By Carter B. Horsley
Fin de siécle
and millennium fever are upon us and the Whitney Museum of American
Art has appropriately decided to review this centurys American
art in a huge two-part exhibition that fills the entire museum.
The first part covers the first half of the
century and each of the museums five main floors are devoted
to a different decade. The exhibition, sponsored in large part
by the Intel Corporation, includes not only paintings, watercolors,
drawings and sculpture, but also movies, television, posters,
book covers, architectural renderings, models and furniture and
If the show has a major flaw, it is that it
is too ambitious and tries to cram too many disciplines together.
All the material is excellent and fascinating and the overviews
are fine, but the proliferation here is distracting although it
does provide good historical context. By including so much diverse
material, the selection process necessarily gets more severe and
what would have been better is to have a ten-part series, each
covering a decade, rather than two-part. Of course, that would
have been a vastly greater undertaking, even though worthwhile.
The present show, and its accompanying book of the same title,
written by curator Barbara Haskell and published by W. W. Norton
& Co., ($40, softcover), are therefore highly condensed, like
a freshman college introductory survey.
The exhibition wisely often offers more than
one example of an artists work, but cries out for more,
say twice as many, which would have made it rather definitive
as opposed to merely excellent. The great value of such sweeping
shows is that they offer fine opportunities for reassessments
of individual artists and for placing the "national"
achievements in a global perspective.
Many reviewers have taken the widely held view,
expressed in virtually all textbooks on the subject, that American
art did not really come into its own until the middle of the century
with the emergence of the New York School and Abstract Expressionism,
arguing that American art pales beside the dazzling innovations
of European art in the early part of the century.
That interpretation, however, is quite superficial
and trite even if it is true that the Post-Impressionists, Fauves,
Cubists, Surrealists and German Expressionists were far more daring
and experimental. In an otherwise scathing review of this exhibition
in The New York Observer, Hilton Kramer notes that no mention
is made of the great Armory Show of 1913 that introduced the European
avant-garde to America and greatly influenced many American artists
While this show is not likely to be as influential
as the Armory Show, it makes a strong case, which could even have
been made more strongly, that many American art of the first half
of the century was nothing to be ashamed about.
There are a few glaring omissions, Albert Pinkham
Ryder and Ralph Albert Blakelock, the great poetic artists, and
Augustus Tack, the modernist who was so admired by Duncan Phillips
who created his own wonderful museum in Washington, D.C., that
is perhaps the best museum in which to compare the art of America
and Europe from the late 19th to early 20th centuries. (Phillips,
incidentally, has many important Ryders.)
The show begins with some good but not sensational
paintings by Frank Benson, Childe Hassam, Edward Tarbell, and
Robert Henri (whose large portrait of the museums founder,
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, greets visitors as they get off the
elevator at the top floor).
While the pretty impressionism that was popular
at the turn of the century is good though subdued in comparison
to its European counterpart, it could occasionally be sensational
and as good, but the works included here do not demonstrate that.
Sadly, the show does not include major works by John Twachtman
and William Merritt Chase, Americas finest Impressionists,
nor Winslow Homer, Americas finest artist, and it could
have included better Hassams, perhaps one of his Fifth Avenue
"Flag" paintings. Twachtmans finest paintings,
for example, combine Impressionism and Whistlerian Tonalism with
a slightly Oriental design mentality and some of Homers
late marine scenes have the force of a tsunami. The first section,
however, does include a great painting of three women dancing
by Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Americans finest artist of refined
and ethereal women.
The Whitney show does pick up steam quickly,
however, in the rooms devoted to the "Ashcan" School
and the works of Henri and John Sloan, George Luks, William Glackens
among others. While Sloan and Glackens are shown to good effect,
Henri and Luks are not, unfortunately. Henri was an inconsistent
artist, but a very great teacher (whose book, "The Art Spirit,"
is must reading).
"'Because we are saturated with life because
we are human,' Henri wrote, 'our strongest motive is life, humanity;
and the stronger the motive back of a line, the stronger, and
therefore the more beautiful, the line will be....It isn't the
subject that cocunts, but what you feel about it,'" the catalogue
Luks is the most passionate of all American
artists but sadly his great Lower East Side pictures are not in
this show, although one of the most compelling works is his "Cakewalk,"
a 5 by 7 inch monotype in the collection of the Delaware Art Museum
in Wilmington. "Even George Luks, who prided himself on his
identification with the struggles of the working class, transformed
the crowded street scenes of the Lower East Side slums into bustling,
exotic pageants devoid of crime, overcrowding, or poverty,"
the catalogue observed.
The show includes several major urban scenes
by John Sloan that depict life on the rooftops and in the bars
but also some masterworks by other members of the Ash-Can School
who were not adverse to the delights of the upper classes such
as "The Shoppers," a fabulous, large painting by William
Glackens in the collection of the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk,
Va., and "Revue," an excellent theatrical work by Everett
Close by, however, are the great photographs
of the city's poor by Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine as well as scenes
from many early movies.
Several rooms on the musuem's redone top floor
are magnificent and display thematically related works, in particularly
one in which fine harbor scenes by Jonas Lie, William Glackens
and Leon Kroll are displayed.
Early American moderns hold up very well. Marsden
Hartley, Max Weber and Joseph Stella have knockout paintings in
the exhibition as does Georgia OKeefe. Webers large
Cubist work, "Chinese Restaurant," shown at the top
of this article, is superb and the others manifest individual
visions of great power and originality that cannot be diminished
by any European comparison. A small watercolor, "Morning
Sky," shown above, by O'Keefe, is one of the show's more
startling works as it predates Rothko by several decades. "Painting
Number 5," by Marsden Hartley, shown below, is one of the
artists's celebrated series of large abstract works inspired by
his infatuation with the military while in Germany. It is one
of the great paintings of the century of any continent.
John Marin, whose dazzling and colorful abstractions
of New York are well represented, and Stuart Davis are included
but not adequately enough, although such artists as Oscar Bluemner,
Manierre Dawson, Stanton Macdonald-Wright and George L. K. Morris
Lewis are shown to great advantage as is Man Ray. Macdonald-Wright's
"Oriental," show above is a fine example of his Synchronist
style that combines with great originality influences of Cubism
and Futurism in a very dynamic fashion.One of the most stunning
paintings in the exhibition is Dawson's "Prognostic,"
a 1910 work in the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum.
Man Ray is too often overlooked,
but is well represented in this exhibition by the bold small sculpture,
"New York," shown above, and a splendid series of six
exquisite collages from his 1916-7 "Revolving Door"
Edward Steichens paintings are very rare
and very fine and always interesting, but here he is represented
by his photography. Many of his paintings are tonalist and extremely
evocative. His "Moonrise - Mamaroneck, New York," a
1904 platinum, cyanotype and ferroprussiate print is as lyrical
as the greatest Impressionist paintings. Indeed, tonalism is given
rather short shrift here sadly and remains much underappreciated.
Steichen's photography, of course, is fabulous and the show includes
several good examples including one of the Brooklyn Bridge. The
show does an admirably job of highlighting the greatest of American
photographers in the first half of the century with outstanding
work by Paul Strand, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, F. Holland
Day, Alfred Steiglitz, and Alvin Langdon Coburn, most of whom
had a fascination for the city of skyscrapers and the Machine
Such concerns were very much on the minds of
American painters during the the Jazz Age and the Depression and
works by Thomas Hart Benton and Ben Shahn are still undervalued
by most historians and collectors. Bentons sinuous style
consistently lends wonderful energy to his strong compositions
and his skills as a muralist have unfairly been eclipsed by the
academicians who have been obsessed with the fine but not as great
Mexican muralists. Benton has also suffered from the Regionalist
label also borne by John Stewart Curry, who is not a particularly
good artist, and by Grant Wood, a very fine but not very productive
artist. Shahn, on the other hand, the subject of a fine recent
show of the Jewish Museum, is a marvelous artist whose vibrant
illustrative facility deserved much more attention in this show.
While many critics have put
down much American Art of the first half of the century as derivative
that interpretation is unfair as sometimes great works in certain
styles are not done by the style's originator but the followers.
"Nautical Composition," shown above, by George L. K.
Morris is an abstract composition with traces of Cubism and the
style of Léger as imaginable, but it is simply fine on
Charles Demuth is represented by several of
his justly celebrated masterworks, such as "My Egypt,"
and "The Figure 5 in Gold," while his equally famous
contemporary, Charles Sheeler, is represented by a lesser known
but not less compelling work, "Church Street El," shown
The show's chronological approach
is a little awkward when it comes to the New York School of Abstract
Expressionists who became so famous and influential in the second
half of the century but whose origins were in the 1940's. Robert
Motherwell and Willem de Kooning are represented in the show with
interesting and important works and perhaps the most striking
painting in the exhibition of this period is the very bold work,
shown below, by Arshile Gorky, from 1936 and 1937.
The objects in the show come from many collections
and afford the visitor an opportunity to see many masterpieces
familiar only from textbooks on the subject.
Among the many other outstanding works are
"The Chrysler Building, Under Construction," by Earle
Horter, Joseph Stella's "Prestigitator," John Covert's
"Resurrection," John Storr's "Forms in Space,"
George Ault's "Sullivan Street Abstraction," Gerald
Murphy's "Watch," Edward Hopper's "Early Sunday
Morning," John Ferren's "Composition on Green,"
Paul Kelpe's "Untitled," Alice Trumbull Mason's "Brown
Shapes White," Emil Bisttram's "Two Cells at Play,"
and Clyfford Still's "Untitled."
The show's major stars are Edward Hopper, Joseph
Stella, Charles Demuth, William Glackens, Marsden Hartley and
Edward Steichen. Arthur Dove, Arthur B. Davies, John Marin, Robert
Henri, Charles Sheeler, could have been better represented, but
the Whitney deserves great credit for including so many lesser
known artists, such as Ferren, Ault, Covert and Horter.
The catalogue's text is rich in themes, material
and perspectives and provides a superb overview of the nation's
cultural interests and experiments. From social concerns to pictorial
ideals, the gamut of American Art in the 20th Century resists
oversimplification and the chronological notion of the show is
artificial: artists do not wake up one morning in a new century
with a new style, or inspiration, at least not all. While not
encyclopedic in its scope, this show is, nonetheless, very impressive
and its catalogue should be acquired by everyone as it is nostalgic,
provocative, interesting and rather overwhelming, even if not
definitive. It would have been nice if the catalogue had included
brief biographies of the artists.
Hopefully, the exhibition will make some people
take notice that there was lots of very fine American art before