Beverly Hall Smith

Looking at the Masters: Julie Buffalohead

July 9, 2020 by Beverly Hall Smith Leave a Comment

Julie Buffalohead’s parents are college professors, and she grew up knowing writers, poets and artists. Her mother is white and her father, Director of American Indian Studies Department at the University of Minnesota, is a Ponca Indian. Although she is biracial, she identifies with her father and says her tribe is Ponca; “I go by what my father taught.” “When I was younger, drawing and being bookish was a way to gain energy.” At five years old she started drawing animaIs, and in school she took drawing classes. “When I got to college, I knew I would do something in arts for the rest of my life.” In 1995, she received a BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She worked with elementary school students while completing her MFA in 2001 from Cornell University. Her MFA mentor was Kay Walkingstick, a well known American Indian artist.

Buffalohead’s art is a mixture of many elements. Much of her imagery comes from tribal stories she heard as a child: “I’ve always been attracted to trickster characters in Native belief systems because they’re so opposite to Judeo-Christian values. Judeo-Christian tends to be about good and evil, and it talks a lot about how you do this and it’s good, or you do that and it’s bad. And what coyotes and rabbits, who represent tricksters, do is really in the gray. It’s about doing both those things. It’s about having characteristics that make up good and evil, and it’s OK to be a blend of both.” Tricksters “represent to Native people what it really means to be human. It’s not just black and white — you’re many things. You’re all things. I use a lot of characters that are in my tribal stories, adding in a little bit of chaos, a sort of homage to my Native upbringing. “

Her paintings are generally small, ranging from 20 to 30 inches, and her painting style can be described as delicate. “I’m a perfectionist; I have this battle in my brain about what I’m making and translating and how it looks aesthetically. Being an artist is like being a writer. You pre-write and write and edit and edit again.” She describes her imagery as “so personal it’s hard to think about the viewer, but I try to be provocative. I use stereotypes because Indians didn’t have a hand in creating them. It’s my way of saying ‘this is not who we are.’ This is your invention.” According the Buffalohead, Indian stories are passed down from generation to generation. Each person who inherits the story changes it. Interpretations of her painting are left up to the individual whether they know the stories or not. When this article gives a meaning to the many Native American figures, they are compiled from several reference sources.

Are You a Good Witch or a Bad Witch? (2010)

Buffalohead grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis with familiar American toys, TV shows, movies, commercials, news and politics of the time. “Are you the Good Witch of the Bad Witch? (2010) [20’’X30’’), illustrates her mixing of Indian and American themes. Glenda the Good Witch, a character from the “Wizard of Oz,” holds up her hand to stop Coyote and to question his intentions, much as we might do to those different from us. With her are the identifiable toys of childhood: a Ninja Turtle with a weapon, Elmo, Sponge Bob Square Pants, Hello Kitty, a plush rabbit, My Little Pony and two cupcakes. These American icons may need protection. Coyote walks upright like a human and holds a broom representing the American idea that witches fly on them. With him are a fallen Snoopy holding an assault rifle, a yellow toy dump truck, a Star Wars All Terrain Armored Transport and a Smiley Face white cylinder; not toilet paper. All of her images intentionally appear as children’s story illustrations. She sends her message to us in a soft and non-threatening way. However, the message is clear. It is easy to jump to conclusions about people who don’t look like us or act like us.

If You Make this World Bad and Ugly (2014)

“If You Make this World Bad and Ugly” (2014) (25’’ x 37’’) portrays another of Buffalohead’s themes. American Indians, as do many of us, seek to preserve nature and the environment. A Lakota creation story tells that the creator made the world twice and destroyed it twice because humans were not acting as humans. Buffalohead suggests in this work that the world may need to be destroyed and remade once again. Otter represents female energy and is balanced between water and earth. Otters are seen to be playful and joyful. They approach strangers from curiosity and friendship. They will never attack but will defend. Otter is playing with a silhouette puppet of a suited man. With Otter is Turtle, who represents the story of creation. Turtle was the first to reach land from the water and carries the new born earth on its back. Rabbits are fearful of almost everything, and it is the Native belief that you are always the cause of what happens to you. Owls have second sight and can see in the dark and the light. They are the essential image of wisdom. Geese fly south during cold weather. These animals all sense something is out of balance. Oil wells loom across the entire background. Fossil fuel is endangering our climate.

Queen Isabella (2014)

Native Americans were displaced by Europeans conquerors. “Queen Isabella” (2014) (13.5’’x 30.25’’), reminds us of how this process began. Ravens are magical and are thought to be messengers. Their feathers are iridescent and therefore appear to change color and shape, revealing both outer and inner truth. They are said to give a person courage to change their outlook and go fearlessly into the future. Raven reminds us of carnivals in our childhood when we caught gold fish and brought them home in a plastic bag filled with water. He has captured the Santa Maria and holds it closed in the plastic bag. Queen Isabella is a large fearful rabbit and does not want to take the boat in the bag. She is not changing her outlook. She holds tight to a medicine wheel meant to protect the owner. The medicine wheel has four cross pieces representing north, south, east and west. The medicine comes from the four directions which multiplies this gift. Four colors form the wheel. Each color represents the great power possessed by of eagles. Yellow is the eagle of the east and represents the far sight of the east. Red is the eagle of the south and he is far sighted and innocent of heart. White represents the eagle of the north and his far sightedness derived from the ancient knowledge. Black is the eagle of the west whose far sightedness comes from introspection. Isabella holds tight to the medicine wheel for her protection. Ironically it is the Indian population of America that will be decimated by European disease.

Julie Buffalohead’s work illustrates many other themes as well. Using her children’s illustration style she depicts her personal feeling of inadequacy. She uses disguises, usually as a coyote in a dress, to be able to speak for her. She holds Coyote as her personal symbol. Her titles are indicative of these memories of childhood. “Tea Party One”, “Tea Party Two”, and “Tea Party Three” (2008), “Dress Up” (2008), and “Mine” (2005). Examples of various themes include “Turn a Blind Eye” (2014), which speaks of domestic violence; and “You are on Indian Land” (2017), is political and refers to the Dakota Pipeline. There is also “Why I Hate Bras” (2018).

She still is a young working artist with much to say to us. “I’m interested in all the philosophy and the things that go behind these stories. I use them as guide and way to tell my story. Every person who inherits the story changes it. So you end up with very different stories than when you began, but you still maintain something about the worldview that remains the same.” In a 2019 interview she was asked her thoughts on the current state of Native art: “I wish we would start seeing Native artists represented internationally.” She is referring to contemporary Native Art which are“not often given the chance, because people want to see Native people as part of the past.”

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years. Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown six years ago, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and Chesapeake College’s Institute for Adult Learning. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

Looking at the Masters: James Abbott McNeill Whistler

July 2, 2020 by Beverly Hall Smith Leave a Comment

James Whistler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts to Anna McNeill and George Washington Whistler. He was described as insolent, with a tendency to fits, having spats of illness and being lazy. The only thing that calmed him was drawing. His mother, of the McNeill’s of Scotland who sided with Charles Stuart in 1746 and fled to North Carolina, was the subject of Whistler’s iconic portrait. His father, George Washington Whistler, a West Point graduate and a highly respected railroad engineer, was responsible for several major railroad and canal innovations. He designed the first steam locomotive built in New England, and he was the first to add whistles. Among many supervisory positions with several American railroad and canal companies, he supervised laying the first passenger railway track in America for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

In 1843, Czar Nicholas I of Russia made George Whistler the supervising engineer for the St Petersburg to Moscow railroad. The family moved to St. Petersburg, where James took art lessons at the Imperial Academy of Arts. The Whistler’s, all but George, went to London to visit family in1848. Whistler’s father and his uncle in London encouraged James’s talent. In 1849, at the age of fifteen, James wrote to his father in Russia, “I hope, dear father, you will not object to my choice.” He had decided art was his calling. Unfortunately his father died of cholera in April 1849, before having time to answer his son’s letter.

The family moved back to American. His mother wanted James to pursue the ministry; instead he enrolled in West Point. Not a success, he was expelled with too many demerits and later said, “If silicon had been a gas, I would have been a general.” He lived briefly in Baltimore where he set up a studio, but left for Paris in1855. Whistler chose a Bohemian lifestyle and met the major artists of the time, including those soon to be known as Impressionists. He cultivated the persona and image of a dandy. “Early in life I made the discovery that I was charming, and if one is delightful, one has to thrust the world away to keep from being bored to death.” Degas said of Whistler, “If you were not a genius, you would be the most ridiculous man in Paris.” As part of his unique persona Whistler signed his works with a butterfly, a device he designed to emulate the chop signatures of Japanese printmakers, whom he greatly admired.

Whistler apparently knew himself well. He was acquainted with and admired the Impressionists, but went his own way. He was very literate and wrote often about his life and his work. He was ostentatious, contentious and controversial, and this often got him into serious trouble. From the beginning his art was criticized. “Symphony in White No. 1 (1862) in the National Gallery of Art, was rejected from the official French Academy, but was included in the famous 1863 Salon de Refuse, where Manet’s “Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe” was the great scandal. Having been rejected again by the French critics and Academy, Whistler returned to London where he lived with his mother. He moved between London and Paris for the remainder of his life.

1872, “Nocturne: Blue and Silver, Cremona Lights

He began painting his nocturnes in 1866. Whistler thought of painting as ‘’Art for Art’s Sake,’’ a theory that was developing at the time. Artists did not have to duplicate objects in nature but should express their personal and emotional response to it, much in the way music does. He was good friends with the composer Debussy and the poet, Mallarme. He wrote, “Nature contains the elements, in color and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard contains the notes of all music. But the artist is born to pick, and choose, and group with science, these elements that the results may be beautiful – as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords, until he brings forth from chaos glorious harmony.” The nocturnes were moonlight paintings, rarely attempted by any artists. His friend and patron, Frederick Leyland, suggested the term nocturne, and Whistler thanked him for it. “It does poetically say all I want to say and no more than I wish.”

1875, “Nocturne in Black and Gold, The Fire Wheel

“Nocturne in Black and Gold, The Fire Wheel” (1875) was Whistler’s impression of the famous Cremone Garden’s during one of their nightly fireworks displays. Cremone Garden was an extremely popular pleasure garden for fashionable people offering restaurants, entertainment, balloon ascents, dancing and an indoor bowling alley. Patrons entered by taking a boat on the Thames to Cremone Pier or through the north gate on Kings’ Road. The iron work gate was enriched with garnet and cut-glass drops, luster circles and gas jets. The main pavilion was 360 feet in circumference and encrusted with gas jets and more than forty plate glass mirrors in black frames. The pagoda for the orchestra was adorned with seventeen gas lit chandeliers. Whistler lived and worked in Chelsea, and could look down from his balcony at this scene.

Whistler painted six nocturnes of Cremone Garden. The nightly fireworks display was held in the Gypsy Grotto. “The Fire Wheel”, was named after Saint Catherine. It took him a long time to develop a technique for the nocturnes. His paintings were meticulous, and he often viewed his work reflected in a mirror to check details. He developed a specific oil solution for the nocturnes, thinning it with copal, turpentine and linseed oil, until it reached a thin state to paint quickly in transparent layers. He called it a sauce. He wiped the layers as needed and perfected a spatter and drip technique to create the sparkle of fireworks. Whistler strove to create nuanced, intimate moments. Depicting a detailed reality was never his goal. As he stated “If reality is the goal the king of artists would be the photographer.”

1875 “Nocturne in Black and Gold, Falling Rockets”

“Nocturne in Black and Gold, Falling Rockets” (1875) was exhibited in 1877 at the Grosvernor Gallery, an alternative to the Royal Academy exhibitions. The well respected art critic, John Ruskin, wrote a scathing review. The “gallerist ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of willful imposture. I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a port of paint in the public’s face.”

Fireworks indeed! Whistler had a writ for libel served on Ruskin hoping to be awarded 1000 pounds and costs from the jury for the libel. It took a year for the case to come to court at the Old Bailey, as a result of Ruskin having suffered bouts of mental illness. The case was heard on November 25 and 26, 1878. Unfortunately the 24 by 18 inch painting was first hung upside down at the trial. Whistler was asked “Did it take much time to paint the Nocturne in Black and Gold. How soon did you knock it off?” Whistler replied, “Oh, I ‘knocked it off’ possibly in a couple of days – one day to do the work and another to finish it…” Next questions “The labour of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?” Whistler: “No, I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime.” Testimony was rendered on both sides of the issue; in the end, the court decided Whistler was correct, and Ruskin’s article was libelous. However, in determining the value of the libel to Whistler’s reputation, the damages awarded to him was one farthing, and he was to pay his own court costs. Ruskin’s friends paid his costs, but Whistler was ruined. He even had to sell his house.

Those who have visited Whistler’s “Peacock Room” at the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C., may remember it was commissioned by the same earlier mentioned Frederick Leyland for his house in London. It was the cause of another famous Whistler controversy. Fortunately Whistler survived them both and continued his career. In 1879, he was commissioned by the Fine Art Society of London to make a series of Venetian prints. These and his later works were a success, and his earlier highly criticized work began to be appreciated and accepted. In 1885, he delivered his famous Ten O’clock Lectures at Prince’s Hall in London and then at Oxford and Cambridge. In 1890, he published Whistler vs Ruskin: Art and Art Critics, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, and in 1891, with the help of the poet Mallarme, the French government purchased “Whistler’s Mother”. It was the first work by an American artist purchased by the French Government.

Today Whistler is considered a major artist responsible for helping to re-shape the art world and bringing it forward into the Twentieth Century. Whistler’s cousin and friend, Ralph Curtis, an American painting in Venice summed up Whistler in a most appropriate manner: He “concedes nothing…his attitude of art, to himself, to the public, and to his rivals, past and living, never changed. Applauded or booed, he ever remained with same high aesthetic ideals, and the same shrewd eye to business…ultra-exclusive aristocrat…few did he design to recognize as “brothers”.

Looking at the Masters: Juan Munoz

June 25, 2020 by Beverly Hall Smith

Juan Munoz grew up during the repressive regime of Francisco Franco [1939-1975]. Bored with school, Munoz was expelled; a tutor was hired for him and his brother. Fortunately the tutor was a poet and an art critic who covered the usual curriculum, but also introduced Juan to the world of art. He intended to study architecture in Madrid; however, in 1970, he ran away to London to escape the Franco regime and to study. He stated “I traveled a lot and produced very little. Much later in 1982 or ’83, when I returned to Spain, I stopped traveling and finally set up a studio. That’s when I started making objects.”

His early works were of “dwarves, mannequins and ballerinas.” This choice of subject matter reflects Munoz’s self-described sense of isolation and “displacement.” He wrote that he “always felt outside of the main stream.” As a Spanish artist, his choice of dwarves also reflected the seventeenth Century Spanish tradition to keep them as companions to royal children. Portraits of dwarves were frequent. The well known Spanish master, Velasquez, painted several. Both artists portrayed dwarves with dignity and respect, not as pets.

Munoz received a Fulbright Scholarship (1981-82) through the North American Spanish Community to study painting at the Pratt Institute in New York. While in New York City he was artist-in-residence at P.S.1, the New York public school noted for the arts. To earn additional money to support his wife and children, he worked as a waiter. Returning to Spain in 1985, he began to include simple architectural settings for his sculpture figures.

After a 1991 trip to Rome, to study ancient Roman and Baroque architecture, he frequently included architectural settings. Many are distorted settings with bent chairs and benches, falling floors, chairs with his figures hanging from the wall, and in varying scales to create physiological tensions. His human figures, mostly male, are slightly smaller than life-size, all gray in color and wear coats and jackets. Most figures are smiling. What are they smiling about? Munoz arranged the figures in small and large groups, sometimes as many as 50. Viewers are intended to walk among the figures and engage with them. There is always a conversation happening. Munoz is a storyteller, setting up narrative situations.

1994-95 Last Conversation

“Last Conversation Piece” (1994-95) is so named because it was the last in a series of works called conversation pieces. In it Munoz employs a second figure type. The arms and heads are close to reality but the body from waist down is distinctly non-human. They resemble feather pillow or bean bags, but are cast bronze and very heavy. Three figures are grouped together in a conversation which from one point of view looks friendly. One leans in to whisper in another’s ear while giving him a pat on the back. With their big round bottoms they are hilarious and may remind one of Weeble Wobbles, Hasbro Playskool toys, children shaped like eggs but balanced in a way to always remained upright. The figure on the left wants to become a part of the group. Does he simply want to join his friends or does he feel left out, isolated? He seems determined to get to the others, and we image him rolling across the lawn to join the group. Will he make it? The other figure on the right looks on and may or may not feel excluded, and he seems in no great hurry. Munoz often intended to show the “poignant isolation of the individual amongst a crowd.”

1994-95 Last Conversation Detail

Munoz is a storyteller, setting the stage for numerous interpretations. When one walks onto the lawn and actually engages with the figures, new ideas emerge. It becomes apparent that the three figures are not engaged in friendly conversation, but in disagreement. One figure pulls on the other’s robe, and the other, who is patting his companion on the back, now looks surprised. The two other figures have a different dynamic. The attempted movement of the figure to the left now seems more urgent. Is he trying to intervene and prevent future unpleasantness, and on which side is he? The figure on the right remains distant and is as enigma.

2000 Two Seated on the Wall

Munoz said he was “fascinated by the ‘’otherness’’ of the figure.” He intended the “sense of ambiguity and enigma, in which the boundaries between reality and fiction are blurred, creating an increasingly complex play of contradictions and paradoxes.” He did not intend one interpretation for his pieces, but many.

Munoz realized that his works contained both peace and violence. “The violence had to do with my memory and with my fascination. People who have experienced violence are activated by violence.” Although he does not seem to speak about it directly, the violence he most likely referred to was his childhood in Franco’s Spain. “For years I used to carry a switchblade in my pocket wherever I went. I’d have my hand in my pocket and I would be touching this knife. It was about an inner violence that I always had inside. I eventually stopped carrying this knife because I realized that it was getting a little neurotic, and I shifted to a deck of cards.”

The term conversation is defined as “talking together, informal or familiar talk, verbal exchange of ideas, information, etc.” At this particular time in America, conversations are important, particularly conversations which exchange thoughtful ideas and truthful information. Today we are witness to both peaceful and violent conversations. Munoz’s “Last Conversation Piece” causes us to think about our current situation and our current conversations. We need to be thoughtful, we need find truth, and mostly we need to find reconciliation.

Munoz died suddenly in 2001. He was forty-six. The London Guardian wrote that Munoz “was the most significant of the great generation of artists to achieve maturity in post-Franco Spain, and one of the most complex and individual artists working today. Munoz has died at the height of his powers.”

Looking at the Masters: Faith Ringgold

June 18, 2020 by Beverly Hall Smith

Faith Ringgold grew up in culturally rich Haarlem with artists W.E.B. Dubois, James Baldwin, Sonny Rollins and Aaron Douglas, to name a few. Her mother was a seamstress and fashion designer whose quilts and sewing skills would inspire her daughter. Faith’s aspiration was to be an artist, and the people she contacted were “living examples of the endless possibilities for creativity that art could offer.” Ringgold participated through her art projects in protests for civil rights and women’s rights. An African-American woman and a woman artist starting in the 1960’s, she was aware she had two strikes against her. She also recognized that her “classical tradition was African not Greek.”

1967 The Flag is Bleeding, 72”x 96”

“I became fascinated with the ability of art to document the time, place, and cultural identity of the artist. How could I, as an African American woman artist, document what was happening around me?” “For me it is important to make work about peril if it’s your story. One can find beauty in horror that you can share through your art and ideally effect change.” Her first series, painted from 1963 through 1967, was called American People. Works in this series made direct reference to the race riots of the time. “The Flag is Bleeding” (1967) is one of that series. In 1972, she was arrested at an exhibition for desecrating the flag. Ringgold began changing her focus to issues facing women and women artists. In 1971 she was co-founder of Where We At?, a group of African-American women artists. “The Long Road” (1972) was a mural for the Women’s House of Detention at Riker’s Island. In 1974, Ringgold was a founding member of the National Black Feminist Organization.

1972 The Long Road, Riker’s Island

n 1973, Ringgold resigned from teaching in the public schools in New York to devote all of her time to making art. With her mother, Wille Posey, she started making soft sculpture, African inspired masks and life size dolls. “Buba and Beba, Wake and Resurrection of the Bicentennial Negro” (1976 ) was a performance piece with music, singing and dance. Students from Wilson College, a liberal arts college in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where Ringgold was artist-in-residence, wore a series of masks made by Ringgold and her mother. Viewers of the performance were invited to participate. The purpose of the performance as described by Ringgold was to enact an African belief that ancestors were held in a state of limbo until they could be released with singing and dancing. They then would “return to the community in search of a new life.” Slavery was represented by cowrie shells in Beba’s hair and the cotton balls which surround the figures. The story she imaged was that the deceased were Buba who died of an overdose, and his wife Beba who died of grief. Ringgold wrote Buba would be resurrected as a “more sensitive man without dependence on drugs, and Beba becomes a new woman liberated and aware.” The standing figures “Moma and Nana” are the mourners who also will participate in the joy of resurrection. Although a piece about death, it was also about a new life and new hope. Ringgold imagined this work having a happy ending.

1976 Buba and Beba, Wake and Resurrection of the Bicentennial Negro

The original intention of this article a celebration of Juneteenth, the end of slavery in 1865, and a joyful work by Ringgold was selected. George Floyd’s murder and the enormous ground swell for reform and change made that image seem appropriate. However, the murder of Rayshard Brooks brought the 1976 Ringgold work to mind. On seeing this image for the first time, a viewer today could likely not see anything positive. Without the joyful performance that went with it, or knowing Ringgold imagined a happy ending, this could be dated 2020. Civil rights legislation was enacted in 1964, but African-American men and women are still being mourned by their mothers, family and friends. We need to keep the pressure on to see the much needed positive change, and we must vote in November.

Looking at the Masters: Emile Hansen Nolde

June 11, 2020 by Beverly Hall Smith

Emile Nolde is one of the best known German Expressionist artists. Expressionism was one of several early twentieth century art movements. Artists such as Munch and Kandinsky, wanted their work to express their personal, emotional response to nature and to the human situation, rather than simply to reproduce realistically what they saw. A significant inspiration for the expressionists was primitive art from Africa and the South Pacific, newly available in Paris. They recognized an elemental human response was missing in European art. Nolde wrote, “What looks convincingly true to nature in the old painting is infinitely removed from it.” Expressionists exaggerated color, distorted the figure, ignored natural light and three-dimensional space, and they sought to cause the viewer to reach an emotional rather than an intellectual response. Nolde’s visits to the Ethnological Museum in Paris, and 1913 trip to the South Pacific which passed through Russia, China, Java and Burma was his major influence. In his autobiography he wrote, “primitive men live in their nature: they are one with it and part of the entire universe. I sometimes have the feeling that they are the only real human beings left, while we are something like malformed marionettes, artificial and full of presumption.”

”unpainted picture” – watercolor

Born in Nolde, a town on the Danish/German border, he grew up with the legends of the Norse gods, which must have conflicted intellectually with his extremely rigid Protestant upbringing. His parents were simple peasants and they did not understand his desire to be an artist. As a compromise, he studied to be a woodcarver and an illustrator. He worked in several furniture factories and taught drawing. In 1898, his application to the Munich Academy was rejected and in 1899, he was unsuccessful as a student at the Academia Julien in Paris.

Marsh Landscape Evening, watercolor

He was determined to become a painter and more specifically to represent a new German art. By 1900, he developed an intimate and mystically inspired association with nature: “I had an infinite number of visions at this time, for wherever I turned my eyes, nature, the sky, the clouds were alive; in each stone and in the branches of every tree, everywhere my figures stirred and lived there still or wildly animated life, and they aroused my enthusiasm as well as tormented me with their demands that I paint them.” On another occasion he wrote his fiancé that “The wind began to blow, the clouds grew wild and dark, a storm blew up, and the grayish sand was whirling high above the dunes and the houses. A raging storm _ then suddenly my brush ripper through the canvas. I came back to myself, I looked around me: the sun was still beautiful and calm; I had lived through a storm in my imagination and been carried away…The picture was gone. That’s the kind of thing that happens to me.”

Nolde, by choice, lived a reclusive life. He engaged for short intervals with other like minded artists including Munch, Kandinsky and the Blue Rider. After a brief time in public life, he always retreated with his wife to a solitary life on the Island of Alsen on the Black Sea. In 1902, as he became a known artist, he signed his work Nolde, in recognition of his home town.

From 1910-1916, his search for significant subject matter led to create several paintings on New Testament themes, but his raw brushstrokes, bright colors and crude primitive figures where rejected by the churches to which he offered them. I

In 1906-07, he had written that when painting flowers,” I felt as if they loved my hands.” By 1916, he rejected religious subject matter and turned back to nature and to his love of strong colors. “Color the material of the painter: color in their own lives, weeping and laughing, dreams and bliss, hot and sacred, like love songs and the erotic, like songs and glorious chorals! Color is vibration, peeling like silver bells and clanging like bronze bells, proclaiming happiness, passion and love, soul, blood, and death.” IN 1927, the Noldes bought land in Seebuhl, on the German side of the Danish/German border. Here they lived a secluded life. He designed the house with extensive gardens and there he painted hundreds of flowers and paintings of the sea.

Nolde’s politics were controversial. In the early 1920’s, as a proud German who wanted to create a German art, he supported the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, the Danish section. He was anti-Semitic and believed in the theory of racial superiority. In August 1934, he signed the “Call to the Artists,” which meant he accepted Hitler as the German leader. Ironically, Hitler called his art ‘degenerate’, confiscated 1,052 of his works from museums and ordered him not to paint anymore. Many of Nolde’s paintings were included in the now famous 1937, Degenerate Art Exhibition. Nolde was denounced more than any of the other artists. Many historians have researched his autobiography and writing and it is still undetermined where his real sympathies lay and why.

Having been forbidden to paint, he and his wife retreated to their isolated home where their life was difficult. He began his series of “unpainted pictures”, small watercolors of flowers and the sea. These are the images used in this article. His inspiration never flagged. In1942, he wrote, “There is silver blue, sky blue and thunder blue. Every color holds with it a soul, which makes me happy or repels me, and which acts as stimulus. To a person who has no art in him, colors are colors, tones tones…and that is all. All their consequences for the human spirit which range between heaven to hell, just go unnoticed.”

Just before the end of WWII, his studio in Berlin where he stored his finished work was bombed. Over 3000 of his graphic works, watercolors, and drawing were destroyed, along with the works of several other artists, including Paul Klee, whose works were stored there. After liberation in 1945, he began to make oil paintings of his watercolors. He painted over 100 oils in the last 6 years of his life. Later, he was awarded the Pour le Merite medal, established in 1740 by Frederick II of Prussia, in recognition of extraordinary personal achievement. Other recipients include Alfred Einstein and Kathe Kollwitz.

Nolde’s vision of nature is extraordinary. His work, no matter how large or how small, is charged with energy and passion. Having discovered and admired his work long before knowing anything about the artist, his paintings never stop resonating. Nolde the man was a challenging individual. Most of his life he chose separation and isolation from people. The exception was his wife. Never-the-less, his art stands alone and beyond the man. His work was inspired by his deep connection to nature and he had the exceptional ability to render that passion for us to see.

Looking at the Masters: Remedias Varo

June 3, 2020 by Beverly Hall Smith

Remedias Varo is one of a number of women Surrealist painters who were equally a part of the movement but unfortunately are much less known today. She came into contact with Surrealism in Spain and in Paris. One of her marriages was to Benjamin Peret, a Surrealist poet and close friend of Breton, the leader of the Surrealists. Surrealism began after WWI when the ideas of Sigmund Freud concerning the subconscious mind were taken seriously. In the 1924 Surrealist Manifesto, Breton stated the need to “resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality.” Put simply, the concrete realities of the conscious mind and the fantasy and dreams of the subconscious mind needed to be brought together to create a unified whole.

Remedias Varo -Harmony, 1956, 29×36.5” (2)

From her childhood onward, Varo was intellectually curious and a prolific reader. As a child she read Jules Verne, Edgar Allen Poe, Alexander Dumas, and later she studied math, alchemy, mythology, mysticism, religions, Karl Jung, Isaac Asimov and others. She even had a make believe Hindu friends. Her mother was a Catholic and she was raised in that faith, but left them in favor of the Universalist and liberal ideas of her father. Her intellectual pursuits were encouraged by her father, a hydraulic engineer, who took her to South Africa. She copied his blue prints for projects, learned technical drawing and became interested in machines. During the rise of Fascism in Spain, she fled to Paris only to be imprisoned in Paris by the Nazi’s. She managed to escape, lived in hiding, and was able to get to Mexico in 1941with the aid of international agencies helping artists and Jews to escape. She lived and worked in Mexico City with a number of other Surrealist artists until her death in 1963. These influences and life experiences permeate her paintings. However, unlike the unease and fright produced by Dali’s art, Varo sought to reconcile the conscious and subconscious into a new, hopeful and harmonious union.

Remedias Varo -Harmony, 1956, 29×36.5”

Varo’s “Harmony” was painted in 1956, and it illustrates the power of music, one of the significant influences in her life. Music represented organized harmony and equaled wholeness. In this painting an androgynous figure is seated before a measure of a musical score, and appears to be in the process of creating a composition. The treble clef appears to be made of wood and is extended on both ends to become a horn. The notes are a unique and significant combination of items. A rose, an ivy leaf, and a turnip are growing things. The rose is universally identified as a symbol of the Virgin Mary; she is the rose without thorns and the base word for the rosary. Ivy is an ancient symbol, it is every green it represents fidelity. It is often used in wreaths and crowns and climbs up and clings to walls. In Tarot, turnip seeds are a source of immortality. Other notes are represented by crystals, pyramids, circular stones and pieces of paper, one of which has the numbers of Pi written on it. All of these items are strung on the lines making one think of an abacus. A solid wall behind the musical composition dissolves as a graceful spirit woman, clad in white and blue, comes through the wall and adds a seashell to the composition. Sea shells reference water and world travel. “Harmony” synthesizes religion, mythology, math and science, and much more.

Across the room a second spirit woman breaks through the wall and appears as a mirror image. Some of the floor tiles come loose as branches, flowers and fragile pieces of paper push their way into the room. In nature we see plants pushing through cement and brick sidewalks and blooming through rocks and man-made surfaces. This could be interpreted as walls being destroyed, or in a positive interpretation which is in keeping with Varo’s art, man and nature are unified and need to work together to preserve life and harmony.

Also in the room is a yellow chest of drawers and an orange chest full of other objects which might be used to form notes. On the back wall and on the front right wall we see books on shelves and an assortment of flasks, beakers and retorts used for alchemy and scientific research. At first glance there appears to be a large eye at the top of the large book shelf, but on closer observation, it is a bed with two pillows. A rope ladder hangs from one end, giving access to the bed. Three pieces of furniture are seen in the back corner: a chair, a trunk and a uniquely shaped vessel on a pedestal. As with all of Varo’s painting there are always things that remain a mystery and come into focus later.

Varo’s color choices are interesting and present another mystery. The room is painted in a range of yellow to dark orange, warm colors of the sun. A second range of color is from white to light grays and light blue. White represents purity, grays are the colors of rocks and blue references the sky. It interesting to move your eyes across the painting and see what is painted in the yellow tones and what in the whites to blues.

Three other mysterious items are also present. On the wall above the large book case are two Romanesque arches. In the city of Angeles, where Varo lived as a child, the architecture was predominantly round Romanesque. Varo kept a post card from Angeles with her always. The shape of these double arches was used in Jewish art to illustrate the two tablets of the Ten Commandments. Varo’s interest included knowledge of several religions. In the right front a red chair, its top cushion ripped, reveals another eye. On closer observation the ripped cushion as been appropriated by a bird looking after her children in the nest. Another bird painted white and blue, flies out the open door of the room. Does this bird take the new harmonious composition to the world in its song? Is this bird possibly the blue bird of happiness?

Varo is one of my favorite artists and I have studied her work repeatedly and still find intriguing mysteries and have unanswered questions. Her art is as complex and unique as was the artist herself.

Varo’s paintings, including “Harmony” are full of intriguing mysteries and unanswered questions. Her art is as complex as the artist herself.

Looking at the Masters: Lily Martin Spencer

May 28, 2020 by Beverly Hall Smith

Lily Martin Spencer was born in Marietta, Ohio, the daughter of parents who moved to America to be able to practices their belief in a progressive cooperative movement. Well educated and intelligent, Spencer by the age of eighteen was committed to a career in art. In 1840, she moved to New York to pursue her art career and studied at the National Academy of Design. Women artists were rare at this time, but Spencer was talented and determined. Her choice of subject was genre, not popular in American at the time. Wealthy American patrons still wanted portraits of George Washington, or themselves. Others, if they could afford any art at all, wanted still life paintings. Genre paintings are depictions of everyday people doing everyday things. In fact, genre painting became popular largely are a result Spencer’s work. Her choice of subject was centered on home life, considered as the woman’s place. In 1847, she wrote that she intended to “become a Michelangelo if I can, and I mean to try to make my painting have a tendency towards moral improvements.”

In 1844, she married Benjamin Rush Spencer, a cloth merchant and tailor, and she had 13 children, of whom 7 survived. She continued to pursue her art career and began to succeed. In fact, her husband quit his career in 1852, to take care of the home and the children, an unusual choice for a 19th Century male. Titles of her paintings such as “Domestic Happiness”, “Peeling Onions”, “The Young Wife’s First Stew”, “Patty Cake” and “This Little Piggy Went to Market”, all suggest a happy home life for the entire family.

Spencer’s work became widely known as the result of the invention of chromolithography which gave the public the opportunity to see her work in a new publication called a magazine. In 1849, Spencer’s work ran in the Union Magazine published by John Sartain. Engravers made copies of her paintings and they were hand tinted in a factory, usually by women.

War Spirit at Home, 1866

Spencer’s domestic genre also became patriotic during the Civil War. “War Spirit at Home”, also known as “Celebrating the Victory at Vicksburg” painted in 1866, is an excellent example of Spencer’s intelligence, talent, and progressive ideas. The siege of Vicksburg occurred from May 5 to July 4,1863, lead by General Ulysses S. Grant, has been considered an important victory for the Union Army and a turning point in the Civil War.* Today we may see this painting as a simple depiction of women and children supporting the Union cause. However there is a much deeper meaning, as the painting includes several symbolic ideas which may or may not have been recognized at the time. They can be interpreted as subtly referring to the restrictive expectations placed on women at that time.

A mother reading the newspaper to the children and servant seems natural today. However, reading the newspaper was a male activity equated to male authority and superiority. Besides telling descriptive details of the battle at Vicksburg, it also depicted images of the battle, not considered appropriate for delicate females and children. The children are engaged in a celebratory march. The younger boy holds a stick for a gun and wears a paper hat. The elder boy sits at the table, wears a paper hat and plays a toy horn. In another patriotic note, the garments in the painting are red, white and blue. The next child, a girl, wears a real Union military cap and makes the most noise by banging a spoon against a pot. In her red dress, she is the most the most active and eye catching of the children. The daughter represents Spencer’s hope for women in the future to include greater educational opportunity, the right to vote and a more prominent role in the world at large. The Women’s Suffrage movement, started earlier, became important again after the Civil War. As an early women’s liberation supporter, Spencer was aware of and improved of this.

Home of the Red, White and Blue (1867-68)

The servant at the rear of the painting represents another symbolic reference. Spencer makes her skin color non-specific but darker than that of the other figures. The abolition of slavery was a major cause of the Civil War. The servant’s expression, although not clearly decipherable, indicates she listens to the news and was aware that this war was significant for her future.

The wriggling baby in the mother’s lap recalls religious images of the Pieta, when the Madonna holds the dead Christ. The Christ child asleep on Mary’s lap was seen as a premonition of his death. This idea is supported by the cross shape folds seen in the newspaper. This symbol is one that women of this era would respond to. It also suggests Spencer’s role as a mother. She juggles to hold the child as she struggles to maintain both her domestic and her public life.

Spencer’s work was exhibited and in Artists Union galleries in New York, Philadelphia and Cincinnati. Her work was published in other magazines such as the Cosmopolitan Art Journal. In 1857, the publisher of the Cosmopolitan Art Journal said about Lily Martin Spencer, “No person has done more than Mrs. Spencer to popularize art, and for that the people owe her debt of gratitude, which they do not fail to acknowledge if acknowledgement is signified by appreciation.” John Sartain, chief of the Art Bureau, chose Spencer’s, “Truth Unveiling Falsehood” for the Women’s Pavilion at the 1876 Centennial Celebration in Philadelphia. The Spencer family moved from New York to Newark, New Jersey where she continued to paint until her death in 1902, at the age of 80. In a letter to her parents, written some time earlier, she said “fame is as hollow and as brilliant as a soap bubble, it is all colors outside and nothing of worth kicking at inside.”

*Memorial Day was first celebrated in 1865, after the Civil War and was called Decoration Day because the women felt the graves were too depressing and they put flowers on them to celebrate the dead. In 1882, the holiday became Memorial Day and in 1967 it became a Federal holiday celebrated on May 30. In 1971, to create a three day weekend holiday it was changed to the last Monday in May.

Looking at the Masters: Dennis Lee Mitchell by Beverly Hall Smith

May 21, 2020 by Beverly Hall Smith

Dennis Lee Mitchell grew up in the very small town of Larned, Kansas, and spent a lot of time outdoors where he developed a strong attachment to nature. When he went to Fort Hays Kansas State University in 1968, he planned on being an art major. Unfortunately his teachers told him he had no talent for art. But needing an art class to graduate he took ceramics. He could make plates and bowls, but he found his niche in hand built ceramic sculpture in which he imbedded found wood, lichen, peeled bark and other bits and pieces from nature. He went on the get an MA in ceramics in 1969 from Arizona State University and an MFA in 1971. In 1975-76 and again in 1977, he was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant and in 2004 a Special Assistant Grant from the Illinois Arts Council. From 2006 -2011 he had several successful exhibitions at Dubhe Carreno Gallery in Chicago.

2019 Smoke Remains, Zolla Lieberman Gallery

While his ceramic sculptures were proving to be a success, he continued to explore a variety of techniques and materials. Just before he went on sabbatical in 2011, he inadvertently touched a piece of paper with a gas welding torch and unexpectedly made his first smoke drawing.

2015 UT 7, 15” X 15”

With the time, the inclination, a goal and the support of his gallery, he experimented with several gas torches, learned how to adjust the oxygen fuel mixtures, how to create more carbon smoke and even developed a pressurized can of smoke. “I can control parts of the drawing process and other parts I can’t. There’s always that edge where I know what I’m doing but don’t want to be too sure because that ruins the piece. I have to keep that edge kind of sharp where I never feel that sure of myself.”

“To a great extent,” he says, “I draw intuitively.” As one can see, his drawings are abstract but extremely suggestive. Most of his art is untitled, leaving interpretation to the viewer. In some we may see mountainous landscapes when Mitchell’s original inspiration, nature, appears. Some may suggest veiled figures and others the cosmos. Some resemble Chinese brush drawings or elaborate flowers. They may seem fragile or intangible and float away, or they may be solid and strong at the same time. As Mitchell says, “Material exists and then it changes, and it moves forward. Everything around you, everything you see, in the future will not be here. The smoke seemed perfect to me to start to discuss the human condition.” Whether the smoke drawings are smaller than 12 inches or larger at 50 inches they do not overwhelm us but have an impact that draws us in.

2019 enircle, 49.5” x 49.5”

Mitchell has made smoke drawings since 2011, and like any artist has learned how to use his torch and to have some control over the work. He can create colors from a rich velvety black to the most elusive ephemeral grays and by scorching the paper he can create soft to rich browns. Unlike those of us who use paint, his work can literally go up in flames in an instant. He makes 100 to 300 drawings, but 90% of them go in the trash. Sometimes they catch fire. “I may make as many as 250 or more drawings to secure two or three finished works. The process is repetitive, as I attempted to dissolve expectations, glean the essence, and execute the act while circumventing spurious ideas. Involving chance, the process produces a kind of surrealistic sensuous rendering of the finite and the infinite.”

Mitchell’s smoke drawings have been consistently exhibited in several galleries in the USA and abroad since 2013. He has had frequent exhibitions at the Grimaldis Gallery in Baltimore and in 2019 at Gallery Neptune and Brown in DC. In 2015, one of his works was chosen by Ambassador and Mrs. Bass for their residence in Ankara, Turkey, under a new program started in 2015 by the US State Department. In 2016, he held a series of workshops for adults and children in Ankara and Istanbul. In 2020, his work was on exhibit at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago. He is Professor of Art, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, Illinois (Emeritus). Yes, he has found a way to make smoke drawings on his ceramic pieces.

Looking at the Masters: Edith Meusnier by Beverly Hall Smith

May 14, 2020 by Beverly Hall Smith

Edith Meusnier is an environmental artist who chooses common place materials to create large breath taking installations in nature. A graduate of the National School of Industrial Design in Paris, she has always been interested in textiles. “I’ve always loved playing with fabrics, strings, ribbons and threads of any kind. I like the lightness and fluidity of fibers. I like to manipulate, transform, distort and fabricate textiles.” Consequently she researched the history of textiles and unexpectedly found her technique in a Pre-Columbian plaiting technique called sprang. “Without tools, I can raise huge structures and I always feel a pleasure to make colors dance directly under my fingers, before deploying them in the landscape.”

Kyrielle, 2011, Park, Chateubour, France

In 1996 she moves to Picardy, in the forest of Aumont-en-Halatte near Paris and her interests came together. “I feel a deep connection with the forest, its changing aspects, its noises, and odors. It is all at once a shelter and an escape space, a place to explore or to experiment.” The forest became her studio and her materials were gift ribbon which she weaves into a variety of shaped nets. “The nets are in turn sensors and protectors; they seep, they ripple, they get through space, dividing or revealing it. They embody a tension between reality and the imaginary.” Her choice of cheap gift ribbons consciously reflects their special role in giving gifts and for festivals. She is also very conscious of “the ridiculous aspect of the cheap shoddy goods that are indicative of a society that puts more importance on the packaging than on the content.”

In 1996 she was discovered by the art world and she has been busy ever since. Her works have appeared in parks, castles, cloisters, courtyards and beside and over lakes and rivers. Sortilege was made for the Artec Festival in France and spans the L’Huisne River. The 42 pieces were placed over the river and in other places in the town during the festival in May 2010. Meunier’s art is seasonal and appears in spring and can last for six months or longer, and then she takes it down to recycle.

Sortilege, 2010

Her process is generally the same. “First, I walk a long time around the place of the future installation. I look at different elements of the landscape, like trees, river, hills and buildings. I come back in different hours of the day to take wind and different lights into account. I meet with people, we talk about surroundings and we compare our viewpoints. I choose a specific site, I take pictures and later I think about colors, dimensions and shapes to do a module that I repeat in a new series. There are no hard and fast rules. I play with time and I like to take a lot of time to do ephemeral works. “

She also leads collective workshops for all ages in school, hospitals, art-therapy workshops, etc. In 2016 she was for the first time offered an indoor setting in Belgrade’s Museum, Serbia. As for the future of fiber/textile art she say “textile art has the ability to sneak into the world of sculpture, architecture, but also dance, performance, and street art. I find it funny and revealing, the peaceful, subversive and humorous practices of “yarn bombing” or “knit graffiti”… is a contemporary thing. “All over the world, anonymous groups are created to question the urban life, to repair its faults or to denounce the totalitarianism of video surveillance.”

“With plastic ribbons, I draw in space an unusual parenthesis that questions the ambiguous relationship between mankind and the environment.”

Looking at the Masters: Jean-Honore Fragonard by Beverly Hall Smith

May 7, 2020 by Beverly Hall Smith

Fragonard was one of the finest painters of the French Rococo period during the reign of Louis XV. French tastes were determined by Louis and his famous mistress Madame Pompadour. Louis’ grandfather Louis XIV, the “Sun King,” was recognized for leading France’s lavish Baroque lifestyle. Still, probably for the redemption of his soul, he changed in the last years of his reign to a stern and puritanical lifestyle for himself and his court. After this very restrictive and solemn lifestyle, Louis XV ushered in an era of extravagant hedonism, which was welcomed heartily by the nobility. Art and life changed from the deep rich colors of the severe and baroque religion art to soft and sensuous pastels and subjects of pleasure, amusement, and a Rococo soft eroticism. Mythological themes replaced the serious and moral subjects of Catholicism. The new preference was for fairytales, fantasy and as I often say, they preferred to look at the world through rose-colored glasses, thus the new popularity of pastel colors.

This was the era of Fragonard. In the city of Paris, the aristocracy built lavish townhouses, and in them, they began in 1737 to hold Salons. These new settings needed appropriate decorative accompaniment. Throughout his career, Fragonard had a close and loyal group of patrons from the court. He painted both large scale decorative works for display in their lavish townhomes and small erotic cabinet pieces for their more private spaces and tastes.

In 1752 Fragonard won the coveted Prix de Rome, which paid for his study and time in Rome from 1756- 61. In Rome, he began to develop his style and was able to tour Italy. He was struck by the lavish gardens, fountains, and antique Roman ruins on the sprawling grounds of estates such as the d’Este Villa in Tivoli. These made an indelible impression on him and served as imaginary settings for his art.

The first version of The Swing

Two of his paintings, entitled The Swing, illustrate the two styles of the Rococo. 1775-80, The Swing, is one of a series of four in the National Gallery in DC. We see an expansive garden where the court spends its time playing, picnicking, flirting, and enjoying life. The colors are pastel, the sky is blue, the trees are more like big plumed fans, and the aristocrats do not have a care in the world. The series illustrates games of Horse and Rider, Hot Cockles, and Blind Man’s Bluff. Take note they are all delightful children’s games, and elaborate setting for simple pleasures are the themes of Rococo art. Portraiture, not Fragonard’s forte, was still popular, but the sitters frequently chose to be portrayed in costumes as mythological figures, not as themselves.

The Swing

The second The Swing of 1776, is an example of the more intimate and private work. In a setting of fluffy trees in an ancient garden, a lovely maiden swirls her frilly apricot skirts and petticoats high, as she is being pushed on her swing by an elderly Bishop. Knowingly she lifts her legs as she swings forward to give her admirer, hiding in the bushes, a glimpse up her skirt. Oh my! She even tosses him her shoe as a souvenir. Complicit in the charming secret are two sculpted putti on a dolphin fountain, known companions of Venus. A sculpture of Cupid, at the left, is watching joyfully and shushing us to keep the secret. Rococo eroticism was very soft porn.

Fragonard was married to Anne-Marie Gerard, and they had two children, both he taught to paint. As he aged his wife’s sister, Marguerite Gerard came to live with them and became his most able assistant and a notable painter on her own.

If you have been noticing the date of the two paintings, 1776, the Rococo period, the King and the court’s laze-faire attitude would come abruptly to an end. The success of the American Revolution spurred on the French revolution of 1789. Fragonard left Paris and returned to his place of birth, Grasse, on France’ southern coast. [Consequently, Grasse, where the mountains are covered with roses and flowers, was a center for the perfume industry of France, which still flourishes.]

Poverty forced Fragonard to return to Paris in 1793. Jacques-Louis David recognized his previous fame as an artist, the painter of the revolution, and David appointed him a curator of the new national museum of art. On his death, he left more than 550 paintings and hundreds of wash illustrations, which he made for several book publishing projects.

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