by Susan Feinstein
In 2007 a striking
reinstallation of MAG’s Concourse gallery returned Esteban Vicente’s Batavia to
a place beside its mid 20th-century contemporaries.
 |
| Batavia |
Batavia glows with the spare, unexpected color palette for which Vicente was admired throughout his long and productive career: lustrous salmon; Reinhardt reds to radiant orange; earthy ochres which muddy and deepen; a range of mutable blues. Vibrant, linear streaks of color – red, blue, green, and orange – appear as frontal marks and pepper the canvas randomly. The effect is one of sensitive chromatic balance within an engaging abstract composition of organic and visual integrity.
Thick, juicy brushwork predominates, leaving evidence of multidirectional strokes. Vaguely-geometric masses are clustered in the center of the painting, extending, overlapping, and bleeding into one another. The paint thins and lightens toward the very edges of the canvas, giving these central structures the appearance of being in suspension. We see signs of Vicente’s “love-hate” affair with edges, his urge to move beyond the notion of lines as contour--or boundary--making, and his preoccupation with color’s capacity to establish structure.
Batavia hangs, appropriately, amid the work of Vicente’s artistic colleagues and friends, Ad Reinhardt, Hans Hofmann, Jackson Pollock, and others. One of the last surviving members of this first-generation of New York School artists, Vicente enjoyed a quieter renown than that of his conspicuous contemporaries; it was, nonetheless, important, solid, and well deserved, resting upon an extensive body of extraordinary work. His experimentations with color and space are thought to be among the most brilliant in postwar American painting.
The only Spanish-born
artist of the group, Vicente started life in Turégano, a small town in Segovia,
in 1903. His father was a military officer and amateur painter, who resigned
his commission and moved his family to Madrid so that his six children could
grow up in the capital with its multitude of artistic treasures and
opportunities.
First educated by Jesuits, Vicente also briefly attended military school before leaving to become an artist. He studied sculpture at the Royal Academy of Madrid, graduating in 1924. Four years later he abandoned sculpture in favor of oil painting, and shortly thereafter left for France where the already well-established Picasso entreated him to join the enclave of Spanish artists residing in Paris.
There he met and married Estelle Charney, an American. They lived for a time on the island of Ibiza, where Vicente painted landscapes reminiscent of Pissarro and the Post-Impressionists. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, he returned to Spain to support the Republicans, working as a camouflage expert. In 1936, Vicente and Charney settled permanently in New York City; he established himself as a professional portrait painter and had his first exhibition one year later.
The 1940s were a difficult time: His daughter, Mercedes, born with a heart defect, died at the age of six; he divorced Charney and married Maria Teresa Babin, a Spanish literature scholar. When he resumed painting, Vicente began to experiment with abstraction, following the lead of Europeans Picasso and Mondrian, and American modernists
First educated by Jesuits, Vicente also briefly attended military school before leaving to become an artist. He studied sculpture at the Royal Academy of Madrid, graduating in 1924. Four years later he abandoned sculpture in favor of oil painting, and shortly thereafter left for France where the already well-established Picasso entreated him to join the enclave of Spanish artists residing in Paris.
There he met and married Estelle Charney, an American. They lived for a time on the island of Ibiza, where Vicente painted landscapes reminiscent of Pissarro and the Post-Impressionists. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, he returned to Spain to support the Republicans, working as a camouflage expert. In 1936, Vicente and Charney settled permanently in New York City; he established himself as a professional portrait painter and had his first exhibition one year later.
The 1940s were a difficult time: His daughter, Mercedes, born with a heart defect, died at the age of six; he divorced Charney and married Maria Teresa Babin, a Spanish literature scholar. When he resumed painting, Vicente began to experiment with abstraction, following the lead of Europeans Picasso and Mondrian, and American modernists
Stella, Davis, Avery,
Dove, Marin, and Hartley.
Though described by art critic Harold Rosenberg as a leader in creating and disseminating Abstract Expressionism, Vicente’s work most often echoed the innovations of other artists like de Kooning, Guston, Hofmann and Rothko, who were his friends, or European painters, like Matisse. According to Elizabeth Frank, his biographer, “His talent lay in his ability to borrow liberally and synthesize confidently, with elegant color combinations, bold scale and, in particular, an unerring sense of abstract composition.”
Though described by art critic Harold Rosenberg as a leader in creating and disseminating Abstract Expressionism, Vicente’s work most often echoed the innovations of other artists like de Kooning, Guston, Hofmann and Rothko, who were his friends, or European painters, like Matisse. According to Elizabeth Frank, his biographer, “His talent lay in his ability to borrow liberally and synthesize confidently, with elegant color combinations, bold scale and, in particular, an unerring sense of abstract composition.”
Vicente came late to his
mature style. In 1950–already 47 years old–he finally integrated his two major
allegiances: the Analytic Cubism of Picasso, Braque and Gris, with its gridded,
faceted infrastructure, and the sensibility of Mondrian’s nearly transparent
color. To these he added his distinct, drawn shapes.
Historians characterize
Vicente’s work as a merging of the two schools of Abstract Expressionism, that
of the color field painters (exemplified by Rothko, Newman, Still, Reinhardt
and Frankenthaler) and the American action painters (such as de Kooning,
Pollock, Kline, Hofmann and Leslie).
In 1961 Vicente married
his third wife, Harriet Peters, and they bought a farmhouse in Bridgehampton,
NY, where, for the remainder of his life, they spent six months of every year,
alternating with their apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Concurrent with his painting, Vicente had a distinguished career as a teacher. Among his former students are contemporary artists Chuck Close, Susan Crile, Janet Fish, Brice Marden, and Dorothea Rockburne. He taught at Black Mountain College in the summer of 1953, along with composer John Cage, poet Robert Creeley, and dancer Merce Cunningham. He was a founding member of the New York Studio School on Eighth Street, and also taught at Princeton, the University of California at Berkeley, NYU and Yale.
A complete overview of Vicente’s achievement must include his drawings and works on paper. Though he occasionally made prints, and, from time to time, small, wood polychrome sculptures he fondly characterized as “toys or Divertimentos,” it is the drawings --with their expressive, graphic marks, in charcoal and black ink – that provide the most important accompaniment to his work as a painter.
Concurrent with his painting, Vicente had a distinguished career as a teacher. Among his former students are contemporary artists Chuck Close, Susan Crile, Janet Fish, Brice Marden, and Dorothea Rockburne. He taught at Black Mountain College in the summer of 1953, along with composer John Cage, poet Robert Creeley, and dancer Merce Cunningham. He was a founding member of the New York Studio School on Eighth Street, and also taught at Princeton, the University of California at Berkeley, NYU and Yale.
A complete overview of Vicente’s achievement must include his drawings and works on paper. Though he occasionally made prints, and, from time to time, small, wood polychrome sculptures he fondly characterized as “toys or Divertimentos,” it is the drawings --with their expressive, graphic marks, in charcoal and black ink – that provide the most important accompaniment to his work as a painter.
Using only the finest
handmade and hand painted papers, Vicente also made collages of torn paper strips,
glued to paper. These “paintings with paper” dealt with the same issues in
collage that he addressed in his paintings, and were a significant, integral,
and highly personal part of his lifelong artistic
practice.
Vicente steadfastly
refused to exhibit his art in Spain during the years of the Franco
dictatorship. He has been widely embraced since that time, and in 1988 the
Spanish government opened the Esteban Vicente Museum of Contemporary Art in
Segovia. Vicente personally selected the works for the permanent
collection.
The artist died at his home in Bridgehampton in January, 200l, just days short of his 98th birthday. The artist’s friends described him as a true gentleman who loved to tell long-winded stories and had a unique sense of humor. Once, when a reporter asked him to reveal the secret of his longevity, he responded, “I eat one mothball every day.”
The artist died at his home in Bridgehampton in January, 200l, just days short of his 98th birthday. The artist’s friends described him as a true gentleman who loved to tell long-winded stories and had a unique sense of humor. Once, when a reporter asked him to reveal the secret of his longevity, he responded, “I eat one mothball every day.”
Elizabeth Frank, author of
the single monograph on the artist, says of the man, “In an era that tended to
sanctify those who squandered their talents and wreaked havoc on personal
lives, Vicente was a rare and marvelous instance of an artist who husbanded his
gifts, took the trouble to learn and respect his limits, and kept faith with
himself.”
*Does MAG’s painting refer to our local Batavia? The answer is unclear, though it is believed that Vicente spent some time in the Finger Lakes region (an apocryphal story attributed to Isabel Herdle). Extensive research efforts have failed to produce an alternative theory.
*Does MAG’s painting refer to our local Batavia? The answer is unclear, though it is believed that Vicente spent some time in the Finger Lakes region (an apocryphal story attributed to Isabel Herdle). Extensive research efforts have failed to produce an alternative theory.
Source: Elizabeth
Frank, Esteban Vicente, Hudson Hills Press, Inc., 1995, curatorial
files
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