The Women of American Abstract Artists, 1936–Present Clara M

BLURRING BOUNDARIES THE WOMEN OF AMERICAN ABSTRACT ARTISTS, 1936–PRESENT CLARA M. EAGLE GALLERY, MURRAY STATE UNIVERSITY T. Michael Martin, Director and Curator EWING GALLERY OF ART & ARCHITECTURE, UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE, KNOXVILLE Sam Yates, Director and Curator Sarah McFalls, Registrar Eric Cagley, Exhibitions Coordinator Blurring Boundaries: The Women of American Abstract Artists, 1936 - Present Catalogue published on the occasion of the 2018 exhibition, Blurring Boundaries: The Women of American Abstract Artists, 1936 - Present organized by the Clara M. Eagle Gallery, Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky and the Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Catalogue revised, 2020. © 2018 Ewing Gallery of Art & Architecture Exhibition Concept: Creighton Michael Exhibition Curator: Rebecca DiGiovanna Catalogue Design: Sarah McFalls Catalogue Editors: Sam Yates and Emily Berger Printer: The University of Tennessee, Graphic Arts Service This exhibition is toured by AAA gratefully acknowledges the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc. for International Arts & Artists, Washington, D.C. support of the exhibition. Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc. Alice Adams EXHIBITING ARTISTS Liz Ainslie Rosalind Bengesldorf Siri Berg Emily Berger Susan Bonfils Sharon Brant Gabriele Evertz Laurie Fendrich Perle Fine Joanne Freeman Gertrude Greene Gail Gregg Lynne Harlow Mara Held Rhia Hurt Phillis Ideal Cecily Kahn Marthe Keller Iona Kleinhaut Lee Krasner Jane Logemann Katinka Mann Nancy Manter Alice Trumbull Mason Joanne Mattera Judith Murray Lisa Nanni Irene Rice Pereira Raquel Rabinovich Beatrice Riese Ce Roser Irene Rousseau Anne Russinof Lorenza Sannai Karen Schifano Mary Schiliro Claire Seidl Esphyr Slobodkina Susan Smith Melissa Staiger Li Trincere Kim Uchiyama Lynn Umlauf Clover Vail Vera Vasek Merrill Wagner Jeanne Wilkinson Patricia Zarate Nola Zirin BLURRING BOUNDARIES THE WOMEN OF AAA, 1936–PRESENT “The stamp of modern art is clarity: clarity of color, clarity of his male students left to enter military service, of forms and of composition, clarity of determined dynamic pointed to each woman in his class and declared, rhythm, in a determined space. Since figuration often veils, “You’ll amount to nothing. You’ll amount to nothing. obscures or entirely negates purity of plastic expression, You’ll never get anywhere. You’ll never get anywhere.”4 the destruction of the particular form for the universal one Despite Hofmann’s criticisms, the women who becomes a prime prerequisite.”1 attended his school during the late 1930s and early - Perle Fine (1905-1988) 1940s considered the experience a formative one, as it gave them an opportunity to gather and discuss their Perle Fine’s declaration for the hierarchy of distilled ideas and work. Hofmann’s school provided a place form, immaculate line, and pure color came close to establish friendships and community, spawning a to being the mantra of the 1930s and of American new generation of like-minded artists who eventually Abstract Artists (AAA). Founded during The Great transitioned from student peers to AAA members. Depression, AAA was established at a time when museums and galleries were still conservative in their In 1943, several of AAA’s female members participated exhibition offerings. With its challenging imagery and in an all-women’s show, entitled 31 Women, at Peggy elusive meaning, abstraction was often presented as Guggenheim’s Art of This Century gallery. Critical “not American” because of its derivation from the reception of 31 Women echoed the patriarchal European avant-garde. Consequently, American abstract sentiments expressed by Hofmann and common at artists received little interest from museum and gallery the time. New York Times reviewer and senior art critic owners. Even the Museum of Modern Art, which Edward Alden Jewell declared that, “the work might mounted its first major exhibition of abstract art in just as well have been produced by ‘The Men,’”5 while 1936, hesitated to recognize American artists working an anonymous reviewer in ArtNews asserted, “the within the vein of abstraction. MoMA’s exhibition, works…[promote a] new conception of the weaker Cubism and Abstract Art, at the time groundbreaking for sex. Other all-female organizations should have a look- its non-representational content, filled four floors with in at a show which is so refreshingly un-ladylike.”6 Time artwork largely by Europeans.2 This lack of recognition magazine critic James Stern refused to write about the from MoMA angered abstract artists working in New show altogether, proclaiming that women should simply York and was the impetus behind the founding of stick to creating with their bodies.7 Peggy Guggenheim, American Abstract Artists later that year. herself indifferent to women artists, scheduled the show’s opening the month before the gallery closed In the early 1930s, abstract artists flocked to a new for the summer, a date she considered inconsequential school founded by the German artist Hans Hofmann. as the potential audience flocked elsewhere to escape For young artists, Hofmann’s class nourished a the summer heat.8 The art world had room for models pioneering interest to learn the techniques of the and mistresses, but not for women artists in their own European modernists. Included in his eager group right. Women who were married to successful artists, of ready-admirers were artists Nell Blaine, Lenore critics, or collectors were slightly more visible, but in [Lee] Krasner, Ray Kaiser [Eames], Perle Fine, and general, women artists stood a strong chance of being Mercedes Carles [Matter]. Although Hofmann was undervalued or ignored. To avoid dismissal simply on the more welcoming to women than his contemporaries, basis of gender, many female artists used only surnames he was still partial to male artists, once telling Lee or initialed their canvases. Lenore Krasner changed her Krasner that her work was “so good you would not name to the androgynous Lee, while Irene Rice Pereira believe it was done by a woman.”3 Perle Fine recalled simply used the initial I. Whereas subject matter could a day when Hofmann, bitter and frustrated as more be problematic for women painters—conjuring images 4 BLURRING BOUNDARIES THE WOMEN OF AAA, 1936–PRESENT of pastel flowers or beatific children—in abstraction, Women of American Abstract Artists traces the work the gender of the painter made little difference. of the female artists within AAA from the founders Absent gender specific signifiers, pure abstraction gave to contemporary, practicing members. Included women a freedom they did not have when painting are works by historic members Perle Fine, Esphyr representationally. By the time of Guggenheim’s second Slobodkina, Lee Krasner, Rosalind Bengelsdorf, Irene women’s show, a 1945 exhibition entitled The Women, Rice Pereira, Alice Trumbull Mason, and Gertrude perceptions regarding women within abstract art were Greene, as well as works by current members, such as shifting, but critical review was still tinged with surprise Ce Roser, Irene Rousseau, Judith Murray, Alice Adams, at their ability to create strong abstract work. Merrill Wagner, and Katinka Mann. Through fifty-four works, the exhibition explores the stylistic variations If the reception of women in Guggenheim’s shows and individual approaches to guiding principles of could be described as dismissive at best, the opposite abstraction: color, space, light, material and process. In was true of their participation within American Abstract Lorenza Sannai’s geometric, hard-edged painting, Ordine Artists. From the outset, both as women and as abstract Sparso, interest resides in the rigor of straight line, artists, women of AAA were working on the periphery shape, and formal composition. Both Gertrude Greene of the art world. Perhaps as a result of their mutual and Laurie Fendrich imbue geometric shape with status as internal exiles of the art world, both male and biomorphic qualities: Greene’s Related Forms suggests female members of AAA shared goals which included interaction between two totem-like bodies; Fendrich’s advocating for abstract art and the inclusion of all anthropomorphic, angular figures are rooted in familiar abstract artists in museums and galleries. In comparison forms of popular comic characters, like Charles Schulz’s to the other abstract artist collectives of the period, Peanuts series. In Esphyr Slobodkina’s reductive gouache, where equal footing for women was unusual, AAA The Red L Abstraction, intersecting shapes take on the provided a place of refuge for female artists. Women mechanical structuring of a Constructivist blueprint. within AAA have enjoyed a remarkably active history Patricia Zarate’s Sweet Spot II and Siri Berg’s Bars and generative role since the group’s founding and have are characterized by pattern, precise and controlled been instrumental in articulating its mission within the application of pigment, and unmodulated color. arts community. Founding member Gertrude Greene coordinated the group’s first exhibitions, including the Several artists explore seriality, combining and re- opening group show at Squibb Gallery in 1937.9 Esphyr combining vertical or horizontal bands of color as Slobodkina, another of the group’s founding members, they work out formal problems of space and light. was also the organization’s first secretary, later serving In Gabriele Evertz’s Toward Light, Evertz subtly shifts as president, treasurer, and bibliographer. Among the from bars of achromatic

Load more