2 15 183 https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/48f08caf69b38dffe6232def4f626258.pdf 849b240a92842bf7d7f1ed544b878408 PDF Text Text �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Exhibition Programs, 1973-present Description An account of the resource Exhibition programs created by the Sordoni Art Gallery from 1973 to the present. Digitized by Wilkes University Archives interns, Zachary Mendoza and Sophia Kruspha. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Sordoni Art Gallery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-present Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Wilkes University retains copyright of these exhibition programs. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition programs, flyers, and calendars. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1977 Exhibition of Oriental Art and Ephemera Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Marson Ltd. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1977 November 29 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Description An account of the resource An outstanding selection of antique oriental woodblock prints plus original etchings, woodcuts, lithographs by contemporary oriental printmakers Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition program Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource SAG https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/f11e9f06c82e0437b32b06a8febc3546.pdf 96f4c25345a304dcbb0a19b6babb9e9d PDF Text Text ������������ Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Exhibition Programs, 1973-present Description An account of the resource Exhibition programs created by the Sordoni Art Gallery from 1973 to the present. Digitized by Wilkes University Archives interns, Zachary Mendoza and Sophia Kruspha. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Sordoni Art Gallery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-present Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Wilkes University retains copyright of these exhibition programs. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition programs, flyers, and calendars. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1978 January 7 Benton Spruance Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brenton Spruance Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978 January 7 - January 31 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition program Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Lehigh University Department of Exhibitions and Collections https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/a35d9ce5400ccf1a721d9a34e3136140.pdf 52b97ba8bf76f3893ba6d5c2aa7dab4a PDF Text Text �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Exhibition Programs, 1973-present Description An account of the resource Exhibition programs created by the Sordoni Art Gallery from 1973 to the present. Digitized by Wilkes University Archives interns, Zachary Mendoza and Sophia Kruspha. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Sordoni Art Gallery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-present Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Wilkes University retains copyright of these exhibition programs. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition programs, flyers, and calendars. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1978 October 14 Annie Bohlin Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Annie Bohlin Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978 Octobe 14 - November 12 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition program https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/bdb380d862e759c6e98d93a8a5b28d9f.pdf d23f5e495da1fd9e93c1e7061a0b0be9 PDF Text Text ������������ Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Exhibition Programs, 1973-present Description An account of the resource Exhibition programs created by the Sordoni Art Gallery from 1973 to the present. Digitized by Wilkes University Archives interns, Zachary Mendoza and Sophia Kruspha. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Sordoni Art Gallery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-present Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Wilkes University retains copyright of these exhibition programs. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition programs, flyers, and calendars. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1978 December 15 Collectors Choice Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Joe Jones Charles Bargue Etienne Prosper Berne-Bellecour Jose Gallegos Jean Leon Gerome Corot John Constable R.P. Bonnington H.Meyheim Emile Albert Gruppe Amy Londoner John Carlson Adolf Konrad Thomas Hill Ernest Fiene Locca Wallace Bassford Tenny Johnson Charles M. Russell H. Wheeler George Catlin Jean de Botton Leonardo Nierman Alexander H. Wyant John Chunley Philip Jamison Thomas Pollock Anschutz Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978 December 15 - 1979 January 7 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition program https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/cbbcca011429ba4fe12792c8ab0b779c.pdf 089d80e06fe3e7571e33819113d70b9b PDF Text Text ���� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Exhibition Programs, 1973-present Description An account of the resource Exhibition programs created by the Sordoni Art Gallery from 1973 to the present. Digitized by Wilkes University Archives interns, Zachary Mendoza and Sophia Kruspha. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Sordoni Art Gallery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-present Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Wilkes University retains copyright of these exhibition programs. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition programs, flyers, and calendars. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1979 February 14 Scholastic Art Awards Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1979 February 14 - February 29 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition program https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/b1e4525250ab0ce13153d517adead8d3.pdf e8e3ea6832da561c69f79e020726b5db PDF Text Text �AN EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS BY THE EIGHT robert hcnri arthur b. davies william glackens ernest lavvson georgeluks maurice prendergast E.S. FARLEY LIBRARY WILKES UNIVERSITY WILKES-BARRE, PA everelt shinn john sloan MARCH 9 — APRIL 1, 1979 WILKES COLLEGE SORDONI ART GALLERY 1 �ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Mr. J. Philip Richards, Director of the Sordoni Gallery, who lent invaluable aid in the selection process; The Advisory Commission of the Wilkes College Sordoni Art Gallery makes grateful acknowledgment to the follow­ ing lenders and to those who through their interest, generos­ ity, and cooperation have so greatly enhanced the success of this exhibition: Mrs. Cara Berryman, Exhibitions Coordinator of the Sor­ doni Gallery, who expertly handled the many logistical prob­ lems involved in an undertaking so wide in scope; Dr. William Sterling, Chairman of the Wilkes College Art Department, for his exacting work in this catalogue; BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY, (George M. Jenks, Director) Mr. Robert S. Capin, President of Wilkes College, whose cooperation knew no bounds; LEHIGH UNIVERSITY, (Ricardo Viera, Director of Exhibitions and Collection) - Dr. Thomas Kelly, Dean of External Affairs of Wilkes College, whose liason work smoothed all problems; PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS, (Richard J. Boyle, Director) Mr. George Pawlush, Director of Wilkes College Public Relations, and Mrs. Jane Manganella, Assistant Director, who handled all phases of publicity and public relations; READING PUBLIC MUSEUM & ART GALLERY, (Bruce L. Dietrich, Director) SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY, (Domenic J. lacono, Director) Mrs. Arnold Rifkin, who contributed her intimate knowl­ edge of The Eight, and assisted in much needed gallery con­ tacts; VASSAR COLLEGE, (Peter Morrin, Director) THE WESTMORELAND COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART, (Paul A. Chew, Director) Mrs. Esther Davidowitz, for her invaluable suggestions in promoting this retrospect. MUSEUM OF ART, PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY, (William Hull, Director) And to all members of the Sordoni Art Gallery Advisory Commission without whose aid and support this presenta­ tion might not have been made possible. COE-KERR GALLERY INC. BERRY HILL GALLERIES We sincerely wish that all visitors who are destined to view this show, might share the same excitement, we who gathered it experienced during the past twelve months. KRAUSHAAR GALLERIES HIRSCHL & ADLER GALLERIES INC. Several private area collectors who for personal reasons chose to remain anonymous. ALBERT MARGOLIES Chairman, Advisory Commission The exhibition of works by the Ash Can School — the carefully selected product of the Immortal Eight, could not have been mounted to engage our intelligence; to exhilarate our feelings; to stimulate our sensual experience, without the dedicated assistance of the following: Sordoni Art Gallery Wilkes College Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania 2 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EIGI Just about a lifetime ago, on February 3,1903 ant exhibition of paintings opened in New YorJ Gallery. It was to be among a handful of landr which, over the next few years, would arouse A out of its complacency and into the mainstream o century modernism. The exhibition consisted o eight American artists who were operating eithei or barely within the artistic establishment of the ert Henri, John Sloan, William Glackens, George rett Shinn, Maurice Prendergast, Ernest Lawson, B. Davies. Two years later, Henri and Sloan helped to o other landmark show, the Exhibition of Indepenc in direct competition with the annual display by t Academy of Design, that august bastion of ai conservatism. In 1913, another member of the Ei B. Davies, became a prime mover of the renowr Show which brought together, for the first time hundreds of works by the leading avant-gard Europe and the United States. Today's spectator would perceive striking sty ences between the 1908 and 1913 events. The A highlighted such radical groups as the Cubists a ves, while the exhibition of The Eight offered w< ly representational character, with an occasion; into Impressionism. Europe's progressive front on from Impressionism some twenty years earl: Matisse's Fauvism was officially three years old, was on the verge of Cubism. The pace of artis ment in America clearly lagged behind that of sweeping changes were not to be made ovem 1850s and 1860s the French realist painters C Manet had turned their backs on the accepted < romantic traditions of the French Academy, and �ip Richards, Director of the Sordoni Gallery, luable aid in the selection process; Jerryman, Exhibitions Coordinator of the Sorvho expertly handled the many logistical prob­ in an undertaking so wide in scope; Sterling, Chairman of the Wilkes College Art or his exacting work in this catalogue; S. Capin, President of Wilkes College, whose lew no bounds; ; Kelly, Dean of External Affairs of Wilkes : liason work smoothed all problems ; Pawlush, Director of Wilkes College Public I Mrs. Jane Manganella, Assistant Director, II phases of publicity and public relations ; 1 Rifkin, who contributed her intimate knowl|ght, and assisted in much needed gallerv conDavidowitz, for her invaluable suggestions in ; retrospect. lembers of the Sordoni Art Gallen- Advisory-ithout whose aid and support this presentahave been made possible. y wish that all visitors who are destined to v, might share the same excitement, we who erienced during the past twelve months. 1GOLIES nsory Commission alienPennsylvania SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EIGHT a path for fresh thinking that ultimately drew along it the Impressionists, the Post-Impressionists, and every radical movement of the early twentieth century. Just about a lifetime ago, on February 3,1908, an import­ ant exhibition of paintings opened in New York's Macbeth Gallery. It was to be among a handful of landmark events which, over the next few years, would arouse American art out of its complacency and into the mainstream of twentieth­ century modernism. The exhibition consisted of works by eight American artists who were operating either outside of, or barely within the artistic establishment of the time: Rob­ ert Henri, John Sloan, William Glackens, George Luks, Eve­ rett Shinn, Maurice Prendergast, Ernest Lawson, and Arthur B. Davies. In America, The Eight performed a similar, if somewhat belated function. They were spoilers who championed artis­ tic freedom in a society which had held tenaciously and rev­ erently to the academic line. They were not the first non-con­ formists; men such as Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, and Albert Ryder had successfully gone their own way, but they had not crystallized widespread rebellion; Mary Cassatt and Whistler had created more radical styles in their time, but only as expatriates little known or appreciated in their native land. The Eight, on the other hand, set off the first explosion to seriously undermine the power structure of the academic establishment in America. Two years later, Henri and Sloan helped to organize an­ other landmark show, the Exhibition of Independent Artists, in direct competition with the annual display by the National Academy of Design, that august bastion of authoritarian conservatism. In 1913, another member of the Eight, Arthur B. Davies, became a prime mover of the renowned Armory Show which brought together, for the first time in America, hundreds of works by the leading avant-garde artists of Europe and the United States. The show was precipitated when the National Academy refused to accept works by Sloan and Glackens for their 1907 exhibition. Henri, a member of the Academy jury, could not prevail upon his colleagues, and in fact, found his own work luke-warmly accepted. Therefore, he determined to organ­ ize an independent exhibition which would show work of the more liberal artists. The show of The Eight, as a con­ troversial event, was very well attended, and received as much favorable as hostile criticism. All in all, and with $4,000.00 in sales, it was a success. Today's spectator would perceive striking stylistic differ­ ences between the 1908 and 1913 events. The Armory show highlighted such radical groups as the Cubists and the Fauves, while the exhibition of The Eight offered work of solid­ ly representational character, with an occasional excursion into Impressionism. Europe's progressive front had moved on from Impressionism some twenty years earlier. By 1908, Matisse's Fauvism was officially three years old, and Picasso was on the verge of Cubism. The pace of artistic develop­ ment in America clearly lagged behind that of Europe, and sweeping changes were not to be made overnight. In the 1850s and 1860s the French realist painters Courbet and Manet had turned their backs on the accepted classical and The painters of the Eight did not constitute a homogene­ ous group, and they never exhibited all together again. Lawson and Prendergast were strongly influenced by Impres­ sionism, though in quite different ways, and Davies was a Fantacist, loosely related to the French Symbolists. Only Henri, Sloan, Shinn, Luks, and Glackens formed a long­ standing and fairly closeknit group. These five shared a style of briskly painted realism, similar to Manet's, as well as a passion for ordinary subjects unsentimentally presented, particularly ones drawn from their own urban surroundings (hence their later designation "The Ash Can School"). romantic traditions of the French Academy, and had broken 3 �them squarely in a late nineteenth-century aesthetic. It was as if they had reinvented the wheel, and historians whose primary criterion for achievement was innovation had diffi­ culty looking at work which was "out of date." Robert Henri, the eldest of these five, had been their in­ spirational mentor and supporter back in their Philadelphia days, when he was teaching at the Pennsylvania Academy and they were working as newspaper artists. With their journalistic backgrounds, Glackens, Luks, Shinn, and Sloan responded naturally to Henri's spontaneous realism. These men had not deliberately set out to break new artistic ground, and certainly they don't look very radical today. Indeed, they revered such old masters as Hals, Velasquez, and Goya, who mated candor with powerfully graphic styles. Henri and his Philadelphia friends sought to reveal twen­ tieth-century life with the same candor and visual pungency. The other three members of The Eight were more involved with poetic transformations of the natural world, but all eight were ill-treated by an art establishment which still fa­ vored romantic idylls, classical pastiches, and vignettes of drawing room morality. Several things have happened in the last decade which may be changing this approach. For one thing, as we recede farther from the birth of modernism in Paris, the significance of its initial moments no longer overshadows so completely the importance of the hours of assimilation which followed, especially within the context of the cultural differences which existed between Europe and America. A somewhat analogous situation would be the adoption of Caravaggio's style by younger painters, such as Velasquez, in the seven­ teenth century. The intrinsic power and beauty of Velasquez' early work are not belittled because it resembles Caravag­ gio's. There has also been a widespread return to various forms of naturalism in contemporary art, which places the center of vanguard taste somewhat closer to The Eight than it has been for quite a few decades. At the same time, American scholars (and not just the chauvinistic ones) have begun to outgrow their inferiority complex, vis-a-vis Europe, when it comes to any discussion of American art before our own rev­ olutionary period of the forties and fifties. More than ever before, American art of the past is being looked at on its own terms and for its inherent strength. As historical cata­ lysts, The Eight have always been recognized; as artists in their own right, they may now receive a fresh appraisal. The historical position of The Eight is usually fixed in terms of the group's catalytic role in bringing about an im­ portant change in America's artistic values. By promoting liberalized exhibition opportunities for less conventional art­ ists, they opened the door for a much broader exchange of ideas and tastes. It might not be reaching too far to assign another significance to these painters, particularly the AshCan contingent. Their brash, bravura, paint-loving techni­ que and their sensitivity to the vital presence of the Ameri­ can urban environment place them closer to the Abstract Expressionism of the fifties than we might initially suppose. In a spiritual sense, The Eight were the forerunners of the New York School which erupted on the international scene after World War II. It is the purpose of this exhibition to reveal The Eight on both these levels. As we experience them together again, we can perhaps more easily imagine their impact in IPOS.* At the same time, we can look at them with an open mind, in the solace of another day. Yet, except for Prendergast, whose style approached a Fauve-like abstractness and therefore seemed more modem, The Eight have rarely enjoyed the limelight in twentieth­ century criticism. Modernist scholars were not inclined to look beyond the fact that these painters resembled Manet and his generation more than anyone else, which placed * The present show, while representing al! the artists of The Eight, does not include those pictures which were in the original exhibition (with one exception). Many oi these works are later, and show something of the various directions the artists leek during their careers. 4 SELECTED BIBLIC ARTHUR B. DAVIES, 1862-1928. Introduction by H. K. Prior. V Institute, Utica, New York, 1962. BERRY-HILL, H & S. Ernest La~.cn pressionist. Leigh-on-Sea, Englar BREUNING, M. Maurice Prendergi BROWN, M. W. American Paintin to the Depression. Princeton, 195 CARY, E. L. George Luks. New Yor DU BOIS, G. P. Ernest Lawson. Nev DU BOIS, G. P. John Sloan. New Yi DU BOIS, C. P. William J. Glacken: THE EIGHT (Exhibition Catalogu Art, Brooklyn, 1944. FINK, L. M. and J. C. TAYLOR Aca Tradition in American Art. Wash GALLATIN, A. E. John Sloan. New �th-century aesthetic. It -was ■heel, and historians whose it was innovation had diffi"outof date." J in the last decade which For one thing, as we recede sm in Paris, the significance overshadows so completely ssimilation which followed, >f the cultural differences and America. A somewhat e adoption of Caravaggio's as Velasquez, in the sevener and beauty of Velasquez' tuse it resembles Caravag- ;ad return to various forms rt, which places the center er to The Eight than it has t the same time, American nistic ones) have begun to ;, vis-a-vis Europe, when it can art before our own revind fifties. More than ever t is being looked at on its Irength. As historical cata:n recognized; as artists in eive a fresh appraisal. tion to reveal The Eight on ce them together again, we their impact in 1908.* At em with an open mind, in SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY GLACKENS, I. William Glackens Er the Ashcan Croup: The Emergence of Realism in American Art. New York, 1957. ARTHUR B. DAVIES, 1862-1928. (Exhibition Catalogue). Introduction by H. K. Prior. Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, 1962. GOODRICH, L. John Sloan, 1871-1951. New York, 1952. HENRI, R. The Art Spirit. Philadelphia, 1923. BERRY-HILL, H. & S. Ernest Lawson, N.A.; American Im­ pressionist. Leigh-on-Sea, England, 1968. HOMER, W. I. Robert Henri & His Circle. Ithaca, 1969. BREUNING, M. Maurice Prendergast. New York, 1931. HUNTER, S. "The Eight-Insurgent Realists," Art in Amer­ ica XLIV. (Fall, 1956), 20-22,56-58. BROIVN, M. W. American Painting from the Armory Show to the Depression. Princeton, 1955. THE LIFE & TIMES OF JOHN SLOAN (Exhibition Cata­ logue). Introduction by H. F, Sloan & B. St. John. Dela­ ware Art Center, Wilmington, 1961. CARY, E. L. George Luks. New York, 1931. PERLMAN, BENNARD The Immortal Eight. New York, 1962. DU BOIS, G. P. Ernest Lawson. New York, 1932. DU BOIS, G. P. John Sloan. New Y'ork, 1931. PHILLIPS, D., ET AL. Arthur B. Davies: Essays on the Man and His Art. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1924. DU BOIS, G. P. William J. Glackens. New York, 1931. 1HE EIGHT ■ Exhibition Catalogue), Brooklyn Museum of RHYS, H. H. Maurice Prendergast. Cambridge, Massachusettes. 1924. Art, Brooklyn, 1944. SCOTT, D. & J. BULLARD John Sloan. Washington, 1971. FINK, L. M. and J. C. TAYLOR Academy: The Academic Tradition in American Art. Washington, D. C., 1975. YOUNG, M. 5. The Eight: The Realist Revolt in American Painting. New York, 1973. GALLATIN, A. E. John Sloan. New York, 1925. I artists cf The Eight, does not include Bbiticn (Hith ere c*rcf*Ucr,} Man> ot Bthe various directions the artists took 5 �Show and several other important exhibitions of the Lime. ROBERT HENRI I Henri's success as a painter was matched by that as a teacher, and his students included such major figures George Bellows, Edward Hopper, and Man Ray. In terms of local interest, it may be noted that during the summer of 1902, Henri painted-landscapes at Black Walnut, Pennsyl­ vania, northwest of Wilkes-Barre, at the home of his wife's parents. "Picnic at Meshoppen," in the present exhibition dates from this visit. In 1907-08, Henri again travelled to Wilkes-Barre, to paint portraits of Mr. & Mrs. George Cot­ ton Smith and Miss Edith Reynolds. (1865-1929 Born in Cincinnati, Ohio) Henri was the doyen of the Philadelphia, or Ash Can, con­ tingent of The Eight. Having lived most of his adolescence in the middle and far west, Henri displayed something of the audacity and rugged individualism typically associated with the American frontier. His father, a land speculator, had killed a man in self-defense in Nebraska, but before his name was cleared, he had changed it and had fled to New Jersey. His son, Robert Henry Cozad, thus became Robert Henri (Hen'-rye). Henri studied at the Pennsylvania Academy under Thomas Anshutz, one of Thomas Eakins' foremost students. His natural inclinations for candor and realism flowed easily into the Eakins tradition. Henri's ambition to excel as an artist carried him to Paris in 1888 for several years of study at the Academe Julien, during which time he was temporar­ ily 'attracted to academic painters, such as his teacher Bougereau. His attempts at acceptance into the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts met with failure until 1891, Gradually, he gravitated toward the loosely-painted realism of Manet, as well as to old masters such as Velasquez and Hals. "Cafe at Night, Paris" oil 32 x 25%" On loan from Lehigh University, Department of Exhibitions and Collection, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 2. "Rue de Rennes" oil 25% x 32" On loan from Vassar College Art Callery, Poughkeepsie, New York. Back in Philadelphia, Henri's charisma drew a large and faithful following to the weekly open-houses at his studio, where art, literature, philosophy and politics were discussed along with regular forays into madcap fun and frivolity. Henri, Sloan, Glackens, Shinn and Luks cemented their ties there. 4. "Picnic at Meshoppen, Pennsylvania, July 4, la02" oil 26 x 32" On loan from The Westmoreland County Museum of Art. Greensburg, Pennsylvania. After a well-reviewed one-man show at the Pennsylvania Academy in 1897, selection into three Paris salons, and the purchase of one of his paintings by the French government, Henri's place in the art establishment was well-secured. From that position, he fought to liberalize the establishment, particularly with regard to exhibition opportunities for young and progressive artists. He was chief instigator of the exhibition of The Eight and also had a hand in the Armory 5. "Dutch Fisherman" oil 24 x 20" On loan from The Westmoreland County Museum of Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania. 6 Bridgie Beg' oil 20 x 24" On loan from a private collection. �■ important exhibitions of the time, painter was matched by that as a its included such major figures as I Hopper, and Man Ray. In terms of . noted that during the summer of dscapes at Black Walnut, Pennsylkes-Barre, at the home of his wife's hoppen," in the present exhibition 1907-08, Henri again travelled to ortraits of Mr. & Mrs. George Cot1 Reynolds. J iversify, Department of Exhibitions m, Pennsylvania. '.allege Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, mnsylvania, July 4,1902" moreland County Museum of Art, ia. moreland County Museum of Art, ia. 3. "Bridgie Beg" oil 20 x 24" On loan from a private collection. 7 �WILLIAM ARTHUR B. DAVIES (1870-l°38 Bom m Phi (1862-1928 Born in Utica, New York) o Davies was not one of the Ash-Can painters, and at first glance it would seem unlikely that he could have had much in common with them. But like them, he sought to free art from the grip of the Academy. With a talent for organiza­ tion and a perspicacious eye, he was largely responsible for putting together the Armory Show in 1913. ft j Davies initially studied landscape painting, then attended the Chicago Academy of Design, and briefly considered a career as a draftsman. He went to New York to further his studies in painting and in 1893 was off to Europe. His dreamy landscapes, often inspired by myths and poems, put him into the orbit of late Romantic and Symbolist artists such as Bocklin, Puvis de Chevannes, and Odilon Redon. I J 7. "Seven Nudes" oil 11 x 213/4" On loan from Lehigh University, Department of Exhibitions and Collection, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. After the Armory Show, Davies began to experiment with Cubism, and also turned more and more to printmaking. His Cubist work put him irrevocably into the mainstream of twentieth-century art, and along with Prendergast, made him the most apparently modem of the painters of The Eight after World War I. 6. "Silvered Heights" oil 18 x 40" On loan from Lehigh University, Department of Exhibitions and Collection, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 9. "Lane with Trees and Fence" watercolor 4Vz x 7" ' On loan from Lehigh University. Department of Exhibitions and Collection, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 8. "Bam Swallow" watercolor 7 x 5V2" On loan from Lehigh University, Department of Exhibitions and Collection, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 10. "Cows Out to Pasture" watercolor 4Vs x 6Vs" On loan from Lehigh University, Department of Exhibition? and Collection, Bethlehem. Pennsylvania. 8 Glackens had little formalj a natural facility and a prod: naturally suited to the artist/ est in serious painting soon newspaper colleagues, to He with whom he came to share France for a year before settli a taste for Manet, the Impress Impressionists. In 1898, Glackens risked li War for McClure's Magazin but mainly from the vantage heard about the day’s events Manet, Glackens’ later work ful vein, similar to Renoir's I Saco at Conway," for examp scenes to nudes, landscapes, Albert Barnes. Glackens wr procuring many of the maste and post-impressionist pain important Barnes Foundation vania. 11. "Nude Dressing Hair’ oil 30 x 25" On loan from Lehigh Univen and Collection, Bethlehem, P 13. Mixed Bouquet, White Vast oil 16 x 14" On loan from the Kraiishaar ( �WILLIAM GLACKENS (1870-1938 Bom in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) Glackens had little formal art training, but was gifted with a natural facility and a prodigeous visual memory’. He was naturally suited to the artist/reporter profession. His inter­ est in serious painting soon led him, via his Philadelphia newspaper colleagues, to Henri, who encouraged him and with whom he came to share a studio. Glackens travelled to France for a year before settling in New York, and developed a taste for Manet, the Impressionists, and several of the PostImpressionists. In 1898, Glackens risked life and limb to cover the Cuban War for McClure’s Magazine. (Luks also covered the War, but mainly from the vantage point of tl^e taverns, where he heard about the day's events.) Early under the influence of Manet, Glackens' later work followed a lighter, more color­ ful vein, similar to Renoir's Impressionism (as seen in "The Saco at Conway," for example). He also turned from urban scenes to nudes, landscapes, and still-lifes. A friend of Dr. Albert Barnes, Glackens was instrumental in selecting and procuring many of the masterpieces of French impressionist and post-impressionist painting which now comprise the important Barnes Foundation Collection in Merion, Pennsyl­ vania. y, Department of Exhibitions nsylvania. [./, Department of Exhibitions Insylvania. I/, Department of Exhibitions fisylvania. ____lXS.1 12. "The Saco at Conway" oil 25 x 30" On loan from the Kraushaar Galleries, New York. II. "Nude Dressing Hair" oil 30 x 25" On loan from Lehigh University, Department of Exhibitions and Collection, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 14. "Nude with Black Stockings" oil 16J/2 x 13" On loan from a private collection. 13. "Mixed Bouquet, White Vase" oil 16 x 14" On loan from the Kraushaar Galleries, New York. 15. "Flowers in a Pitcher" oil 24 x 18" On loan from the Berry Hill Galleries, New York. 9 ( �a. i.. ,• j. - ERNEST LAWSON j 7-.^ . (1873-1939 Born in Nova Scotia, Canada) *■- •T Lawson was the only member of the group who was pri­ marily a landscapist. During his lifetime, he travelled widely, beginning with a stint as a draftsman in Mexico, where his father was engaged in an engineering project. He later moved to New York, and studied under the American impression­ ists Twachtman and Weir. ■ -'Vh7,. "A ' - -J"/ - -a" - —— In Paris, he came under the influence of European Impres­ sionism as a friend of Sisley. Later trips took him to Spain, Nova Scotia, and west and midwest of the United States, and finally to Florida, where he died. Today, however, we associate Lawson mostly with the up­ per reaches of Manhattan and the Harlem River, where he was living at the time of the Exhibition. More than any other painter, he preserved, with poetic substantiality, the charac­ ter of those places. Working with the palette knife, he ma­ nipulated his scumbled impastos into a surface of "crushed jewels," as one critic described it. And though he is typically thought of as an impressionist, Lawson shared with the Symbolists a belief that color should be used to evoke partic­ ular emotions rather than merely depict natural facts. 16. "High Bridge-Winter" oil 19 x 24" On loan from The Reading Public Museum and .Art Gallery, Reading, Pennsylvania. 17. "Spring" 19. "The Blue Hill" oil ■16 x 197a" On loan from Vassar College Art Callcry. Poughkeepsie, New York. oil 25 x 30" On loan from the Syracuse University Art Collections, Syra­ cuse, New York. 18. "The Everglades" oil 30 x 40" On loan from Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York. 20. "The Lock" oil 177a x 3174" On loan from The Westmoreland County Museum of -Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania. 10 GEORGE 1 (1867-1933 Bern William; Luks, the son of a cuitured phys a free spirit and a mocker of Vi went to Philadelphia in 1833, appa ville performer. He briefly attende emy, and then spent several years met his fellow Ash-Can painters ir Philadelphia Press, where thev r staff of the New York World, lie t ing comic strip, "The Yellow Kid." ly involved in painting, he devi Henri's with dark tonalities and fondness for seventeenth-century dent in this work. Luks, only ha that Frans Hals was incarnate witl came lighter, more colorful, often ; With his irrepressible theatrical was the group's clown prince, gi1 instigating barroom brawls. But h ly honest. On his impulsive and claimed, "I can paint with a shoe lard .,. Guts! Guts! Life! that's mt 22. "Portrait of a Man" oil 3072 x 2574 " On loan from The Westmorelanc Greensburg, Pennsylvania. 23. "Beggar Woman" oil 20 x 16" On loan from a private collection. �GEORGE LUKS ('iScv-lP-'-’ Born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania) I I I I I I I I I Luks, the son of a cultured physician, was from the outset a free spirit and a mocker of Victorian respectability. He went to Philadelphia in 18S3, apparently to become a vaudeville performer. He briefly attended the Pennsylvania Academy, and then spent several years traveling in Europe. Luks met his fellow Ash-Can painters in the art department of the Philadelphia Press, where they regularly met. Joining the staff of the -Veto York World, he took over the first continuing comic strip, "The Yellow Kid." As he became increasingly involved in painting, he developed a style similar to Henri's with dark tonalities and broad brushstrokes. His fondness for seventeenth-century Dutch painting was evi­ dent in this work. Luks, only half-jokingly, used to claim I that Frans Hals was incarnate within him. His later work be| came lighter, more colorful, often garish. Bridge-Winter" ■24" from The ■ng, Pennsylvania. useur: and Art Gallery, 21. "Boy with Bowl" oil 30 x 25" On loan from Lehigh University, Department of Exhibitions and Collection, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. With his irrepressible theatrical flair and brashness, Luks I was the group's clown prince, given to practical jokes and I instigating barroom brawls. But his painting was unfailing| ly honest. On his impulsive and brutally realistic style, he claimed, "I can paint with a shoestring dipped in pitch and lard... Guts! Guts! Life! that's my technique." Blue Hill" 22. "Portrait of a Man" 24. "Old Timer" oil 3074 x 25" On loan from the Hirschl and Adler Galleries Inc., Neto York. I oil 1972" ’an from ’. assar College Art Gal’er-j, Poughkeepsie, York. Lock'­ t317i" an from The Westmoreland County Museum of Art, sburg, Pennsylvania. 30% x 25*4" I Or. loan from The Westmoreland County Museum of Art, I Greensburg, Pennsylvania. 23. "Beggar Woman" 25. "Little Tommy" oil 23 x 177a " On loan from the Coe-Kerr Callery Inc., Neto York. oil 20 x 16" On loan from a private collection. ll �■ ■■--■w. . ?: :-y:x ■ ■ ' EVERETT SHINN Ct (1876-7953 Born in Idstown. New Jersey) MAURICE PRENDERGAST (1859-1924 Born in Newfoundland, Canada) Prendergast, although the eldest of The Eight, was the most avant-garde in style. He came to serious painting graduauj, _____ o ' t as a show-card painter in Boston. ually, out Three having years instarted Paris (1892-95) were spent absorbing the lat­ est developments in art created by the Impressionists, the Neo-Impressionists, the Symbolists, and the Nabis, Despite the fact that he was a provincial painter in his middle thir­ ties, Prendergast gravitated easily to this radical current. By 1900 he had developed a personal style reminiscent of Pierre Bonnard's. Both men shared a love for the festive promenades and graceful landscapes of urban parks. The dancing rhythms of Prendergast's bright patchworked color exuded an air of bourgeois elegance. Perhaps more than any other American painter of the first decade of the twentieth century, Prendergast approached the lyrical color explora­ tions of Matisse. His abstractness, lack of "finish," and lav­ ish color caused his work to be the most strongly attacked by the critics of The Eight, but this was no deterrant to a mature and independent spirit. Later on, he experimented with a somewhat pointillist technique of painting, partly de­ rived from Paul Signac. From beginning to end, Prendergast remained an individualist who charted his own artistic course. "Marblehead Rocks," in the present show, was in the original exhibition of The Eight. Everett Shinn, the youiue.t of The Eight, had the mt varied career. In addition to painting and illustration. Shit at one time or another, teas involved in set design, moti picture art direction and playwriting. i % i 27. , „ "Marblehead Rocks watercolor 14 x 10" On loan from a private collection. Shinn met the other Philadelphia painters at the Penns vania Academy, which he attended while working as an lustrator for the Philadelphia Press Ilis ambition, upon i grating to New York City, was to establish himself ai fashionable illustrator for the better magazines and public ing houses. His pastel of the Metropolitan Opera House a snowstorm, rendered overnight to meet the deadline landing a job with Harper's Weekly, helped to launch h toward the fulfillment of his ambition. Unlike the other A‘ Can painters, Shinn gravitated to the fashionable sections town rather than the humbler ones. Art, University Park, Pennsylvania. His interest in the theater was stirred by his trip to Pr in 1901, and the* pictures he showed with The Eight indue stage scenes. Partly because of this interest, he was parti larly drawn to the art of Degas. He also shared with Dei a love for pastel as a medium, two examples of which app in the present show. 29. "Cresent Beach" oil 10% x 13/16" On loan from Bucknell University, Ellen Clarke Bertrand Li- : 31. "Strong Man, Clown and Dancer" oil 10 x 8" On loan from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine A 28. "Bathers in a Cove" oil 20 27% from " On Xloan Pennsylvania State University, Museum 26. "La Rouge: Portrait of Miss Edith King" oil 28/z x 31/2" On loan from Lehigh University, Department of Exhibitions brary, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 30. "Paris Omnibus" oil 10/4 x 13%6" On loan from Bucknell University, Ellen Clarke Bertrand Li- ' 32. "Clown" oil 9 x 7>/z" On loan from Vassar College Art Callery, Poughkeep brary, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. and Collection, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 12 of New York. �EVERETT SHINN " ■ -if-i--j-. -d r-,- 'ection. (1876-1953 Born in Woodstown, New Jersey) Everett Shinn, the youngest of The Eight, had the most varied career. In addition to painting and illustration, Shinn, at one time or another, was involved in set design, motion picture art direction and play writing. Shinn met the other Philadelphia painters at the Pennsyl­ vania Academy, which he attended while working as an il­ lustrator for the Philadelphia Press. His ambition, upon mi­ grating to New York City, was to establish himself as a fashionable illustrator for the better magazines and publish­ ing houses. His pastel of the Metropolitan Opera House in a snowstorm, rendered overnight to meet the deadline for landing a job with Harper's Weekly, helped to launch him toward the fulfillment of his ambition. Unlike the other AshCan painters, Shinn gravitated to the fashionable sections of town rather than the humbler ones. tia State University, Museum of isylvania. His interest in the theater was stirred by his trip to Paris in 1901, and the pictures he showed with The Eight included stage scenes. Partly because of this interest, he was particu­ larly drawn to the art of Degas. He also shared with Degas a love for pastel as a medium, two examples of which appear in the present show. iversity, Ellen Clarke Bertrand Livania. 31. "Strong Man, Clown and Dancer" oil 10 x 8" On loan from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. liversity, Ellen Clarke Bertrand LiIvania. 32. "Clown" oil 9 x 71/2" On loan from Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York. 34. "Snowstorm, Washington Square" pastel 25 Vz x 19V2" On loan from a private collection. 33. "The Green Ballet, 1943" oil 19% x 30" On loan from The Westmoreland County Museum of Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania. 35. "Startled Nude" pastel 15 x 14V1" On loan from a private collection. 13 �37. "Horace Traubel" JOHN SLOAN (1871-1951 Born in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania) oil 32 x 26" On loan from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Sloan was the "slow starter" of the Ash-Can group, ut one of its most durable successes. He continued to work as an artist/reporter for Philadelphia newspapers long after his journalist colleagues in The Eight had turned to painting. He was the last of them to move to New York, and the only one never to go to Europe. For a long time he received little attention as a painter, and sold his first painting only after 38. "Self Portrait" oil 24 x 20" On loan from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. he was past forty. His manner of painting was also slower than that of his Philadelphia friends. He had less facility with the quick study than men such as Luks and Glackens, and during his newspaper career concentrated on illustrations for the Sun­ day sections rather than attempting on-the-spot recordings of fast-breaking news. On the other hand his work took on an increasing structural solidity, and he gained early recogni­ tion as an illustrator with his art-nouveau drawings and his etchings for novels. 39. "Gloucester Harbor" oil 26 x 32" On loan from Syracuse University Art Collections, Syracuse, New York. When he began his career as a serious painter in New York, Sloan turned to the realities of the urban environment for inspiration. So candid and forceful was his work that several paintings submitted to an exhibition in 1906 were rejected for their "vulgarity." Sloan's deep attachment to the humbler elements of urban society aroused more than artistic interest in them, and he ran for the State Assembly in 1908 on the Socialist ticket, but was defeated. In 1912 he became art editor for the socialist magazine, The Masses. His social consciousness continued to influence his painting and illustration for several years, but after World War I, he turned more fully to formal problems, such as the study of the nude. Like his own mentor, Henri, Sloan became an in­ fluential teacher, whose students included such later mas­ ters as Alexander Calder, Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett New­ man, and Reginald Marsh. 40. "Dolly Reading" oil 20 x 24" On loan from a private collection. 36. "Balancing Rock, Gloucester Harbor" oil 26Vz x 32 Vz" On loan from Lehigh University, Department of Exhibitions and Collection, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 14 �idemy of the Fine Arts, ademy of the Fine Arts, ,rt Collections, Syracuse, Ir" Department of Exhibitions Ifoania. �Director J. PHILIP RICHARDS Coordinator CARA BERRYMAN Advisory Commission MR. ROBERT CAPIN MRS. STANLEY DAVIES MRS. CHARLES EPSTEIN MR. RICHARD FULLER DR. THOMAS KELLY MRS. ALLAN KLUGER MR. MICHAEL KOLESAR mrs. john McDonald MR. ALBERT MARGOLIES MR. ANDREW SORDONI, III DR. WILLIAM STERLING WILKES COLLEGE SORDONI ART GALLERY WILKES-BARRE, PENNSYLVANIA 18766 16 �llliffl 100D183318 MILKES COLLEGE LIBRARY �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Exhibition Programs, 1973-present Description An account of the resource Exhibition programs created by the Sordoni Art Gallery from 1973 to the present. Digitized by Wilkes University Archives interns, Zachary Mendoza and Sophia Kruspha. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Sordoni Art Gallery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-present Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Wilkes University retains copyright of these exhibition programs. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition programs, flyers, and calendars. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1979 March 9 - April 1 An Exhibition of paintings by The Eight Subject The topic of the resource Exhibition program Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sordoni Art Gallery Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Sordoni Art Gallery; Wilkes University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1979 March 9 - April 1 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition Book https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/8df541f3efe1fcc4942c5df8b7af43e9.pdf dd2441cd69d466224620c8e2f4abc86f PDF Text Text ������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Exhibition Programs, 1973-present Description An account of the resource Exhibition programs created by the Sordoni Art Gallery from 1973 to the present. Digitized by Wilkes University Archives interns, Zachary Mendoza and Sophia Kruspha. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Sordoni Art Gallery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-present Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Wilkes University retains copyright of these exhibition programs. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition programs, flyers, and calendars. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1979 March 9 The Eight Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robert Henri Aurthur B. Davis William Glacken Ernest Lawson George Luks Maurice Prendergast Everett Shinn John Sloan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1979 March 9 - April 1 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition program https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/cbc27b9799c2a44612618204f95b064f.pdf fdb38f0a7f47a0b6eddec7b8fc2795b3 PDF Text Text IBWs r-^-. ~:r; KiBflBORP*®- EW ^WSO®#! ' :JfI 7W ■•«■■■ M lisss” SORD GA ND237 D98B5 �E.S. FARLEY LIBRARY WILKES UNIVERSITY WILKES-BARREJ’A �BERENICE D’VORZON: P, 1980Tick Island and Louse Point ate i«-:rl place". Ihe. bflonu to those ulmi-.r parii vai wildeme. .■ . <d Long Island which He a scant fifty miles horn the metropolis <»<•••! in t- arid n, I r< k of New York have resided there I .: < ■ . pi r ulhe ■ i't d.t Hie !<-.'« tlncke'S. ■'> - t in.rr tif.ind .'iri' .ugh to nvei'.h.i'low .iny olhe. 'inj..............1. . , , .c-- tel-, i.<• i • have Ir.rd ol the tetI fill i II,line-, Io the .<■ pl i< e . I ,ile| t.l . iv> |er . b-o• • • e■ of hind. *.e.> , i .'.>s i It ;.j .ip. -.1 tie .11;,i in Oldl’l to .dvor lh<Old dif to b’ >, I 1‘ |(1 fj.. ih< (* nineteenth < «-nthi y, i r>-h:.t- i rd f it" . .- ipi 1 ■ . ,f r, t, '.n< h a . Joini I I umini'.l ven .ibditie , 1 , . ,,i. cover: no. 13 itJ |. t .] . . . pl i-l.'.O » > ,1 J‘-) ■ '.-e ;'e They are not so ulpturaliy dramatic i .rocky > (. - 'U!>>r,t ■ > ’r;«‘ y ;> ;<•■-.-,j 1 e 1; . . rnoio < (Hit empl.it I spirits leisurely before tt.e Berenice bWorzor: I ou-»e Point .. r :,'oa;i .e o' nil', 1/ e 1. e o r; she beqrsn e- e.e, .’.-, East di-.r,' r.-;- ,-.j.-e ,. •- -oioi r. ,p.red b, la'..'!-., .-.pe , t;f; ‘ Hampton m her ;< r r, t.-ie.r brew of i.qhr , P if ;■ *> -, I,; lets of fiatuie horr. >,< . SORDONI ART GALLERY WILKES COLLEGE 150 South River Street Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania 18766 .</; • : . i' ' 0,1'.t-. of Main**. h.'M hot -■> of IA I . . r ARCHIVES :nei- 1. :i . . .. tO !'■< r,irl tfil, .•■ (.h.||(. ;.■■'! no. 15 Vour 1 A'.e l"/ir.‘ 'I 1111nt the .per ial liqhi f >• e Her wore f .a'. a.wa/s beer, Lir.r,* Shaf’ na? • it..', executed in the late neventie', *ere deoved from ’he ■ - around :■ - pe-.,-. �BERENICE D’VORZON: PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS, 1980-1982 3. 13 II ART GALLERY COLLEGE i River Street rre, Pennsylvania 18766 Tick Island and Louse Point are real places. They belong to those almost primeval wildernesses of Long Island which lie a scant fifty miles from the metropolis of New York. Ticks and lice and myriad other species have resided there for eons amidst the low thickets, marshes, and surrounding sea. Pesty enough to overshadow any other impressions early travelers may have had of the terrain, the ticks and the lice gave their names to these places. Later travelers have endured the irritations of insects in order to savor the more subtle and enduring moods of land, sea, and air to be found there. In the nineteenth century, a number of landscapists of note, such as John F. Kensett and William S. Mount, came to paint the special light and color which appealed to their Luminist sensibilities. Painters still come to Long Island to record those changing, yet changeless, phenomena. They are not so sculpturally dramatic as the rocky coasts of Maine, or so picturesquely quaint as the harbors of Massachusetts. They appeal, perhaps, to more contemplative souls who like to purloin the secrets of Nature from her somnolence or imbibe her spirits leisurely before the intoxication hits. Berenice D’Vorzon has moved about Tick Island and Louse Point since she began summering in East Hampton in her teens, and she has drunk her share of their brew of light and color. Her work has always been inspired by landscape. The "Light Shaft” paintings she executed in the late seventies were derived from the orests around her farm in northeastern Pennsylvania. Shafts of shifting colored light interplaying with shafts of solid tree and foliage were transformed into radiant graduations of tone and color in her canvases. The paintings she has done over the past two years have evolved during prolonged stays in East Hampton, and stand in striking contrast to the “Light Shaft" series. The coastal terrain may suggest to her a more dynamic set of shapes than did the sylvan regiments of Pennsylvania, or maybe there is simply some deeper urge to replace the almost classical order of the "Shafts” with a more baroque dynamism. The central preoccupations with radiant light and ambiguous space have not changed, but everything else has. Shapes twist and turn, expand and contract with eruptive energy. Paint flows, drips, and thrusts. Compositions seem held together by more precarious means. We are on the verge of experiencing something akin to the Action Painting of the fifties. D'Vorzon's formative years as an artist indeed coincided with the tumult of Abstract Expressionism. But in the sixties and early seventies, it became fashionable to relegate that movement to the history books, to declare it spent, as if a decade were enough to explore its ramifications. There followed a succession of styles which were emotionally detached, compared to the naked passion of the Action group. Pop Op, Minimal, and Photorealism all resolutely avoided romantic personalism and bravura paint.ng techniques. Abstract Expressionism was not a cool style, and the sixties and seventies sought coolness. 91-18000B �method of the Expressionists. The recent varieties of painterly primitivism, the New Imagists, and the messier, more torrid forms of pattern painting are indicative of this shift. D’Vorzon had never really drifted far from that pole anyhow. While her “Light Shaft" paintings seem rather cool in manner now, their romantic essence was always apparent. The new works renew the painterly dynamism of her early style, combining with it the complex color and tonal harmonies worked out in the intervening years. The result is a multivalent richness of surface and illusion, substance and light, active and passive movement — an orchestration of form which intensifies the landscape experience to a level of transcendence. The most conspicuous Abstract Expressionist element in the new works are the drips, which D’Vorzon has revived without fear of being labelled a reactionary action painter. William Pellicone, writing of D’Vorzon’s 1980 exhibition at the Soho Center for the Visual Arts, noted the "classical structure (she added) to the usual action drips."1 Functionally, the passive accident of the drips plays against the willful propulsion of the impasto arcs. The drips also reassert the flatness of the picture plane against the atmospheric illusions of the brushwork. The drips are, indeed, part of a repertory of painterly gestures, along with the glazes, impastos, scumbles, and ribbons of paint drawn from the tube, all aimed at representing the dynamics of nature through a distinctive and personal vision. Tempos overlap, and muted expanses are invaded by shots of color which ferry the eye across “seas” and along "shorelines.” to explore other forms in the repertory, such as the slashing arcs (e.g. “Louse Point Violet"). The “air and sea” pictures of 1980 and early 1981, with their distant horizons, began to give way in the middle of 1981 to pictures containing definite foreground elements, as in “Night Tracer (Tick Island)." Surging organic shapes have come to dominate the latest pictures, notably the “Acabonac Air” series. D’Vorzon rightfully does not consider herself a flatout Expressionist. There is unquestionably a powerful emotional energy coursing through her work, but it remains intimately attached to the landscape itself. In fact, most of the paintings and drawings closely resemble the essential patterns and tonalities of specific places and phenomena. Their representationalism is surprisingly clear when compared with photographs of the sites.2 As Helen Harrison observed in a recent reference to D’Vorzon's work in The Tieu> York Times, "the illusion of landscape and the reality of the painted surface alternate in the viewer’s consciousness.”’ Lush pigment and strong design allow these paintings to stand alone as abstractions, while clear echos of natural space and light grant them illusionism. Rather like the Cubists, D’Vorzon has fashioned a surface which is simultaneously flat and threedimensional. This is a difficult ambiguity to maintain, this retaining of the rich tactility and rhythmic patterning of surface, while at the same time flirting with a void aglow with colored light, or with a shape that begins to penetrate into the canvas and assume mass. In another review of D’Vorzon’s work last "to describe a three-dimensional spatial sensation without renaissance perspective illusions, by taking painterly elements that could suggest the sense of changing light, density, and mutations of vibrant, sensuous experience, and using them in new arbitrary ways to invent the essence of a scene. Il is a vocabulary of nature's signs reduced to the language of pigment. Color is alternately solid and fluid as it gestures, drips, moves, or is contained within bold shapes composed of abstract strokes."4 The most recent paintings, such as the "Acabonac Air" pictures, reveal clearer perspectives of the landscape. D’Vorzon's interest in the dynamics of pictorial space has. in fact, led her to the use of raking aerial views, akin to late medieval landscapes, which reveal botfi the perspective of the topography and its surface patterns. Even more than space, light inspires D’Vorzon. An immense, carefully orchestrated range of tonalities pervades her work, paintings and drawings alike. Light radiates from her surfaces in ways often more suggestive of bravura quasi-lrnpressionists, such as Manet or Sargent, than of the Abstract Expressionists. In many of the works, her sensibilities seem to run even closer to those of the great Romantic landscapist, Turner, whose frothy evocations of mist laden air and churning sea reached new heights of evocative sublimity. Like these i provides us w nature. Hers < out remote fn condensation: the sea. sunsr seen, felt. ant into some me nature's press Genesis in th darkness upo forms. The er been coerced pictorial dear Notes 1. William I Look." ir 2. Compare photogra 3. Helen A. and Real January 4. Phyllis B Der.emb* �we ner ;rly jre is at m was y he !SS and :h irzon tary an’s .rts, jal the le y of all gh a d The drips have become less important since their initial appearance, however, as D Vorzon has turned to explore other forms in the repertory, such as the slashing arcs (e.g. “Louse Point Violet ). The air and sea” pictures of 1980 and early 1981, with their distant horizons, began to give way in the middle of 1981 to pictures containing definite foreground elements, as in “Night Tracer (Tick Island).” Surging organic shapes have come to dominate the latest pictures, notably the “Acabonac Air” series. D’Vorzon rightfully does not consider herself a flatout Expressionist. There is unquestionably a powerful emotional energy coursing through her work, but it remains intimately attached to the landscape itself. In fact, most of the paintings and drawings closely resemble the essential patterns and tonalities of specific places and phenomena. Their representationalism is surprisingly clear when compared with photographs of the sites.2 As Helen Harrison observed in a recent reference to D’Vorzon’s work in The New York Times, “the illusion of landscape and the reality of the painted surface alternate in the viewer’s consciousness.”3 Lush pigment and strong design allow these paintings to stand alone as abstractions, while clear echos of natural space and light grant them illusionism. Rather like the Cubists, D’Vorzon has fashioned a surface which is simultaneously flat and threedimensional. This is a difficult ambiguity to maintain, this retaining of the rich tactility and rhythmic patterning of surface, while at the same time flirting with a void aglow with colored light, or with a shape that begins to penetrate into the canvas and assume mass. In another review of D’Vorzon’s work last December, Phyllis Braff described her search for a method "to describe a three-dimensional spatial sensation without renaissance perspective illusions, by taking painterly elements that could suggest the sense of changing light, density, and mutations of vibrant, sensuous experience, and using them in new arbitrary ways to invent the essence of a scene. It is a vocabulary of nature's signs reduced to the language of pigment. Color is alternately solid and fluid as it gestures, drips, moves, or is contained within bold shapes composed of abstract strokes."4 The most recent paintings, such as the “Acabonac Air" pictures, reveal clearer perspectives of the landscape. D'Vorzon’s interest in the dynamics of pictorial space has, in fact, led her to the use of raking aerial views, akin to late medieval landscapes, which reveal both the perspective of the topography and its surface patterns. Even more than space, light inspires D’Vorzon. An immense, carefully orchestrated range of tonalities pervades her work, paintings and drawings alike. Light radiates from her surfaces in ways often more suggestive of bravura quasi-Impressionists, such as Manet or Sargent, than of the Abstract Expressionists. In many of the works, her sensibilities seem to run even closer to those of the great Romantic landscapist, Turner, whose frothy evocations of mist-laden air and churning sea reached new heights of evocative sublimity. Like these nineteenth century counterparts, D’Vorzon provides us with an almost palpable immersion in nature. Hers are not abstract permutations worked out remote from their inspiration. They are vivid condensations of specific phenomena — storms over the sea, sunsets, glimmering ponds, tangled thickets — seen, felt, and pushed through into paint, to bring us into some moment of rapture which the artist felt in nature’s presence. There is something like a vision of Genesis in these paintings. Light emerges out of darkness upon a primeval world of half-generated forms. The energy is nascent and unbridled, but it has been coerced by a controlling will into meaningful pictorial drama. William H. Sterling Director Notes William Pellicone, ‘‘Tradition With the Forward Look," in Artspeak, May 22, 1980. 2. Compare "Acabonac Air-Entrance" with the photograph of Louse Point. 3. Helen A. Harrison, "49 Artists Capture the Illusions and Realities of Winter," in The New York Times, January 3, 1982. 4. Phyllis Braff, review in The East Hampton Star, December 3, 1981. 1. �lUl no. 9 �no. 9 �PERSONAL HISTORY: Born: New York City BFA: Cranbrook Academy of Art (1954) MA: Columbia University (1968) Assoc. Prof. — Printmaking & Painting, Wilkes College, Pa. (since 1969) EXHIBITIONS: Sordoni Gallery, Wilkes College, Pa. (1982) Loft Gallery, Southampton, N.Y. (1981) (3 person) "Illusions of Space," First Women’s Bank, N.Y. (1981) (4 person) Soho Center for Visual Artists, N.Y.C. (1980) (2 person) Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, N.Y. (1976) Everhart Museum, Pa. (1975) (2 person) Keystone College, Pa. (1972) Brata Gallery, N.Y.C. (1957, '59, ’62) GALLERY GROUPS: Marion Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, Pa. (1981, ’82) Barbara Gillman Gallery, Miami, Fla. (1981, ’82) Loft Gallery, Southampton, N.Y., ‘‘Collage’’ (1981) Benson Gallery, N.Y. (1980) lanuzzi Gallery, Scottsdale, Az. (1978-79) N.E. Pennsylvania Invitational Traveling Exhibition (1978, ’81) Soho Co-op Galleries, N.Y.C. — 10th Street Artists (1978) Lehigh University — Pennsylvania Printmakers Bicentennial Invitational (1976) Spoleto, Italy — Plinio i! Giovane (1973); Rome, Italy — Primo Piano (1972) Chicago — Robert Paul Gallery (1971); Detroit — Rubiner Gallery (1971-72) Paris, France — Creuze (1965); Mexico City — Proteo (1960) New York — Brata, Camino, Tanager, Nonegon, Phoenix, Artists, etc. (1958-68) MUSEUM GROUPS: Aldrich Museum, Conn., "New Acquisitions" (1981) Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, N.Y., "Winterscape" (1981) Allentown Museum (1976); Artists of the Springs, Aswagh Hall (1976-80) Roberson Museum, N.Y. (1975); Spoleto Festival (1973): Vienna Print Biennale (1972) Everhart Museum, Pa. (1968, '70, ’77): Guild Hall, East Hampton (1967, '69, '70, '72, ’81) Tokyo Museum of Modern Art (1960); Whitney Museum and Library of Congress (1957) AWARDS: "Best Abstract Painting in Show," Guild Hall Museum Annual (1981) Purchase Award — Everhart Museum (1976) Juror's Award — Roberson Museum (1975) Award Exhibition — City Center, N.Y.C. (1955) COMMISSIONS: Curator: OIA sponsored travelling print show, “Artists Who Make Prints” (1980-81) Cover for N.E. Pennsylvania Philharmonic 1976-77 season program Mural (4 x 32 ft.), Community Medical Center Hospital, Pa. (1977) Mural (9 x 50 ft.), Percy Brown, Allentown, Pa. (1971) COLLECTIONS: Everhart Museum, Pa.; Aldrich Museum. Conn.; Library of Congress; Oppenheimer Co.; Best Corp.; General Instrument; Ivan Chermayeff (APC); Southampton Hospital: Bank of New York, Miami; Wyoming National Bank, Dallas and Kingston, Pa.; and many private Collections. �3UPS: m, Conn., “Hew Acquisitions" (1981) eum, East Hampton, N.Y., “Winterscape” eum (1976); Artists of the Springs, (1976-80) :um, N.Y. (1975); Spoleto Festival (1973); Biennale (1972) jm, Pa. (1968, ’70, ’77); Guild Hall, >n (1967, '69, ’70, ’72, ’81) i of Modern Art (1960); Whitney Museum and ingress (1957) Painting in Show,” Guild Hall Museum Annual d — Everhart Museum (1976) — Roberson Museum (1975) on — City Center, N.Y.C. (1955) S: lonsored travelling print show, “Artists Who (1980-81) Pennsylvania Philharmonic 1976-77 season .), Community Medical Center Hospital, Pa. .), Percy Brown, Allentown, Pa. (1971) >: im, Pa.; Aldrich Museum, Conn.; Library of ipenheimer Co.; Best Corp.; General van Chermayeff (APC); Southampton Hospital; York, Miami; Wyoming National Bank, Dallas i, Pa.; and many private Collections. no. 14 �no. 16 no. 17 Louse Point (photograph) 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. Cache-Cache Low Horizon Water 1980. Fail Silver 15 Louse Point . Louse Point Hot Hight on Water Tracer Hight Tracer E H Sassafra E H Sassafra Fresh Pond-\ AcabonacAi Acabonac Ai Tick Island S Fresh PondA E H Sassafra �LIST OF WORKS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. no. 16 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. no. 17 Louse Point (photograph) Cache-Cache 1980, acrylic on canvas, 60" x 68" Low Horizon Melt 1980, acrylic on paper, 39" x 28" Water 1980, acrylic on paper, 39" x 28" Fall Silver 1980-81, acrylic on canvas, 68" x 60" Louse Point Pink 1981, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 34" Louse Point Violet 1981, acrylic on canvas, 50" x 40" Hot Night on Tick Island 1981, acrylic on canvas, 40" x 30" Water Tracer 1981, acrylic on canvas, 54" x 60" Night Tracer (Tick Island) 1981, acrylic on canvas, 40" x 50" E H Sassafras-Dancer 1981, acrylic on canvas, 54" x 60" E H Sassafras-Interlock 1981, acrylic on paper, 21" x 28" Fresh Pond-Wind 1981, acrylic on canvas, 60" x 68" Acabonac Air-Entrance 1982, acrylic on canvas, 68" x 84" Acabonac Air-Landing 1982, acrylic on canvas, 68" x 72" Tick Island Storm 1981, graphite on paper, 27" x 41" Fresh Pond-Wind 1981, graphite on paper, 27" x 41" E H Sassafras-Dark 1981, graphite on paper, 27" x 41" �BERENICE D’VORZON Paintings and Drawings 1980-1982 SORDONI ART GALLERY Wilkes College �■*- ' • ■ SBr-b: 4« rt'/A ioooxa? ] �^^8 ESSSsSSsjHsss^s-S^sy - MSSa^^^M Lr^-;^ SsoW'S^i-i-s- E^SS.f^S-Ci.S: p^s^ViT,’ taBS -■t? ’ 1' -s f.rJ I cJ5S ■ ■■- ■?■ ■ ■. is ' S/S; ~sS SSS£5||gjg?g= =§^5?SS~g ifeSSg? jjsSsglsss f? gj ^S=SS5S SlSi;ss.s � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Exhibition Programs, 1973-present Description An account of the resource Exhibition programs created by the Sordoni Art Gallery from 1973 to the present. Digitized by Wilkes University Archives interns, Zachary Mendoza and Sophia Kruspha. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Sordoni Art Gallery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-present Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Wilkes University retains copyright of these exhibition programs. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition programs, flyers, and calendars. 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Title A name given to the resource 1980-1982 Berenice D'Vorzon: Paintings and Drawings Subject The topic of the resource Exhibition Programs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Berenice D'Vorzon Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Sordoni Art Gallery; Wilkes University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1980-1982 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition Book https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/263a2534522b2e972c178e7a8151ddd9.pdf a34e4c2317b8d6a4975db0d8242c8589 PDF Text Text ���� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Exhibition Programs, 1973-present Description An account of the resource Exhibition programs created by the Sordoni Art Gallery from 1973 to the present. Digitized by Wilkes University Archives interns, Zachary Mendoza and Sophia Kruspha. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Sordoni Art Gallery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-present Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Wilkes University retains copyright of these exhibition programs. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition programs, flyers, and calendars. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1980 February 13 Scholastic Art Awards Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1980 February 13 - March 9 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition program https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/7ac7e4b6821d5d8dd2409e0ee8c37dd1.pdf 8f6035c06258d1ce2ca060f2d901a161 PDF Text Text '' Al »; J lj ' ' I irl If if ; I I �Three Pennsylvania Women CASSATT CECILIA BEAUX MARTHA WALTEE MARY MARCH 22-APRIL 27,1980 SORDONI ART GALLERY WILKES COLLEGE E.S. FARLEY LIBRARY WILKES UNIVERSITY WILKFS-BA'jP ] Sponsered by the Junior League of Wilkes-Barre 1 �ARC 'IVES I'. SORDONI ART GALLERY OF WILKES COLLEGE X T Director WILLIAM STERLING Coordinator CARA BERRYMAN Advisory Commission ALBERT MARGOLIES, Chairman ALETA CONNELL PATRICIA DAVIES JULIETTE EPSTEIN RICHARD FULLER THOMAS KELLY SHIRLEY KLEIN SUE KLUGER PAUL MAILLOUX MARILYN MASLOW ROBERT OTT SANDY RIFKIN JILL SAPORITO HELEN SLOAN ANDREW SORDONI, III ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This exhibition is the first to show, in any collective w; the work of these three artists in northeastern Pennsylvai It would not have materialized without the generous assistance of numerous people and institutions. We are f and particularly grateful to the lenders who have provid the works comprising the exhibition. We also wish to extend our fullest gratitude to the Jur League of Wilkes-Barre for its sponsorship of the exhibit! without which the scope would have been far more modt and for its help in the preparations surrounding the exhibition. We thank Mr. Alan David for his help in securing the Walters. From the college, Cara Berryman, Exhibitions Coordir ator, Jane Manganeila, Associate Director of Public Relations, and Dr. Thomas Kelly, Dean of External Affi have provided indispensible service. Finally, we wish to recognize our Director Emeritus, J Philip Richards, who initiated the idea for this exhibitioi and offer our thanks to the Advsory Commission of the Gallery and to Robert S. Capin, President of the College their steady support. WILLIAM H. STERLII Director Sordoni Art Gallery JUNIOR LEAGUE OF WILKES-BARRE President JUDITH SCHALL Chairwomen ALETA CONNELL NANCY GRABENSTETTER JUDITH SEROSKA 2 [The modest scale of this exhibition does not permit a comprehe: overview of each artist's oeuvre. We have limited ourselves to paintings and pastels, with the exception of some of Mary Cassatt' prints, since she was unusually accomplished and prolific in that medium. As to selection, we were fortunate to locate works from a stages of Cecilia Beaux's career. Martha Walter is represented by I early and middle works. Cassatt is represented by early, middle an late works, but due to their extreme value or fragility, her large compositions were unavailable to us.] �ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This exhibition is the first to show, in any collective way, the work of these three artists in northeastern Pennsylvania. It would not have materialized without the generous assistance of numerous people and institutions. We are first and particularly grateful to the lenders who have provided the works comprising the exhibition. We also wish to extend our fullest gratitude to the Junior League of Wilkes-Barre for its sponsorship of the exhibition, without which the scope would have been far more modest, and for its help in the preparations surrounding the exhibition. We thank Mr. Alan David for his help in securing the Walters. From the college, Cara Berryman, Exhibitions Coordin­ ator, Jane Manganella, Associate Director of Public Relations, and Dr. Thomas Kelly, Dean of External Affairs, have provided indispensible service. Finally, we wish to recognize our Director Emeritus, J. Philip Richards, who initiated the idea for this exhibition, and offer our thanks to the Advsory Commission of the Gallery and to Robert S. Capin, President of the College, for their steady support. WILLIAM H. STERLING Director Sordoni Art Gallery LENDERS TO THE EXHIBITION Anonymous Lenders Mr. and Mrs. Philip I. Berman, Allentown, Pennsylvania Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee David David, Inc., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania J. W. Fisher, Fisher Governor Foundation, Marshalltown, Iowa Judy and Alan Goffman Fine Art, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania Hall Galleries, Fort Worth, Texas The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland Lehigh University, Office of Exhibitions and Collection, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Morgan State University, Gallery of Art, Baltimore, Maryland National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Robert Rice Gallery, Houston, Texas Rutgers University Art Gallery, Fine Arts Collection, New Brunswick, New Jersey [The modest scale of this exhibition does not permit a comprehensive overview of each artist's oeuvre. We have limited ourselves to paintings and pastels, with the exception of some of Mary Cassatt's prints, since she was unusually accomplished and prolific in that medium. As to selection, we were fortunate to locate works from all stages of Cecilia Beaux's career. Martha Walter is represented by both early and middle works. Cassatt is represented by early, middle and late works, but due to their extreme value or fragility, her large compositions were unavailable to us.] The Westmoreland County Museum of Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Mr. Jacques S. Zinman, Jenkintown, Pennsylvania 3 92-18^5^6 �INTRODUCTION □ The last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth constituted one of the most rapidly changing and revolutionary periods in the history of art. After nearly half a millenium of dominance, the Renaissance tradition finally began to collapse as the foundation of pictorial art in western culture. Radical new art forms emerged from the maelstrom of frenetic creative activity which filled those decades. Beginning with Realism and Impressionism and moving on to Cubism, Constructivism, and Dada among many other styles, those fifty-odd years left reverberations which are still being felt in art. Mary Cassatt, Cecilia Beaux, and Martha Walter, like most serious and thoughtful artists of the period, were caught up in this storm of change and cast in their different directions by it. Along with their contem­ poraries, The Eight (whose work was shown at the Sordoni Gallery last year), these artists reflect the early phases of transition which led to modern art. □ Although the grouping together of these three painters may be arbitrary, they nevertheless share some important common ground. First, the fact that they were women compels, today, a concern about their achievement which did not exist so strongly in their own era. Women faced special obstacles in pursuing a career in the visual arts. While all well-bred and well-educated women of the 19th century were expected to acquire a certain amount of cultural polish, even to the point of becoming amateur practitioners in drawing and painting, they were hardly ever encouraged to enter the professional art world. That place was already becoming tainted with a reputation for libertinism and bohemianism. Once in a while, however, some schoolgirl would so impress her drawing instructor 4 with her abilities that an exception had to be made. Though she would hardly be encouraged to plunge pell-mell into the man's art world, a careful chaperoning through the right academies and into the right professional circles might be attempted. Though most of the academies had become coeducational, many classes, such as drawing from the nude model, still remained segregated. Once the woman ascended to a full-time career, her most acceptable specialties, if she were a painter, would be portraiture or history painting. The portraitist, because of the usual status of her clientele, rarely left the precincts of the wealthy and respected, where little harm could come to her. The J 9th century was not without its female mavericks, of course. Rosa Bonhcur, for example, enjoyed early success, but adopted the life style of her male­ companions, even to the point of dressing like them. □ It was fairly remarkable, then, for the properly bred Mary Cassatt to strikeout on her own in 1866. Even though an umbrella of familial contact and wealth still sheilded her as she journeyed to France in search of the vital artistic currents of her time, there was no tradition of interest in art in her family, and the moral support she received was apparently more obligatory than heartfelt. It was similarly remarkable for young Cecilia Beaux, a virtual orphan, and Martha Walter, to make similar moves a little later. Here were three women willing to sacrifice the usual comforts and rewards, and possibly even the respectability, enjoyed by their sisters who had chosen marriage and motherhood. For it was assumed that a woman could not easily pursue a career in art while raising a family. (There were exceptions. The other major woman Impressionist, Berthe Morisot, was able to build both a career and a family, but her husband was the brother of the great painter Manet, and was entirely supportive of his wife's career). Even for one independently wealthy, as Mary Cassatt was, there were too many demands and restrictions in marriage to allow room for the CASSATT 1-7 �V I I abilities that an exception had to be made. Though d hardly be encouraged to plunge pell-mell into the : world, a careful chaperoning through the right s and into the right professional circles might be d. Though most of the academies had become ional, many classes, such as drawing from the nude ill remained segregated. Once the woman ascended ime career, her most acceptable specialties, if she inter, would be portraiture or history painting. The it, because of the usual status of her clientele, rarely recincts of the wealthy and respected, where little Id come to her. The 19th century was not without : mavericks, of course. Rosa Bonheur, for example, iarly success, but adopted the life style of her male ms, even to the point of dressing like them. fairly remarkable, then, for the properly bred Mary □ strike out on her own in 1866. Even though an of familial contact and wealth still sheilded heras . eyed to France in search of the vital artistic □f her time, there was no tradition of interest in family, and the moral support she received was Iv more obligatory than heartfelt. It was similarly )le for young Cecilia Beaux, a virtual orphan, and Valter, to make similar moves a little later. Here ;e women willing to sacrifice the usual comforts rds, and possibly even the respectability, enjoyed listers who had chosen marriage and motherhood, s assumed that a woman could not easily pursue a art while raising a family. (There were exceptions, r major woman Impressionist, Berthe Morisot, was uild both a career and a family, but her husband jrother of the great painter Manet, and was entirely ve of his wife's career). Even for one independently as Mary Cassatt was, there were too many ; and restrictions in marriage to allow room for the I CASSATT 1-7 [ih Xv-? 5 �kind of total commitment required of a serious artist. All three of our women, therefore, eschewed marriage in favor of their careers. Of course, it is difficult to say to what extent the choice was calculated. One can imagine art becoming, early on, a surrogate to romantic love. In any case, after their adolescence, there are no indications of serious romantic attachments, although Cassatt is known to have had a very close, but probably platonic relationship with that severe bachelor among the Impressionists, Edgar Degas. Whatever impelled these women, aside from their own artistic gifts, they all unhesitantingly took up the challenge of competing in a predominantly male profession, with little precedent or tradition, known to them, to fall back upon. It required considerable determination and great self­ confidence. This fact, by itself, binds these artists. ■I □ Pennsylvanians can also appreciate the fact that our three painters were born and reared in this state. They all spent their formative adolescence in and around Philadelphia, and went on to enroll at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, which was the oldest and one of the most important art schools in the United States. Being of different generations, their stays at the Academy did not coincide, and they apparently were not acquainted with each other until many years later. If there was any Philadelphia style or Academy style in the late 19th century, it was the sober realism of Thomas Eakins, the most eminent teacher at the Academy and one of the outstanding painters America produced in the 19th century. Cassatt had gone by the time Eakins came to teach; in fact, she was a student at the Academy at the same time he was (1861-1864), but there is little stylistically which is common to them. Cecilia Beaux enrolled in the Academy, but appears not to have studied much there, preferring instead the private classes of William Sartain. 6 Martha Walter attended the Academy after Eakins had gone. While his influence was still felt, Walter studied under another strong personality, William Merritt Chase. Of the three, only Beaux's style bears a resemblance to Eakins'. Her early portraits are close enough, in fact, to suggest his direct influence. As a portraitist in Philadelphia, during the period of Eakins' preeminence in that genre, she could hardly have avoided his style. Given these facts, there is little to connect our three women in terms of a geographical style. Jon,inant nX’i^' vherCint>"va was Romantic escnted ,n a subjects "ere "grousing the dee the intention ° ; jncient the viewer, the settm; wildernesses p the rOrnan emotion al im^ Qne inost of t< " JAnris'Moralizing or literarj academic • ,etl3ntically, rt triples of classical idealism. L for.clul mnvern. □ We may profit more from a consideration of their achievements vis a vis the artistic period in which they worked. Mary Cassatt was born in 1844. Martha Walter died in 1976, in her hundredth year. This is the span of time covered by rhe lives of the three. To a large extent, however, their work as artists compresses into a narrower stylistic frame than a span of 132 years might suggest. The half-century between 1875 and 1925 were the crucial years for our artists. Beginning with the development of Impres­ sionism in the early 1870's, and climaxing with the most extreme forms of abstraction immediately before and after World War I, many new avenues of artistic expression opened up, creating the vast heterogeneity of styles which continues to characterize art today. Cassatt, Beaux, and Walter confronted that rapidly changing world in their own ways. Yet, as painters formed in the second half of the 19th century, they were all to one degree or another affected by Impressionism. It is to this seminal movement in the history of modern art that their work must be related. Commonplace subjec ts, st were depicted matter-of-factly a tality or moralizing. In pic torial not necessarily imply photograp than not, the subject was represe brushwork and strong contrasts topresent an image with the pot* Impressionism was c lose to R* attitude toward subjec t mat ter. I or stories, or even very rnuc h in j surprising that a Realist such as toward Impressionism, or an liri] could remain < lose to Realism. T I The differences between the t emerge only when we examine! �Vcademy after Eakins had gone, elt, Walter studied under /illiam Merritt Chase. style bears a resemblance to re close enough, in fact, to <s a portraitist in Philadelphia, ireeminence in that genre, she ; style. Given these facts, there ■omen in terms of a i consideration of their tistic period in which they ?rn in 1844. Martha Walter h year. This is the span of ae three. To a large extent, s compresses into a narrower 132 years might suggest. The nd 1925 were the crucial years h the development of Impresnd climaxing with the most immediately before and after rues of artistic expression heterogeneity of styles which today. :r confronted that rapidly . ways. Yet, as painters formed i century, they were all to one y Impressionism. It is to this itory of modern art that their □ Before Impressionism was created, there were three dominant artistic modes in Europe and America. The first was Romanticism, wherein emotional, often melodramatic subjects were represented in a variety of artistic styles, with the intention of arousing the deepest subjective rsponses of the viewer. Exotic places, ancient eras, and nature's wildernesses provided the settings which engaged the emotional impulses of the romantic artist. The second mode was Classicism, the one most often championed by the academies. Moralizing or literary subjects were usually represented, often pedantically, according to the rationalist principles of classical idealism. Lastly, there was Realism, which became a forceful movement at mid-century. Commonplace subjects, such as scenes from everyday life, were depicted matter-of-factly and without any sentimen­ tality or moralizing. In pictorial form, however, Realism did not necessarily imply photographic precision. More often than not, the subject was represented with broad, vigorous brushwork and strong contrasts of light and shade, in order to present an image with the potency of real life. Impressionism was close to Realism in terms of its frank attitude toward subject matter. It had no interest in myths, or stories, or even very much in personalities. It is not surprising that a Realist such as Manet could gravitate toward Impressionism, or an Impressionist such as Degas could remain close to Realism. □ The differences between the two movements clearly emerge only when we examine their purely visual aspects. The sense of spontaneity and freshness is even greater in Impressionism than it is in Realism. Off-beat, and some­ times seemingly off-balance compositions, resembling modern snapshots, were often employed. Pictures were sometimes left deliberately “unfinished" (by traditional standards), and many paintings were completed in a single session, without reworking and, customarily, without preliminary sketches. Unlike Realism, Impressionism concentrated upon a single aspect of reality: light, with its corollary, color. Threedimensional mass and space were subordinated to the play of light and shade (i.e. tone) upon the surfaces of nature. Visual experience was regarded as a purely tonal phenomenon, to the extent that solid shapes and continuous outlines were often submerged in an atmosphere of flickering colors. In order to analyze color and light properly, the Impres­ sionist had to paint directly from the subject; landscapes, for example, had co be painted out-of-doors, on the spot, in order to capture the fleeting tones and colors as they appeared at a given moment. This was one of the reasons for the often sketchy, unfinished appearance of Impres­ sionist paintings. Just as important as accuracy of tone and color was a sense of natural vibrancy. By using a high tonal key, intense hues, and small, contrasting, briskly applied brushstrokes, such vibrancy was approached far beyond any previous style of painting. This effect is much admired today, but in the 19th century, most critics, unused to it, thought it garish and reckless. □ Impressionism, then, was a style devoted to the sense of sight and the pure enjoyment of seeing. But while the Impressionist sought to analyze and record the light and color he saw in nature, he also realized that the painted picture was physically limited as an effigy of the external world. Paint could never have the brilliance of true sunlight, nor could a small canvas encompass the true scale of a landscape. The picture, therefore, had to have a life of its 7 �i'i I I own, an internal harmony and structure which might serve as an equivalent to nature rather than a replica of it. In dealing with this concept, the Impressionists, for all their interest in reality, began to enter a world of abstraction. The vibrant, colored surfaces in the painting, with their harmonies and rhythms, were cherished for themselves. The various Impressionist painters employed these techniques in quite varying ways and degrees, with Claude Monet being the most extreme practitioner. Later gener­ ations of painters in Europe and America extended aspects of Impressionism into distinctly new styles, such as Fauvism and Futurism. Without question. Impressionism was a crucial step toward the creation of 20th century modernism. !i ill ill ___ JJ □ As dedicated painters coming to maturity during the era of Impressionism, Mary Cassatt, Cecilia Beaux, and Martha Walter had to confront it, or resign themselves to the comfortable oblivion of unquestioning traditionalism. Mary Cassatt has been accepted by history, as she was by her peers in the movement, as one of the premier French Impressionists, even though she was an American. She went to Paris in 1866, absorbed the lessons of old and new masters prodigiously on her own, and gradually achieved recognition by the art establishment. But she was not content with the status quo, and by the early 70's was clearly moving into more experimental forms. In 1877, only a few years after Impressionism had emerged as a distinct movement, its members invited Mary Cassatt to join them. Her work continued to mature and strengthen in the 80's and 90's. Like her friend Degas, Cassatt was an Impres­ sionist who exhibited other strong tendencies, which often inflected her work with Manet's brand of Realism 8 (cf. no. 1-2). But, until ill health and failing eyesight caused her to cease painting in 1914, she remained essentially an Impressionist. Indeed, she was generally hostile to most of the later developments in modern art. By temperament and capacity, Mary Cassatt and Impressionism seemed made for each other. Her preference for the human figure as a subject, however, caused her to retain more solidity of form than was usual usual among among her her colleagues, colleagues, even though all the freshness of color, spontaneity of stroke, and informality of attitude characteristic of Impressionism animated her art to the end. In the 90'5, a dose study of Japanese woodcuts heightened her sense of pattern, as did her tacit apprenticeship to Degas who had never foregone that element in his own work. Other progressive artists, such as Gauguin and Seurat, revealed similar tendencies at the same time. Only after the turn of the century, then, did Cassatt no longer seem to respond to the tides of artistic experimentation. Up to the end of the 19th century, America was culturally provincial, and any reasonably sophisticated artist or patron knew that, in matters of taste, the European centers of Paris, London, and Munich set the standards. America certainly had had artists of genius, but not a single one had significantly influenced developments in Europe and not until the last quarter of the century, was one even accepted as a progressive master equal to Europe's own. Whistler and Cassatt were among the first to crack that barrier. □ It does not belittle Cecilia Beaux's remarkable talents to say that her art remained essentially an offshoot of a more conservative European tradition. This was due, to someextent, to her choice of portraiture as a special field. Cassatt did many portraits, but they were informal studies of close friends and relatives. Beaux was a portraitist in the stricter She >jr style, dramati/' background^-’ moredw t'1 ’ whom she ha-m" ' < .. .... Be-u ! , f Ui ; . pii'blyfehth«‘i‘hadli“,e' However, her ip"- • ' certainly showed Impressions most rc -peit though, i! seem with the Realists Rather than element', of artistic form, Beau with presenting her subjt-c ts rc tradition-- of portraiture, she r< grate, and <i quiet fori efulne .-. preten e. With Whi .tier. barge one of the last pr.n titii>r;> r' of portratiure. Portraiture in the 1 usurped by the camera, leaving hands of lesser, usually mecha phenomenon in the work of v j -moved from the old portr �til ill health and failing eyesight caused j in 1914, she remained essentially an ?d, she was generally hostile to most of nts in modern art. By temperament and salt and Impressionism seemed made for ference for the human figure as a subject, t to retain more solidity of form than was lleagues, even though all the freshness :y of stroke, and informality of attitude ipressionism animated her art to the end. study of Japanese woodcuts heightened n, as did her tacit apprenticeship to Degas egone that element in his own work, artists, such as Gauguin and Seurat, ndencies at the same time. Only after the y, then, did Cassatt no longer seem to es of artistic experimentation. f the 19th century, America was culturally ly reasonably sophisticated artist or patron ters of taste, the European centers of d Munich set the standards. America I artists of genius, but not a single one had uenced developments in Europe and not rter of the century, was one even accepted master equal to Europe's own. Whistler e among the first to crack that barrier. little Cecilia Beaux's remarkable talents to remained essentially an offshoot of a more ropean tradition. This was due, to some mice of portraiture as a special field. Cassatt aits, but they were informal studies of close itives. Beaux was a portraitist in the stricter sense. Her work was usually commissioned, and she was obliged to accommodate the tastes of her "establishment" patrons. She was not reluctant to extend their expectations when it seemed possible, but a portraitist could never be very radical with a generally conservative clientele. She first followed Eakin's lead with a tightly analytical style, dramatized by spotlighting the figure against a dark background (cf, no. 2-5). Her style gradually became looser, more in the bravura manner of John Singer Sargent, with whom she has most often been compared (cf. no. 2-8). Like Cassatt, Beaux had gone to Europe (in 1888) to polish her skills, but she did not come under the spell of the avantgarde. She was not antagonistic to Impressionism, but probably felt that it had little to offer a portrait painter. However, her increasingly colorful and sketchy backgrounds certainly showed Impressionist influence (cf. no. 2-6). In most respects, though, it seems more logical to place Beaux with the Realists. Rather than experiment radically with the elements of artistic form, Beaux was much more concerned with presenting her subjects forthrightly. In the best traditions of portraiture, she rendered them with dignity, grace, and a quiet forcefulness, avoiding sentiment or pretense. With Whistler, Sargent, and Eakins, Beaux was one of the last practitioners of this grand manner of portratiure. Portraiture in the 20th century has been largely usurped by the camera, leaving the painted portrait in the hands of lesser, usually mechanical talents, or as an isolated phenomenon in the work of various modernists, where it is far removed from the old portrait tradition. □ Younger by a generation than her companions in this exhibition, Martha Walter felt the strong winds of change which followed Impressionism during her maturing years a painter. As Cassatt and Beaux had done before her, she attended the Pennsylvania Academy, where she came under the strong influence of William Merritt Chase, a popular and energetic painter, whose eclectic style contained elements of both Sargent and Impressionism. From the beginning, Walter showed a predilection for quick, fluid brushwork and strong tonal contrasts (cf. no. 3-2). This approach was intensified during the first of her many trips to Europe. That was in 1908, when Impressionism had become a more or less acceptable style, and much more radical styles, such as Fauvism and Cubism, were beginning to appear. Walter's adoption of Impressionism followed easily upon her preparations tinder Chase, and seemed an ideal approach for her favorite subject: the figure in the landscape. Becoming an Impressionist in 1908 was not a radical thing to do, but it was certainly more progressive than conservative, and Walter underscored her progressiveness by inflecting Impressionism with more modern elements. Brilliant splashes of intense color against cool grounds and almost recklessly bold brushwork brought her work close to that of Fauve painters such as Matisse and Derain (cf. no. 3-5). A loose surface pattern of color and texture predominated over illusions of depth. Sensuous paint became the proxy of sun-dappled gardens and summer beaches. Objects on the verge of dissolving into luminous atmosphere were held in focus only by boldly contrasting patches of color. Sometimes, her work veered closer to her American counterparts in "The Eight," such as Henri, Luks, and Prendergast, or independents like Edward Potthast. 9 �f r ■ : :< □ Beneath the representational surface of all three women's work lay an important modernist attitude, namely that the artistic form was as important as the subject matter. The abstract verities of that form — balance, harmony, tension, and rhythmic movement — were felt to be quite as satisfying to our senses as identifiable shapes and gestures. Design, color, and surface were recognized as expressive and appealing entities in themselves, a fact understood by all great painters of the past, but rarely stated with such boldness before the advent of modern art. In the process of capturing the sensations of the external world, our painters simultaneously created an internal world, as lush and beautiful, in their shimmering canvases. Cassatt, especially, showed an awareness of artistic structure, supported by a sound instinct for its creation. She orchestrated into a taut compositional unity the selection and application of color, the measured spontaneity of brushstrokes and sketched outlines, and the balances and tensions of masses and spaces, lights and darks. Beneath the vivacious color, commonplace subjects took on simple grandeur and eternal poise. Beaux, although more preoccupied with the specific appearance of her subjects, as required by objective portraiture, nevertheless managed to adapt those appear­ ances to rhe abstract realities of paint, color, and composition, as had her exemplars Whistler, Velasquez, and Hals. The fresh spontaneity of her brushwork both defines objective fact, and, by adhering to the solid shape of the 10 va-‘. « x subject, exists in its own right as an appealing surface in a state of flux. Like Cassatt, she had a sure eye for composi­ tion, placing her figures in solid relationship with adjacent shapes and with the edges of the canvas. Her dramatic use of light and dark, in the manner of Realists such as Manet, took the place of Cassatt's impressionistic interplay of vibrant, but tonally close colors. The result, however, is only slightly less abstract, as a distillation of reality into a visual structure compatible with the texture of paint and the design potentials of the flat, rectangular canvas. Late nineteenth century interests in surface and pattern are clearly evident in the works of both these artists. Walter was equally affected by these concerns, and to some extent, she seems to have combined the formal qualities of Beaux with those of Cassatt. The loose, liquid, brushwork of the former merges with the intense color and rhythmic excitement of the latter. But an even higher key and a greater nonchalance of stroke, the difference between an early twentieth century sensibility and a late nineteenth century one, set Walter apart from her two companions. □ We might be tempted, with these three painters, to look for a peculiarly feminine style, but nothing valid seems to come forth from any analysis along these lines. One could see as much "feminine" taste (stereotypically speaking) in the art of Renior as in that of Cassatt. Nothing partic ularly sexual seems to differentiate the styles of Beaux and Sargent, for example, or Walter and Prendergast. Although Cassatt favored female or maternal subjects, that had little to do with her style of painting, and certainly one could find male artists with similar predilections. AU three women showed an independence of mind and vigor of spirit which seems to have had nothing to do with their gender. �its own right as an appealing surface in a e Cassatt, she had a sure eye for composifigures in solid relationship with adjacent the edges of the canvas. Her dramatic use in the manner of Realists such as Manet, Cassatt's impressionistic interplay of illy close colors. The result, however, is ; abstract, as a distillation of reality into a compatible with the texture of paint and the ; of the flat, rectangular canvas. Late try interests in surface and pattern are i the works of both these artists. ually affected by these concerns, and to seems to have combined the formal x with those of Cassatt. The loose, liquid, e former merges with the intense color and nent of the latter. But an even higher key rebalance of stroke, the difference between h century sensibility and a late nineteenth Walter apart from her two companions. empted, with these three painters, to look eminine style, but nothing valid seems to any analysis along these lines. One could linine" taste (stereotypically speaking) in as in that of Cassatt. Nothing particularly lifferentiate the styles of Beaux and nple, or Walter and Prendergast. Although emale or maternal subjects, that had little /le of painting, and certainly one could with similar predilections. All three women endence of mind and vigor of spirit which d nothing to do with their gender. �□ Impressionism, 'fin de siecle' Realism, and Fauvism, the styles which most strongly affected our artists, have come to be among the most widely accepted styles in modem art, in part, perhaps, because all three represent vibrant responses to a seemingly untroubled and luxuriant world which no longer exists. To a large extent, it was the world of the gentry, created out of fourth and fifth generation wealth and culture — confident, relaxed, and responsible. It was the primary source of America's intellectual and political leadership in the late nineteenth century, but it wore its culture graciously and its wealth discreetly. Our three painters grew up in that world, understanding its values, sharing its tastes, and, in turn, mirroring its richness in opulent pigment, its solidity in firmly structured composi­ tions. Ultimately, then, it was an aesthetic rather than a style, which they shared, an aesthetic native to that gentry world, and one which survives for us today in these paintings. Only Walter, in her choice of subjects, began to sing a popular tune similar to The Eight's. Though still infused with an air of elegance, her paintings represented the emergence of a new generation, from which came forth the American Scene painting of the 1920's and 30's. WILLIAM STERLING SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Background with Figures, Boston, 1930. Beaux, Cecilia. Boyle, Richard. American Impressionism, Boston, 1974. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonne of the Graphic Work, Washington, D. C., 1979. Breeskin, Adelyn D. Breeskin, Adelyn D. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Rai-mtne of the Oils, Pastels, Watercolors anil Drawings, Washington, D. C„ 1970. David, Carl. "Martha Walter," American Art Review, May, 1978, pp. 84-90. Neilson, Winthrop and Frances.. Painters, Philadelphia, I960. Seven Women: Great Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Cecilia Beaux: Portrait of an Artist, Exhibition Catalogue, Philadelphia, 1974. I he History of Impressionism, New York, 1961. Rewald, John. Sweet, Frederick A. bu-in‘ but H' With h. ■ >•’ >•.> ‘ r Parte t® cCrtt‘nUe Chapl'’lC,e,'o7'i trips in the f ' *• 11 ['no big 11 J|u * Philadelphia, but Italian Kenan sanniejues in I’arma followed before ■ As early a . 187 the Pari . Salon, tl I uropt. Although in style, it shower of the great Inipi t 1874 Salon, be rei do." t oilowing an < ourbet and Man in the a tivities of "Independents," but < cmservative ‘ finally introdu P'-nder.ts," who m Zionists. T wo i Miss Mary Cassatt, Impressionist from Pennsylvania, Norman, 1966. Cassatt's prefe ^r‘d young womp, fluent v.s.ts pa ^^Pres.dent U5Ins, and the.r t 12 �SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Beaux, Cecilia. Background with Figures, Boston, 1930. Boyle, Richard. American Impressionism, Boston, 1974. Breeskin, Adelyn D. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisomme of the Graphic Work, Washington, D. C., 1979. Breeskin, Adelyn D. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonne of the Oils, Pastels, Watercolors and Drawings, Washington, D. C., 1970. David, Carl. "Martha Walter," American Art Review, May, 1978, pp. 84-90. xieilson, Winthrop and Frances. Seven Women: Great Painters, Philadelphia, 1969. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Cecilia Beaux: Portrait of an Artist, Exhibition Catalogue, Philadelphia, 1974. lewaid, John. The History of Impressionism, New York, 1961. Sweet, Frederick A. Miss Mary Cassatt, Impressionist from Pennsylvania, Norman, 1966. MARY CASSATT Mary Cassatt was born in the Pittsburgh suburb of Allegheny City in 1844, the daughter of a successful businessman. The family moved to Philadelphia in 1849, but from 1851 to 1855 they lived and traveled in Europe. In 1861, at the age of 17, Cassatt entered the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she studied until 1866, With her father's reluctant consent, she then moved on to Paris to continue her studies with such academicians as Chaplin, Gerome, and Couture. She also went on sketching trips in the French countryside at this time (cf. no. 1-1). During the Franco-Prussian War, she returned to Philadelphia, but by 1872, was back in Europe, studying the Italian Renaissance masters as well as printmaking tech­ niques in Parma. Trips to Spain and the Low Countries followed before she finally settled again in Paris in 1874. As early as 1872, Cassatt had had a painting accepted in the Paris Salon, the major proving ground for artists in Europe. Although her work at this time was still traditional in style, it showed a vigor and solidity which caught the eye of the great Impressionist Degas. Admiring her work in the 1874 Salon, he remarked, "There is someone who feels as I do." Following an allegiance to older "moderns" such as Courbet and Manet, Cassat became increasingly interested in the activities of the younger generation radicals, the "Independents," who no longer showed in the prestigious, but conservative Salons. In 1877, she and Degas were finally introduced, and he invited her to join the "Inde­ pendents," who were later to be known as the Impres­ sionists. Two years later she first exhibited with them. Cassatt's preference for intimate portraits of children and young women was at least partly' occasioned by the frequent visits paid her by her brothers (one of whom became president of the Pennsylvania Railroad), sister, cousins, and their families. Her mother also visited often, and in 1887, her parents moved into her new apartment on the Rue Marignan. Among her artist friends, the aloof and often difficult Degas remained one of her closest, and she his. Cassatt also hosted art-loving Americans in Paris, and became an important adviser to several major collectors, such as the Henry O. Havcmeyers (whose collection later became one of the finest in the Metropolitan Museum). Cassatt had her first solo exhibition in 1891. The next year, she was commissioned to do a large mural for the Woman's Building at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago (a work now lost). Although a member of the avant-garde and never one to promote her own work, she did enjoy a respectable success in the Parisian art world. In 1904, she was made a Chavalier in the French Legion of Honor. She was still not well-known in her native land, spending little time there (only three visits after 1872). In 1914, however, the year she stopped painting because of increasing blindness, the Pennsylvania Academy awarded her their Gold Medal of Honor. From that point on, her reputation as America's greatest woman painter and America's greatest Impressionist, (although she lived among the French), became well established. She died at her villa, Chateau de Beaufresne, in 1926, the same year as did her eminent colleague Claude Monet. Mary Cassatt's Impressionism followed the more structured approach of her friend and critic, Degas, rather than the more diffuse style of Monet and Renoir. Especially after 1880, she showed a predilection for modelled shapes as well as linear designfcf. no. 1-5) The design aspect became even more apparent after her contact with Japanese art, particularly at the great 1890 exhibition in Paris. Her graphic work, both in drypoint and aquatint, was especially influenced by oriental pattern and composition. The ten color prints she executed in 1891 constitute one of the great achievements in the history of printmaking. 13 �I CE Like Degas, Cassatt worked frequently in pastel, increasingly so after the turn of the century when her eye­ sight began to fail. This affliction also affected her style, often forcing her to replace subtle nuances with simpler, flatter shapes and brighter colors (cf. no. 1-7). But to the very end, Cassatt retained her powerful sense of design, her vibrant surfaces, and her warm, unsentimental interpreta­ tions of subject. "Two Women, One Sketching" oil on canvas, ca. 1869, 30 x 21 Vi" On loan from Mr. and Mrs. Philip I. Berman h ! 1-2 "Young Girl Reading" oil on canvas, n.d. 9 x 8" On loan from The Collection of The High Museum of Art, Atlanta; J. J. Harvey Collection, 1949 1-3 "Sketch of a Mother Looking Down on Thomas" pastel on paper (counterproof), 1893,21% x 17" On loan from The Hall Galleries, Fort Worth 1-4 "Baby John on IJis Mother's Lap" pastel on paper, n.d., 31 x 23" On loan from J. W. Fisher, Fisher Governor Foundation, Marshalltown, lotoa 1-6 "Sketch of Jeanette" pastel on paper, ca. 1902,21 x 1772" On loan from The Gallery of Art, Morgan State University, Baltimore; Mr. and Mrs. Abraham Adler Collection Cecilia Beaux of a French I daughter Her rn0ther^ddtoFrai 1-7 "Bebe Souriant a Sa Mere" pastel on paper, 1913,33Vz x 24" On loan from The Westmoreland County Museum of Art, Greensburg, Pa.; Mary Marchand Woods Memorial Fund She was listed on the r 1-8 "The Stocking" drypoint, 1890,10% x 7^6" On loan from The Fine Arts Collection, Rutgers, The State University of Neto Jersey 1-9 "Tea" drypoint, ca. 1890, 7-1/6 x 6Vs” On loan from The Fine Arts Collection, Rutgers, The State University of Neto Jersey 1-10 "Nursing" drypoint, ca. 9% x 7" On loan from The Fine Arts Collection, Rtitgers, The State University of New Jersey 1-11 1-5 "Sara in a Green Bonnet" oil on canvas, ca. 1901,16% x 13% " On loan from The National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution; Gift of John Gellatly 14 "Kneeling in an Armchair" drypoint, ca. 11% x 9fts" On loan from The Fine Arts Collection, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey although there is som training there. She die most extensive studie about 1881 to 1883, ai regularly and winning "Les Derniers Jour d ’ collection), was enter. Beaux was astonished In 1888, Beaux wer enrolled in the Acadei that the great museur ularly to those exubei Rubens, and Velasqu, returned to Philadelp: at the Academy, she v Sargent's work in Lor sionist Monet at his h in 1897, she had her f enjoy continuous crit City, and never want, most distinguished cc Was invited by the Ur Portraits of the war h B«tly, and George C "nPPhnghip injury a �CECILIA BEAUX cetch of Jeanette" ;tel on paper, ca. 1902,21 x 1, - : loan from The Gallery Art, M.'-y.:-: Sture utarersify, timore; Air. ami Nirs. .nt r.. ■....... —....r e.. .xt.... ?. be Souriant a Sa Mere' tel on paper. 1913,331 r x 24 loan from The Weshrtorel.-.rt.i County Mns.-zm: of Art, ■gnsburg, Pa.;.Mary Mor.-'rrv.r i'.’oo.f.- Momort.-’ Fund ,e Stocking" joint, 1890,10^ x7he loan from The Fine Arts CclAurtthn, Rutgers, State University cf .X’rtr Jersey >oint,ca. 1890, 7-1 6xe-.s" oan from The Fine ArtsCollection. Rutgers, State University of New Jersey rsing" oint, ca. 9?'s x 7" tmi from The Fine Arts Collection, Rutgers, State University of A'e:r lersez leling in an Armchair" oint, ca. 11 "a x9hs" ran from The Fine Arts Collection, Rutgers, itate University of New Jerse-j Cecilia Beaux was born in Philadelphia in 1855, the daughter of a French businessman and his American wife. Her mother died a tew days after her birth, and the bereaved father returned to France. leaving his infant daughter in the care of her maternal relatives. The latter were sympathetic to her interest in art as it emerged in her mid-teens, and, in 1S72. they sent her to private art classes. In 1877 and 1878 she was listed on the roles of the Pennsylvania Academy, although there is some doubt about the extent of her training there. She did exhibit at the Academy in 1879. Her most extensive studies were with William Sartain, from about 1SS1 to 1SS3, and by 1885, she was exhibiting regularly and winning awards. In 1887, one of her paintings, Les Derniers Jour d ’Enfance" (Pennsylvania Academy roZecticn was entered in the Paris Salon by a friend, and Beaux was astonished to learn that it had been accepted. In 1888, Beaux went to Europe for the first time. She enrolled in the Academie Julian, but also absorbed much that the great museums had to offer, being drawn particularlv to those exuberant handlers of pigment, Titian, Rubens, ar.d Velasquez. After a year and a half in Paris, she returned to Philadelphia. In 1896, after a brief teaching stint at the Academy, she went off again to Europe, seeing Sargent’s work in London and visiting the great Impresfionist Monet at his home in Giverny. Returning to America in 1897, she had her first large exhibition, and began to er Ay continuous critical acclaim. She settled in New York City, and never wanted for important clients. One of her most distinguished commissions came in 1919, when she was ir.r ited by the United States government to do the portraits of the war heroes, Cardinal Mercier, Sir David Beatty, and George Clemenceau (cf, no. 2-10). Only after a crippling hip injury and the onset of cataracts in 1924 did her productivity decline. Her autobiography "Background with Figures" was published in 1930, and a year later she was elected one of the twelve most distinguished living women in America by Good Housekeeping magazine, an indication of her widespread recognition. Cecilia Beaux died in Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1942. Although Beaux executed some of her strongest and freshest work in the early twentieth century, she seems today completely a painter of the nineteenth century. Indeed, she had little respect for the more radical develop­ ments of modem art, feeling that they had lost touch with humanistic values. Her greatest admiration went to such contemporaries as Eakins (cf. no. 2-5), and later Whistler and Sargent (cf. no 2-7). Her visit with Monet in 1896 was very cordial, and she liked the almost abstract works he exhibited in 1911. She never followed Impressionism, however, except in partial ways, such as some of her land­ scape backgrounds (cf. no. 2-9). The increasing bravura of her brushwork, the atmospheric treatment of solid forms, and subtle coloring (cf. no. 2-8), bore some resemblance to Impressionism, but it was equally akin to Sargent and such old masters as Velasquez and Hals. In regard to Sargent, who could be a very superficial painter, the great connoisseur Bernard Berenson once remarked that Beaux's work was superior to that of her better known peer. William Merritt Chase, another leading painter and teacher of the period, called Beaux "not only the greatest living woman painter, but the best that has ever lived." While that might be argued, there can be no question that Beaux found admirers among the most astute critics of the time. For her, modernism, per se, was irrelevant. She regarded her way as timeless and unneedful of labels. Her subjects were still more important to her than the style or method of their portrayal. Even so, Beaux's style rarely lacked an expressive blend of liveliness, elegance and formal structure, so that ultimately her paintings either transcended their subjects or epitomized them with a few bold strokes (cf. no. 2-10). 15 �"Self Portrait" oil on canvas,ca. 1880-85,18 x 14 On loan from The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution 2-7 "Adelaide Nutting" (First Superintendent of the John-IS Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing, 1894-1907) oil on canvas, n.d., 38 x 25" On loan from Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore 2-2 "Landscape With a Farm Building" oil on canvas, 1888,11 x 14" On loan from The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Gift of Henry S. Drinker, 1950 2-8 "Mrs. Samuel Hamilton Brooks" oil on canvas, 1911, 48 x 34" On loan from The Collection of the Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis; Gift of Mrs. Samuel Hamilton Brooks 2-3 "A Breton Woman, and Other Studies" oil on canvas, 1888, 15 Vs x 10s/s" On loan from The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Gift of Henry S. Drinker, 1950 2-9 "Mrs. Addison Clay Harris" oil on canvas, 1917,55 x 41 Vz" On loan from The Indianapolis Museum of Art; Gift of Mrs. Addison C. Harris 2-4 "A Young Woman" oil on canvas, ca. 1895, 295/s x 22% " On loan from The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Gift of Henry 5. Drinker, 1950 "George Clemenceau" oil on canvas, 1920,47 x 36% " On loan from The National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution; Gift of the National Art Committee 2-5 2-11 "Portrait of Ethel Page (Mrs. James Large)" oil on canvas, 1884, 30 x 25" On loan from Judy and Alan Goffman Fine Art "Dr. Henry Sturgis Drinker" oil on canvas, ca. 1923, 50 x 37" On loan from Lehigh University, Office of Exhibitions and Collection 2-6 I 2-10 I >' LA "Dorothea in the Woods" oil on canvas, 1897,53% x 40" On loan from The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horwitz' 3-5 IB �i ' (First Superintendent of the ’ohn< School of Nursing, 1894-1907) 38 x 25" ; Hopkins Hospital, Ba’Hrscro lilton Brooks" ,48x34" Collection of the Brook's k—.4^ Gift of Mrs. Samtie’. "■3 i y Harris" ,55x41-;" ndianapc'is Museum :• .~^t ■ jn C. Harris ■■ .3 au" ,47x36\" National Collection C" .-.-rs. ution; Giri 0! ,\r;„ ':.~i ■ Cr-;-::r:co i s Drinker" 923,50 x 37" gh Univ: rsity, Office c Election WALTER ■ ■ 'i V- -• 0 17 �MARTHA WALTER Martha Walter was born in Philadelphia in 1875. Follow­ ing high school, she entered the Pennsylvania Academy, where she studied with the eminent quasi-Impressionist painter, William Merritt Chase. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Walter's work showed not only the influence of her master, but also that of painters such as Henri, Sargent, and Whistler, with whom she shared a taste for rich surfaces and dark tonalities (cf. no. 3-1). In 1908, she won a two-year traveling scholarship, which took her to Spain, Italy, Holland, and France. In Paris, she studied at the Grande Chaumiere, but finding its classical curriculum stiffling, she moved to the Academie Julian. Shortly after­ ward, she established her own studio, and began to work in a somewhat Impressionist manner, including out-of-doors painting. The full impact of Impressionist color did not make itself felt in Walter's art until about 1912, however. In 1909, she won the Academy's "Mary Smith Prize," for best work by a woman. With the outbreak of World War I, Walter returned to America and began a series of beach scenes at Gloucester and Atlantic City (cf. no. 3-5). Here, the full potency of Impressionist light and color came into play, but with an added impetuosity that resembled the style of the Fauves, whom she had seen in Paris. Sometimes, Walter called upon earlier inspirations, such as Boudin's works of the 1870s, for her cloudy beach scenes (cf. no. 3-10). Walter was a constant traveler, shuttling between Paris and her studios in New York and Gloucester (where Cecilia Beaux also had a studio). In addition, she taught at the New York School of Art and, for a time, in Brittany. Perhaps because of her own cosmopolitanism and her interest in less 18 fortunate travelers, she spent several months in 1922 paint­ ing a series of thirty-six pictures of the crowded immigratioi halls of Ellis Island. In that same year, she had a large exhibition in Paris, from which the French government selected a painting for the Musee du Luxenbourg collection. 171-' Walter traveled to North Africa in the 1930s, and responded to that special quality of light and color there, which had also intrigued such painters as Delacroix and Matisse. In 1941, she had a large exhibition at the Art Club of Chicago, and a few years later opened a studio in Palm Beach. Walter continued painting well into her nineties, and died at the age of one hundred in 1976. To the end, she remained a painter of locales — beaches, gardens, market­ places —- just as Cassatt had been a painter of friends and family. Not unlike Cassatt, she was most stimulated by the strong patterns and rich colors of her subjects, and projected them with great facility and verve. Despite a long and successful career, Walter's art is still not widely known, but this seems destined to change. 'While not an innovator among the modernists of her age, she did develop a distinctive style. Her often daring color, vivacious brushwork, and consistently solid compositions have endured the tides of fashion, much as have those similar qualities in such contemporaries of hers as Henri, Sloan, and Marsh. Like theirs, Walter's paintings retain their wonderful freshness and energy. Air Kids" licgNude" aioacanvas.1912,14x18" Ch :^vDmidDmid,Inc., Philadelp Parasol' --.’actEvas, 1918,14x18" '■■ r:'~ ’ ^-“-'sZmman Section �S' sne SDen, 1 3-7 lgover At Ur§ CollectiOri ■ ~Ior there, and .ArtQub ’ne hundred in 1976 £her nineties - of locales — beach * she assatt had been a paiX^fo ' ?**' Cassatt, she was mos‘ d rich colors of her subjeccility and verve. “Boy in Black Cape oil on canvas, 1904,51 x 38 On loan from David David, Inc., Philadelphia Shady Spot in Luxembourg Gardens, Paris" oil on canvas, 1919, 20 x 25" On loan from a private collection 3-2 “Paris Cafe" oil on canvas, 1906,22V: x 17^2 " On loan from David David, Inc., Philadelphia 3-8 H "Coney Island" oil on panel, 1922,14 x 18" On loan from David David, Inc., Philadelphia i ! 3-9 ) and d by ** d Pr°J'ected nd successful career, Walter's art is still ■ but this seems destined to change. While mong the modernists of her age, she did ' “The Fresh Air Kids" oil on canvas, 1910,78 x 38" On loan from David David, Inc., Philadelphia "Mother and Baby" oil on canvas, 1922, 30 x 24" On loan from David David, Inc., Philadelphia 3-4 “Reclining Nude" oil on canvas, 1912,14 x 18" On loan from David David, Inc., Philadelphia 3-10 "After the Storm" oil on canvas, n.d., 24 x 30" On loan from The Robert Rice Gallery, Houston i i /e style. Her often daring color, vivacious msistently solid compositions have 3-5 "Japanese Parasol" oil on canvas, 1918,14 x 18" On loan from Mr. Jacques Zinman )f fashion, much as have those similar ntemporaries of hers as Henn, Sloan, ana , Walter's paintings retain their ss and energy. 3-6 "Young Woman in Black Hat" oil on canvas, 1918,21 x 26" On loan from a private collection f 19 �! WALTER 20 3-10 �MILKES COLLEGE LI8RARV �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Exhibition Programs, 1973-present Description An account of the resource Exhibition programs created by the Sordoni Art Gallery from 1973 to the present. Digitized by Wilkes University Archives interns, Zachary Mendoza and Sophia Kruspha. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Sordoni Art Gallery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-present Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Wilkes University retains copyright of these exhibition programs. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition programs, flyers, and calendars. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1980 March 22-April 27 Three Pennsylvania Women: Mary Cassatt, Cecilia Beaux, and Martha Walter Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sordoni Art Gallery Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Sordoni Art Gallery; Wilkes University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1980 March 22- April 27 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition book https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/8fef5d7903fe504887be4d6f9a8db510.pdf 55883603269b031fa765b9be85a3484f PDF Text Text 30RD HB1220 HS i 9BO ��HER B E 1 T A IL § il THE SCULPTURE OF HERBERT SIMON ■tM A— Any artist's work should be seen in its collective variety. but it is especially edifying to see Herbert Simon's work in this way. Having worked geometrically in meta! for the past ten years, his course has been consistent and evolu­ tionary, a chain of variations upon an initial idea leading ultimately to another idea and another set of variations. -- (fig-1) FACETS, 1977 Aluminum Schaeffer Lecture Hall Wilkes College His primary starting points in the history of modern sculpture have been Constructivism, particularly David Smith's American version, and the more recent Minimalism, both of which have based themselves upon geometric forms and assemblage techniques. Simon has been exploring an area generally lying somewhere between the more complex, sometimes expressionistic style of the Constructivists and the spare, often inert manner of the Minimalists. Although his works are highly reductivist in character, their simplicity does not obscure their complexity. �ARCHIVES OR BERT S I M O N j W 1 T A L § <g 1 tU) ® 1 IL I? & □ UJ fl THE SCULPTURE OF HERBERT SIMON Any artist's work should be seen in its collective variety, but it is especially edifying to see Herbert Simon's work in this way. Having worked geometrically in metal for the past ten years, his course has been consistent and evolu­ tionary, a chain of variations upon an initial idea leading ultimately to another idea and another set of variations. fig-1) :ACETS, 1977 Aluminum His primary starting points in the history of modern sculpture have been Constructivism, particularly David Smith's American version, and the more recent Minimalism, both of which have based themselves upon geometric forms and assemblage techniques. Simon has been exploring an area generally lying somewhere between the more complex, sometimes expressionistic style of the Constructivists and the spare, often inert manner of the Minimalists. Although his works are highly reductivist in character, their simplicity does not obscure their complexity. Simon creates visual fugues; in this day and age, we might call them "cybernetic" variations. They result from the method of playing and replaying upon a basic module, in a kind of rationalist improvisation. This technique may apply to a single piece; simply, as in Reorient II, where the two modules are placed on different axes; or more com­ plexly, as in Facets (see fig. 1), where sixteen modules are grouped in different planar relationships to create a hidden symmetry. The method may also apply serially, where the module is carried through a set of individual sculptures, so that comparison of two or more pieces within the set provides another level of interrelational interest. The present exhibition is made up mostly of two such series, the Mazes and the Thrus, plus a number of pieces from earlier series. In the Mazes, executed in 1978, Simon recalls the words of Paul Klee by "taking a line for a walk." khaeffer Lecture Hall ■Vilkes College 31 - C ' • �plane to a vertical one, from vice versa. By working withi system, the artist is able to e number of possible variablethe system result in subtle b in psychological effect. Nexus, for example, seem it links the plane of the flooi appears to hold those planes perfectly positioned buttress drop from the wall to the flc cataracts just beginning thei plane which extends before ally uniform perpendicularit module to suggest somethin, "baroque." In another sense, all of thi not closed systems, but coulitely. The spiralling movemt reaches the point of internal the metal line suddenly brea begins a soaring ascent. Perl Nexus, or perhaps somethin, alludes to potentiality, while level of resolution (but not f It is possible to think aboi aesthetic events in individua collectivity. Points of convex direction, interplays of void shadow — all these become which is geometrically uncoi complexity. As the Maze series explon and is essentially open in ch, into a realm of cubical space: �4n aluminum line travels through space, from a horizontal plane to a vertical one, from inside to outside and back, or vice versa. By working within a strictly limited modular system, the artist is able to explore and analyze a greater number of possible variables. Minor physical shifts within the system result in subtle but often significant differences in psychological effect. Nexus, for example, seems to rise from the floor while it links the plane of the floor to that of the wall; but it also appears to hold those planes apart, like some fragile but perfectly positioned buttress. The Wall Fall pieces seem to drop from the wall to the floor, suggesting two delicate cataracts just beginning their journey across the horizontal plane which extends before them. Juncture II has a classic­ ally uniform perpendicularity, but Reorient II uses the same module to suggest something playfully dynamic and "baroque." In another sense, all of the Mazes are dynamic. They are not closed systems, but could easily continue on indefin­ itely. The spiralling movement is open-ended. Even when it reaches the point of internal constriction, as in Ravel Up, the metal line suddenly breaks into a vertical direction and begins a soaring ascent. Perhaps it could become another Nexus, or perhaps something altogether different. Ravel Up alludes to potentiality, while Nexus takes us to a further level of resolution (but not finality; the ends are still open). It is possible to think about and react to many separate aesthetic events in individual works as well as in their collectivity. Points of convergence or tangency, shifts of direction, interplays of void and mass, patterns of light and shadow — all these become more conspicuous in sculpture which is geometrically uncomplicated. Therein lies its complexity. As the Maze series explores linear movements in space and is essentially open in character, the Thru series takes us into a realm of cubical spaces enclosed by flat planes. Suggesting architecture or even stage sets, these structures invite us to enter vicariously. Here our eyes are not follow­ ing the route of a linear form through space. Rather, we imagine ourselves passing through the shaped spaces of the boxes. Sometimes the passage is open, but sometimes it is unclear where we will end up, or whether we will be able to pass through at all. An element of mystery or of potential frustration ensues. This effect is only heightened by the play of shadows within the box, sometimes suggesting ominous cul-de-sacs, but at other times giving way to a "light at the end of the tunnel." To some extent, the variables in the Thrus are more intriguing than those of the Mazes. The constant of the outer cube establishes strict boundaries which are absent with open space, and which force the sculptor to work within the given configuration. Still, the possibilities are virtually limitless. The interior partitions may be straight, bent, or curved, slanted or erect, contiguous or separated, so that each sculpture ends up with a distinct character. Never do these interiors become fussily complex, however. The planes remain large and limited in number. The essen­ tial aspect of each work is easily comprehended, even when the eye is prohibited total entry. The brushed aluminum surfaces of most of Simon's pieces create another kind of variation, by compounding the dynamics of a "line" or a plane. The shimmer fluctuates from soft to sharp, often in optically teasing ways, to quicken or retard the eye's movement along a surface. In some of the Thrus, it even creates momentary mirages by "floating" a plane in or out, depending upon the spectator's viewpoint. This kind of surface lighting also enhances the effect of lightness of weight by clothing every mass with diaphonous glitter, allowing it to merge with surrounding space. In Wall Fall, both plain and brushed surfaces are used, enabling us to consider directly their different impacts. �Like most seal; lement of form, Nexus, for exams them into cornph neutral. Even wh tonically conceiv like buildings. A Street Park sculp another level of « even the small or explored from al i-; - i ■ -T Although simi shapes prevail in to opposing resp as interiors in wl immediately com Mazes are experi endless space. T1 vulnerable, whilt atively invulnera movement throu the moving elemi HERBERT S] Born in 1927, Na EDUCATION: New York Ui Colorado Col Vanderbilt U Brooklyn Mu (fig- 3) REORIENT II Aluminum 1978 70" x 50" x 72" Hans Hofmai Skowhegan S �Like most sculpture which employs space as a positive element of form, Simon's work is invariably environmental. 8 Meins,for examPle' actively engages wall and floor, forcing [ them into complicity rather than allowing them to remain ! neutral. Even when the works are small, they are architec­ tonically conceived — the Mazes like bridges, the Thrus | like buildings. A Thru enlarged to the scale of Simon's Coal ! Street Park sculpture (see fig. 5) would provide us with another level of experience by allowing us to enter it, but [ even the small ones we see in the exhibition should be ’ explored from all possible angles. Although similar materials, surfaces, and geometric [shapes prevail in both Thrus and Mazes, the two series lead ' to opposing responses. The closed Thrus are experienced i as interiors in which space has definite, but not always ! immediately comprehensible, volume and shape. The open [■Mazes are experienced as totally visible exteriors inhabiting endless space. They appear extroverted but somewhat vulnerable, while the Thrus seem introverted but compar­ atively invulnerable. Both sets of works are about movement through space. In the Mazes, the tube itself is the moving element, linear and open-ended. But in the Thrus, the sculptured form becomes a channel for move­ ment; curved or glancing planes define our journey. The Mazes convey an order, clarity, and precision which verge upon the militaristic, while the Thrus, for all their cleanness of edge and surface, suggest the indefinite and the secretive. As the most recent of Simon's works, the Thrus seem to constitute a movement toward greater complexity and introspection, a kind of reductivist turning from the classical to the romantic. The cool adjoins the playful. The clear confronts the enigmatic. Clean, precisionist forms become animated and dramatic. Rationalist restraints are surmounted by the idiosyncratic and unpredictable. Addressing the contem­ porary sculptural concerns of minimalist form, serial development, and environmentalism, Simon demonstrates again that one can work within the seemingly limited and rigid system of geometric abstraction, while retaining a distinctive and highly personal style. WILLIAM STERLING Director, Sordoni Art Gallery HERBERT SIMON Bom in 1927, Nashville, Tennessee EDUCATION: New York University (B.A., M. A.) Colorado College Vanderbilt University Brooklyn Museum Art School (fig- 3) REORIENT II 1978 Aluminum 70" x 50" x 72" Hans Hofmann Art School Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: 1969 to present. Associate Professor of sculpture and three-dimensional design. Wilkes College 1960-1968 Art Instructor, various high schools in New York City; Art History Instructor, Fashion Institute of Technology 1956-1958 Instructor, School of Design, North Carolina State College, Raleigh, NC �EXHIBITIONS: s bl ! o’ *I il1 I J 4 ■' 1979 One-Person Show — Lehigh Unive Bethlehem, PA 1978 One-Person Show — State Univen New York, Binghamton, NY 1974 One-Person Show — Sordoni Art Wilkes College, Wilkes-Barre, PA 1970 One-Person Show — Hazleton Ari Hazleton, PA 1966 One-Person Show ■— Phoenix Gall New York, NY 1964 One-Person Show — Phoenix Gal New York, NY 1978 Arts-On-The-Go — Northeastern Arts Alliance Invitational 1977 Drawing and Sculpture Show— K College, Kutztown, PA 1976 13th Annual Exhibition — Allentc Allentown, PA Regional Art Exhibition — Everha Scranton, PA Regional Art Exhibition — Williai Museum, Harrisburg, PA 1972 Regional Exhibition — William P( Harrisburg, PA 1971 Susquehanna Regional — Robersc Binghamton, NY 1970 Regional Art Exhibition — Everh; Scranton, PA �EXHIBITIONS: 1967 Six Artists — Loeb Student Center, New York University, New York, NY 1979 One-Person Show — Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 1966 Hartford Arts Foundation — Hartford, CT 1978 One-Person Show — State University of New York, Binghamton, NY 1964 The American Family in Art — Farleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ 1974 One-Person Show ■— Sordoni Art Gallery, Wilkes College, Wilkes-Barre, PA 1955 Provincetown Art Association — Provincetown, MA 1970 One-Person Show — Hazleton Art League, Hazleton, PA 1966 One-Person Show — Phoenix Gallery, New York, NY 1964 One-Person Show — Phoenix Gallery, New York, NY 1978 Arts-On-The-Go — Northeastern Pennsylvania Arts Alliance Invitational 1977 Drawing and Sculpture Show — Kutztown State College, Kutztown, PA 1976 13th Annual Exhibition — Allentown Museum, Allentown, PA Regional Art Exhibition ■— Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA Regional Art Exhibition -— William Penn Museum, Harrisburg, PA 1972 Regional Exhibition — William Penn Museum, Harrisburg, PA 1971 Susquehanna Regional — Roberson Art Center, 1970 Regional Art Exhibition — Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA Drawings USA — Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY COMMISSIONS: Two Modules — steel sculpture, Coal Street Park, Wilkes-Barre, PA 1977 Facets ■—■ aluminum relief, Wilkes College, Wilkes-Barre, PA 1977 Aluminum Relief — Schaeffer Residence, Mountaintop, PA 1978 AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS: 1976 Purchase Prize Regional Art Exhibition, Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA 1971 Award, William Penn Museum, Harrisburg, PA 1970 Honorable Mention, Regional Arts Exhibition, Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA 1963 Fellowship MacDonwell Colony, Peterborough, NH Binghamton, NY �.. THRU \ THRU XI THRU XII 8. THRU THRU THRU THRU XIII XV XVII XVIII 25" x 25" x 25" 20" x 20" x 20" 11" x 11" x 11" Aluminum 1979 Aluminum 1979 10" x 10" x 10" 25" x 25" x 25" Aluminum 1979 Aluminum 1979 25" x 25" x 25" Aluminum 1980 25" x 25" x 25" Aluminum 1980 1978 MAZE Series REORIENT 1 REORIENT II 181/4"xl7%"xl3" Aluminum 70" x 50" x 72" Aluminum 1978 JUNCTURE I 50" x 50" x 98" Aluminum 1978 14. JUNCTURE II 1978 NEXUS WALL FALL RAVEL UP I 13" x 13" x 251/4" 67" X 20" X 45" Aluminum 15. 16. Aluminum 1978 93" X 18" X 21" Aluminum 1978 41" x 46" x 47" Aluminum 1978 16%" x 12" x 12" Aluminum 1978 12%" x 12%" x 12%" Aluminum 1978 1976 11. 12. 18. 19. RAVEL UP II INNER SMALL MODULAR SCULPTURES 20. 21. 22. ZIG ZAG ZIG ZAG 32" x 17V2" xl7%" Aluminum Aluminum 1979 ZIG ZAG 12%" x 51/2" x 51/2" 231/2" X 91/2" X 91/2" Steel 1977 23. MODULE 12% "x 32" x 32" Steel 24. CRAB 1976 8%" x 16%" x 10" JAWS Steel 25. 1977 9" x 9" x 14" Steel 1977 (fig- 5) TWO MODI'-1 1977 Steel Coal Street F/' Wilkes-Barre ��May 3-28,1980 SORDONI ART GALLERY WILKES COLLEGE Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania �■IIBIIillll 10D025H271 WILKES UNIVERSITY LIBRARY �� https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/54700de9100b99e013650fc3888ff27c.pdf 8618c13d50e1288a1e3b6aa36e6419ed PDF Text Text �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Exhibition Programs, 1973-present Description An account of the resource Exhibition programs created by the Sordoni Art Gallery from 1973 to the present. Digitized by Wilkes University Archives interns, Zachary Mendoza and Sophia Kruspha. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Sordoni Art Gallery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-present Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Wilkes University retains copyright of these exhibition programs. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition programs, flyers, and calendars. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1980 May 3 Metal Sculpture 1976-1980: Herbert Simon Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert Simon Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1980 May 5 - 28 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition program https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/cb5b291ac588b62ea0597a3f749055d6.pdf 855182e2ee45f94f97a5ac56d98b53ac PDF Text Text �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Exhibition Programs, 1973-present Description An account of the resource Exhibition programs created by the Sordoni Art Gallery from 1973 to the present. Digitized by Wilkes University Archives interns, Zachary Mendoza and Sophia Kruspha. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Sordoni Art Gallery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-present Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Wilkes University retains copyright of these exhibition programs. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition programs, flyers, and calendars. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1981 - 1982 Exhibition Calendar Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sordoni Art Gallery Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition Calendar https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/22a145b4ec18e3f405ce87f7948b4eb4.pdf 443f538262a877a2ca9b0cb27b9eafd4 PDF Text Text ����������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Exhibition Programs, 1973-present Description An account of the resource Exhibition programs created by the Sordoni Art Gallery from 1973 to the present. Digitized by Wilkes University Archives interns, Zachary Mendoza and Sophia Kruspha. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Sordoni Art Gallery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-present Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Wilkes University retains copyright of these exhibition programs. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition programs, flyers, and calendars. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1981 April 12 Students of the Eight Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Peggy Bacon Gifford Beal George Bellows Patrick Henry Bruce Alexande rCalder Glenn Coleman Andrew Dasburg Stuart Davis Guy Pene DuBois Philip Evergood Arnold Friedman Lee Gatch Adolph Gottlieb William Gropper Joseph Hirsch Edward Hopper Rockwell Kent Reginald Marsh George L.K. Morris Barnett Newman Man Ray Morgan Russel David Smith Moses Soyer Niles Spencer Carl Sprinchorn Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1981 April 12 - May 17 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition program https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/388a882d0a935ac7fb663f7ed5c634fb.pdf b4ec9a0e2c2db91a0831f26de3405405 PDF Text Text ■ if ' ■■ . g. J I �©IF Ml BW AMERICAN MASTERS co. 1910-cq. ^960 §©&©©« A^T ©ALLIW C@1ULI1©I1 APRIL 12-MAY 17, 1981 E.S. FARLEY LIBRARY WILKES UNIVERSITY wilkes-barre^pa. Sponsored by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and The John Sloan Memorial Foundation 3 �FOREWORD This exhibition is devoted to works by twenty-six American artists who studied under members of The Eight, one of the seminal groups of early twentieth century progressive artists in this country. This show provides a sequel to our 1979 exhibition of The Eight themselves. No attempt has been made here to be comprehensive, since over a period of some forty years there were literally hundreds of students, representing all degrees of achievement. The Eight unquestionally influenced many artists who were not their students, as well, although those influences are usually more difficult to ascertain. The artists chosen for this exhibition are generally regarded as major figures in American art, and together they represent a wide range of styles and attitudes, indeed, a virtual cross-section of art in the United States between 1910 and 1960. The exhibition, therefore, illuminates the vitality and diversity of that period, as it also defines, at least in part, the heritage of those among The Eight who shared their ideals through teaching. Numerous persons and institutions deserve recognition for their important contributions to this project. I should first like to extend our deep appreciation to the lenders, whose generosity provided the works which make up the exhibition. We are also greatly indebted to the John Sloan Memorial Foundation and the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, which provided the funding for the project. I wish to thank personally those persons in the gallery and at the college whose help and cooperation were significant: Cara Berryman, Exhibitions Coordinator; Albert Margolies, chairman of the Advisory Commission, and the members of the Commission; Dr. Thomas Kelly, Dean of External Affairs; and Robert S. Capin, President of the College. 4 Finally, I extend special thanks to Mrs. Helen Farr Sloan for her invaluable advice and support, and for her introductory essay in this catalogue. , ARCHNS ... £ 0 Ri) G i '■ WILLIAM STERLING Director INTRODUCTI by Helen Farr Slot Any serious thoughtful observer o paintings by the group of artists knc would be puzzled by the term Ashcc identify the work they showed at M Words, published long after the evei indelible impression, a misleading in philosophy that brought these artists grouped around Robert Henri. He w the progressive avant-garde at the ti man John Sloan called "The Abraha Art." The diversity of personalities, tale styles of painting shown by those ei aspect of their philosophy: respect fi talent, and the desire to provide opj flourish, with freedom of expression demonstrate the value of work done working for themselves unfettered b commercial demands; on their own "independent" creative personalities, they had a common interest in depit world. (Even Davies' lyrical nymph: landscapes are idealized concepts of There has often been a mistaken ide interest in politics, or a desire to de] fact, Sloan was the only member of became interested in political matter years after that exhibition. As for ti Henri encouraged his friends and sti the everyday world of city and com city subjects show everyday people Parks and restaurants and bathing t Sloan called his subject matter: "Bit: �y, I extend special thanks to Mrs. Helen Farr Sloan nvaluable advice and support, and for her tory essay in this catalogue. WILLIAM STERLING Director I INTRODUCTION by Helen Farr Sloan Any serious thoughtful observer of an exhibition of paintings by the group of artists known as "The Eight" would be puzzled by the term Ashcan school used to identify the work they showed at Macbeth Gallery in 1908. Words, published long after the event, have left an indelible impression, a misleading interpretation of the philosophy that brought these artists together as friends grouped around Robert Henri. He was the natural leader of the progressive avant-garde at the turn of the century, the man John Sloan called "The Abraham Lincoln of American Art." The diversity of personalities, talents, and concomitant styles of painting shown by those eight artists reveal one aspect of their philosophy: respect for diversity of creative talent, and the desire to provide opportunities for art to flourish, with freedom of expression. They wanted to demonstrate the value of work done by American artists, working for themselves unfettered by academic or commercial demands; on their own initiative as "independent" creative personalities. At that time, in 1908, they had a common interest in depicting the everyday world. (Even Davies' lyrical nymphs in mountain landscapes are idealized concepts of a natural real world.) There has often been a mistaken idea that the group had an interest in politics, or a desire to depict urban slums. In fact, Sloan was the only member of the group who ever became interested in political matters, and not until several years after that exhibition. As for the subject matter, while Henri encouraged his friends and students to paint life — the everyday world of city and countryside — most of the city subjects show everyday people engaged in recreation. Parks and restaurants and bathing beaches provided what Sloan called his subject matter: "Bits of joy in human life." The series of independent group shows, beginning in 1901 at the Allan Gallery and culminating in the large Independent Show of 1910, provided experience in organizing exhibitions. The 1910 show was a precursor of the Armory Show of 1913 which brought an illuminating cross-section of modem art to this country for the first time. These exhibitions were organized by the artists, largely financed by themselves and in the case of the 1913 Armory Show, a few art collectors like Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney and Miss Lizzie Bliss. The friends and followers of The Eight taught their contemporaries the importance of voluntary public service, that very fine old characteristic of America's pioneers. The defense of independence, the protection of diversity in democratic cultural institutions; these are principles which the group taught in practical form. ! Several of The Eight were also teachers of drawing and painting in the formal sense. Henri and Sloan and George Luks taught for many years, both privately and at schools like the New York School of Art, and the Art Students League. Some of their most distinguished pupils are seen in this exhibition. It is so good to see that there is a happy extraordinary variety of work — none of it imitating the original teachers. For, in fact, a number of them, having learned the lesson of responsible independence (freedom, not license), learned again from other teachers like Kenneth Hayes Millar or Jan Matulka some insights which helped their talents to develop yet another synthesis. In every case the talent has been forged with integrity. In addition to the well-known teachers who had formal classes, it may be forgotten that a man like Maurice Prendergast had pupils who learned to appreciate the superb design and color of medieval miniatures from France and Persia and India, from him and his brother Charles. And it was Prendergast whose appreciation for Cezanne stimulated interest on the part of his friends who had not seen the work of that great modem, who died in 1906. In Sloan's day of 1910 he tells of finding an article in The 90-17: 5 �fast u1 Burlington Magazine, "Was much interested in the work of Cezanne, some of which was reproduced. A big man this, his fame is to grow." Of course Sloan had never been able to go abroad, having to support his family from the age of sixteen; but even if he had gone to Paris he might not have had the opportunity to see much work by the moderns in the Nineties. Van Wyck Brooks, who knew Prendergast, said that Sloan told him how Prendergast would come in the room and repeat to his friends: "You should know Cezanne I" It was not until the Armory Show exhibited a group of Cezanne's paintings that the work was known in color, in this country. Now that we are accustomed to superb color reproductions in books that survey the world of Impressionists and Modernists, it is exceedingly hard to realize that artists, even those who lived for years in France, were not really familiar with the work. It was shown so little, in a few independent shows, in restaurants and shops run by paint dealers. Maybe it has been more exciting for art students and even mature artists, to make some discoveries, bit by bit — to assimilate fresh ideas without being swamped by what Lewis Mumford has described as image-fatigue, being punch-drunk on familiarity with too much art. Artists at the time of The Eight were not over-exposed. Their immediate problem was that in this country there were so few places to exhibit work. The academic juries had a rigid political control over what got into the big public exhibitions. There were very few art dealers. Sentimental realism, genteel subject matter, imitation impressionism; these styles and subjects were acceptable. "The Eight" was formed by an accidental encounter with the jury system of the National Academy. It was a little protest made by associates of Robert Henri who had been shocked by the negative action of a jury that threw out the work of his students and friends. The show was organized spontaneously. There was no purpose other than to demonstrate the need to encourage the idea of "Open Door" exhibitions, such as the 1910 Independent Show that 6 they were able to organize later. (Henri also initiated the MacDowell jury system, based on proportional representation.) The pupils and associates of the men around Henri have carried back to all parts of the United States this attitude toward open door exhibitions, opportunities to show by both professional and amateur artists. They have been a leavening in the world of American art. Their viewpoint in one direction was "inclusive — open the doors of opportunity" but they were not opposed to the principle that Alfred Stieglitz advocated, "exclusive — selection of quality." Only the Henri crowd felt that the open door must come first, to counteract the power politics of fashion in art institutions. It would always be necessary to demonstrate and defend the democratic principle in cultural matters to encourage variety of expression, to respect independence. The wisdom of this point of view should be clear from study of cultural history in the past hundred years. Suppose Ryder had stopped painting because his work was not appreciated critically and financially! What a gap there would be in our artistic heritage if Prendergast had stopped making frames to earn the free time to paint his joyful scenes. What an unimaginable loss! The students who gathered around The Eight held all kinds of jobs to support their own creative work — night watchmen, accountants, dish washers, illustrators, designers, actors and authors. Some became administrators of the WPA art projects. Several became known as teachers. Richard Lahey ran the Corcoran School of Art, and Kimon Nicolaides' book The Natural Way to Draw has reached several generations of art students. Today the historical situation for young artists is so different from that faced by The Eight. Now there are more opportunities to obtain college scholarships and to exhibit creative work.. New York is not the only art center in the country. Contemporary museums have been established in many places. There is perhaps a more insidious pressure to be influenced by the , a sefiO.U. ,\ contemporary^• cost . be creative -ship of support. Recent Recent " n. history d-’t- ‘ oTce agairX only a small percentage a can survive withonly integrity by counting >ivf * sales. Henri, for instance, made a col­ the itis portrait painting. In addition to tfound patrons early in his career but Hi bloomer. He was in his forties before hi and from that time on he did have patrl and David Smith had many lean years I chapter of financial security. Students, j professional artists need to be reminded] facts - to keep perspective on their wd courage to persevere. 1 �rOnHenri also th k to aUpJ°f -he ’men le United ions, Professional and in the worldamateur 'of or* direction was opportunity" but tb ,at Alfred StiegliS1they [on of quality." Only the door must come first, to fashion in art institutions o demonstrate and defend oral matters to encourage ■t independence. view should be clear from past hundred years. inting because his work was inancially! What a gap there ;e if Prendergast had stopped time to paint his joyful loss 1 round The Eight held all >wn creative work — night washers, illustrators, Some became administrators al became known as e Corcoran School of Art,, Draw he Natural Way to C. — has art students. n for young artists is so ie Eight. Now there are more scholarships and to exhi^ ,t the only art ce^ished m TmoTinX- P— tO contemporary art, a serious pressure for young people to contend with. The cost of living is more complicated by the income that must be set aside for taxes. It usually becomes a necessity for a creative artist to cultivate a side-line in teaching or craftsmanship which can provide a reliable means of support. Recent history does teach this lesson once again that only a small percentage of unique talents can survive with integrity by counting on contemporary sales. Henri, for instance, made a comfortable living with his portrait painting. In addition to the teaching, Bellows found patrons early in his career but Hopper was a late bloomer. He was in his forties before his talent matured and from that time on he did have patronage. Stuart Davis and David Smith had many lean years before the late chapter of financial security. Students, and even professional artists need to be reminded of these realistic facts — to keep perspective on their work and regain the courage to persevere. THE STUDENTS OF THE EIGHT IN AMERICAN ART by William Sterling "The two dominant forces in my early art education were the teachings of Robert Henri whose school I attended and the Armory Show of Modem European art in 1913. These influences were foremost in forming my ideas and taste about what a modem picture should be. Both were revolutionary in character, and stood in direct opposition to traditional and academic concepts of art."1 (STUART DAVIS) After World War II, New York City emerged as the capital of the art world, thereby ending the leadership of Paris, which had prevailed for more than a century. For the first time in its history, the United States led the way to the most radical developments in art. The war had severely disrupted the cultural life of Europe, and even before the war many European artists and intellectuals had emigrated to America to avoid persecution. They brought with them their entire repertoire of avant-garde ideas. At the same time, a generation of American artists achieved its maturity in modernism and stood ready to explore new frontiers. Prior to the war, American artists had, for the most part, been followers rather than leaders. In the late nineteenth century, a few eccentrics, such as Ryder, created their own highly personal expressions, but had little influence on their contemporaries. Several others, such as Whistler and Cassatt, managed to join the European avant-garde, but they remained expatriates. The earliest stirrings of an independent American modernist movement came in the first two decades of this century. In 1908, the famous exhibition of The Eight marked the first significant repudiation of academic dogma and style in art. The Eight, comprised of Robert Henri, John Sloan, George Luks, Ernest Lawson, William Glackens, Everett Shinn, Arthur B. Davies, and Maurice Prendergast, were never a cohesive group. They were simply congenial spirits who came together for a single exhibition at New York's Macbeth Gallery. But that exhibition was one of the salient �st&EfcaafS events of American art. Like the earlier independent salons of the Realists and the Impressionists in France, it struck a blow for artistic freedom in the face of a rigidly conservative academy system. Two years later, Henri, Sloan, Davies, and Walt Kuhn put together a far larger show, the Exhibition of Independent Artists. The taste for adventure and the lure of artistic freedom had begun to spread. The largest and most influential event came in 1913 with the great Armory Show in New York, where the latest European styles were revealed to Americans for the first time en masse. The effect of these exhibitions was to break, once and for all, the grip of the academies upon the American art scene. An American artist could now follow his own course without fear of automatic isolation, and the forbidden fruit of European modernism could be tasted without censure. Two approaches to modernism emerged in the second decade. Henri and his associates took up a rather chauvinistic position, urging American artists to develop an indigenous modernism which would remain independent of European styles. Various realist styles from the "Ash-Can" school to the Regionalists of the 1920s represented this approach. The other approach led to Europe and the adoption of the latest abstract styles, particularly Cubism, Futurism, and later. Surrealism. The prime movers of this approach included the photographer and patron Alfred Stieglitz, Walter Pach, and Arthur B. Davies (who had shared Henri's democratic attitudes more than his tastes). Already by 1915, artists such as Max Weber and Marsden Hartley had gone to Europe and had embraced the very newest discoveries. The "Europeanists" became the more radical group in terms of artistic style, since they favored the various abstract forms which the term "Modern Art" has usually been associated with. The Henri group remained relatively conservative in its adherence to more or less naturalistic styles. Before World War I, The Eight had enjoyed the status of America's avant-garde. Their unsentimental and upcompromising realism was coupled with an outspoken liberalism in matters of artistic self-determination. Most free-thinking artists of the time adopted their anti­ establishment stance, if not their particular styles. This situation changed in the late teens and early twenties, as more and more artists were drawn toward Europe. Some, like Henri's student Patrick Henry Bruce, became expatriates. Others, like another student, Stuart Davis, absorbed European modernism but remained at home. As a result of the Armory Show and subsequent contacts with visiting avant-garde personalities from abroad (for example, Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia), America's knowledge of European developments grew rapidly and widely. The Stieglitz faction, centered in his "291 Gallery," promoted an artistic formalism which shunned any narrative or illustrational emphasis. Henri's group resisted such formalism, and resolutely maintained that art must first of all communicate ideas, and that content must take precedence over form. During the years between the two world wars, the relative prominence of one polarity over the other swung back and forth. Especially during the Depression, naturalism enjoyed revitalized popularity, not only in America but in Europe, too. Early abstractionists such as Weber, Hartley, and Morgan Russell returned to figurative work, and generally lost favor with the modernist critics. Only in the forties did a new and unquestionally more original form of abstraction come to the fore in America. It was then that the Abstract Expressionists, led by Pollock and Gorky, burst upon the scene, and inherited the mantle of radicalism from war-torn Europe. The works which make up this exhibition provide something close to a cross-section of that vital and varied period in American art. They also bear witness to the significant role played by a few brilliant teachers. p rx th^1 >5 2 mu ,'uJ‘ nWmore UX’rl idrnt Uont^nt things. I htfBrh you myopm * “dl v.,u some thmg, about t how Then you must > ejpcrkrtce and hard work The students of The Eigh cross-section of American < and forties. From figurativ* Hopper to abstractionists li every new and vital directii among The Eight who wert imposed narrow doctrine. ( an atmosphere of discipline During that era of lmrnei immunity, as well as in it role Played by the sources Oration was enn wd*eArmorys?rmOus- new ideas and7c h°W °pei Ua^alloif°rniS- ^tit F°rs^youendarti^toe> ?OU^torouJartls^ the atalyst �had g' ' ■hthA aMh I tatUs of ' sejf-d an Ouh deterjriinaH PcAen eir Particular toWard as Bruce. becUar°Pe- Some, ler student St 'The best advice I have ever given to students under me has been nest this: ‘Educate yourself. do not let me educate you . . ' Real students go out of beaten paths, whether beaten by themsefess or by others. and have adventure with the unknown.”2 (ROBERT HENRI) 3nalit^dfrS^S|puen\ ^ntacts IVnuteoer the Henri School may have lacked in systematic discipline was more than made up for by positive contributions ... Sy developing the student's confidence in his own perceptions, it gave his work a freshness and personality that was lacking in the student work of other schools." 3 (STUART DAVIS) entered iohis -291 i which shunned any Basis. Henri's group resisted i don't want to interfere with your way of seeing, if you are seeing things. 1 have no tricks to teach you. I don't want to teach you my opinions, but if you can get hold of my point of view 1 don't think it will hurt you. I am here to help you. I want to help you find a purpose, a reason for painting. I can tell you some things about the "how" to paint. Not any one 'how.' Then you must find your way through your own experience and hard work. ‘ * (JOHN SLOAN) r maintained that art must and that content must take te two world wars, the larity over the other swung ing the Depression, popularity, not only in arly abstractionists such as Russell returned to figurative ■ with the modernist critics, ind unquestionally more ,me to the fore in America. It ,ressionists, led by Pollock "“and inherited jrope. his exhibition provide ion of that vital and[ varied to the also bear witness teachers. v brilliant The students of The Eight do indeed constitute a cross-section of American art during the twenties, thirties, and forties. From figurative painters like Bellows and Hopper to abstractionists like Davis and Gottlieb, virtually every’ new and vital direction was represented. Those among The Eight who were active as teachers by no means imposed narrow doctrine. On the contrary, they cultivated an atmosphere of disciplined self-determination. During that era of immense growth in America's artistic community, as well as in its aesthetic sophistication, the role played by the sources of artistic information and inspiration was enormous. Exhibitions such as The Eight and the Armory Show opened eyes and minds to radically new ideas and forms. Institutions like the Art Students League allowed artists to experiment with those new ideas. For some young artists, the very sight of the new was enough to rouse them into action, but for most, the teacher remained a crucial catalyst in their transformation. There were a number of important teachers in the early twentieth century who are identifiable today by the large number of major artists who studied with them. Preeminent with Robert Henri and John Sloan were William Merritt Chase, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and Arthur W. Dow. Probably as many as half of America's historically significant painters, maturing in the teens, twenties, and thirties, studied under one or more of these men. Other than Hans Hofmann and Joseph Albers, perhaps, no teachers since that time have enjoyed such wide influence. Today, as even the formerly most provincial sections of our country have become cosmopolitan (at least in their best schools), the teaching of art has become highly decentralized. New York City may still be the major hub of progressive artistic activity, but most New York artists arrive there after their training, nowadays. Virtually every school and every teacher across the land have ready access to the same periodicals, the same reproductions, and often the same exhibitions. Things were different at the beginning of the century. A few important art academies, and within them a few outstanding instructors, dominated art training in this country, and to some extent aesthetic values as well. Robert Henri had been the prime mover, the original leader of those Philadelphians who made up the nucleus of The Eight: Sloan, Luks, Shinn, and Glackens. Sloan and Luks, in particular, followed Henri in the pursuit of teaching. Lawson and Prendergast also took students on occasion, but they never had the broad impact of Henri and Sloan. Glackens and Davies never taught, although Davies wielded much influence through his activities as an organizer, supporter, and critic. The students of The Eight, therefore, were mostly students of only three members of the group: Henri, Sloan and Luks. Even before their landmark exhibition, Henri was teaching at the New York School of Art, which was run by William Merritt Chase. He held forth there from 1903 until 1907, then ran his own school until 1912. After that, he 9 �i3*7h <tud^ ?tdc>pFerf of \list* ” r taught at the Art Students League, as well as the progressive Ferrer School. Henri was a born teacher, a charismatic man with strong opinions, sharp insights, and cutting wit. As often as not, his classroom discussions dealt with literature, music, or philosophy. Life was the stuff of art, and Henri encouraged his students to study life as vigorously as they studied art. As Stuart Davis said of his mentor's approach, "art was not a matter of rules and techniques, or the search for an absolute ideal of beauty. It was the expression of ideas and emotions about the life of the time." Henri's method was regarded as radical at the time, but his aim seems clear enough today. He sought to instill his students with a sense of art's relevance to real experience. ■ 1 John Sloan continued this approach with equal enthusiasm and success. Having taken pupils as early as 1912, he joined the faculty of the Art Student's League in 1916. In 1931, he was elected president of the League, although he resigned the following year after a heated quarrel with the governing board over its refusal to hire the German emigre modernist, George Grosz. He left the League for three years, during which time he taught at Archipenko's Ecole d'Arte and took over the Luks School of Painting upon the death of George Luks in 1933. i s I During the twenties, Sloan's classes were immensely popular, and like Henri's, they were lively centers of criticism, philosophy, politics, and humor. Sloan shared Henri's sense of the priority of ideas and feeling in painting, as well as his disapproval of "art for art's sake." Yet, Sloan was by no means insensitive to the formalistic concerns of art, which were central to so many modern movements. He once stated that "the subject may be of first importance to the artist when he starts a picture, but it should be of least importance in the finished product. The subject is of no aesthetic significance." 5 This attitude put Sloan in tune with the younger generation. One of Stuart Davis' few criticisms of Henri 10 had been that the latter placed too much emphasis on subject matter. Indeed, Henri, much more than Sloan, had resisted the formalistic preoccupations of the Cubists. Fauves, and Futurists, and had sought to minimize their influence on American modernism. If Henri and Sloan had had only their artistic style to offer their students, little more than a new generation of "Ash-Can" painters would have emerged from their classes. What these teachers did offer their students was considerably more significant. It was an attitude about art and what it meant to be an artist in the twentieth century; it was an attitude about freedom which allowed the student to question any rule or tradition or approach, not excluding those of Henri and Sloan themselves. It is on this basis that an exhibition of artists so diverse in style can reveal something about the course of modern art in America. Some of these artists studied long and faithfully under one master or the other. Others came into the fold for only a year or less, and never said much about their experience. But it is difficult to imagine that any impressionable young art student was not touched by the spirit of freedom, candor, and common sense which was to be encountered in the classes of Henri and Sloan. Although these masters never became radicals in style, they promoted an openness to new ideas which allowed their students unusual latitude in those days. They were the "progressive educators" of the art schools. Robert Henri counted among his students, in addition to the aforementioned Stuart Davis, such determined modernists as Patrick Henry Bruce, Morgan Russell, Man Ray, Walter Pach, and Arnold Friedman. Less radical but no less important were Edward Hopper, George Bellows, Rockwell Kent, Guy Pene du Bois, and Glenn Coleman. It is clear that no common element of style binds these men. Rather, it is their sense of independence and their search for an honest means of self-expression which link them to Henri. X 1 the P- ?erSedAa>can * J t>tf uS e* aS J tranS,en centUrVtic re'leCtlL’ at,endTnyofhi5f^afstrl,ctUr€h bv ^cametobe^ realistsd Giff°rd CeorgeBelloWS an nd grandeur of t conned vvithormah US ( modem today than Hopper , modernism, they continue to speak .nap language. The modernists among Henris student' < of as defectors who had bolted from the p< doesn’t appear that the master ever serious their more radical convictions. For exampl hvely and friendly correspondence with Pa 5B™ceafter flatter had gone to Pans stl ^£ a>..SS‘wb“d’"Spectrum nat''ran''rr the various exhibit; l 'jfganJ Stu, �tHe SSj1'had rtis«c Styie to generation of :r°m their classes. ts Was “itude about art J’entieth century’; lowed the student ach, not elves. rtists so diverse urse of modem ed long and Zithers came into said much about ne that any touched by the nse which was to Sloan. Although le, they promoted heir students the "progressive ts, in addition to errnined in Russell, Man Less radical but ieorge Bellows, enn Coleman. It ,inds these mentd their search fo ink them to Hopper, Bellows, and Coleman remained closer to Henri's style than many students, but each fashioned a strong individual manner. Hopper, of course, eventually emerged as one of the preeminent realists in twentieth century’ American art. Accepting Henri s view of art as an authentic reflection of life as most of us experience it. Hopper added his own sense of the mystery’ of existence attendant to special moments of transience and solitude. Like many of his colleagues, he also developed a stronger awareness of the formal structure of his pictures, so that his works came to be admired as much by’ abstractionists as by realists. need not look closely to see the imprint of his master's teaching. When Henri sent Davis and the other students roaming through the streets of New York to capture the real pulse of the city, he planted the seed which ultimately gave Davis' cubism its highly original stamp. Images of city life, from billboards and signs to chain-link fences and cigarette wrappers, were transmitted through jazz-like rhythms and blasting colors. Brasher, bolder, and cleaner than its European counterparts, Davis' cubism epitomized the energy and efficiency of America in the early twentieth century. Henri's "Ash-Can" scene had been distilled into its elemental shapes and rhythms. George Bellows and Gifford Beal responded to Henri's feeling for the energy’ and grandeur of the American scene, and anticipated the Regionalists in their muscular, almost romantic vision of both city and country’. Bellows' brash, bravura manner was particularly close to Henri's style. Less concerned with formalist structure, his works look less modem today than Hopper's, but outside the context of modernism, they continue to speak in a powerful expressive language. John Sloan's roster of students was equally impressive and equally diverse. Perhaps because he was dealing with a younger generation than had Henri, more of his famous students went on into abstraction. Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, and the sculptors Alexander Calder and David Smith were among the most influential and radical artists of the forties and fifties, and participated in America's succession to leadership in the world of art. As with Henri, it was Sloan's persona and philosophy rather than his artistic style which most affected these later masters. The modernists among Henri's students could be thought of as defectors who had bolted from the pack, but it doesn't appear that the master ever seriously objected to their more radical convictions. For example, he kept up a lively and friendly correspondence with Patrick Henry Bruce after the latter had gone to Paris, studied with Matisse, and developed his own abstract style. It is also true that he accepted a wide spectrum of modernists into the various exhibitions he helped to organize between 1908 and 1918. While he remained wary of modernism, Henri was really hostile only to reactionary academicism. Of the modernists who studied with Henri, none was more brilliant than Stuart Davis, who is generally regarded as one of the greatest painters America has yet produced. Stylistically, his art veered decisively toward synthetic cubism a few years after he left Henri's studio, but one Sloan was less wary of European modernism than Henri had been, even though he was one of the few major American artists of the time who never visited Europe. Nevertheless, he took a keen interest in the work of men such as Matisse and Picasso, and even shared their interest in African and Pre-Columbian art. Furthermore, he actively supported modernism in his role as president of the Society of Independent Artists, which had been founded in 1917 by Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Walter Pach, William Glackens and others, and which remained an important sustainer of progressive artists until 1944. While he never painted abstractly himself, Sloan said he had learned a great deal about artistic form from the "ultra-moderns." Of course, Sloan also had a devoted following of realists, such as Reginald Marsh and Aaron Bohrod. Reginald 11 �SO the Marsh, as an inheritor of the "Ash-Can" tradition, became a virtual alter-ego to his contemporary, Edward Hopper. He filled Hopper's silent streets and desolate interiors with teeming life, and in spirit and imagery, if not in style, paralleled the art of Stuart Davis, as well. Perhaps because of his own experience as an illustrator over the years, Sloan helped to train some of America's leading illustrators, among them Peggy Bacon, Cecil Bell, and Roger Tory Peterson, as well as outstanding cartoonists such as Otto Soglow (famous for "The Little King"), Don Freeman, and Chon Day. Consistent with his democratic attitudes, Sloan made no sharp distinctions between illustration and "fine art." II The catholicity of Sloan's teaching and influence is underscored by the prominence and popularity he enjoyed between the two wars. As a practitioner of realism on the one hand and a supporter of modernism on the other, he easily adjusted to the changing tides of taste which characterized this period. The initial burst of American modernism which followed the Armory Show of 1913 and seemed destined to dominate the American art scene for the generation to come actually subsided after World War I. As in Europe, the energy of radicalism was temporarily spent, and many of the avant-garde were disillusioned by the enormous destruction of the war. In America, the populace adopted a position of isolationism, and American artists, by and large, turned to scene painting and social realism. Just as the fires of modernism were being stoked up again in the late twenties, the Depression dampened them once more. I During the thirties, most of the students of Henri, Sloan, and Luks took part, with thousands of other American artists, in the Federal Arts Project under the W.P.A. Even before that time, many of them had been politically active, usually on the left, Sloan's classes remained a congenial place for social-minded young artists, although his own socialist activism had diminished over the years. In his ■ 12 youth, Sloan had been a committed radical, and in 1910, he had run, unsuccessfully, for the New York State Assembly on the Socialist ticket. Shortly thereafter, he became art director for the radical magazine "The Masses." Many students of Henri and Sloan worked at one time or another as political cartoonists, including Davis, Coleman, Soglow, and William Gropper. Philip Evergood, a student of Luks, was also one of the outstanding "political" painters of the thirties and forties. The Depression did not lead to a significant new wave of socialist art in America, however. Nor did Regionalist naturalism remain for long the dominant trend. The modernists, dispersed though they were, stood ready to return to the fore. The world of the twentieth century, in its technological and existentialist complexity, was ultimately their world. Marsh, Beal, and du Bois no longer seemed to be as relevant as Gottlieb, Newman, and Smith. The students of The Eight had spanned the extremes of American art in the first half of our century. ", . . (a student should) cultivate an attitude toward his studies which is both flexible and critical. It should be flexible enough so that he can change his mind as often as need be; and it should be critical in that he need not take either the professed 'modem' or the professed 'conservative' at their own evaluation." • (JOHN SLOAN) . Le'lderS Altschul An°nyI11C'< - Arthur u Mr5' , MuseUrP ierican Museum of Art The But‘e ° Herbert F. )°h M,„.r. Ar. .IM—' Gallery Everhart Museum of Natural Hist. Scranton Hirshhom Museum and Sculpture The Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American Ar The Smithsonian Institution The Pennsylvania State University Princeton University, Art Museum NOTES Rutgers University, Art Gallery Smith College, Museum of Art 1. Kelder, Diane (ed.) Stuart Davis (New York, 1971) p. 20 2. Henri, Robert, The Art Spirit (Philadelphia, 1951) pp. 134,165 3. Kelder, Stuart Davis, p. 22 4. Sloan, John, Gist of Art (New York, 1977) p. 7 5. Sloan, Gist of Art, p. 41 6. Sloan, Gist of Art, p, 11 An Cod^ um.,icanAr �J radical bortlv State r^tly theIxiagazine .- he Masses " Worked at °ne time or' uding DaVis c 7 ndln8 leman, political”student Painters a? ^significant new wave of did Regionalist eof imant trend. The were, stood ready to e twentieth century, in omplexity, was I, and du Bois no longer b, Newman, and Smith, med the extremes of r century. itude toward his studies hould be flexible enough •n as need be; and it ake either the professed e' at their own (JOHN SLOAN) LENDERS TO THE EXHIBITION Anonymous Lenders Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Altschul The Brooklyn Museum The Butler Institution of American Art, Youngstown Carnegie Institute, Museum of Art, Pittsburgh University of Connecticut, William Benton Museum of Art Cornell University, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art Delaware Art Museum University of Delaware, Gallery’ Everhart Museum of Natural History’, Science and Art, Scranton Hirshhom Museum and Sculpture Garden, The Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American Art, The Smithsonian Institution The Pennsylvania State University, Museum of Art LIST OF WORKS 1. BACON, Peggy John Sloan's Lecture etching, 9" x 11" Delaware Art Museum; gift of Helen Farr Sloan 2. BACON, Peggy A Simple Life (1954) watercolor, 24" x 181//" Syracuse University, Art Collections 3. BEAL, Gifford Bareback Rider oil on canvas, 18" x 36" Private Collection 4. BELLOWS, George Life Class lithograph, 19" x 251//” The Pennsylvania State University Museum of Art Princeton University, Art Museum Rutgers University, Art Gallery Smith College, Museum of Art 5 (New York, 1971) Syracuse University, Art Collections Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford ’hiladelphia, 1951) fork, 1977) P- 7 Whitney Museum of American Art, Nev/ York City 5. BELLOWS, George Summer Surf (1914) oil on board, 18" x 22” Delaware Art Museum, gift of the Friends of Art 6. BRUCE, Patrick Henry Peinture/Nature Morte (Abstract) (1933) oil on canvas, 35" x 46" Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; gift of G. David Thompson, 1956 13 �iii: i\ I I i 7. CALDER, Alexander Trapeze Artists pen and ink, 0.55m x 0.76m The Art Museum, Princeton University; gift of Mrs. Harper, in memory of Raymond H. Harper 13. DAVIS, Stuart Gloucester Landscape (1918) oil on canvas, 24" x 30" Rutgers University Art Gallery, New Brunswick, New Jersey gatc^- 8. CALDER, Alexander Brie & Brae (1963) gouache, T7" x 40" Syracuse University, Art Collections 14. DU BOIS, Guy Pene Conversation oil on board, 13%6" x 9%" Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Mood (1909) oil on canvas, 60' Museum Whitney t of the Artist, 9. COLEMAN, Glenn O. Gloucester Harbor oil on canvas, 34" x 25" The Brooklyn Museum, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alan H. Temple 15. DU BOIS, Guy Pene Yvonne (1930) oil on canvas, 2136" x 1736" Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur G. Altschul 10. DASBURG, Andrew Poppies oil on canvas, 4034" x 2634" Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution 16. EVERGOOD, Philip Canadian Gold Mine (1943) oil on canvas, 25" x 30" Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, gift of Harry N. Abrams 11. DAVIS, Stuart Au Bon Coin (1928-29) lithograph, 1134" x 936" University of Delaware Gallery 17. EVERGOOD, Philip Rider on Pink Horse (ca. 1945) oil on canvas, 16" x 12" Everhart Museum of Natural History, Science and Art, Scranton 12. DAVIS, Stuart Composition (1935) oil on canvas, 2234" x 30" National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution (transfer from General Services Administration) I 14 18. FRIEDMAN, Arnold Blue River oil on canvas, 24" x 30" The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio farn oil on Mu: pelaware Art ?OTTi^Ado1 GOTTLIEB, Adol Nigld Glow (1971 aquatint, 34" x 26 Delaware Art Mu: 22. GOTTLIEB, Adol Seer (1947) oil on masonite, 3 The Butler Institut 23. GROPPER, Willia The Senate lithograph, 14" x : Delaware Art Mus 24. HIRSCH, Joseph Fr»ncis and Bird ( oil on canvas, 27" PriVate Collection �i) 19. GATCH, Lee Pennsylvania Farm (1936) oil on canvas, 14' x 36" Delaware Art Museum, John L. Sexton bequest ery, f on°ecHonhe Gallup Sum^r Arthur G. Altschul of Art, Cornell University, 25. HOPPER, Edward Artist Seated at Easel (ca. 1903) oil on canvas, 18' x 10" The William Benton Museum of Art, The University of Connecticut, Anonymous Donor 20. GOTTLIEB, Adolph Mood (1969) oil on canvas, 60" x 40' Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of the Artist, 1969 (69.150) 26. HOPPER, Edward The Cat Boat etching, 8" x 10" The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio 21. GOTTLIEB, Adolph Night Glow (1971) aquatint, 34" x IbW" Delaware Art Museum, gift of Mrs. H. Rodney Sharp 27. KENT, Rockwell Northern Light woodcut, 5Vz" x 8%" Delaware Art Museum, gift of Mrs. A. Ralph Snyder 22. GO11LIEB, Adolph Seer (1947) oil on masonite, 30' x 24" The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio 28. MARSH, Reginald Coney Island Beach (1934) etching, 13" x 10%" Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University 23. GROPPER, William The Senate lithograph, 14' x 18' Delaware Art Museum, gift of Helen Farr Sloan 29. MARSH, Reginald Lehigh Valley watercolor, 14" x 20" The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio 24. HIRSCH, Joseph Francis and Bird (1979) oil on canvas, 27" x 19" Private Collection 30. MARSH, Reginald Negress and White Girl in Subway (1938) tempera on masonite, 24" x 18" The William Benton Museum of Art, The University of Connecticut, Anonymous Donor 45) .1 History, Science and Art, Youngstown, Ohio rican Art, is �31. MORRIS, George L. K. New Year's Eve (1945-46) oil on canvas, 38" x 30%" National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Given Anonymously h 32. MORRIS, George L. K. Industrial Landscape (1936-50) oil on canvas, 49%" x 63% " National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Given Anonymously 33. NEWMAN, Barnett Black and White (1948) black ink on paper, 24" x 16% " Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts Gift of Philip C. Johnson, 1952 I I 34. RAY, Man Les Mains Libres: La Femme Portative (1936) pen and ink, 0.38m x 0.28m The Art Museum, Princeton University, purchased with the Laura P. Hall Memorial Fund 35. RAY, Man Untitled (1915) oil on board, IS1/?" x 12% " National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Flora E. H. Shawan 36. RUSSELL, Morgan Nu-Assis (ca. 1923-25) oil on canvas, 28%" x 21%" National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Museum Purchase 16 37. RUSSELL, Morgan Synchromy (1915-17) oil on canvas, 12%' x 10%" Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution 38. SMITH, David Untitled (1956) oil and sand on canvas, 73%" x 11" Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution 39. SOYER, Moses Three Men (1974) oil on canvas, 25" x 30" Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University 40. SPENCER, Niles Above the Excavation #2 (1949) oil on board, 12" x 16" Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University 41. SPRINCHORN, Carl Daisy Fields and Clouds, Shin Pond, Maine (1950) oil on canvas, 21" x 29" Private Collection 42. SPENCER, Niles The Bay (1937) oil on canvas, 20" x 32" Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University �10% " J Sculpture G?r,; c warden. THE ARTISTS PEGGY BACON (1895' 7^Vs” x 11" 1 Sculpture Garden, 'nnsylvania State University 2 (1949) eum of Art, Cornell University Born in Ridgefield, Connecticut, Bacon studied painting at the Art Students League from 1915 to 1920, under John Sloan, George Bellows, and Kenneth Hayes Miller. Self-taught as a printmaker she soon gained attention for her illustrated books. After traveling in Europe between 1920 and 1922, she returned to Woodstock, New York and a career of uninterrupted success as a painter, illustrator poet, and fiction writer. Her most famous work is a book of caricatures of famous contemporary personalities called Off With Their Heads! (1934) Aside from her caricatures and other pictures of social satire, Bacon's work typically focused upon everyday life in the city. Her style exemplifies the kind of illustration which flourished under Sloan's influence: a brisk, energetic handling; dynamic compositions, and graphic vigor. Her sure use of tensive line may also be compared to the acerbic style of the great German satirist, George Grosz. In 1975, Bacon was given a major exhibition at the National Collection of Fine Arts. Shin Pond, Maine (1950) gum of Art, Cornell University 17 �II I 18 GIFFORD BEAL (1879-1956) GEORGE BELLOWS (1882-1925) A native of New York City, Beal graduated from Princeton University before going on to the Art Students' League, where he studied painting with Robert Henri, William Merritt Chase, and Frank DuMond. He joined the League's faculty and served as its president from 1914 to 1929. Like many painters of his generation, Beal executed commissions for the Federal Arts Project of the W.P.A. in the 1930's, including the mural in the Allentown, Pennsylvania post office. Bellows came from Columbus, Ohio. He studied with Henri from 1904-1906, and became the youngest associate of the National Academy of Design in 1908. He joined the faculty of the Art Students League in 1910. He became one of the organizers of the great Armory Show, and with Prendergast, Glackens, Duchamp and others, was one of the founders of the Society of Independent Artists in 1917. His early and continued success was brought to a premature end by a fatal attack of appendicitis. Beal, like his contemporary and colleague George Bellows, produced a muscular romantic naturalism in his painting, but more often than Bellows, he found his inspiration in the rural landscape rather than the urban environment. He also produced dynamic genre subjects, such as the circus scene in this exhibition. This work employs the vibrant palette and rich surfaces of the Impressionists and Fauves, and clearly echoes Henri's straightforward and exuberant approach to the subject. Bellows was one of Henri's most faithful followers. Nevertheless, he fashioned a distinctive and powerful style. His early work was particularly fresh and exuberant, and included some of his most famous pictures, such as the prize fights and Hudson River views of the city. His style is often regarded as a paradigm of the American spirit in the early 20th century: brash, aggressive, optimistic, and indefatigable. In his last years, he turned to portraits, which were as sensitive as his earlier works were bold. Bellows' brisk, graphic style was also well-suited to the print medium, which he handled with consummate skill. PATRICK HENRY BRU A native of Virginia, Bru Henri in 1902 and 1903. He with Matisse in 1907, and d 1912, he had become intere: color experiments of Robert the Armory Show, and con European avant-garde movt evolved his unique manner the early twenties, which h( until he gave up painting in aristocratic spirit, Bruce cot disinterest in his work. He and destroyed many of his New York in 1937. He com Bruce has been rediscove by Pop artists and hard-ed^ regarded as one of the mos American artists of the earl �I rm MS °!OJ- k 4. ■ BELLOWS (1882-1925) came from Columbus, Ohio. He studied with 11904-1906, and became the youngest associate onal Academy of Design in 1908. He joined the he Art Students League in 1910. He became one nizers of the great Armory Show, and with t, Glackens, Duchamp and others, was one of rs of the Society of Independent Artists in 1917. nd continued success was brought to a end by a fatal attack of appendicitis. vas one of Henri’s most faithful followers, is, he fashioned a distinctive and powerful style, ■ork was particularly fresh and exuberant, and me of his most famous pictures, such as the and Hudson River views of the city. His style is led as a paradigm of the American spirit in the tentury: brash, aggressive, optimistic, and le. In his last years, he turned to portraits, 1 as sensitive as his earlier works were bold, isk, graphic style was also well-suited to the tm, which he handled with consummate skill. / A native of Virginia, Bruce studied in New York under Henri in 1902 and 1903. He went to Paris, where he studied with Matisse in 1907, and developed a Fauve-like style. By 1912. he had become interested in the more systematic color experiments of Robert Delaunay. Bruce exhibited in the Armory Show, and continued to be involved with European avant-garde movements during the war years. He evolved his unique manner of geometric still-life painting in the early twenties, which he refined over the next decade until he gave up painting in 1932. A man of sensitive and aristocratic spirit, Bruce could not accept the public disinterest in his work. He became increasingly withdrawn, and destroyed many of his paintings before returning to -\ew York in 1937. He committed suicide shortly afterward. Bruce has been rediscovered in recent years, particularly by Pop artists and hard-edge painters, and he is now regarded as one of the most important and original American artists of the early 20th century. r 8. 6. PATRICK HENRY BRUCE (1881-1937) O ALEXANDER CALDER (1899-1976) The son and grandson of eminent American sculptors, Calder came to his pursuit naturally. Born in Lawnton, Pennsylvania, he studied mechanical engineering at Stevens Institute before entering the Art Students League in 1923. There, he studied painting with Sloan until 1925. The following year, he went to Europe and began working in sculpture, initially doing small improvisations in wire and wood. His contact with the non-objective painter Mondrian in 1930 spurred his exploration of abstract form. In 1931, with his creation of the mobile, Calder became the first American sculptor to stand among the world's foremost artistic innovators. One of the earliest kinetic sculptures, the mobile employed space and natural air movements, as well as boldly colored organic shapes. Calder's lyrical and playful mobiles and non-moving stabiles have become distinctive monuments throughout the world, amalgams of industrial technology and human poetry. Always an experimenter, Calder worked in all media. His prints echoed the forms of his sculptures, but took on an even greater sense of surrealist spontaneity. 19 �GLENN COLEMAN (1887-1932) ANDREW DASBURG (1887-1979) An Ohioan, Coleman arrived in New York City in 1905. He became a student of Henri, and remained one of the staunchest preservers of the Ash-Can style during the twenties. Like his predecessors in that style, he sought out the picturesque comers of the metropolis, and depicted them with straightforward naturalism. Though he lacked the bravura and vigor of a Sloan or a Bellows in these early works, he created honest, well-crafted pictures which revealed something of the tone of city life of that decade. Toward the end of his life and under the influence of Cubism, Coleman began to transmute his urban scenes into monumental stylizations of the city's architecture. The more personal vision was, unfortunately, cut short by his early death. Dasburg was born in Paris, but his family moved to New York in 1892. He studied at the Art Students League under Robert Henri, as well as under Kenyon Cox and Frank DuMond. From 1909 to 1911, he resided in the city of his birth, where he came under the influence of the Cubists. He exhibited Cubist paintings in the Armory Show of 1913, and Synchromist works (see: Russell) in the Forum Exhibition of 1916. After these early major appearances, he rarely exhibited again, and eventually left New York to take up residence in Taos, New Mexico. A sensitive and unaggressive man, Coleman received only sporadic public attention during his life. His friend Stuart Davis regarded him as one of the most gifted and unsung American artists of the twenties. 20 Although an early American participant in avant-garde movements of Europe, and highly regarded by the Modernists of his generation, Dasburg fell into relative obscurity until the late fifties. At that time, retrospectives of his work were held at the Dallas Museum (1957) and the American Federation of Arts (1959), and just before his death, Van Deren Coke completed a monograph on his life li e and art. i STUART DAVIS (1894-1964) GUY PEN Son of the art editor of the Philadelphia Press Davis was early associated with his fathers' co-workers, (and, later, members of The Eight), Sloan, Luks, Glackens and Shinn. He left school at 16, and went to New York to study with Henri. Between 1913 and 1916, he worked chiefly as an illustrator for The Masses and Harper's Weekly. His taste for the more avant-garde styles of the day developed out of the Armory Show, and soon led him to a front-line position in the American vanguard. His liberal sympathies brought him editorship of the Art Front, a publication of the Artists' Union, in 1935. Bom in b Chase, DuN painter, du with a serie self-indulgei mixture of < decadent m compatible Davis created one of the most original variants on Cubism, one which has been called characteristically American in its bold simplicity, brash color, and pre-Pop imagery. His fondness for jazz combined with his enjoyment of the urban pace to produce the highly staccato pictorical structure found in much of his work. His W.P.A. murals, such as the famous one in Radio City Music Hall, e ped to broaden his reputation, but even without these, avis would stand among the major painters of the entieth century. His late works brought him close to a paint^er ®enerat'on P°P, Hard-Edge, and Color-Field Of Frencl in France, \ and traditic style and c< mellowed a remained d and worke< and jouma His repu ambiguous work this s perspectivf �I ■ r W&i J? r t f ~ iI 7, 12. moved to New s League under and Frank the city of his the Cubists. He ow of 1913, Forum ppearances, he ew York to i avant-garde ?y the to relative •etrospectives (1957) and the before his aph on his life hfe 15. STUART DAVIS (1894-1964) GUY PENE DU BOIS (1884-1958) Son of the art editor of the Philadelphia Press Davis was early associated with his fathers' co-workers, (and, later, members of The Eight), Sloan, Luks. Glackens and Shinn. He left school at 16, and went to New York to study with Henri. Between 1913 and 1916, he worked chiefly as an illustrator for The Masses and Harper s Weekly. His taste for the more avant-garde styles of the dayT developed out of the Armory Show, and soon led him to a front-line position in the American vanguard. His liberal sympathies brought him editorship of the Art Front, a publication of the Artists’ Union, in 1935. Born in New York City, du Bois studied under Henri, Chase, DuMond, and Miller. An uneven and intermittant painter, du Bois reached his artistic peak in the twenties with a series of satirical paintings aimed at the self-indulgent lifestyle of the wealthy bourgeoisie. An odd mixture of classical simplicity. Art Deco stylization, and decadent mood gave his art a "Weimar" atmosphere guite compatible with that era. Davis created one of the most original variants on Cubism, one which has been called characteristically American in its bold simplicity, brash color, and pre-Pop imagery. His fondness for jazz combined with his enjoyment of the urban pace to produce the highly staccato pictorical structure found in much of his vzork. His W.P.A. murals, such as the famous one in Radio City Music Hall, helped to broaden his reputation, but even without these, Davis would stand among the major painters of the twentieth century. His late works brought him close to a younger generation of Pop, Hard-Edge, and Color-Field painters. Of French extraction, du Bois spent the years 1924-1930 in France, where he took a deep interest in French culture and tradition. He was especially fond of the monumental style and caricature of Daumier. In the 1930s du Bois' style mellowed and the satire waned, but his art always remained distinctive. He was also a prolific writer on art, and worked as an art critic for several major newspapers and journals. His reputation over the past few decades has been ambiguous, but the Corcoran Museum's retrospective of his work this spring will undoubtedly provide us with a fresh perspective of du Bois and his place in American art. 21 �>1 \ ! PHILIP EVERGOOD (1901-1973) ARNOLD FRIEDMAN (1874-1946) Evergood was born in New York City, and studied at the Art Students League under George Luks in 1923. He had already taken a diploma in drawing from London's Slade School of Art, but Luks urged him to become a painter. An admirer of Sloan's work, Evergood became a close friend of Sloan, who spurred his interest in human themes. During the Depression, he concentrated on social and political subjects, and was involved in several artists' activist groups, such as the Artist's Union. During the period of the W.P.A. art projects, Evergood was supervisor of the easel painting division for New York. Born into a poor immigrant family in New York City, Friedman started work at an early age, and, reminded of the poverty of his youth, remained employed by the postal service until his retirement in 1933. He began his art studies in 1905 at the Art Students League, under Henri who aroused his enthusiasm for painting. He got to Paris for several months in 1908, where he took a strong interest in Seurat's divisionist color techniques. Following the Armory Show, he began to work abstractly, in a style close to Russell's Synchromism. Later in his career, he turned to more personal and spiritual themes, and became increasingly experimentive with the painting medium, so much so that his style shows considerable variation over the years. A difficult painter to classify, Evergood used elements of expressionism, surrealism, and cubism as the theme demanded. But his use of these elements was never academic. It was part of his ceaseless search for the appropriate impassioned image. Beneath the modernist veneer, one often felt the presence of the folklore and mysticism of his Russian heritage. Lee Gatch grew at the Maryland In was a visiting prof Kroll, and, in Paris Gatch was strongly Cubism, but his w< Friedman's commitment to abstraction was never total, and he returned to a figurative mode by 1920. Although he had joined with colleagues such as Bellows, Hopper, and Coleman in early progressive art activities, he became increasingly isolated in the twenties. His full-time postal job expressionistic com style. He develops attachment to natu and textures into h ^d-iston; left little time for painting and professional involvements. Only after his retirement could he return to a steady t935' he lived a ra medhl§hly methodi regimen of painting. resDIUni Iilnited his Friedman is an interesting example of an early modernist whose great potential was mitigated by external concerns. Nevertheless, he did develop a highly personal, if major Sk Painter it Sh°Wbythe incompletely formed style. 22 LEE GATCH (1 �t J L - [ _ / £ 18. 46) n New York City, and, reminded of ployed by the postal began his art studies der Henri who e got to Paris for a strong interest in illowing the Armory a style close to ____ . 19. LEE GATCH (1902-1968) n was never total, y 1920. Although he >ws, Hopper, and ies, he became s full-time postal job ,nal involvements, n to a steady an early external srsonaL w I Lee Gatch grew up in the Baltimore area, and studied art at the Maryland Institute during the time that John Sloan was a visiting professor there. He also studied with Leon Kroll, and, in Paris, with Andre Lhote. During the thirties, Gatch was strongly influenced by Impressionism and Cubism, but his work proceeded basically upon an expressionistic course, developing into a resonant personal style. He developed an intense and almost mystical attachment to nature, and incorporated its colors, forms, and textures into his often abstract patterns. He even attached real stones to some of his later canvases. After 1935, he lived a rather reclusive life in rural New Jersey. His highly methodical and experimentive approach to the medium limited his output, but he remained a highly respected painter in the forties and fifties. He was given a major show by the Whitney Museum in 1960. rI ? 21. ADOLPH GOTTLIEB (1903-1974) A native New Yorker, Gottlieb studied at the Art Students League under both Henri and Sloan. He also studied in Paris, Berlin, and Munich during the 1920s. His development as an artist largely paralleled the major trends of his day. In the thirties his work dealt with the American scene and social realism. By 1940, he was immersed in a more personal magic realism, akin to surrealism. During the forties, this personal approach developed into a symbolic and atavistic pictography, not unlike Miro's in concept, but quite unique in style. Gottlieb gradually simplified his pictographic imagery into the spare, but explosive "Burst" paintings of the fifties. These pictures, contrasting a chaotic form with an holistic one, became his trademark, and took their place among the most vital and individual statements of the Abstract Expressionists. Indeed, his style stood between the florid spontaneity of Pollock and DeKooning and the austere colorism of Rothko and Newman. 23 �I !! I EDWARD H WILLIAM GROPPER (1897-1977) JOSEPH HIRSCH (1910- Gropper was the son of a poor New York garment worker. He dropped out of school in order to help support the family, but his intense interest and aptitude in art led him to take courses at the Ferrer School in 1912-13, where he studied under Henri and Bellows. In 1919, he became a political cartoonist for the New York Tribune and remained active as a cartoonist through the twenties. He began serious painting in 1921. At 71, the last-bom painter in the exhibition, Hirsch continues to work in the realist tradition of his mantor George Luks. Born in Philadelphia he received his first art training at the Pennsylvania Museum School before moving on to New York City and Luks' school. Cropper's outspoken support of radical social reforms brought him an invitation from writers Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis to accompany them on their tour of Russia in 1927. Social and political themes in an expressionistic style, reminiscent of Daumier and George Grosz, dominated his work in the thirties, and made him one of the most abrasive and effective pictorial satirists of the day. The Senate, the lithograph shown here, is typical of this style. 24 Hirsch's great facility won him critical attention very early in his student years, and his career has flourished without interruption since then. Although his realism is readily accessible to a wide public, Hirsch typically endows it with a subtle strangeness bordering on the surreal. His subjects cover a broad range, but invariably they contain humanity, either in situations involving political or social issues, or in single figures or groups caught in enigmatic moods or relationships. His technique as a realist tends to be more painterly than photographic, well within the tradition of The Eight. Hirsch is also well known for his drawings and prints. Bom in Nya< at the New Yor visit to Paris, h as a graphic art came slowly, b solid reputatior Modem Art me Although alii movement. Ho] themes and ima identical in mo< Almost always, waiting, within and structure g ®°numentality ^d’tionalists S ehisd^th, Respective of encored He ^1*2 �Hhe exhibition, Hinsch tradition of his mantor Ihia he received his first art Useum School before moving I school. In critical attention very pis career has flourished I Although his realism is lie, Hirsch typically endows Bering on the surreal. His lit invariably they contain Ivolving political or social pups caught in enigmatic Inique as a realist tends to Lphic, well within the | also well known for his EDWARD HOPPER (1882-1967) Bom in Nyack, New York. Hopper studied under Henri at the New York School of Art from 1900 to 1906. After a visit to Paris, he returned to New York and made his living as a graphic artist between 1915 and 1923. Recognition came slowly, but by the early thirties, he had achieved a solid reputation as a painter. In 1933, the Museum of Modem Art mounted his first retrospective. Although allied with the American Scene (or Regionalist) movement. Hopper's paintings transcended specific regional themes and images. His deserted rural roadsides were identical in mood and style to his deserted urban hotels. Almost always, they involved a spirit of solitude and waiting, within a simple place. A strong sense of pattern and structure gave his austere realism an almost abstract monumentality which appealed to modernists as well as traditionalists. Hopper's reputation has continued to grow since his death, and the Whitney Museum's major retrospective of 1980 (now traveling to Europe)* has only imderscored Hopper's position as one of America's most important and revered artists. ROCKWELL KENT (1882-1971) Kent was born in Tarrytown, New York. He studied with Henri, as well as with Chase, Miller, and Thayer. He is better known as an illustrator and printmaker than as a painter, and is particularly revered for his wood engravings. Despite occasional flirtations with modernist styles, he remained throughout most of his career a conservative artist, a preserver of heroic romanticism as manifested in the ruggedness and grandeur of the American landscape. His best work was bold and direct in concept, clean and spare in design. His lesser work always maintained an appealing decorativeness, often reminiscent of Art Deco design. Kent was an avid supporter of radical social and political movements (he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in Moscow in 1967), and used his art to communicate readily understood images of noble humanity and epic nature. His utopian vision remained curiously detached from the nitty-gritty spirit of the Ash-Can school, however. Because of the comprehensiveness of the Whitney show, we were unable to obtain a characteristic painting by Hopper. 25 �REGINALD MARSH (1898-1954) GEORGE L. K. MORRIS (1905-1975) BARNETT NEWN Marsh was born in Paris of American parents and grew up in New Jersey. As art editor of the Yale Record, then staff artist for Vanity Fair and the New 'York Daily News, Marsh had developed a pungent naturalistic style even before he entered the Art Students League in 1926 to study with Sloan, Luks, and Miller. A native of New York City, Morris attended Yale University before entering the Art Students League, where he worked under Sloan and Miller. His radical artistic spirit took him to Paris for further study with Leger and Ozenfant, as well as an intimate association with the continental avant-garde of the thirties. He edited two important modernist art journals in Paris, The Miscellany (1929-31) and Plastique (1937-39). With the outbreak of World War II, he returned to America permanently, and joined the faculty of the League in 1943-44. Newman, like G.Lj City in 1905 and stud he attended from 192 Newman's immediate! mainstream. He work from 1927 to 1937, aJ school before he turn! Marsh's concern for the common man, which also revealed itself in radical political sympathies, was manifested in an art filled with images of the working classes and their urban environment. Street scenes, subway cars, and Coney Island crowds were typical themes. He was a fine and facile draftsman and printmaker, and, in painting, he preferred tempera and watercolor, which suited small-scale illustration and spontaneity. His stylized and animated realism became readily identifiable, and made him an urban counterpart to the rural regionalist painters. Marsh stands as one of the most prolific and bouyant interpreters of American life in the twenties and thirties. Although Morris himself was not among the major artistic innovators of his day, he was an important spokesman and catalyst for the modernist cause, and played a significant role in America's assimilation of European trends prior to the war. He was one of the founders of the American Abstract Artists in 1936, (and its president from 1948 to 1950), in which capacity he helpe prepare the ground for the revolutionary developments in American art which followed the war. Under the influence with "automatic" drai "cosmic landscapes" 1 first Abstract Express Motherwell, and sooi spokesmen. His austa began in 1948, and J such as the creation. | large, spare, and flat Color-Field and Mini! seventies. 1 �R 7 4 1975) BARNETT NEWMAN (1905-1970) attended Yale ents League, where radical artistic spirit h Leger and ation with the He edited two -is, The Miscellany ( the outbreak of Newman, like G.L.K. Morris, was bom in New York City in 1905 and studied under Sloan at the League, which he attended from 1922 to 1927. But, unlike Morris, Newman's immediate course was not into the avant-garde mainstream. He worked in his father's garment business from 1927 to 1937, and occasionally taught art in high school before he turned to a full-time career as an artist. permanently, ana 1-44. iong the major n imp°rtant , flst cause, and ^ilati°fnt°he vaS (<S iStS1ancityhehelped capacl y ents ry develops I Under the influence of Surrealism, Newman experimented with "automatic" drawings in 1944, and began a series of "ccsmic landscapes" in 1945. He became associated with the first Abstract Expressionists, such as Gottlieb, Rothko, and Motherwell, and soon became one of their most articulate spokesmen. His austere and mystical "stripe" paintings began in 1948, and were founded upon spiritual themes such as the creation. Newman's canvases grew increasingly large, spare, and flat, and profoundly influenced the Color-Field and Minimalist painters of the sixties and seventies. Man Ray studied architecture and engineering in his native Philadelphia before devoting himself to art. He was a student of Henri, and by 1911 already showed an interest in the more radical trends of the day. After the Armory Show, he began working in a Cubist and Futurist manner. In 1915, he met Marcel Duchamp and became part of that artist's inner circle, along with Francis Picabia, the collector Walter Arensburg, and the photographer-dealer, Alfred Stieglitz. In this company, Ray became one of the premier practitioners of Dada, that radical international movement spawned by World War I and given over to ridicule of all conventionality. His wit and irony, blended with great inventiveness, gave Ray's art its variously humorous, outrageous, and enigmatic character. He worked in all media, and became especially famous for his rayographs (images of objects exposed directly on film without a camera) and his Dada objects. Except for the 1940s, Ray has spent most of his career in Paris, and has taken his place among the major modernists. With his friend Duchamp, Ray has been an important progenitor of recent neo-Dada and Conceptual art. 27 �yi jl hi I i I. 36. MORGAN RUSSELL (1886-1953) Russell was born in New York, and studied with Henri before going to Paris in 1909. There he came under the influence of Matisse, the Cubists, and the Futurists. In 1913, with his fellow American Stanton Macdonald-Wright, he founded the movement called Synchromism, which was based upon the dynamic use of color in abstract compositions. This movement paralleled the contemporary colorism of the French painter Delaunay, but remained entirely distinctive. Russell thus became one of the first Americans to make a significant contribution to modern art at the international level. He brought his synchromist work to America for the Forum Exhibition of 1916, but its influence here was only modest. I Like many other radical artists of his generation, including Picasso and Matisse, Russell returned to a figurative style in the twenties. The two works in the exhibition show his avant-garde style of the teens (represented by one of his small works of that period) and his more traditional manner of the twenties. II I 28 DAVID SMITH (1906-1965) Smith was a native of Decatur, Indiana, and attended colleges in the mid-west and Washington, D.C. before moving to New York in 1926. He studied painting at the League with Sloan and with Jan Matulka, and became a close friend of Stuart Davis. After his painting became increasingly three-dimensional in character, he turned to sculpture in the early thirties. In 1933, inspired by Julio Gonzalez, he began doing welded constructions utilizing scrap iron. Cubist, Constructivist, and Surrealist influences predominated at first. Having worked as a riveter in an auto plant, Smith came naturally to the industrial "heavy metal" work which has become so influential on later sculptors. During the forties and fifties, Smith created spontaneous "drawings in space, comparable to Abstract Expressionist painting. In the late fifties, he turned to thin, vertical totems (which he also rendered in paintings, such as the one shown here). His last phase, evolving in the sixties, included his "Cubf series, dynamic clusters of metal boxes. Smith stands with Calder as one of the most important and influential sculptors of the twentieth century. I �’-1965) Jecatur, Indiana, and attended ad Washington, D.C. before 926. He studied painting at the th Jan Matulka, and became a is. After his painting became anal in character, he turned to ies. In 1933, inspired by Julio welded constructions utilizing uctivist, and Surrealist influences ’ter in an auto plant. Smith came "heavy metal" work which has iter sculptors. During the forties, pontaneous "drawings in.space, pressionist painting, n ertical totems (w 1C His last as the one/kov^?br series, “■ inds^th«S»na.»thca*r Sloan and Degas were among the major influences on Soyer, and he shared with them a strong feeling for humanity closely and spontaneously observed. His portraits and genre pictures are rendered with a simple, atmospheric realism which also embodies subtle moods and, often, dassical structures. The work in this exhibition was one of his last paintings, and reveals these aspects of his style very well. �■I • I ■ I NILES SPENCER (1893-1952) CARL SPRINCHORN (1887-1971) Spencer attended the Rhode Island School of Design in his native state before moving to New York City. At the Ferrer School, he studied with Henri and Bellows. Like Glenn Coleman, Spencer was especially fond of the architectural scene of the city, and went even farther in translating it into a Cubist image. Spencer's modernist vision was at first characterized by a static, cubist simplicity, virtually devoid of living things. Later, the blocky forms were flattened into juxtaposed planes suggestive of the austerest works of Juan Gris and Stuart Davis. These simple but carefully organized paintings took on a quiet energy and sophistication of design often lacking in the earlier works. (Both phases are exhibited here). A native of Sweden, Sprinchom came to the United States in 1903 with the intention of studying art with Robert Henri, whose reputation had become widespread. He worked with Henri until 1910, and managed that artist's school for several years. He participated in the Armory Show of 1913. In the twenties, he directed the New Gallery which promoted young American and French modernists, but for much of his life, he traveled widely in this country and abroad. Spencer was especially fascinated by industrial scenes, to which his style was well suited. He joined other American industrial painters, such as Charles Sheeler, Charles Demuth, and Ralston Crawford in this respect, as well as in his rather precisionist aesthetic. 30 Seeking inspiration in nature, Sprinchorn developed vigorous, expressionist style, well-exemplified in the work displayed here. Like his friends Marsden Hartley and Rockwell Kent, he had a special fondness for the rugged landscape and outdoor life of Maine. Boldly sketched loggers and fisherman often inhabited his dynamic and rough-hewn landscapes. Though he resided in America for most of his adult life, Sprinchom's art bears a powerful Nordic stamp. The influences of Edvard Munch, the German Expressionists, and Scandinavian legend and poetry are all apparent, but from these, Sprinchom fashioned a distinctive and vital style. �I 1 1000178354 __H1LKES_COLLEGE library II �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Exhibition Programs, 1973-present Description An account of the resource Exhibition programs created by the Sordoni Art Gallery from 1973 to the present. Digitized by Wilkes University Archives interns, Zachary Mendoza and Sophia Kruspha. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Sordoni Art Gallery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-present Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Wilkes University retains copyright of these exhibition programs. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition programs, flyers, and calendars. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1981 April 12-May 14 Students of the Eight: American Masters ca.1910-ca.1960 Subject The topic of the resource Exhibition programs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sordoni Art Gallery; Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Sordoni Art Gallery; Wilkes University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1981 April 12-May 17 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition Book https://omeka.wilkes.edu/omeka/files/original/828f750d6ffadc5e4f1602756e0ff9c7.pdf baf65c6ed9f99c6c0a375886d5f049f8 PDF Text Text ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Exhibition Programs, 1973-present Description An account of the resource Exhibition programs created by the Sordoni Art Gallery from 1973 to the present. Digitized by Wilkes University Archives interns, Zachary Mendoza and Sophia Kruspha. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Sordoni Art Gallery Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wilkes University Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Sordoni Art Gallery Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-present Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Wilkes University retains copyright of these exhibition programs. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition programs, flyers, and calendars. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1981 August 31 Range of Contemporary Drawing Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vito Acconci Leonard Baskin Charles Bell Hyman Bloom Peter Blume Gary Bower Alan Dworkowitz Evelyn Ellwood Jackie Ferrara Richard Fleischner Sidney Goodman Denise Green Robert Gwathmey Joseph Hirsch Frances Hynes Herbert Katzman Jack Levine Richard Merkin Walter Murch Abraham Rattner Ben Shahn Peat Steir Frank Wright C.J. Yao Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1981 August 31 - September 20 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Type The nature or genre of the resource Exhibition program