................................................ 1 Administrative Information .............................................................................................. 1 Scope and Contents........................................................................................................ 2 Biographical / Historical.................................................................................................... 1 Names and Subjects ...................................................................................................... 2 Container Listing ...................................................................................................... William Baziotes sketchbooks (microfilm) AAA.baziwills Collection Overview Repository: Archives of American Art Title: William Baziotes sketchbooks (microfilm) Identifier: AAA.baziwills Date: 1933 Creator: Baziotes, William, 1912-1963 Extent: 1 Microfilm reel (2 volumes on partial microfilm reel1) Language: Undetermined . Administrative Information Acquisition Information Lent for microfilming 1998 by John Castagno, a dealer who purchased the sketchbooks at auction. The auctioneer's label (Pennypacker-Andrews Auction Centre, N.Y.) affixed to each cover identifies the sketchbooks: "From
    [Show full text]
  • " the West That Got Into His Bones:" Key Perspectives on Clyfford Still At
    Seton Hall University eRepository @ Seton Hall Theses 2009 " The esW t that Got into His Bones:" Key Perspectives on Clyfford Still at the Inauguration of His Museum Elen M. Woods Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.shu.edu/theses Recommended Citation Woods, Elen M., "" The eW st that Got into His Bones:" Key Perspectives on Clyfford Still at the Inauguration of His Museum" (2009). Theses. 115. https://scholarship.shu.edu/theses/115 "The West that Got into His Bones:" Key Perspectives on Clyfford Still at the Inauguration of His Museum Elen M. Woods August 2009 Advisor: Dr. Janet Marstine Seton Hall University Elen Woods Table of Contents Introduction............................................................................................ 3 Chapter 1-Conventions of the Single Artist Museum ......................................... 9 Chapter 2-Philosophies of Art .................................................................... 15 Chapter 3-Artist Gifts .............................................................................. 21 Chapter 4-"Big Sky" ............................................................................... 31 Chapter 5-Perpetuating an Artist's Legacy ................................................... 36 Conclusion .............................................................................................. 38 Bibliography ......................................................................................... 41 Appendixes...........................................................................................
    [Show full text]