Vida Americana: Mexican/American Connections

The Vida Americana Show at the Whitney Museum of American Art (on view through January 31, 2021), features three artists we represent: Ben Shahn, Mitchell Siporin, and Harry Sternberg. In addition we're showing work by artists who are Mexican, Francisco Mora and Francisco Toledo, artists who traveled to Mexico or even, as in the case of Doris Rosenthal, established residences there, as well as work that shows the impact of this powerful moment.

 

                                  Judith Shahn, Bus Parking Lot, Mexico City, 1950

This is the link for the Gallery's Mexican/American Connections page:

http://www.susantellergallery.com/cgi/STG_art.pl?artist=vida

 

Vida Americana: Mural Studies

 The Vida Americana show at the Whitney Museum of Art inspired us to re-visit our own collection of American mural studies. They range from the Samuel Greeenburg 1940s rural scene at 6 x 8 to the 1940 Hugh Mesibov, Life of a Miner, at 63 inches. Some are early suggestions such as Louis Schanker's drawings for the World's Fair Mural, 1939, while others like Mordi Gassner's Coca Cola, a private submission of 1932, are finished in fine detail.

 

 

                            Harry Sternberg, Detail, Steel, 1937 

 

 

Link for the Gallery's Mural Studies page:

http://www.susantellergallery.com/cgi/STG_art.pl?artist=murals

 

Vida Americana: Racial Strife.

Please note that these images are disturbing.

The horrific phenomenon of lynching runs through the Vida Americana Show at the Whitney Museum of American Art. 

Our works were acquired over several decades. The artists range from the African-American New Yorker Vernon Poindexter and the Massachusetts-based Italian-American Umberto Romano, to the Cleveland-born Marion Campbell Kronfeld, who worked in Los Angeles, and Michael J. Gallagher, from the Pennsylvania coal fields.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marian Campbell Kronfeld, Detail: Pieta, about 1940

 

                               

 

This is the link to our Vida Americana: Racial Strife page:

http://www.susantellergallery.com/cgi/STG_art.pl?artist=strife

 

IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair, 2020

 

Today is the last day of the IFPDA online virtual Print Fair available through Artsy. This past Friday we were so pleased to be included in ‘Swoon’s IFPDA’s Fine Art Print Fair Online Picks.’ Swoon, the artist Caledonia Curry, featured our Blanche Grambs lithograph Unemployed (also titled Depression), of 1935. She commented “The place where rest meets grief.” Definitely Grambs would have appreciated that. Thank you Swoon.

 

                                Blanche Grambs, Unemployed (also titled Depression), 1935
 

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IFPDA Online Print Fair, Autumn, 2020

 

The Susan Teller Gallery is participating in the IFPDA Online Fine Art Print Fair, Online, Fall 2020, from October 7 through November 1. 

 

Here is the link:

https://www.artsy.net/show/susan-teller-gallery-susan-teller-gallery-at-ifpda-fine-art-print-fair-online-fall-2020

 

 

                                         Harry Sternberg, Pablo Picasso, 1944

 

 

Naturally we are remembering the many IFPDA fairs at the Park Avenue Armory (two with interruptions) and the recent three at the Javits Center and wishing we could be there welcoming visitors. But this year there is a pandemic and we are all adapting as well as we can.

 

For the 2020 virtual fair we are featuring figurative work from between the wars – including the new Deal Era -- with prints by Peggy Bacon, Michael J. Gallagher, Riva Helfond, Angelo Pinto, Salvatore Pinto, and Harry Sternberg. There are modernist works by William Baziotes, Howard Daum, Sue Fuller, Peter Grippe, Stanley William Hayter, Fannie Hillsmith, Kett, Dorothy Browdy Kushner, Hugh Mesibov, Betty Waldo Parish, Bernard Rosenquit, Anne Ryan, Louis Schanker, Karl Schrag, and Ansei Uchima. 

 

 

 

 

 

#printfair #IFPDA #IFPDAprintfair #collectprints #newdeal #WPA #modernism #PeggyBacon #MichaelJGallagher #RivaHelfond #AngeloPinto, #SalvatorePinto, and #HarrySternberg. There are modernist works by #WilliamBaziotes #HowardDaum #Sue Fuller #PeterGrippe #StanleyWilliamHayter #FannieHillsmith #Kett #DorothyBrowdyKushne #HughMesibov #BettyWaldoParish #BernardRosenquit #AnneRyan #LouisSchanker #KarlSchrag #AnseiUchima. 

THE IRASCIBLES

Seventy years ago tomorrow, May 20, 1950, the New York Times published a letter to Roland L. Redmond, President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It protested the selection of the museum’s ‘American Painting Today -- 1950’ exhibition and was signed by eighteen American painters, including William Baziotes, as well as ten sculptors, including Peter Grippe.

 

William Baziotes, Clown and Clock, 1943-46

The group was critical of the makeup of the juries: Among the jurists were Charles Burchfield, Yasuo Kuniyoshi and Millard Sheets. The next day, May 21, a competing paper, The Herald Tribune, published an article, presumably by their art critic Emily Genauer, defending the Museum and calling the protestors ‘The Irascible 18.’

Peter Grippe, Daley Brothers' Moving, 1944

On July 3, 1950, seventy-five artists issued a statement defending the museum. Among them were Will Barnet, Philip Evergood, Reginald Marsh, and Harry Sternberg. 

Detail of Nina Leen's photograph for Life Magazine, with identification.

Generally now known as the New York School, most of the protestors were photographed by Nina Leen for Life Magazine’s January 15, 1951, issue. It was Barnett Newman (who also largely composed the letter), who suggested that they should look like bankers.

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Women March at the NY Historical Society

Women March at the New-York Historical Society commemorates the centennial of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment that granted women the right to vote in 1920. It explores the effort women made to expand democracy before and after the suffrage victory and was curated by Valerie Paley, senior vice president, historian, and director of the museum’s Center for Women’s History.

Riva Helfond, Curtain Factory, 1937

This multi-media serious and yet joyful extravaganza begins with banners and pamphlets from the 1820s through the nineteenth century when the Abolitionists and Suffragettes were closely aligned and the Wyoming Territory was the first to give women the vote in 1869. (Surely that’s not the only thing I remember from high school?) Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton through the National Woman Suffrage Association and Lucy Stone through the American Woman Suffrage Association were special heroes of the drive. After successes in several western states (perhaps prompted by the pragmatic notion that women might migrate to places where they were needed and would be appreciated?), the movement was revitalized in the 1910s. The installation has numerous photographs and films of this period featuring marches with hundreds and hundreds of women of diverse classes, races, and generations, in shoe-length white dresses, in endless rows – they are determined, very brave, and so dignified.

Installation shot: Antoinette Mauro upper left and center of lower left.

In the 1930s, during the era of the Great Depression, the groups supported the labor movement as sweatshops employed thousands of women largely as sewing machine operators. It is in this part of the show that Riva Helfond’s monumental painting Curtain Factory, 1937, appears. It’s amazing to come upon it – a sensitive and touching view of piece-work employment in a claustrophobic sweatshop environment. It stands out so clearly among the other mediums and moving images of the film pieces – all in black and white until that point. Just past the Helfond is an area dedicated to women who took jobs in industries making equipment and munitions for the war effort. Antoinette Mauro is shown with her colleagues and her actual drafting set. In the 1940s the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a huge, huge employer, hired its first woman factory employee.

Installation shot

Even as jobs were given up to returning soldiers, the 1950s set the stage for large numbers of women to further their educations and enter the workforce in the 1960s, paving the way for the demand for reproductive rights, childcare, feminism, and the eventually the #MeToo movement. The show ends with more contemporary memorabilia including a Gorilla Girl mask, a deep pink pussy hat, and hand-made posters (my favorite: If you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention), as well as footage of recent marches. Of course these are in color, the clothing is certainly not white, and there aren’t any of the seemingly endless, orderly rows of a century ago. The determination and the camaraderie are still there though.

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BARNES TALK ON ANGELO PINTO'S BATHERS ON THE BOARDWALK, 1944

Tomorrow, February 19, from 3 to 3:30, there will be a talk by Virginia Duncan, a graduate student in art history at the University of Pennsylvania, at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Ms. Duncan will be discussing the Angelo Pinto's reverse painting on glass, Bathers on the Boardwalk, 1944, as part of the Institute’s In Focus Gallery Talks series. This subject dates to the period when the artist and his extended family spent summers at the Jersey Shore.

Angelo Pinto, Bathers on the Boardwalk, 1944

Showing here is our preparatory drawing for the Barnes’ work, a gouache on paper. It’s interesting to see that the composition is basically ‘flopped’ with the building and pier and the green-suited figure both on the left of the Barnes’ version. Of course this makes sense if the artist was following his composition and we are seeing it from the back as it were. Could there be a more difficult technique? 

Our drawing has two additional figures on the sand, below the boardwalk level.

Naturally I wish I could be there. If anyone has an opportunity to attend – comments would be most welcome.

#Angelopinto #Barnes #Barnesfoundation #reversepaintingonglass #paintingonglass #boardwalk #Jerseyshore #philadelphia #Barnesphiladelphia

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