MAG’S ROGERS GROUP

MAG’S ROGERS GROUP

by Joan K. Yanni

(John Rogers' Taking the Oath is a popular subject for docents leading tours.  Who was Rogers and what is going on in the narrative sculpture?  Cynthia Goldstein researched the subject for docent and curatorial files.  The following is excerpted from her findings.)

John Rogers (1829-1904) was born in Boston, left high school after two years, and worked as a mechanic.  He became interested in art after discovering a supply of clay in a local brick yard, and began to model figures, which he gave as gifts to family and friends.  His job as a mechanic ended during The Panic of 1857, and his dormant ambition to be a professional artist came to life.

Feeling that he needed professional training in Europe, Rogers studied in Paris and Rome, but became discouraged with classical sculpture because it did not allow for "the little odds and ends that I used to put round my groups to help tell the story."  And without a story, Rogers thought, a piece of sculpture was pointless.

He returned to America, decided to give up sculpture, and took a job as a draftsman in Chicago.  Here, one of his pieces owned by an acquaintance was exhibited in one of Chicago's first art exhibitions, and Rogers was urged to make a clay group to be raffled off in a citywide charity bazaar.  His Checker Players was a hit, and a demand for his work grew rapidly.  He moved to New York City with the intention of marketing his groups from there.

Rogers' hold on American affection came from his sympathy with the common man and his perfect sense of timing.  His views were staunchly Unionist, anti-slavery, and pro-Lincoln.  Since the time did not require military service, his failure to enlist excited no adverse comment—on the contrary, he was praised for contributing to the war through his plaster groups which immortalized scenes of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

At age 35, Rogers married.  After a European trip, he returned to his New York studio and searched for an idea for his next sculpture.  Finally he wrote to his wife, who was visiting her parents, "Eureka, Hattie, Eureka!  I have got a wrinkle which I think is going to make a good group...a proud Southern woman taking the oath and drawing rations. There is a chance to make a magnificent woman—something of the style of Marie Antoinette in the trial scene..."

Taking the Oath was the result.  A catalogue advertisement published in 1866 describes the piece:  "A Southern lady, with her little boy, compelled by hunger, is reluctantly taking the oath of allegiance from a Union officer, in order to draw rations.  The young negro is watching the proceedings while he waits to have the basket filled for his mistress."  Inspired by a theme which captured his deepest feelings and by the joy he had found in his marriage, Rogers gave the work the best that was in him as an artist and a sensitive interpreter of the Civil War experience.  Into this composition went more modeling and characterization, more subtlety than is to be found in any of his earlier works—or in many of those which came after.

From 1860 to his retirement in 1893, Rogers produced over 80 different groups and sold somewhere between 70,000 and 80,000 of them.  More than two-thirds were scenes from everyday life; the rest were inspired by literature or history.  To produce his works, Rogers had what amounted to a factory, sometimes making as many as 12,000 copies of a group from molds.  He always designed and modeled the groups himself, however, and they are remarkable for fine detail and for their wit and humor or display of feeling, whichever was appropriate to the subject.  The average Rogers Group sold for under $15 and could be bought in general stores or from a catalog.  To a dealer who called him foolish for pricing his works so low, Rogers said he preferred to put them "at a price that no one who likes them need hesitate to buy."

Rogers Groups declined in popularity by the mid 1890s.  Though Rogers produced a few busts and an equestrian statue for Philadelphia, his fame rests on his plaster groups.  He died in 1904.

Source:  David H. Wallace, John Rogers, The People's Sculptor, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT, 1967 and curatorial files.

GIOVANNI DEL BIONDO

GIOVANNI DEL BIONDO

by Joan K. Yanni

MAG's Crucifixion with God the Father (51.26) has been cleaned and, pristine and sparkling, is back in the Renaissance Room. It is worth examining again.

Giovanni del Biondo was a Florentine painter active from 1356 to 1392.  Documentary evidence says he became a citizen of Florence in 1356.  He was one of the most productive of the artists working after the plague, or Black Death, of 1348; among his works are Madonna and Saints in a chapel in Santa Croce, an Annunciation in the Hospital of the Innocents, and a large polyptych now in the Accademia, all in Florence.

Del Biondo's paintings testify that he is a follower of Andrea Orcagna, a leading painter-sculptor in Florence after the middle of the century, Orcagna's brother, Jacopo, and Nardo di Cione. (Our five-panel altarpiece is attributed to the school of Nardo.)

Our MAG handbook tells us that the Crucifixion was probably one of del Biondo's later works, done between 1375 and 1380.  It is tempera on panel and presents a late-gothic interpretation of the Crucifixion: the bent, yet rigid body of Christ hangs on the cross, around which are the anguished figures of the Virgin Mary, St. John and Mary Magdalene.  The Magdalene, her red hair flowing over her shoulders, tearfully clutches the cross.  Against the rich gold background, agitated angels hold out vessels to catch the blood dripping from Christ's wounds.  Above the scene, the serene figure of God the Father raises his hand in blessing.  The brilliant scarlet, yellow and blue of the paint contrast with, yet add to, the emotion of the painting.  The panel can be compared to both the Giottesque fresco The Vision of Zacharias, with its massive figures and spirited emotion, and the Nardo altarpiece.

Tempera painting on panel is a laborious technique which requires patience and skill.  First the panel is chosen—poplar was used by the early Italians, oak by the northern painters.  Then fine linen is laid on the panel to strengthen it and to serve as a base for a layer of gesso, upon which the actual painting is done.  Gesso is an extremely fine-textured, white substance, similar to plaster but bound together by glue.  It is applied to the panel in several layers and allowed to dry between applications.  When the desired thickness has been built up, sometimes with the addition of more linen, the gesso is allowed to harden thoroughly and is then sanded until it is smooth.

A drawing, often scratched lightly into the gesso, always precedes the painting.  If the work is to include gold, gilding is done first.  The white gesso is covered by gilder's red clay, which serves as an adhesive for the gold leaf and a base for burnishing. Gold leaf is pure metal beaten into tissue-thin leaves that, if touched, will disintegrate into fine powder.  A skillful gilder, however, using a wide, flat, brush like instrument called a gilder's tip, can pick up sheets as large as three inches square.  (With time, the layer of gold evanesces, and a reddish tint of clay may show through.)  After one or more layers of gold are laid on and permitted to dry, the gold is burnished and tooled.  Then it is time to add color.

Egg tempera is composed of powdered pigment, egg yolk and water.  These must be in the correct proportion or the paint will either flake off or become gummy.  Only a skillful artist knows when the mixture is right.  The paint is mixed in very small quantities—spoonfuls at a time—because it tends to thicken and dry quickly. On the panel, it seems to dry instantly.  Many coats of thin color must be applied, stroke by stroke in a crisscross pattern, until a uniform flatness is achieved.

The greenish cast so frequently seen in flesh tones is the original base color showing through the superimposed modeling.  Tempera flesh tones placed over a pink or cream base appear chalky.  When the green is used, the flesh takes on greater liveliness.  As the paint grows transparent with age, more of the green shows through.  Tempera painting was gradually supplanted by oil after about 1450 in northern Europe and after 1510 in Italy.

Source:  Curatorial files and Canaday, John:  Metropolitan Seminars in Art, Volume IX, "Tempera and Oil," pp. 8-16, NY:  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1958.

MacCAMERON: NEW ORLEANS MAN

MacCAMERON: NEW ORLEANS MAN

by Joan K. Yanni

New Orleans Man, the eye-catching portrait of a black man, was painted by Robert Lee MacCameron, an artist once renowned, now almost forgotten.  The painting was part of the recent exhibition Facing History: The Black Image in American Art 1719-1940, organized by the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC.

Robert Lee MacCameron was born in Chicago in 1966, and grew up in Wisconsin.  Little is known about his parents; the biographical sketch in the Corcoran catalog says that MacCameron's father, Thomas, was a member of the Wisconsin state legislature.  In any case, the family was of modest means.  Robert spent his early life surrounded by forests in which he learned to be an expert woodsman and rifle shot.  The locale offered little in the way of formal education, and MacCameron used to say that he never had more than a year of school.  At the age of fourteen, he was doing a man's work in a lumber camp.

A chance acquaintance with an itinerant French drawing teacher awakened his interest in art and gave him a chance to develop his talent.  By saving his wages he was able to go to Chicago, where he studied art at the YMCA.  His drawing skill brought him success as an illustrator in Chicago and New York, and when he was 22 he went on to London, where he briefly illustrated "Boy's Own," a children's publication.  Success in London made it possible for him to move to Paris where he received a scholarship to the École des Beaux-Arts.  He went on to study under Jean Léon Gérôme, and after Gérôme’s death, with James McNeill Whistler.

MacCameron received some recognition during these years, but very little money, so that living was always a struggle.  In addition, he was a perfectionist who destroyed much of his early work because it did not satisfy him.

In 1902 he married Louise Van Voorhees of Rochester.  How they met is not clear, but a son was born in 1904 and a daughter in 1906.  With marriage, his fortune changed. In 1904 he gained his first public recognition when his painting Mi-Careme won honorable mention in the Salon des Artistes Françaises.  (He later destroyed the painting.)  In 1906 he won a gold medal; and that same year he was awarded the Hors Concours Medal, the highest honor a foreign artist can gain in France, for Groupe d'Amis (a group of absinthe drinkers), which now hangs in the Corcoran.  He was interested in the poor and created sensitive, insightful pictures of them.  (In addition, to New Orleans Man, MAG owns MacCameron's The Absinthe Drinker.)

Fame and success quickly followed.  It is ironic that, though MacCameron was always interested in showing the plight of the destitute, his popular acclaim came from his portraits of the rich and famous.  He now traveled between Europe and America, painting portraits of the most influential in society, politics and art:  Presidents McKinley and Taft, Chief Justice Harlan, Rodin, Whistler, Gertrude Stein, Sir Thomas Beecham, Mrs. John Astor, Mrs. E.H. Harriman, Mrs. Arthur Iselin.  He maintained studios in London, Paris and New York and was a member of the National Association of Portrait Painters, The Paris Society of American Painters, and the National Academy of Design.

In 1912 his career was at its peak.  He was awarded the medal of the French Legion of Honor, and the first American exhibition of his work had been scheduled.  Tragically, in December of 1912, he died suddenly in New York City of a heart ailment.  He was 46.

His paintings show his skill as a draftsman, his facility with paint, and his ability to show the character of his subjects, whether street people or men and women of importance.

Sources:  Curatorial archives, short biographical sketch by Robert F. MacCameron of Rochester, 1974:  Dictionary of American Biography, New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1933, pp. 566-67, The Memorial Art Gallery:  Catalogue of an Exhibition of Works by the late Robert MacCameron and a Collection of Oil Paintings and Water Colors by Walter Gay of Paris, 1913.

POP ART

POP ART

by Joan K. Yanni

The Gallery’s set of seven Pop Art sculptures, though not always on view, is always fun to see.  It was created by the Tanglewood Press—ours is #17 of seventy-five—and was given to MAG in 1975 by Gallery friend Charles Penney.  The group includes Rainbow Faucet (75.333.2) by Jim Dine; Side-view Mirror (75.333.1) by Allan D'Arcangelo; Baked Potato (75.333.4) by Claes Oldenberg; Kiss (75.333.6) by Andy Warhol; Female Nude Bust (75.333.7) by Tom Wesselman; Reclining Rooster (75.333.5) by George Segal; and Setting Sun (75.333.3) by Roy Lichtenstein.

Two Pop art paintings, also gifts of Penney, are often installed above the case: Eternal Hexagon (75.335.2) by Robert Indiana, and Untitled by Roy Lichtenstein. And two works by Andy Warhol, Jackie (65.7) and Jacqueline Kennedy, III (76.132), are now on view in the adjoining gallery.

Pop Art was a movement that took over the New York art scene roughly between 1956 and 1966.  Pop artists sought to erase the hand and mood of the artist as seen in Abstract Expressionism and to reintroduce recognizable subject matter to the public.  Their art is rooted in the urban environment, and it is based on commonplace subjects:  mass produced images from ads, comic books, and TV.

Andy Warhol (1930-1987) is the most familiar figure of Pop Art.  Born in Pittsburgh, he moved to NYC in 1952, where he became a successful commercial artist.  In the early 60s he began to base his art on familiar objects and famous people:  Campbell's soup, a dollar bill, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe.  His most characteristic element is repetition—endless rows of bottles, soup cans, faces. His use of silk-screen for printing further eliminates the signature and comment of the artist.  Despite his dispassionate presentation, Warhol's images remain extremely potent.

Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1998), born in New York City, worked at first in the Abstract Expressionist style, then, about 1960, began to draw themes from advertising and the comics.  He starts with a comic strip and recomposes it, retaining the bright, primary colors of the original and simulating the mechanical printing process with his meticulously painted Ben-Day dots.

Claes Oldenberg (1929-  ) combines fantasy, humor and irony in his work.  Born in Sweden, he grew up in Chicago then moved to New York City.  In 1963 he exhibited his first "soft sculptures": bathtubs, typewriters and other solid objects reproduced in vinyl.  This art had built-in mutations:  when touched, it would settle into a new position.  Oldenberg is also known for his giant sculptures:  a clothespin in Philadelphia, a baseball bat in Chicago, and lipstick in London.

Tom Wesselman (1931-2004) followed Andy Warhol in the early 1960s in the reproduction of supermarket products, then turned to collage paintings combining the nude and the still life.  During the later '60s he concentrated on the "Great American Nude," isolating realistic details such as an open mouth with a dangling cigarette.  His images are realistic, Playboy-like and sensual.

Allan D'Arcangelo (1930-  ) had his first exhibition in NYC in 1963 and at once established his particular imagery:  the American highway, with zooming perspective and road signs.  He paints in a tight, flat manner with precise geometric outlines.

Jim Dine (1935-  ), born in Cincinnati, moved to NYC in 1958.  His first one-man show consisted of pictures of neck-ties, hats and bandannas painted in varying styles, often with the actual article glued to the canvas.  A series of works from 1962 consisted of everyday objects placed in front of "paintings," such as a lawnmower placed in front of a canvas with daubs of green paint.  He has more recently turned to silk-screen prints of everyday objects:  pajamas, a heart, a robe.

George Segal (1926-2000), a native New Yorker, was a student of Hans Hofmann but painted Biblical and allegorical figures.  He made his first cast from a living body in 1960, and afterward continued to explore the combination of plaster figures and real props.  His sculptures are modern genre scenes, his white plaster figures often seeming more alive than their setting.

Robert Indiana (1928-  ) was born Robert Clark and took his pseudonym from his native state.  He used words and numbers as images, painting hard-edged road signs and billboards in bold, contrasting, frequently clashing colors.  One of his most familiar paintings simply proclaims, in flat, interlocking, complementary colors:  LOVE.

Source:  Mario Amaya, Pop Art and After, Viking Press, 1965; David Britt (ed.), Modern Art:  Impressionism to Post-Modern, Little, Brown and Co., 1974.

THE PRINTS OF BOLTON BROWN

THE PRINTS OF BOLTON BROWN

by Joan K. Yanni

Bolton Coit Brown (1864-1936), was one of America's foremost artistic-lithographers in the first half of the twentieth century.  Though he is best known as the printer of lithographs by George Bellows and John Sloan, he was an accomplished artist and teacher in his own right.

Brown was born in Dresden, New York, in 1864, and received his Bachelor and Master of Painting degrees from Syracuse University.  While finishing graduate work in Syracuse, he taught freehand drawing at Cornell, then became, in 1891, the first member of the art faculty at newly-founded Stanford University.  While in California, Brown developed a passionate interest in exploring the remote canyons and peaks of the Sierra Nevadas, with the result that a high peak in the main range of the Sierras was named after him.  Everything he did, he undertook with a passion for detail and perfection.

Brown left Stanford in 1901 to join Ralph Whitehead and Harvey Radcliffe White in the founding of Byrdcliffe, the Utopian art colony in Woodstock, New York.  Brown had a falling out with Whitehead soon after; but, although he left Byrdcliffe, he kept a house and studio in Woodstock for the rest of his life.

In the winter of 1914-15, in New York City, Brown happened upon an exhibition of lithographs by Albert Sterner.  Though Brown had made etchings in his early career, lithography was new to him.  Fascinated by lithograph's ability to capture the appearance of intricate pencil drawings, Brown set out for London to learn the technique.

He had just passed his fiftieth year, and had already achieved distinction as a painter, author, scholar, teacher and mountaineer.  But he was ready begin a new career.

Brown attended five or six classes in London, then set out to learn on his own.  His appetite was whetted, and even the onset of World War I and London bombing could not dampen his zeal.  He remained in London for a year and experimented with stone grinding, crayon formulas, lithographic chemistry, and printing techniques.  He went so far as to visit tanneries so that he could choose the softest, most supple leather for his rollers.  "I was like one of those air-pump carpet sweepers; everything I came near got sucked in," he wrote in My Ten Years in Lithography.

On his return to Woodstock, he began printing for artists such as Bellows, Sloan and Sterner.  Teaching lithography was part of his summer schedule, and he also gave lectures and demonstrations at universities and museums.  Often he would draw on a prepared stone, fix and print the image as his audience watched.  His own prints were often landscapes influenced by Impressionism and Tonalism, as in Moonlight and Untitled.  A purist who would never tolerate the use of transfers or metal plates, he was a tireless champion of “crayonstone” lithography, a process in which the drawing is made directly on the stone.  He published My Ten Years in Lithography in 1930 and taught the medium to artists such as John Taylor Arms, Charles Burchfield, and John Menihan.

He is best known as the printer of over 100 lithographs by George Bellows done between 1920 and 1924.  Brown, who considered the printer a collaborator equal in importance to the artist who drew the stone, insisted on signing the finished plates along with the artist.  (In Dempsey and Firpo Brown's signature is on the left corner of the image, Bellows' on the right.)  His work with Bellows and with lithography came to an end with Bellows' death in 1925.  After his friend's passing, Brown virtually discontinued printing and spent his remaining years writing.

An exhibition of Brown's works in 1993 brought  to full circle the association of the Gallery and the artist.  In 1926, Gertrude Herdle bought a number of Brown's works and asked him if he would provide materials for an exhibit on lithography.  Brown sent a stone with a drawing, proofs printed from the stone, tools he had used, and notes describing what he had sent...all for $150.  In 1988 Mr. and Mrs. John Menihan donated 44 of Brown's prints to the Gallery.  The 1933 exhibit brought together Brown's early prints, the materials he sent to the Gallery, and later works owned by his pupil Menihan, who died in 1992.

Source:  Brown's My Ten years in Lithography and exhibition labels.

BUTTERSWORTH, BOLOTOWSKY AND TORNER

BUTTERSWORTH, BOLOTOWSKY AND TORNER

by Joan K. Yanni

Two paintings have been acquired to augment the American collection.

James E. Buttersworth's The Clipper Ship "Flying Cloud" off the Needles, Isle of Night (89.71) has been hung in the 18th century American gallery.  Beside it is a smaller painting by the same artist, Fleetwing Loses Six Men Overboard (17.79).  The subject of both is the clipper ship, the artist's specialty.

"Flying Cloud" was the most famous clipper ship in maritime history.  She was made in Boston, the masterpiece of shipmaker Donald McKay; and her design was unsurpassed in speed, weatherliness, and beauty.  In 1854 she set a record of 89 days for a trip around Cape Horn—a record which stood until 1989, when broken by "Thursday's Child," which made the passage in 80 days!

Buttersworth (1817-1894) was born in England and came to the United States around 1850.  He was well known to his contemporaries because many of his paintings were reproduced in lithographs done by the popular Currier and Ives.

Ilya Bolotowsky

The second new work, Untitled (Relational Painting), by Ilya Bolotowsky, is a non-objective painting which shows the artist's skill in using primary colors and the grid motif.

Born in Russia, Bolotowsky (1907-1983) was influenced by the Russian constructivists, by Mondrian,  and by the Dutch de Stijl school.  When he came to the United States in the 1930s, he took Mondrian's color and space and developed them further in rhymes and complicated patterns.  Our painting is pure design, typical of experiments into what came to be known as "neo-plasticism," an attempt to reduce art to its purest essentials and to show that formal elements can create movement and vitality.  To quote curator Patti Junker, "Color and tone project space and spatial relationships, lines suggest direction and rhythm, the shape of the canvas suggests a design motif in and of itself."

Gustavo Torner

Earth and Gold, the exciting gold leaf and polyvinyl work hanging in the 20th-century gallery, was painted by Gustavo Torner, a Spanish painter and sculptor born at Cuenca in 1925.

Self-taught in art—he had studied forestry engineering as a career—he collaborated with two other artists in founding the Cuenca Museum of Spanish Abstract Art in 1963.  He first worked in the style of lyrical abstraction, emphasizing contracts between smooth surfaces and coarse materials.  Later he turned to geometrical abstraction and sculptural constructions made of stainless steel combined with wood and other materials.  He is represented in the museums of Cologne, Prague, and in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City.

As any child can tell you (and many already have), our work represents the brilliant sun shining on rough, pale earth.

THE GREEK PROTOME

THE GREEK PROTOME

by Joan K. Yanni

An important addition to the Gallery's classical collection is the 5th century BC Protome, presented by Dr. Ralph Alexander in memory of his wife June.

A protome is a type of Greek sculpture, usually female, representing the upper portion of the body.  It is terra-cotta, made in a mold, covered with a slip of white clay and lightly fired prior to the application of painted decoration.

Ours is a fine example in which the outline of the relief conforms to the natural curve of the head and shoulders.  Traces of red ornamentation survive.  The majority of protomes have been excavated from tombs, but their purpose remains to be discovered. They are generally thought to represent a deity, perhaps Persephone or Demeter, both associated with death and afterlife in the Greek religion.  (Docents may make a connection on tours with the bronze statue of Pluto and Persephone in the Baroque room.)