Kay Sage

Danger, Construction Ahead, 1940, Kay Sage

Yves Tanguy and wife, Kay Sage.

It's not too unusual today for two people in the same profession to meet at work, fall in love, and marry. With more women than ever before in the workplace, such office romances are probably more common now than ever before. In the past I've written about several husband and wife couples who were both artists. The de Koonings, Willem and Elaine, come to mind, Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, Charles and Ray Eames, Milton and Sally Avery, Bruce Nauman and Susan Rothenberg, to name just a few. Let me add to that list Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy. As the link would indicate, I've already written about him, so let me now include his "better half." As often happens when married couples paint together, their work tends to be at least somewhat similar. Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy were both Surrealists. Having said that, there are some similarities in their work, but only some, and not enough that one would guess they were married to one another for some fifteen years. Sage's paintings, in fact, bear a much stronger resemblance to the work of Giorgio de Chirico than those of her husband.

No Passing, 1954, Kay Sage (left), Indefinite Divisibility, 1942, Yves Tanguy (right)
--no more than just a passing resemblance.

Kay Sage, ca. 1940

Katherine Linn Sage was born in 1898, the daughter of a well-to-do family in the timber business. She was the younger of two daughters born to an Albany, New York, state politician and his wife, who were divorced when Kay was ten years old. Leaving Kay's older sister with her father, Kay's mother took her and moved to Europe, though the family remained close through frequent correspondence and occasional return visits to the U.S. Kay and her mother made their home in Rapallo, a small city on the Italian Rivera, but often traveled to Paris and elsewhere in Europe. Kay's father continued to support them generously. As a young girl, Kay liked to draw and write. Her first art instruction came at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., however when her mother moved back to Italy, Kay also studied in Rome, though she always claimed to be self-taught in that so little of her formal training bore any resemblance to her later work.

Young Girl in an Orange Dress,
1922, Kay Sage

Along the way, around 1923, Kay Sage met a young Italian nobleman named Prince Ranieri di San Faustino. They were married in 1925 and for ten years they lived the "good life" of upper-class Italians. Her husband was content with their lifestyle, but Sage was not, referring to it later as a "stagnant swamp." In 1933 Kay's father died, followed by the death of her sister a year later. The following year, Kay left her wealthy husband while having her first exhibition of six "experimental abstractions" at a gallery in Milan. In 1937 she moved with her mother to a luxurious apartment in Paris, intent upon building a life for herself as an artist. The portrait, Young Girl in an Orange Dress (left) dates from Sage's days as an art student around 1922. Quite apart from any abstract experimentation, the Surrealism for which Sage is best known seems to have been well-grounded in the basics.

Afterwards, 1937, Kay Sage

Early in 1938, Sage saw the International Surrealist Exhibit at Galerie Beaux-Arts--299 pieces by sixty artists from fourteen countries. There, for the first time, Sage encountered Surrealism and was especially fascinated by the work of de Chirico. it was a "first impression," as it were, which was to stick with her, defining her style, for the rest of her career. She even bought one of his paintings. Excited and inspired by what she saw of Surrealism, Sage began to paint semi-abstract, somewhat Surrealistic works which she displayed in the 1938 Salon des Surindépendants show at the Porte de Versailles. Her paintings, such as Afterwards (right) at this show, so impressed the Surrealism godfather, Andre Breton, that he thought they'd been done by a man. (From that point on Kay began including her first name when signing her work.) It was through Breton that Sage initially met her future second husband, Yves Tanguy.

In the Third Sleep, 1944, Kay Sage

I Saw Three Cities, 1944, Kay Sage

With the onslaught of hostilities in Poland in September, 1939, Sage and her mother thought it best to return to the United States where Kay used her money and the influence of her father's old friends to arrange for other Surrealists to do likewise. Those included the recently divorced Tanguy, whom she married in 1940. Friends of the couple say it was an abusive, alcoholic marriage, but a lasting one nonetheless. Whether influenced by her new husband, or of her own accord, most of Sage's important work was done after her marriage and before the sudden death of Tanguy from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1955. By that time, as witnessed by her Danger, Construction Ahead (top), and I Saw Three Cities (left), Sage’s art had gained a respectable following among critics. However, is often the case in such marriages, Sage found it difficult to emerge from the shadow of the better-known husband. By all accounts, Sage was devastated by his death. Aside from the touching  No Passage (bottom) from 1956, she did little new painting after Tanguy's death. This was due partially to her depression, but also the onset of poor eyesight resulting from cataracts. Instead she worked promoting her husband's art legacy and writing slangy French poetry. In late 1958 and early 1959 Sage filed her will, finished a massive catalogue of Tanguy's works, then tried to commit suicide with an overdoes of sleeping pills. Her housekeeper found her and managed to revive her.

Unusual Thursday, 1951, Kay Sage

Men Working, 1951, Kay Sage

For a time, Sage seemed to recover from her depression. She turned to wire sculpture, had partially successful cataract surgery, and was honored with a major retrospective show of her work in 1960. However, in August, 1961, Sage wrote in her journal, “I have said all that I have to say. There is nothing left for me to do but scream.” Less than two years later, in January, 1963, she put a fatal bullet through her heart. As instructed in her will, her friend, Pierre Matisse, buried urns containing Sage’s and Tanguy’s ashes in the waters off the coast of Tanguy’s native Brittany.

Tomorrow is Never, 1955, Kay Sage

Painted shortly after her husband's death.

 

Jan and Pieter Jansz Saenredam

Interior of Saint Bavo, Haarlem, 1631, Pieter Jansz Saenredam

We're all familiar with the old saying, "Like father, like son." Very often, insofar as art is concerned, the saying is as valid as in any other context. Down through history, the sons (and on rare occasions, the daughters) of artists painted very much like their fathers simply because they were (initially at least) trained by their fathers. However, there's also what's come to be called "The exception which proves the rule." Sons have been known to rebel against their fathers. Down through the annuls of art history we find cases in which a whole generation rejected the art of the previous generation for little apparent reason other than artistic rebellion. It's hard to say why the art of the Dutch painter, Pieter Jansz Saenredam, was so radically different from that of his father, Jan Saenredam. If young Pieter was his father's pupil, then obviouslysomeone wasn't paying much attention in class. The painting of Interior of Saint Bavo, Haarlem (above), from 1631, is by the son, Pieter Jansz Saenredam, while the etched print, Venus and Mars with Cupid (below), is by the father, Jan Saenredam. The contrast could hardly be more startling.

Venus and Mars with Cupid, Jan Saenredam

Jupiter and Juno Seated,
Jan Saenredam

It would appear that the father was something of a "dirty old man" while the son was a staunch, Reformation Protestant. The key element in this generational dichotomy is the fact that both artists were a product of their times. Virtually none of Jan Saenredam's etched prints are original images. They are copies of paintings done by other artists. The paintings were blatantly erotic, often bordering on the obscene (sometimes well over the border). They were usually created for the boudoirs of wealthy collectors for their own "private enjoyment." Jan Saenredam's prints were created for the exact same purpose, but for those of lesser means, but no less erotically motivated. The Dutch art market during the 16th and 17th centuries was rife with such "under the counter" prints, a trade often more profitable than painting. Rembrandt, for instance, was known to have run a very lucrative trade in such images. In Jan Saenredam's case, it appears to have been his primary "stock in trade." Notice that in the print, Jupiter and Juno Seated (above, left), there is more than a little ambiguity as to whether it is Jupiter's right or left leg depicted. Only the heavily shadowed left knee on the far right suggests the print is not as obscene as it first appears.

The Town Hall of Haarlem, Pieter Jansz Saenredam

Pieter Jansz Saenredam by
Jacob van Campen

Pieter Jansz Saenredam was born in 1597 about the time the Iconoclasm of the Protestant Reformation was reaching its peak. The fact that Pieter Saenredam left home in 1612 when he would have been fifteen years of age, speaks volumes as to his rebellious spirit. He moved permanently to Haarlem, where he became a pupil of Frans de Grebber. By 1614 he was elected a member of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke (a sort of artists labor union and fraternal organization). His painting of The Town Hall of Haarlem (above) is from sometime after this date. Pieter Saenredam's St, Mary's Square and Church at Utrecht (below) is from 1663, painted just two years before his death. Pieter was a contemporary of the painter-architects Jacob van Campen, Salomon de Bray, and Pieter Postwas all of whom undoubtedly influenced his art. The younger Saenredam was nothing if not the consummate draughtsman. For the most part his drawn and painted images are devoid of any human presence.

St, Mary's Square and Church at Utrecht, 1663, Pieter Jansz Saenredam

Interior of St. Iglesia of Santiago in
Utrecht, 1642, Pieter Jansz Saenredam

However, the majority of Pieter Saenredam's most recognized works are not of church exteriors, but the stripped-bare interiors of former Catholic churches co-opted by Protestants in the decades following the social and theological turbulence of the Reformation. Only the stately Gothic architecture remains. The churches appear austere. In many cased their previous painted and sculptured decorations had been attacked, stripped away, and destroyed by rioting mobs; though in most cases such "idolatrous" ornamentation was systematically removed by city officials to placate these mobs and prevent such desecration. Although Pieter Saenredam's interiors could only indirectly be considered religious works, his father's etchings often depicted scenes from the Bible Yet even then, they were not with out erotic overtone as seen in his Temptation of Man (below). Such images, often based upon paintings from the walls of churches, were precisely the type of artistic decoration the Reformation purists found most objectionable.

Temptation of Man, 1605, Jan Saenredam

George Lucas' American Graffiti

Where were you in '62?



The poster says it all.

A few weeks ago as my wife and I were holed up in a hotel room in Cleveland for a night, she randomly clicked on a TV movie she'd never seen--George Lucas' American Graffiti. I'd seen it once or twice when it first came out in 1973 and long admired it as a longstanding classic of American filmmaking. It took me only a few minutes in watching it again for the first time in about forty years, to realize it was a film I dearly loved. Though not George Lucas' first film, it was his first successful film. Shot on a budget of a "mere" $777.000, it has turned out to be one of the highest grossing low-budget films ever made--well over $200 million in box office gross and home video sales, not including merchandising. Yet when Lucas was searching for financing for the film he was turned down by United Artists, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, MGM, Warner Bros., and Paramount before Universal Studios reluctantly agreed to take the risk ($4,369,471 in today's dollars). Lucas' previous film, THX 1138, a brainy, sci-fi epic, had been an unmitigated flop. Even though it had been produced by none other than Francis Ford Coppola (who also eventually produced American Graffiti), neither name carried the weight in Hollywood at the time to warrant much confidence in a teenaged cruising film with a cast of unknown kids (most of whom were no longer teenagers).

Set in Modesto, California, most of the filming took place in nearby Petaluma.

George Lucas before Star Wars.

"Where were you in '62?" became the film's nostalgic catch phrase. I was a junior in high school. Though a year younger than the recent high school graduates around whom the story revolves, I was living the cruising life, decked out in tight, white, peg-leg Levi's, a white, long-sleeve shirt (sleeves rolled up, of course), white socks and white, slip-on sneakers. My friends and I cruised the streets of the county seat, McConnelsville, Ohio, looking for girls at a time when gas was thirty cents a gallon and a hamburger was twenty-five cents at the local Dairy Queen (our less-futuristic equivalent to Mel's Drive-in). I was more or less the equivalent of the film's Terry "The Toad" Fields, played by Charles Martin Smith. American Graffiti documented the first wave of the "Baby Boom" generation coming of age, before the Vietnam war, before the Kennedy assassination, at a time when "flower power" was the effect of a fresh-cut bouquet on your girlfriend.

The American Graffiti cast. Most were unknowns. Some remained that way.

Today we'd refer to American Graffiti as having an "all-star" cast, but with the exception of "Ronny" Howard (Opie from Mayberry, R.F.D.), and the largely background presence of the popular DJ, Wolfman Jack, no one had ever heard of any of the other talented cast members. Cindy Williams (as Laurie) had yet to meet Laverne or play Shirley. Richard Dreyfus had yet to encounter a certain marine denizen with huge Jaws. Susanne Somers (in a cameo role as the blond in the T-Bird) had yet to join TV's Three's Company. Twelve-year-old Mackenzie Phillips had yet to take things One Day at a Time. Harrison Ford, back when he was still a carpenter, turned thirty during filming. Mark Hamill, of Luke Skywalker fame, tried out for a part but didn't make it. Only Ron Howard and Charles Martin Smith were actually teenagers at the time.

Pinstripes and chrome, it appeared to be moving even when standing still.

There were two other major stars of American Graffiti, responsible as much as any other factors in making the film the iconic landmark of moviemaking from that era--the cars and the music. Until the 1950s, teenagers could seldom afford their own cars. Even then, they were often of the "homemade" variety gleaned from the best the local junkyard had to offer (much like John Milner's yellow hotrod roadster). By the early 1960s, however, middle-class kids, with good grades and a good job could often afford an older, breathtaking cruise-mobile such as Steve (Ron Howard) Bolander's sporty, white, '59 Chevrolet Impala (above), which even today causes me to drool in envy. Then there was the almost ghostly presence of Susanne Sommers' 1956 white Thunderbird (below) which visually serves much the same purpose as Wolfman Jack it tying together the separate, angst-filled vignettes of the four teenaged friends enjoying the brief, fragile good-life of the early 1960s.

Is she real, or just a figment of Curt Henderson's (Richard Dreyfuss) imagination.

American Graffiti has no original score. It does have some forty-one top hits from the era starting with the booming Rock Around the Clock in the opening segment to Goodnight Sweetheart as Curt boards the plane to take him off to college and the rest of his life. The Beach Boys supply the music for the closing credits with their All Summer Long. Lucas paid some $90,000 for the rights to the musical nostalgia that makes American Graffiti as much a joy to listen to as watch. And when there was no music, Lucas used its absence along with sound effects to create some of the film's most dramatic moments. Though nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress for Candy Clark (below). It won none, though it was the recipient of numerous other international film awards. Enjoy the two clips at the bottom.

Candy Clark and Charles Martin Smith as the worldly Debbie and the nerdy "Toad"

An era of innocence? Perhaps not, but lots of fun all the same.

---------------------------
The Trailer


---------------------------

The Water Balloon fight--

 

Artists at Work

Lucien Freud Painting David Hockney--two artists for the price of one.

Elisabeth Vigee Lebrun
Self-Portrait, 1790

When I begin research on an artist about which to write, the first thing I look for is a painted self-portrait. If that is unavailable, a photo of the artist will suffice, or better still, one of the artist with his or her work, preferably one working (or pretending to). Of course the ultimate such image is the painted self-portrait of the artist at work. They're not exactly rare, but neither are they commonplace. Surprisingly, some excellent painters have never in their lives rendered a self-portrait (painted or otherwise). A few even seem to have been camera-shy as well. If all else fails, I'll use a painted or drawn image of my subject by another artist. A couple years ago I did a piece on artists' studios and the way they reflect upon the artist and his or her work. This time I want to take a look at the artists themselves. Seeing them at work helps link the artist to their art, enable us to see them as they see themselves (assuming, as with a self-portrait, that all such photos have been approved by the artist involved).

Honore Daumier Self-portrait, 1869

Self-Portrait in Front of the Easel,
Vincent van Gogh, 1888.

One of the most beautiful self-portraits featuring the artist at work is that painted by the French portrait artists, Elisabeth Vigee Lebrun (above, right). Not only was she a very beautiful young lady, but she painted beautifully as well. Was it self-flattery? That's hard to say; every other surviving image of the artist is also a self-portrait. There's no doubt that Lucien Freud's portrait of David Hockney and himself (top) in no way could be considered in that light. The same would apply to that of the 19th-century, French, Realism painter, Honore Daumier (above), which might very well be considered the ugliest self-portrait ever painted. Of course, when we talk about Frenchmen and self-portraits in the same breath, we have to mention the king of them all, Vincent van Gogh, seen working at his easel (left). Painted in early 1888, the painting is in no way flattering...more along the line of brutally honest.

The Artist in his Studio, 1626-28, Rembrandt van Rijn.

Picasso with linocut, 1959.

Rivaling, or perhaps surpassing, van Gogh insofar as self-portraits are concerned, we see his Dutch compatriot, Rembrandt van Rijn (above) in a "working" self-portrait. It's interesting in that the painting so dominates even the full-length image of the artist as to make a statement regarding the manner in which Rembrandt viewed each work as a entity to be overcome. This is all the more likely in that we're afforded a view of only the back of he painting while the artist appears to cower in the shadows. Quite the opposite take on the creative effort can be seen in the photo of Pablo Picasso (right) as he attacks his linocut image with a surgeons knife to make his mark. There'll be no "cowering" from this bull of a man!

Jackson Pollock...pondering. (Note the massive roll of unused canvas on the floor.)

Eugene Delacroix studio print, early 19th-century.

The same attitude could also be applied to the work of the "king" of American Abstract Expressionism, Jackson Pollock (above), as he seems to hover weightlessly over his massive drippings, planning his next aerial attack. If any artist should have a tendency to feel overwhelmed by his work, we might cite the British painter Chris Ofili (below). Apparently taking his cue from Pollock, it's interesting to note that's not a paintbrush which Ofili uses to swirl his paint around but a broom. The wheeled device standing to his left appears to be a computer monitor...or perhaps a sign bearing the words, "wet paint." In our modern era, we seem destined to rely on the photographer's art in portraying artists at work. The contrast between "now" and "then" can be seen in the etched print of the French Romantic painter, Eugene Delacroix and his studio (above, left) as seen sometime during the first half of the 19th-century. The artist appears standing at the lower center, palette in hand, talking to a prospective client.

Chris Ofili at work in his warehouse studio.

Perhaps there's no sadder, yet heroic, image of an artist in his studio today than that of Pop portrait artist, Chuck Close (below), who, in 1988 suddenly suffered a spinal artery collapse leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. Rehabilitation therapy has restored some use of his limbs but he remains wheelchair bound. Not one to wallow in self-pity, or welcome that of others, Close continues to work through his disabilities, remaining, at the age of seventy-five, one of the top artists producing today.

Chuck Close in his studio

Thanks to the now "ancient" art of photography, we can still glimpse artists in their studios who have become legendary, their paintings worth tens of millions (whatever the currency of choice). Two such examples are Claude Monet (below, left) and John Singer Sargent (below, right). Below those, it's interesting to observe the manner in which each artist, such as Paul Cezanne, photographed in his studio around the turn of the century, recreates a physical environment much like their personal presence. Cezanne's studio has been restored and can be seen today exactly as he left it when he died in 1906.

Two artists, two very different studios.

Paul Cezanne with his Bathers. His studio as seen today.

Frida Kahlo at work. Her studio tells much about her art and herself.

Ohio artist, Howard Chandler Christy, painting and sculpting from live models.

Salvador Dali--Surreal easel painter and muralist (1930s).

Georgia O'Keeffe working in her bright, airy, Taos studio.

Roy Lichtenstein at work in his...uhh, never mind.

 

Betye Saar

The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972, Betye Saar

I've never known or met and artist who didn't have at least a passing interest in their native heritage and family background. It seems to go with the territory. My mother was into genealogy. I'm not, though I do have my father's fascination with history in general. He was a great Civil War buff, though he never served in the military nor did he have any known ancestors involved in the war. He loved to visit battle sites and watch reenactments. When my mother died, as her executor, I had the job of settling their estate, which, though not all that great in terms of dollars and cents, was exceedingly complex in many other ways (my mother never met a bank she didn't like). Adding to this burden was her accumulation of antiques, some of which were of little value (all but worthless, in fact) while others were quite rare and/or valuable.

Betye Saar Self-portrait

In going through all the "stuff" the night before the estate auction, I chose some of the more attractive items and arranged them into a still-life, which I photographed extensively for future reference in doing a painting of the family heirlooms. Some of them sold the very next day. It was one of the least successful still-lifes I've ever done. The problem was, most items bore little relationship to one another, and all were of approximately equal size and interest. Thus, they competed visually with one another. At best, it looked like a display in an antique shop window. Moreover, there was no cohesive theme or message to tie it all together. In looking back, I wish I'd known the Los Angeles artist Betye Saar. She might have helped me better "pull it off."

 

The line between assemblage and
collage can sometimes be quite thin.

Sambo’s Banjo,
Betye Saar 1971-1972

Betye Saar seldom paints still-lifes. She makes still-lifes, an art form invented by no less an art icon than Pablo Picasso himself. He coined the word "assemblage" to differentiate such works from their two-dimensional ancestor, "collage" (which he also fathered). When Betye's great aunt Hattie died in the 1970s, she found herself in much the same position as I, going through family photos and other memorabilia, trying to sift the treasure from the trash. She began to turn her talent for assemblage (should we call it sculpture?) toward boxed or framed icons, arranging old photographs, letters, lockets, dried flowers, and handkerchiefs in shrine-like windows to recall memories, lost ones, and the passage of time. Sambo's Banjo (above, left) is a Saar assemblage. The untitled work (above, right) more nearly fits the definition of a collage, though once the piece begins to take on the element of depth, the line between the two art forms can become a matter of opinion.

Eat Seeds n All, Betye Saar

Ragtime, 2005, Betye Saar

Betye Saar first made a name for herself as an artist in the late 1960s when she began her collection of what are euphemistically called “black collectibles”—everyday objects that featured racist caricatures of African Americans. After the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, these items became the cultural debris of racism she would recycle into art. In 1972, she created her first series of assemblages, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (top). The most iconic of these featured a “mammy” figure standing in a field of cotton backed by a series of images of Aunt Jemima. In the center of her body is an image of another “mammy,” standing before a picket fence, and holding a white baby. Saar explains, “the ‘mammy’ knew and stayed in her place. I attempted to change that ‘place’ [by turning] a negative, demeaning figure into a positive, empowered woman who stands confrontationally with one hand holding a broom and the other armed for battle--a warrior ready to combat servitude and racism.” Her Eat Seeds 'n All (above), takes a similar swipe at the black stereotype children's storybook character, Sambo. Saar's Ragtime (above, right) references traditional racial stereotypes having to do with music.

Betye Saar with her artist daughters, Lezley and Alison.

Mother and Children in Blue,
 1998, Betye Saar

Betye Saar was born Betye Irene brown in 1926. She has lived all her life in and around Los Angeles. When her father died in 1931, her mother took Betye and her younger brother and sister to live with her great aunt, Hattie Keys, in Pasadena. Betye began her academic studies at Pasadena City College, later graduating from UCLA with a degree in design. She did her graduate work at California State University while employed as a social worker and jewelry designer. During this time she also married Richard Saar and gave birth to two daughters, Lezley and Allison Saar, both of whom have also become artists. Saar's Mother and Children in Blue (left) from 1998, no doubt reflects her having survived such a hectic period, attempting to balance her own hopes with the needs of her family and the demands of her job.

Tangled Roots, Palmer Museum of Art installation, 1996, Betye Saar

In growing up as a child, Betye often spent summers with her grandmother, who lived in Watts (an eastern suburb of L.A.). Thus she had the opportunity to watch as Simon Rodia's Watts Towers took shape. Along with her mixed African-American, Irish, and Native American heritage, Saar credits Rodia as having been one of her major influences (only on a smaller scale, of course). Her 1996 installation, Tangled Roots (above) suggests this ancestral mélange while Mystic Window #1 (below), from 1965, and The Phrenologer’s Window (bottom), done the following year, reflect her earlier interest in mysticism and Voodoo. In the early 1980s, once her daughters were, themselves in college, Saar taught at the University of California and the Otis Art Institute (now called Otis College of Art and Design). As her work matured, Saar began doing large, room-size, site-specific installations, including altar-like shrines exploring the relationship between technology and spirituality. She paired computer chips with mystical amulets and charms, suggesting the need for an alliance of both the technical and the spiritual. Betye Saar, even at the age of eighty-eight, continues to live and work from her home in Los Angeles.

The Mystic Window #1, 1965. Betye Saar

The Phrenologer’s Window, 1966, Betye Saar.