Typecasting

It is not unheard of in show business that an early, outstanding performance is so well known and beloved that everything else the individual might attempt, often for the rest of their life, is judged against their early success and found wanting.  Producer, David O. Selznick, endured this after Gone With the Wind.  Orson Wells so became Citizen Kane it was hard for him to ever become any other character.  Leonard Nimoy had the same problem having played Mr. Spock.  It can also happen to painters.
 

What most people know about Grant Wood usually begins and ends with American Gothic.  A few might be able to tell you the painting depicts not a farmer and his wife but a farmer and his rapidly aging daughter, well on her way toward old-maidenhood, perhaps thanks to her father's ever-present pitch fork.  The president of the Grant Wood fan club could probably tell you the model for the female figure was none other than the artist's sister, Nan, while the farmer was in actuality, the artist's dentist, Dr. McKeeby.  And the mayor of Eldon, Iowa, could show you the tiny Gothic-Revival farm house still standing in his community.  He might also add that if you'd like to see the painting today, go to the Chicago Institute of Art.   
   
Beyond that, Grant Wood is kind of an enigma.  Born in 1892 in the state of Iowa, where he spent most of his life, Wood graduated from the Chicago Institute of Art then spent time studying in Europe where he was exposed to all the prevailing styles and, no doubt, studied those no longer prevailing as well.  Later, he would consider this time searching for a European art identity largely wasted.  It was back home in Cedar Rapids, teaching school, passing himself off as an interior decorator, and painting murals, that he discovered his true place as an artist.  By Iowa standards, he was an unabashed liberal, though his art critics considered him a right-wing conservative.  He was soft-spoken, yet a witty conversationalist.  However, only after the critical success of American Gothic in 1930, did this wit begin to appear in his work.       

Daughters of Revolution, 1932, Grant Wood

Wood's other paintings are not so well known.  Perhaps his other best known work depicts three prim, proper, geriatric ladies posed before a painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware.  It's titled, Daughters of Revolution.  Painted in 1932, Wood's dry wit is quite evident.  His penchant for idealized landscapes can be seen in Fall Plowing and his aerial view of The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.  He indulged in other folk tales such as Washington's cherry tree in Parson Weem's Fable.  His wit becomes pure humor in his 1933 painting, Adolescence, in which he sandwiches a nearly nude young rooster between two fat and sassy old hens, in an amusing parable about the shyness and awkwardness of growing up.  Perhaps his best work is a large triptych in which he portrays the memory of a noon meal for threshers.  The simple, farmhouse architecture is divided into the barnyard/front porch where the workers freshen up, the dining room where they are shown eating, and the kitchen were the women prepare the huge, hearty, noontime meal.  Perhaps Wood would not be such an unknown figure in American art had he survived into the more recent "media age" to join some of his contemporaries such as Thomas Hart Benton, Georgia O'Keefe, and Edward Hopper.  However, he died in 1942.  He was 49. 



Dinner for Threshers, 1934, Grant Wood





American Fresco Painters

Of all the art media which have migrated to this country from our European artistic traditions, one simply did not make the cut.  Oil painting, watercolor, egg tempera, stone carving, bronze casting, and nearly every conceivable style and movement made the transition to these shores except for the art of true fresco painting.  Even mural painting flourished in the depression era, but these paintings were more akin to canvas paintings applied to dry plaster walls much like wallpaper.  True fresco is ground earth-tone pigments applied to damp plaster.  What little true fresco painting that was done in this country in the 1930s came not from Europe, but from Mexico in the work of Diego Rivera, Jose Orozco, and David Siqueiros.  Perhaps the reason for this is, while true fresco flourished in Europe during the 1500s and 1600s, by the time Europe  began to export art and artist the medium had begun to fade from favor to be replaced by large-scale canvas painting.

During the past 35 years however, true fresco has arrived in the United States, from Italy in the work of an American artist by the name of Ben Long, and his associate, Chuck Kapsner. (Better late than never).  It first came ashore in the unlikely venue of Beaver Creek in the western hills of North Carolina.  Ben Long is not an immigrant.  The grandson/student of a portrait painter turned Presbyterian minister turned portrait painter in retirement, Long was classically trained, attending the Art Students' League in New York before serving a term as a Marine Corps artist in Viet Nam.  There he became interested in the art of true fresco.  After the war, he spent seven years as an apprentice to the leading fresco painter in Italy, Pietro Annigoni, where he worked with the master on several projects as well as completing others on his own.  It was there he met his associate, Chuck Kapsner, and collaborated with him on additional commissions it what he terms an "art loving country."

Returning to the U.S. and working as a portrait painter in oils, Long found he couldn't even give away fresco paintings.  It took him two long years to arrange his first "commission" and even then he donated his time and effort in return for the cost of materials used.  It was a 3 by 6 foot hanging plaster panel entitled Mary Great With Child for the tiny Beaver Creek Episcopal congregation.  The artist created it as a hanging panel so that if the congregation didn't like it, the painting could be removed.  Fortunately, they liked it a LOT.  It was highly acclaimed throughout the region.  Long painted a companion piece of St. John the Baptist.  In 1974, his work in fresco both in this country and Italy led to numerous awards as well as a number of larger scale religious and secular commissions over the past 35 years, ranging from Catholic churches to banks and police stations.  Unlike other art media, which were essentially "exported" to this country as talented Europeans arrived on these shores, true fresco, in the talent of Ben Long, had to be "imported".

The fresco work of Ben Long can be seen at: http://www.benlongart.com/fresco.php

Gallery 291

Even today, young men and women who paint often yearn to one day be rich and famous.  Yet, what they really desire is prestige, to be well thought of and influential.  Of course they tend to see this happening through the sale of their work,  media coverage, and personal relationships within the arts community. 



With that in mind, one of the most interesting stories in American art revolves around the life of a man who, while an artist of some repute with a tremendous influence on the history of painting in the U.S., probably never wielded a paint brush in his life.  He was born in 1864 in Hoboken, New Jersey, to wealthy parents of German descent, who had come to this country only a decade before.  He grew up with all the advantages of an upper-middle-class lifestyle, a college education, and study abroad in his parents' native Germany.  There in 1883, he began his art career in a medium that, at the time, wasn't considered by most people to even be an art medium--photography.  His name was Alfred Stieglitz.  
   
Upon his return to New York City, Stieglitz quickly established himself as a photographer with images of the city that mimicked the impressionist painting he saw in Europe.  He also founded and edited a small magazine called Camera Notes promoting innovative photography.  Due in large part to Stieglitz's efforts, photography demanded to become an art medium, at first imitating painting, then moving beyond imitation to emphasize those artistic advantages photography held over the other arts. 

The Steerage, 1907, Alfred Stieglitz

Perhaps Stieglitz's greatest single work has much the same qualities as a painting.  His classic photo, The Steerage, produced in 1907, appears to show the hopeful arrival of Emma Lazarus' "huddled masses" from Europe's overpopulated countries on it's lower level juxtaposed against the wealthy first class arrivals on the upper level.  In fact, the ship, upon which Stieglitz was a passenger, was eastbound, thus the so called "huddled masses" were returning to Europe.  
   
The trip was a fateful one for Stieglitz.  In Europe he met Pablo Picasso for the first time, to whom he showed the photo, The Steerage, which he'd so recently taken.  Picasso was said to have admired it greatly.  In Paris, Stieglitz met a number of avant-garde artists, and when he returned to the U.S., he brought with him some of their paintings.  

Stieglitz began showing them in his tiny photo gallery at 291 Fifth Avenue, side by side with  artistic photographs by himself and others. His was the first art gallery on these shores to display work by Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Duchamp, and Monet.  In later years, he moved toward photographic portraiture with his artist-wife, Georgia O'Keeffe, as his primary subject.  Meanwhile, his Gallery 291 remained a focal point in the evolution of avant-garde photography and painting in the U.S., until the building was torn down in 1917.  Stieglitz died in 1946, as revered by the painters he influenced as by photographers.  





Poet of the Brush

Nearly every town in America, and probably the rest of the world too, has somewhere within its confines, perhaps right in its center, a monument.  Sometimes it's a tribute to veterans of a war or two ago, sometimes it's meant to honor all who have served their country in one way or another.  Sometimes it is erected to honor a certain individual.  In any case, it has served also to keep some talented sculptor happy and healthy for a time.

In the small French town of Moret-sur-Loing there is erected the bust of the town's most outstanding citizen.  He was not a military hero, a wealthy businessman, nor an influential diplomat.  He was a painter. His name is Alfred Sisley.  He died there in 1899, a destitute invalid, suffering from rheumatism and throat cancer.  He spent the last 28 years of his life living in and painting the small community with a serene sensitivity that earned him the title the "Poet of the Brush".

Sisley was born in Paris in 1839, the son of well-to-do English parents.  His father was a successful silk merchant. He served a brief apprenticeship in London trying without much luck to learn the family business.  Perhaps it was little wonder.  His heart wasn't in it. He spent most of his time in museums studying the landscapes of Constable and Turner.  He wanted to be a painter.  In 1862, with his father's blessing and financial support, Sisley returned to Paris to enroll in classes taught by the academician, Charles Gleyre. 



Alfred Sisley, 1882



It was not an obvious choice.  Gleyre was a history painter and considered landscapes decadent art.  But tuition was minimal and Gleyre was indulgent.  He had to have been, given the fact that he numbered amongst his students the likes of Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, and Frederic Bazille. Sisley fell into this group of future Impressionists and grew with them and their nascent movement.  During the 1860s he painted with them in Marlotte, near the forests of Fountainbleu. He also displayed with them in the various Impressionist shows.  He lived comfortably on his father's money.



Avenue of Chestnut Trees near La Celle-Saint-Cloud,
 1865, Alfred Sisley



However, during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, Sisley's father's business was ruined and he died shortly thereafter in bankruptcy.  Sisley and his family lived in poverty the rest of his life.  Sisley also lived in the shadow of the much more daring Monet the rest of his life.  He seldom sold any work and when he did it was for a pittance.  And, while Monet lived long enough for Impressionism and his contribution to it to gain him some acclaim and wealth, Sisley didn't.  However, the English influence of Turner and of Constable is forever present in all his works and his paintings constitute a rare and expressive blending of the English and French landscape traditions.

Boot Camp for Artists

All artists who have attended college love to tell horror stories regarding their experiences in art classes.  Even those of us for whom the college experience was largely positive have tales to tell.  For instance, during my undergrad years, I once signed up for a figure drawing class.  Unfortunately, I chose to do so during the winter quarter.  The classroom was so cold, the model was seldom nude.  Several months later, when I took figure painting, I made sure it was during the summer quarter (I attended year around).



The Ecole des Beaux-Arts today

 There are similar (only much worse) nightmare stories connected to the European art academies of the nineteenth century.  Topping the list, the French Ecole des Beaux-arts in Paris is the favorite whipping boy of all time.  Especially during the second half of the nineteenth century, writers have made it out to be something of a pedagogic ogre to be slain by the likes of Manet, Monet, Courbet, and all the other young turks of the era.  And, if that ogre had a face, it would be that of Alexandre Cabanel.

Cabanel was born in 1823.  By the time he was 22, he was a student at the Academy, near the end of his training, and already a consummate practitioner of all that was good and bad about academic art.  First, the good.  The academy was a boot camp for artists, as grueling then as what medical school is today.  There were daily drills, tight discipline, regimentation at every turn.  And the carrot on the end of the stick?  The Prix de Rome, which amounted to a year's free study in that hallowed, city-sized academy to end all academies. Rome, Italy, where a student could almost drown in all the academic art accumulated over the centuries.  The contest had all the hallmarks of a single-elimination sports tournament.  It was open only to unmarried males under the age of 30.  Starting with a given theme, students first made studies of every aspect of their proposed work.  These were judged and most were eliminated in this round.  Those lucky enough to have survived, were locked into a deadline seemingly designed to do little more than age them prematurely.  The "lucky" students slaved away in their studios for days and weeks at a stretch to complete their final painting.

Self-Portrait,
Alexander Cabanel, 1852


In 1845, the theme was "Jesus in the Praetorium" (Jesus mocked).  Alexandre Cabanel came in second.  The winning painting was by Francois-Leon Benouville.  Who?  If Cabanel is little known today, the winner is even more so.  Likewise his painting is little known as well.  Cabanel was robbed.  He was to have his day, however.  In 1863, the year of the infamous Salon des Refuse', Cabanel's The Birth of Venus won the Academy's gold medal.  It is a lusciously languid nude, reclining in all her titillating (but chaste) splendor, tended by winged puti as she lazes on the waves.  It was bought by no less than the emperor himself, Napoleon III, who followed up his acquisition by doling out additional commissions to the winning artist.  And the bad?  Cabanel was one of the sternest, most steadfast opponents of the upstart, radical, barn-burning, antiestablishment, no-talent group of disruptive rapscallions known collectively by the derogatory term, Impressionists.

An Out of this World Artist

There is an artist painting today whose work reflects his personal experiences unique to himself and but a handful of other men on earth.  His work brings between $18,000 and $70,000 each.  To date, he has completed a total of 163 paintings, averaging about four per year, each one sold before it's completed.  He gave up a lucrative career working for a government agency in 1981 to pursue his art full-time and hasn't regretted it for a moment. Inspired by the likes of western artists, Frederic Remington and Andrew Russell, his work is remarkably like theirs even though he's never painted a cowboy in his life.  Nearly all of his work reflects a subject matter almost as old as art itself, yet he paints from a perspective few other artist have ever attempted, and with an authenticity none could ever hope to achieve.  His paintings bear titles such as Homeward Bound, Fender Lovin' Care, Sunrise Over Antares, Tiptoeing on the Ocean of Storms, A giant Leap, and Houston, We Have a Problem.

If you haven't guessed by now, the artist is Alan Bean.  He landed on the moon during the Apollo 12 mission with a precision that impressed even his colleagues at NASA, yet he viewed the lunar landscape, which he has since painted dozens of times, through the eyes of an artist.  Even while employed by NASA in such roles as commander of Skylab, he was working on evening art classes and testing the waters for what he considers now his real calling--to do for the space frontier what his artistic idols did for the western frontier.  His 31 hours on the moon with fellow astronaut, Pete Conrad, have provided a wealth of recollections and inspiration while his access to NASA photos, charts, models, and other paraphernalia from his years in the astronaut corps provide a similar wealth of technical input.


Alan Bean in his studio, 2000


Bean brings the same demanding perfectionism required of a test pilot to his work as an artist, even having gone so far as to recall paintings in which he later found he'd made technical errors.  Beyond that, he incorporates bits and pieces of the "real thing" so to speak in the paintings themselves, starting with aircraft plywood and white acrylic texturing compound, he uses the same geologists tools he used on the moon to create a lunar-like texture upon which he paints.  As the work progresses, Bean uses such things as flecks of gold foil, moon dust, and even charred bits of the Apollo 12 heat shield to add further texture and interest to his work.  At the age of 78, the former astronaut turned painter's lunarscapes maintain the romantic aura of the moon despite his having walked upon it.  His work doesn't appear in museums or galleries.  As each one is finished, it disappears into a private home seldom to be seen again, except for some 93 paintings appearing in his book, "Apollo: An Eyewitness Account".  In the book's introduction, fellow astronaut, John Glenn, writes:  "He saw the same monochromatic world as the other astronauts, yet with an artist's eye he also saw the intrinsic beauty in the rocks and boulders..."

Al Hirschfeld

Everyone seems to enjoy the art of caricature.  Often it is linked to the art of the cartoonist.  But the two are not inextricably bound.  The very best caricaturists have always existed free of speech balloons or the sight "gag."  And, leading the pack of this rare breed, was Al Hirschfeld. Few recent artist have ever had his instantly recognizable following.  His caricatures of the stars from the New York and Hollywood entertainment scenes are as familiar as his trademark gimmick of hiding his daughter's name (Nina) within each of his works.

Hirschfeld's work graced the cover of The New York Times Sunday Drama section so often he practically became its resident artist.  His faces appeared on  more TV Guide covers than that of any other artist.  No TV or movie star could be said to have "arrived" until their countenance had been interpreted by this master of exquisitely drawn lines.  In its evocative cartoon wit, Hirschfeld's work ranks as classic character portraiture.  With his amazing deftness and economy of line, he revealed himself to be a serious technician and artist with a unique style and flavor.  His work fixed, unmistakably, the mid-twentieth century show-biz culture in a way that might well be considered social history.  He compares easily with the likes of Honore Daumier and Thomas Nast. 

Self-Portrait, Al Hirschfeld

Though there is undeniably a cartoon-like quality to his work, his humor mostly derived from his outrageously distorted, yet instantly recognizable faces.  However, Hirschfeld's deftly insightful caricature portraits in pen and ink masked a lesser known side.  He was also a master artist, painter, and expert lithographer.  He was featured in many one-man shows in cities all over the U.S. and abroad.  Today, his work rests in the permanent collections of major museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Israel's Hamima Museum.   

   
It keeping with his Broadway show business roots, there is a lyrical, dancing quality to Hirschfeld's work.  To a degree envied by other artists, there is an incomparable rhythm and effortless grace that seems lighter than air.  His art often appears to defy gravity.  Al Hirschfeld was born in 1905.  He died in 2003 at the age of 99, his pencil and drawing pad, never far from his side.