UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING ART MUSEUM 2009 American Modernists in Wyoming: George McNeil, Ilya Bolotowsky, and Leon Kelly PURPOSE OF THIS PACKET: EXploRE: To provide K-12 teachers with background Students will explore the background of the artists and information on the exhibition and suggested age how that contributes to their art work. They will be appropriate applications for exploring the concepts, encouraged to research vocabulary words and related meaning, and artistic intent of the work exhibited, aspects of the exhibit. before, during, and after the museum visit. CREATE: CURRICULAR UNIT Topic: Students will be given time to practice sketching and drawing, and may create their own paintings in the This unit examines the ideas, styles and techniques of style of one of the three artists. three American Modernists whose paths crossed in Wyoming in 1948. The focus of this educational packet and curricular unit is to observe, question, explore, REFLECT: create and reflect. Students will evaluate their final art products with other students from their classes and with teachers and museum educators. They will be given feedback on the OBSERVE: art work and the concepts behind the making of the Students will observe the art work of George McNeil, art work. After this process, each person may write an Ilya Bolotowksy and Leon Kelly. They will notice the essay about their process of making art. similarities and differences in their work: the colors used; the shapes of the paintings; subject matter; style and techniques. QUESTION: Students will have an opportunity to read, write, sketch, listen to teachers and museum educators, and then, to come up with questions about the work they see, and the concepts behind the art work and George McNeil (American, the artists who created it. Students will question the 1909-1995), Tharsus, 1960, oil on canvas, 48 in materials and techniques used and their own responses x 40 in, Lent by ACME Fine Art Gallery to the art work in the exhibition. American Modernists in Wyoming: George McNeil, Ilya Bolotowsky, and Leon Kelly INTRODUCTION In this museum visit students will view the work of the American Modernists in Wyoming: George McNeil, Ilya Bolotowsky and Leon Kelly, three artists whose paths crossed at the University of Wyoming in 1948. It was during this time that American artists began discarding the conventions and traditions of the past in search of something “new.” Personal expression and individualism were embraced as artists forged new visual vocabularies. Each of these artists found their own unique voice within the Modernist dialogue, and together they demonstrate key elements of major artistic movements of the time - Abstract Expressionism, Geometric Abstraction, and Surrealism. HISTORY The year was 1948. The War had ended. Warner Brothers produced the first color newsreel of the TOP: Installation view of Leon Kelly (American, 1901-1982), An Ancient Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl. The Priest Examining Himself, 1949, oil on canvas, 16 in x 14 in, Lent by Winter Olympics were in St. Mortiz, Switzerland. The Gratz Gallery BOTTOM: Leon Kelly (American, 1901-1982), Bather Emering from the U.S. Supreme Courts ruled that religious instruction in Sea, 1952, oil on canvas on baord, 36 in x 26 in, Lent by Gratz Gallery Page 2 Education Packet American Modernists in Wyoming: George McNeil, Ilya Bolotowsky, and Leon Kelly public schools violates the Constitution. The Hells Angels were founded in California. T. S. Eliot won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Harry S. Truman was elected President. During the first half of the 20th century in Europe, Modernism had taken hold in the art circles. Its premise was one of “newness;” that individualism and uniqueness of personal expression were essential if one was “modern.” American artists traveled to Europe to study, an essential requirement in order to be successful. With the shift in political power following WWII, Modernism began to take hold in the U.S. during the 1940s. It would set the stage for the development of America’s first artistic genre, Abstract Expressionism. Three artists, who would later contribute to the development of the Modernist dialogue in America, came to Wyoming during this time to teach at the University of Wyoming. George George McNeil (American, 1909-1995), Estuary, 1957, oil on paper on McNeil (American, 1908-1995), Ilya Bolotowsky plywood, 28 in x 22 in, Lent by ACME Fine Art Gallery (American/Russian, 1907-1981), and Leon Kelly (American/French, 1901-1982) were mid-career aesthetic of Futurism and Cubism. McNeil taught artists at the time and each was exploring a different at UW for two years, 1946-1948, before moving to form of abstraction. Together, they demonstrate key New York City to teach at the Pratt Institute. elements of major artistic movements of the time I am so biased in terms of what you might call – Abstract Expressionism, Geometric Abstraction, modernist values that I don’t know how you can and Surrealism; however, each considered their create art if it isn’t based on very simple premises, work individualistic, unique, and outside such larger like the reactions of an individual to the world groups or movements. around him or to his own ideas or to his own imagination and to the essencing of all this and, in ARTIST STATEMENTS the main, what your feelings for truth are. I don’t know how you can develop your own subjective George McNeil worked in the abstract expressionist truth if it isn’t on the basis of this absolute sense of style, creating nonrepresentational work with broad authenticity, of the inner spirit. swaths of color, texture and depth. In this form of - George McNeil in an interview with Robert abstraction, the essential aspects of the medium are Berlind, Brooklyn, New York, May 30, 1990 in Art more fully exposed and acknowledged. McNeil’s Journal, Spring 1994, Volume 53, Issue 1. work emphasized spontaneous and subconscious creation. He combined the theories of the Abstract Ilya Bolotowsky was a geometric abstractionist Expressionists with the emotional intensity of who took the purely optical premise from the the German Expressionists and the anti-figural Cubist tradition to create the illusion of depth by Page 3 Education Packet American Modernists in Wyoming: George McNeil, Ilya Bolotowsky, and Leon Kelly LEFT:Ilya Bolotowsky (Russian/American, 1907-1981), Vibrant Tondo, 1968, Acrylic on canvas, 31 1/2 in diameter, Lent by Rehs Gallery RIGHT:Ilya Bolotowsky (Russian/American, 1907-1981), Untitled, 1952, Oil on canvas on board, 25 3/4 in x 34 in, Lent by Rehs Gallery eliminating the use of the figure altogether and biological existence is not given to man. And this is solely using the juxtaposition and location of the Platonic ideal, the absolute, the ideal harmonious different planes of color. This approach sought balance, which is not still, not symmetrical, but to carry the abstract beyond what is depicted, dynamic. to the underlying sense of emotional charge. Bolotowsky later became known for his tondos, - Ilya Bolotowsky in an interview with Louise or large, circular canvases of delineated color and Averill Svendsen and Mimi Poser, 1974, Catalogue, shape, which he first created while in Wyoming. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York In addition to teaching art at the University, Bolotowsky also taught local ranchers who gifted Leon Kelly was a leading American surrealist him several large wagon wheels. He removed the who was stylistically influenced by some of the spokes and used the circular frames as stretchers major contributors to the European surrealist for his canvases. He found that the form created movement, including Salvador Dalí and Yves an interesting composition as the straight lines Tanguy. Kelly worked within a new canon of became affected by the circular shape of the canvas. Modernist painting, elaborating on the precedent Bolotowsky was at UW from 1948 to 1957. of the collage, and using novel forms of montage to create works that combined themes central to Symbolism in my style is not at all important the Surrealist movement from Europe and new and actually to be avoided. Because it means that a forms of American abstraction. After studying art painting is not what it is, but represents something in Paris, Kelly worked and exhibited largely in New else. York. However, in 1947 he and his family moved to Wyoming so he could teach in the Art Department. The communication would be the creation of an Although he stayed at UW only two years, he ideal, balanced harmony. Something that in actual, took the opportunity to study Native American Page 4 Education Packet American Modernists in Wyoming: George McNeil, Ilya Bolotowsky, and Leon Kelly art, traveling to study petroglyphs and meet with contemporary potters. - Leon Kelly in the Catalogue for Leon Kelly: An American Surrealist, Francis M. Naumann Fine Art, In a 1958 letter to his friend and supporter, Julien LLC, 2008. Essay by Martica Sawin. Levy, Kelly says: You have seen my work go through several stages LESSON OVERVIEW from insects to fish, birds and figures that took on Students will learn about the work of three of the qualities of insects, birds, etc. as life in transition the American Modernists who taught at the of flight in one tick of eternity...I guess that people University of Wyoming in the 1940’s and 1950’s. associate visual appearances more than inner They will explore the underpinnings of abstract psychological vistas with painting. Yet I try to make expressionism, geometric abstraction and the two vistas kaleidoscopic without the burden of surrealism. Students will look to see what new and properties, as Dali would do...Often viewers feel that original ideas came out of painters, considering the I am engaged in torturing a human form, but I am concepts behind the art work, and how they fit into intensely concerned with the dynamo of life and the idea of a new modern American art.