Abstract Expressionism COURTHOUSE GALLERY FINE ART Abstract Expressionism THREE MAINE ARTISTS Harold Garde Stephen Pace George Wardlaw Although it was soon to be superseded by an accelerating succession of artistic movements, Abstract Expressionism, to which these artists were initially drawn, was a watershed in 20th century art in that it broke down previous constraints, put a premium on individual expression, and set in motion the “no holds barred” trajectory of recent art. –Maritca Sawin HAROLD GARDE Winter Evening, Urban 1968 acrylic on board 48 x 48 inches NEXT PAGE GEORGE WARDLAW Color in the Hills 1960 oil on canvas 48 x 60 inches Abstract Expressionism THREE MAINE ARTISTS Harold Garde Stephen Pace George Wardlaw Essay by Martica Sawin AUGUST 29 - SEPTEMBER 25, 2010 court street ellsworth maine 04605 courthousegallery.com 207 667 6611 Abstract Expressionism by Martica Sawin The three artists whose abstract works are shown in this exhibition, were a part of the fabric of American society, had established Harold Garde, Stephen Pace, and George Wardlaw, are representative the Federal Art Project to provide employment for artists. This of a generation that grew up in the Great Depression, served in enabled thousands of artists all over the country to continue their the armed forces in World War II, and, thanks to the veterans work and resulted in a new solidarity in the artists’ community as educational benefits provided by the G.I. Bill of Rights, were able they worked together on public projects and formed organizations to attend art school and make art their lifetime profession. to negotiate with the Works Progress Administration. Coincidentally all three, in different locales, responded to the challenge of the adventurous new development in American art, To a certain extent then, the post-war artist could be experimental emerging in the later 1940s, that became known as Abstract and adventurous, yet feel part of a network of similarly daring Expressionism. individuals who might work alone in their studios but could find support via the Artists Club, the Cedar Tavern, cooperative They entered into an art world that had felt the impact of the galleries, and dozens of proliferating college art departments European refugee artists in the U.S. during the war years, among across the United States. Thanks to the exponential increase in them Mark Chagall, Fernand Leger, the non-objective painter the practice of awarding college and university degrees for studio Mondrian, and the reconstituted Surrealist group, including Max art, each of the three veterans included here was able to support Ernst, Andre Masson, and Yves Tanguy, as well as a half dozen himself by teaching while continuing to develop as an artist. knowledgeable art dealers who had fled Europe before the outbreak of war. Equally important was a legacy from the 1930s when the Federal government, recognizing that artists Untitled Abstract 52-50 1952 oil on canvas 30 x 16 inches Harold Garde A native New Yorker and the son of immigrant parents from Central Europe, Harold Garde (b. 1923) graduated from the prestigious Stuyvesant High School and attended City College where he was a science major with little familiarity with art. He enlisted in the Army Air Force in 1942 and was stationed in the Philippines. During his three years in the army he felt that his horizons broadened as he met and gravitated toward people interested in the arts. Learning that the G.I. Bill would provide him with an opportunity to continue his education, he decided to enroll at the University of Wyoming in Laramie with the intention of becoming a teacher. Since he had already accumulated a number of academic credits in his pre-war education, he signed up for a studio art course. It happened that the chair of the art depart- ment was George McNeil, a veteran of the Hans Hofmann School and the Federal Art Project and a forceful expressionist painter. The encounter with McNeil determined Garde’s commitment to art and started him on the way to becoming an expressionist himself. After a year McNeil was replaced by the non-objective painter Ilya Bolotowsky from whom Garde learned about structure and composition, something that still underlies even the most wildly gestural of his works. In 1948 Leon Kelly joined the faculty, 1903 bringing with him strong surrealist tendencies and a first-hand 1959 acr ylic on board 36 x 48 inches Scaped 1959 oil with fabric on board 36 x 47 inches Private Garde in the army during World War II. Strappos knowledge of the Surrealist refugee artists who showed at the Julian Levy Gallery where Kelly also exhibited. This meant that compressed into Garde’s studio experience were three of the major forces in the art of the day: expressionism, abstraction, and surrealism, all of which can be seen interacting in his uninhibited approach to painting. To complete his teaching credentials, Garde then attended Columbia Teachers College where he was very much in touch with the new vigorous, open-ended approach to painting that was on the rise at mid-century. His painting of the 1950s is instantly recognizable as belonging to that period of Late Summer artistic upheaval. The strong, angular brushstrokes, warring darks 1971 and lights, scrawled letters and numbers, ephemeral figures, and acrylic on board 48 x 72 inches sustained intensity of execution all are hallmarks of that time when artists faced an empty canvas and followed where the OPPOSITE impulsive action of their brushstrokes led. Now retired after a long Stillife 1967 teaching career Garde continues to paint with expressionist force acrylic on board in his studios in Belfast, Maine and New Smyrna Beach, Florida. 48 x 24 inches Morning Standing 1969 1973 acr ylic on board acr ylic on board 48 x 24 inches 48 x 72 inches Stephen Pace Stephen Pace (b. 1918) was born in Missouri and grew up on subsistence farms there and in Indiana. There were no books or art works in their homestead nor was blank paper available, but he painted with coffee on the glass panes of the barn windows. His mother whose colorful patchwork quilts, made from worn out clothing, still embellish his home, saw a notice for WPA art classes in nearby New Harmony, and convinced fifteen year old Stephen to enroll. He proved to be adept at drawing as well as skilled in architectural rendering which landed him work in an architect’s office, and his accomplished watercolors were exhibited in New Harmony in 1939. Pace and his three brothers were all in the army by 1942 (“That’s when Dad finally got a tractor,” he recalled) but even overseas, stationed in England, he managed to make watercolors of local surroundings and show his work on the base. Landing shortly after the first Normandy beachhead, his division was fighting its way across France when he was in an accident and ended up with a broken leg and pleurisy in a hospital in Paris. Painting by the Seine one day he met Gertrude Stein who took him to visit Picasso. Released from the army he cast about for an alternative to going back to work on the farm and decided to take advantage of the new G.I. Bill and attend Untitled Abstract 55-25 detail, 1955 oil on canvas 22 x 30 inches Untitled Abstract #61-100 1961 oil on canvas 48 x 64 inches Stephen at his studio in Stonington, Maine. Untitled Abstract 1953 oil on canvas 16 x 27 inches an art school about to open in San Miguel Allende, Mexico. There he met Milton Avery who was to remain a close friend and important influence. While painting the local scene in Mexico he found that he was more interested in the shapes emerging on his canvas than in realistic detail and abstraction took over. Returning to the United States he tossed a coin in a New Orleans bus station to decide whether to head east or west. East won and Pace entered into the downtown New York scene, becoming friends with Franz Kline, and registering at Hans Hofmann’s School. With time still left on the G.I. Bill he enrolled at the Academie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris and traveled in Italy. Untitled Abstract 57-07 The large gestural abstractions that he produced in the 1950s fit 1957 oil on canvas 50 x 36 inches The large gestural abstractions that Pace produced in the 1950s fit right in with the ethos of the New York School, yet among the torrent of brushstrokes there were occasional intimations of a landscape experience in qualities of light, density, and color. Untitled Abstract 60-A21 1960 oil on canvas 48 x 72 inches Pam with Wine 1984 oil on canvas 18 x 24 inches right in with the ethos of the New York School, yet among the torrent of brushstrokes there were occasional intimations of a landscape experience in qualities of light, density, and color. After a decade of exhibiting with the Abstract Expressionists in major New York galleries Pace found nature forcing its way back into his paintings and since that time his colorful gestural works have been devoted to recollected scenes from his Indiana childhood on the farm and activity on the Maine waterfront. For many years he Untitled Abstract 57-08 1957 oil on canvas 36 x 48 inches divided his time between Stonington, Maine, Manhattan, and Washington D.C. where he taught at American University. Now in his nineties and still painting he has returned to the locale of his youth and lives in New Harmony, Indiana. George Wardlaw Like Pace, George Wardlaw (b.