The Chair’s Spot
Posted on Jun 17, 2024Countries are renowned for not always speaking politely about each other, and one example is the British attitude towards America. We all have our own views, our loves and hates when it comes to American values, and of course this goes both ways. but in my view the ‘something good’ that came from America is their art, as well as Country music, but that’s another story
Something good did come from America
As we know America is a comparatively new country, developed by immigrants from countries all over the world. The indigenous Americans produced their own art in much the same way as our early ancestors did, reflecting how their communities grew out of the relationship they had with their environment. They used materials that were ubiquitous in their natural environment to create designs that held memories of the people, their experiences and their culture. One image that comes to mind of American art advancing out of the indigenous was George Catlin’s 1832 painting ‘The Buffalo Hunt’ which depicts a scene from his eight years of research into forty-eight tribes of American Indians
But early 20th century America had problems not far removed to those we are experiencing today, here in the UK and Europe generally – immigration. The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, was an artistic movement in the US at that time, which produced works portraying scenes of daily life in New York, often in the city’s poorer neighbourhoods. George Bellows’ ‘Cliff Dwellers’ 1913 depicts the gritty vitality of slum life, a typical example of the art of the Ashcan School.
At this time photography was developing everywhere and an image hailed as one of the greatest photographs of all time was Alfred Stieglitz’s ‘Steerage’ 1907, which illustrated the influx of immigrants to the US. It has to be said, however, that there is conjecture that the actual photograph was of a cruise to Europe from America, but It nevertheless conveyed the essence of the intense immigration from Europe to the US at that time.
Arguably Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic’ 1930 is the most famous American painting of all time, if not it is only surpassed by Edward Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks’, James Whistler’s ‘Whistler’s Mother’, or Andy Worhol’s ’Cambell’s Soup Cans’. Many understood American Gothic to be a satirical comment on midwesterners being out of step with a modernising world. Wood, however, intended it to convey a positive image of rural American values offering a vision of re-assurance at the beginning of the Great Depression which struck America in 1929, and by 1933 one in every four workers were unemployed. To combat this President Roosevelt set up a New Deal Policy to mitigate the Depression, part of which was his 1935 Federal Art Project which in five months employed 3,749 artists who produced 15,633 works of art in public institutions.
The example opposite is a mural in Bridgeport Post Office (Connecticut) painted by Robert Lambden
Between 1934 and 1943 the federal government placed murals in twenty five Connecticut post offices. The government wanted these murals to spark an interest and offer people an uplifting distraction from the troubles of the Great Depression, as well as finding work for artists unable to sell their work at that time.
Then came the Second World War which saw a change in the balances, causing the birth of a pure American art – Abstract Expressionism – a movement that found international fame and notoriety, and for the first time American art not only shed its European influences but moved abroad to influence others. There is a vast array of Abstract Expressionist artists, to name a few: Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Cy Twombly, Louise Bourgeois, Helen Frankenthaler, Barnett Newman – the list just goes on. In the limited space that I have I will expand on Jackson Pollock including Lee Krasner to whom he was married, Franz Kline and Mark Rothko.
Born in 1912 Jackson Pollock was acclaimed for his ‘drip’ technique of pouring and splashing paint, usually oil, household paint or enamel, onto a horizontal surface enabling him to view and paint his canvas from all angles. It was called ‘all-over’ or ‘action painting’ since he covered the entire canvas and used the force of his whole body to paint, often in a frenetic dancing style.
Pollock, however, was a reclusive and volatile personality who struggled with alcoholism for most of his life. In 1945 he married the artist Lee Krasner who became an important influence on his career, but living with Pollock she had put up with a lot and left for Europe after his death in 1956, which also followed his affair with a younger woman, Ruth Kligman. He died at the age of 44 when Ruth and one of her friends were in the car with Pollock who was driving after a heavy bout of drinking, and his car hit a tree with Ruth being the only survivor.
There is an excellent DVD – ‘Pollock’ with Ed Harris in the title role and Marcia Gay Harden as Krasner.
In my view, what is extraordinary about Pollock’s paintings, particularly the very large canvases, is the evenness of application and distribution of the paint, giving a constant balance of colour and pattern throughout.
Lee Krasner lived for another 28 years following Pollock’s death, during which time she managed the Pollock estate and produced the biggest boldest and most brilliantly coloured works of her career, many of them painted in Jackson’s studio.
Two well-known contemporaries of Pollock were Franz Kline (1910-1962) and Mark Rothko (1903-1970) both painters associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement.
Kline was best known for his powerful black and white abstraction in which the vigorous brushwork embodied the energy and gestures created in the act of painting, which can be seen in ’Cardinal’ 1950.
Rothko was famous for his ‘colour field’ paintings that depicted irregular and painterly rectangular regions of colour, such as No.6 (Violet, Green & Red) 1951, shown here.
Perhaps the most notable incident of his career were the ‘Seagram Murals’ which were to have decorated the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York’s Seagram Building. Rothko became disgusted and disillusioned with the idea that his paintings would become decorative objects for wealthy diners and refunded the lucrative commission, donating the paintings to museums, one of which was the Tate Gallery.
As I reach conclusion it is time for some self-indulgence, I have selected two of my own favourite American artists from quite a long list. The first is Edward Hopper (1882-1967) a realist painter and printmaker renowned for capturing American life and landscapes. I have featured the famous ‘Nighthawks’ 1942 which summarises the loneliness of urban life, and in this case New York.
My other favourite American Artist is the realist Andrew Wyeth 1917-2009 and I have shown perhaps his most famous work ‘Christina’s World’ 1948. It depicts the reality of life for his longtime friend, Christina Olson, a woman with a disability, on her farm in coastal Maine. Space deprives me of the chance to discuss Christina in detail so I strongly recommend further reading on this truly sensitive subject portrayed by Wyeth
David McGuire June 2024
