Speaking of Art

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: “Guston Now”

The long overdue retrospective Philip Guston Now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston originally was scheduled to open at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC in June 2020 and then travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tate Modern, London. It is useful to recall the heated controversial history surrounding this exhibition. Initially postponed due to the pandemic in 2020, it was rescheduled for July 2021 at the National Gallery. However, it was again delayed because of aesthetic panic about Guston’s use of Ku Klux Klan imagery in the drawings and paintings of hooded figures riding in cars, working at easels and smoking.

On 21 September 2020 the directors of the exhibiting museums put out a statement on the NGA website: “After a great deal of reflection and extensive consultation, our four institutions have jointly made the decision to delay our successive presentations of Philip Guston Now. We are postponing the exhibition until a time at which we think that the powerful message of social and racial justice that is at the center of Philip Guston’s work can be more clearly interpreted. We recognize that the world we live in is very different from the one in which we first began to collaborate on this project five years ago. The racial justice movements that started in the U.S. and radiated to countries around the world, in addition to challenges of a global health crisis, have led us to pause.”

Musa Mayer, Guston’s daughter, opposed the delay stating that the images “unveil white culpability, our shared role in allowing the racist terror that [Guston] had witnessed since boyhood, when the Klan marched openly by the thousands in the streets of Los Angeles.” An additional scathing response to this postponement appeared in a letter in the online Brooklyn Rail site by artists old and young, White and Black including Matthew Barney, Nicole Eiseman, Charles Gaines, Ellen Gallagher, Joan Jonas, Julie Mehretu, Andrian Piper, Martin Puryer, Amy Sillman, and Lorna Simpson. Over 2,600 individuals signed this letter opposing the delay including the choreographer Bill T. Jones, performance artist Laurie Anderson, and Agnes Gund, President Emerita and Life Trustee of the Museum of Modern Art. Some believe that the outcry in this letter influenced the rescheduling of the exhibit and pushing forward the opening of the show at the MFA in 2022 from 2024.

Tate Modern suspended Mark Godfrey, its senior curator, after he criticized the decision to postpone the Philip Guston show. Godfrey wrote on Instagram, “Cancelling or delaying the exhibition is probably motivated by the wish to be sensitive to the imagined reactions of particular viewers, and the fear of protest. However, it is actually extremely patronizing to viewers, who are assumed not to be able to appreciate the nuance and politics of Guston’s works.”

Philip Guston, *The Gladiators* (1940), oil and pencil on canvas. Museum of Modern Art. NY. Gift of Edward R. Broida © 2022 The Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & Wirth. Image copyright Museum of Modern Art, licensed by SCALA/Art Resources, NY

“At the time, the museum and Godfrey both declined to discuss the disciplinary action, but Robert Storr, professor of painting at Yale School of Art and author of a recent Guston monograph, noted that: ‘Museums are forums where people come together to discuss ideas and to agree and disagree. If Tate can’t even do this internally, then the whole thing breaks down…Tate is going to need curators of Godfrey’s caliber to steer itself out of the mess it is in. The museum should embrace such people, not ostracize them,’ he told The Art Newspaper.” [1]

Let us recall that the abrupt halt of the exhibition was only months after George Floyd was murdered on May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis by a 44-year-old white police officer that sparked a global protest movement against historic racism and police brutality. Kaywin Feldman, the director of the National Gallery of Art, in DC was a leading voice in this postponement. It is assumed that fear was an underlying force to stop the tour of the exhibition because of Feldman’s unease with Guston’s cartoonish portrayals of Ku Klux Klan figures. In a heated election year and the furor of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, she and other directors likely thought the paintings could offend some visitors and could spark protests and demonstrations in the ever-political Washington, DC.

“The [MFA] went so far as to hire a trauma specialist for viewers who might be upset by this work as well as an EXIT door to escape the exhibition before entering gallery holding the majority of KKK paintings!”

Philip Guston, *Dial* (1956), oil on linen. Whitney Museum of American Art. Purchase 56.44 copyright The Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & Wirth.

Roiled by panic, the four institutions chose to avoid controversy and declined to showcase Guston’s poignant work during a critical time in the USA history. They could have used this exhibition to educate the public about Guston’s complex but socially charged imagery as well as grapple with their own establishments’ history of prejudice and profound bias. Philip Guston’s exquisite work is open-ended, leaving much room for interpretation. Instead, the museums decided that the Guston show needed to be re-examined and could not be presented as planned by the original curatorial team. Worried by media headlines, they felt the original Guston exhibition failed to reflect the kind of embedded racism shown by the uproar of the George Floyd tragedy. Distrusting curatorial scholarship, they turned instead to non-curatorial committees of interpretation. As Matthew Teitelbaum, The Ann and Graham Gund Director at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, said in a statement announcing the exhibition “The exhibition has significantly evolved over the last year with a more diversified approach to interpretation, more historical references, and inclusion of more artists’ perspectives, led by an expanded curatorial team and guided by many voices—all of whom have helped us to create a fuller understanding of this great artist’s work.”

Philip Guston, *Painting, Smoking, Eating* (1973), oil on canvas, collection the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Copyright The Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & Wirth.

Furthermore “ The curatorial team additionally engaged regularly over the past year with a staff advisory group–unprecedented for the MFA–comprised of four MFA employees from Learning and Community Engagement and Communications and Protective Services. Input from this staff, who are not typically involved in exhibition-making decisions, powered key decisions about gallery design and interpretation.”[2] Beyond the curatorial team they hired John Moors Cabot, Chair Art of the Americas, as reported in Forbes.com and Megan Bernard, the MFA’s director of membership, not a curator, was brought into the team to address safe audience experiences.

All of this ensued because of Guston satirical KKK paintings that postponed the original showing. The presentation of the MFA’s exhibit discloses a staff working zealously to demonstrate that Guston was not a racist—they went so far as to hire a trauma specialist for viewers who might be upset by this work as well as an EXIT door to escape the exhibition before entering gallery holding the majority of KKK paintings! Originally there were fifteen Klan related paintings however five were removed because of “space consideration” and another work titled the The Deluge was added.

Philip Guston, *Book and Charcoal Sticks* (1968). Private Collection. The Estate of Philip Guston courtesy Hauser & Wirth.

As for the exhibition itself, after the restructuring of the show it includes 73 painting and 27 drawings. The MFA’s exhibition is smaller than the other three venues. The resulting display discloses a preachy, apologetic attitude. The Curatorial Team was trying so hard to do everything RIGHT and not to OFFEND anyone and in doing so bungled a great artist’s work by including strange objects and time line wall cards throughout the show that are irrelevant to Guston’s art.

Entering the exhibition the visitor is put on alert that something is wrong here. On entry one sees a wall with pink takeaway cards titled “EMOTIONAL PREPAREDNESS FOR PHILIP GUSTON NOW.” “The reverse side has a statement by Ginger Klee, Consultant to the Guston show, who writes: “The content of this exhibition is challenging. The Museum offers these words in a spirit of care and invitation…it’s important to identify your boundaries and take care of yourself. Critical to the fight for equality, equity, and justice is self care… ” [see flyer, above left]

Philip Guston, *Head I* (1965), The Tate. Copyright The Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & Wirth; photo: Tate.

Further to the point in several of the galleries are black vitrines, with ribbed sliding lids—on the open side viewers are warned about the contextual materials inside; “This case contains a contextual photograph with challenging graphic imagery. Please slide the cover to the left and close when finished.” Inside one cabinet is a picture of a KKK gathering however, nothing appears outlandish and many of the images have been printed in numerous tabloids or history books. In another image of a clipping from the Los-Angeles Daily News, about the destruction of a Guston painting that depicted the flogging of a black woman by the KKK. “The work he created focused on the Scottsboro Boys, nine Black teenagers who were falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931. In one of Guston’s panels, a Klansman whips a nearly nude figure tied to a stake that looks like the Washington Monument.”[3] Guston was ahead of not behind the times with his racism concern in the USA. The bizarre black boxes throughout the galleries are only a distraction from Guston’s art.

Phulip Guston (1913-1980). Photo credit unknown. Coll. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington. D.C.

What is shameful is that the curators provide little information about that Guston’s life that was full of bigotry and tragedy. He came from Russian-Jewish parents, who had fled Europe in the early 1900s in order to escape anti-Semitic persecution. Guston was born in Montreal, Canada, the youngest of seven children and his family moved to Los Angeles because the severe winters. These were the years when the KKK flourished in Los Angeles, fearlessly spouting their hatred of all things Jewish. His father was a mechanic working for the Canadian National Railroad however in L. A. he could only get a job of working in a junkyard. This along with permeating reverberations of Anti-Semitism, as well as feeling he couldn’t adequately support his family, led to extreme depression and ultimately his suicide. Philip Guston at age 10 discovered his father’s hung body. It is not at all surprising that this trauma would continue to influence Guston’s paintings in innumerable ways. Frequently ropes and bare light bulbs appear in his figurative paintings. Additionally the single light bulb goes back to his boyhood when he would draw in a closet lit by a sole bulb.

The exhibition “Philip Guston Now” traces an oeuvre that underwent twists and turns before it settled out into its own indelible logic. Guston originally was first a figurative painter who in the 1930s at the of seventeen made the potent drawing Conspirators. Growing up in Los Angeles, he had seen Ku Klux Klan members and probably those experiences influenced him. Throughout the 1940s he continued his figurative style however advanced to create a unique style of abstract expressionism in the 1950s. He found in abstraction freedom, impulsiveness, and a language to engage his creative imagination. Nonetheless, in the 1960s he returned to representation induced by the violence and civil unrest in the late 60s as well as the Vietnam War. He felt obligated to tell a story of an America “run afoul of its democratic promise”. “When the 1960s came along,” he later said, “I was feeling split. The war, what was happening in America, the brutality of the world. What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into frustrated fury about everything … and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue.”[4] Guston’s artistic evolution led to his most creative body of work.

Philip Guston, *Aegean* (1978), oil on canvas, private collection. Copyright The Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & Wirth.

During this time he produced his Klan paintings. As one critic has written, “There is difficulty in approaching this subject in art. But in his images, Guston is showing the banal mundanity of white supremacy. In the midst of the Vietnam War, the black power and civil rights movements, Guston’s paintings didn’t jive with Clement Greenberg’s definition of modernism, which called for “purity” and “eluctable flatness” but they jived with the times. If it is art of the current day you’re after, that will move and shake you; this is it.”[5]

Guston throughout his life confronted painting as a method to self-discovery. Personal paradox was a core in his work ensuing from an endless dialogue with himself. He was intensely aware of the history of art. Early on he became aware of the paintings of Georgio de Chirico and Picasso and for nearly a decade he studied Renaissance art especially the paintings by Andrea Mantegna, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, and Paolo Uccello as well as the architectural structures within these compositions. What we are witness to in this significant retrospective is the work of a highly intelligent artist whose iconography is filled with quirky characters and symbolism. Strange juxtapositions pervade his compositions filled with ordinary objects such as light bulbs, books, clocks, cities, cigarettes, shoes and nails in wood.

The Studio Philip Guston (American, 1913–1980)1969Oil on canvas* Private Collection* © The Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & Wirth* Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

A distinguished painting is ‘The Studio’, 1969, as a self-portrait he depicted himself as a Klan’s member. It hangs within a freestanding room in the larger gallery housing the other Ku Klux Klan works, as well as drawings related to the painting. Photos of Guston’s studio in Woodstock, New York are included and as well a reproduction of Piero della Francesca’s The Flagellation of Christ (1455–60), that Guston lived with his entire life. The installation of this “room within a room” acts as a type of stage to view the puzzlingly unpolished and multifaceted The Studio. This is a key painting in Guston’s change from abstract expressionism to his late figurative style and his shift from modernism to grappling with personal and public injustice. Many pieces from this period address thought-provoking themes, including white supremacy, racism, anti-Semitism, and violence with hooded Ku Klux Klansmen, cut body parts, and mysterious incidents of struggles. His mockery in the images places him as critic by depicting likenesses of the Klan.

“It is a pity that Philip Guston, one of the great artist’s of the 20th century, has had his art processed through a type of censorial “meat-grinder,” as a fear-laden response to current events.”

Beginning in the late 1960s until his death in June 1980, Guston’s art became more consciously autobiographical, depicting a reclining figure of him as a hood or bean-like head with a huge open eye. Moreover he painted portraits of himself with his wife Musa, depicted in both, ‘Couple in Bed’ and ‘Source.’ An outstanding painting from this period is ‘Painting, Smoking, Eating,’ 1969 that portrays Guston lying in bed, smoking, with a plate of French fries poised on his chest. The red, pink and grey pallet intensifies the strange mood of this composition. The figure is missing a nose and mouth, has only one huge eyeball and a head shaped like a bean. It is an uncanny composition drawing personal references to his life—Guston was aware his health was in danger because of excessive smoking, poor eating habits and an unhealthy lifestyle.

Philip Guston, *The Deluge* (1969), oil on canvas, Bequest of Musa Guston. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. copyright The Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & Wirth.

‘The Deluge’ (1969) another notable work is assumed a political statement against racism and white supremacy. The top of this odd image is a reddish-pink surface resembling a sky ablaze with strange objects across its horizon while the darker gray larger lower section depicts a flooded oceanic scene. In the foreground of the painting barely visible are Ku Klux Klan hoods that can be seen only in specialized light. The covering up of the hoods was perhaps Guston’s way of addressing the pervasiveness of the KKK in the United States and the concealed identity of its members. According to Ethan Lasser “It really brought home everything we thought Guston was trying to say: that these things are hidden in plain sight,” he went on. “White supremacy is always lurking, always under the water. And here it was, right in our own institution.”[6]

It is a pity that Philip Guston, one of the great artist’s of the 20^th century, has had his art processed through a type of censorial “meat-grinder,” as a fear-laden response to current events. Guston himself was never afraid, and it was his work that inspired a new generation of artists to return to painting in 1980. He inspired the Neo-Expressionist artists who made subjects in a raw and rough manner and the rejuvenated symbolic imagery. Guston, an accomplished abstract artist, paved the way back to figurative painting after the long dominance of abstraction and the dictates of narrow Modernist theory. Museums should be places fostering open debate, showcasing difficult and stimulating work as well that allows its audience to see, interpret and experience, without didactic guidance from non-curators! My advice to visitors, just look at the paintings!

By Elaine A. King, Contributing Editor

_________________________________

1 . Cristina Ruiz, “Tate curator Mark Godfrey, who was disciplined for questioning the decision to postpone a Philip Guston show, parts ways with institution,” The Art Newspaper, March 11, 2021.
2 Chadd Scott, “America’s Most Controversial Exhibitions, ‘Philip Guston No,” Debuts at MFA, Now,” online Forbes, May 1, 2022, 08:47am EDT.

3. Alex Greenberger, Philip Guston’s KKK Paintings: Why An Abstract Painter Returned to Figuration to
Confront Racisim, Artnews, September 30,2020, 10:02 am.

4. Sean O’ Hagan, Philip Guston’s daughter on his Klan paintings: ‘They’re about white culpability –
including his own’”, The Observer Painting, The Guardian, Sun 21 Feb 2021 07.00 EST.

5. Aindrea Emelife, “Philip Guston’s KKK images force us to stare evil in the face—we need art like this,”
The Guardian, Mon 28 Sep 2020 12.23 EDT.
6 . Taylor Dafoe, “An off-Ramp, a Trauma Specialist, and Preparedness Pamphlets: How MFA Boston
Reworked and Its Philip Guston Retrospective,” artnet news, May 5, 2022.

Baryshnikov Arts Center with, “The Orchard”: A Holographic Circus

I seem to remember reading, in all of the hoopla surrounding the Baryshnikov Art Center’s Production of Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard, somebody saying “Unlike anything that you ever saw before.”
This talking head could also have said, as audiences were soon to find out, that this production, adapted, created, reimagined, and directed by Kiev born Igor Golyak, and starring Mikhail Baryshnikov is a work of genius. Obviously, the great Chekov is embedded deeply in their bones.

Titled “The Orchard,” Golyak’s two-version production (both live and virtual), presented as a limited run, opened on June 16 and closed on July 3rd. Way too soon if you ask me. Hopefully, it will be brought back somehow, somewhere by a theater-loving angel.

To ensure that the audience’s eyes and ears were glued to the stage throughout, director Golyak cleverly chose to use what some critics deemed the star of the play, an imposing vertical 12-foot metal crane-like arm placed center stage on an all-blue set (Anna Fedora). It serves coffee, sweeps the floor, acts as a tree, a person, a bookcase, a place to hide from danger, and a beeping camera that films the play’s goings on. More importantly, it serves to direct our eyes to the play’s imminent action.

Darya Denisova, Jessica Hecht, Juliet Brett, Mark. Photo: Maria Baranova.

Brilliantly encasing the entire production is Carol Rocamora’s translation of Chekov’s last play, The Cherry Orchard (1904). Though most of the play’s original language was kept, a few scenes, though barely noticeable, were cut and rearranged. Eliminated was Dunyasha. the maid, and her would-be lover.
Added to the play’s mix, quite effectively was a giant stage-covering scrim which intermittently featured on its surface live text, video, and close-ups of the actors in real time. Equally absorbing were several speeches delivered in ALS sign language, as well as in French, Russian, and German. Also, slipped into the play’s text, adding a touch of twenty-first century was mention of the Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Kharkiv.

Trofimov played by John McGinty takes center stage in *The Orchard*. Photo: Maria Baranova

Another beguiling addition to the stage was a robotic silver metal dog that could be seen playfully scampering about the stage. Able to do tricks, as well as play dead, it was an audience favorite.
Aside from Firs’ (Baryshnikov), the long-time estate’s keeper appearing to open up the house, the play truly begins with the arrival of Lyobov Andreevna Ranevskaya (Jessica Hecht) to the family’s estate in the Russian countryside. Ranevskaya had run off to Paris with her lover to escape the grief she felt over the loss of her young son. And now she is back.

Following in her fashionable entrance, we meet her brother Gaev (Mark Nelson), her adopted daughter Varya (Elise Kibble), her natural daughter Anya (Juliet Brett), and their servants. They are there to try and save the beloved home and cherry orchard from being auctioned off due to an unpaid mortgage.
Rounding out the cast, each with their own intricate story which links them closely to the family, is Darya (Charlotta Ivanova, also Golyak’s wife), Pyotr (John McGinty, hearing- challenged in real life), a frightening Russian-speaking, Passerby (Llia Volak) in black military dress, another Golyak nod to the ongoing Ukrainian war, and Lopakhin (Nael Nacer), the now rich, former peasant who ends up buying the Orchard.

L to R – Darya Denisova, Nael Nacer, Jessica Hecht, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mark Nelson. Photo:Maria Baranova

Lopakhin’s idea to save the orchard which unfortunately falls on deaf ears, is to turn the estate into a tourist attraction by creating rent-paying summer houses on the property. We realize that times are a-changing – the Russian revolution of 1917 which marked the end of the Romanov dynasty is only 11 years away – when Lopakhin gloats, after he buys the estate that he and his father were never allowed into the family’s home. His only regret is that the beautiful Ranevskaya does not come along with his purchase of the estate.

The virtual live production, with the same 2 hour running time, features the play’s most dramatic scenes, punctuated by performances by Baryshnikov as Anton Chekov, and Hecht as his wife and mistress. Here the viewer follows Chekov into a virtual replica of the Baryshnikov Arts Center building where we could enter various rooms where we hear both Chekhov speaking in Russian with subtitles, and his wife and mistress, often quoting letters, talking about their lives.

L to R – Darya Denisova, Nael Nacer, Mark Nelson, Elise Kibler, Jessica Hecht, John McGinty, Juliet Brett, Mikhail Baryshnikov. Photo: Pavel Antonov.

Happening at the same time we get to see the audience sitting in the theater, some who are participating in the estate’s sale, flashed on the scrim. The virtual performance ends outside the now sold arts center with Baryshnikov, this time as Firs, slowly walking away with his belongings. In the live theatre production, after everybody leaves, and Firs forgotten by the family he has served all his life is alone. Firs, hearing the sounds of the cherry orchard’s trees being chopped down in the background just before everything vanishes, he sadly comments to himself that, “Life has slipped by as though I hadn’t lived.”

For those lucky enough to catch either version of the play, both magnified by an army of design wizards and technical geniuses, from Scenic Design (Anna Fedorova), Costume Design (Oana Botez), Lighting Design (Yuki Nakase Link), Projection Design (Alex Basco Koch), Sound Design (Tei Blow), Robotic Design (Tom Sepe), Emerging Technology design (Adam Paikowsky). Interactivity Design (Anna Hrustaleva), to a ASL sign language expert (Alexey Prosvirnin), and a clowning coach (Alita West), the experience, hypnotic to say the least, was not unlike watching a giant aquarium filled with a frenzy of tropical fish. This, primarily due to the effect of the giant scrim which ironically both distanced ourselves, as well as brought us a lot closer to the play’s action.

By Edward Rubin, Senior Contributing Editor

Note: Masks required in building and theatre, along with proof of a vaccination, and a valid government issued photo ID.

Cast: Mikhail Baryshnikov (Anton Chekov/Firs Nikolaevich), Jessica Hecht (Lyobov Andreevna Ranevskaya), Elise Kibler (Varya Mikhailovna), Juliet Brett (Anya), Nael Nacer (Yermolai Alekseevich Lopakhin), Darya Denisova (Charlotta Ivanovna), Mark Nelson (Leonid Andreevich Gaev), John McGinty (Pyotr Sergevich), LLia Volak (Passerby)

Technical: Scenic Design: Anna Fedora, Costume Design: Oana Botez, Lighting Design: Yuki Nakase Link, Projection Design: Alex Basco Koch, Sound Design: Tei Blow, Clowning Coach: Aelita West, Music Composition: Jakov Jakoulov, Emerging Technologies: Adam Paikowsky, Robotics Design: Tom Sepe, Hair/Makeup: Anna Hrustaleva, Interactivity Design: Alexander Huh, Virtual Sound Design: Alexey Prosvirnin, Director of ASL: Seth Gore, Director of Photography: Leanna Keyes, Production Manager: Jason Reis, Associate Producer Virtual: Zachary Meicher-Buzzi, Production Stage Manager: Jennifer Rogers

The Orchard conceived, adapted, directed, and reimaged by Igor Golyak and based on Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard as translated by Carol Rocamora, opened on Thursday, May 16, 2022 for a limited run through Sunday 3rd at the Baryshnikov Arts Center at 459 275 West 37th Street in Manhattan. Running time is just under 2 hours with no intermission. For more info or to buy tickets call 617-942- 0022 x 1 or log on www.theorchardoffbroadway.com

Washington D.C.’s National Gallery: “Symphony for Whistler’s Muse”

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has just opened an exhibition co-organized with the Royal Academy of Arts, London, entitled The Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan and James McNeil Whistler. Featuring 60 paintings, drawings, and prints, the exhibition brings together nearly all of Whistler’s depictions of his longtime partner and model Joanna Hiffernan. The exhibit is curated by Margaret F. MacDonald, professor emerita of art History, University of Glasgow, in collaboration with Ann Dumas, curator at the Royal Academy of Arts, and Charles Brock, associate curator of American and British paintings at the National Gallery of Art. The curatorial intention, as the catalogue’s “Foreword” explains, is to delve into “the pair’s professional and personal relationship, the iconic works of art resulting from that relationship, and the influence and resonance of those works for artists into the twenty-first century.” The exhibition is the first to “fully acknowledge the role Hiffernan played in Whistler’s career and the first to consider their creations as collaborations.” (7)

James McNeill Whistler,
Jo, 1861, drypoint on ivory laid paper sheet: 17 3/4 x 12 1/4″.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection. ID: 5158-080

Whistler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1834, and went to West Point briefly before moving to Paris to study art. In 1859, he moved to London and soon met Joanna Hiffernan. Born in Limerick in 1839, she was among thousands of Irish who, devastated by the famine, had immigrated to London. She was working as an artist’s model when discovered by Whistler. He was overwhelmed, and in a letter to fellow artist Henri Fantin-Latour raved, “She has the most beautiful hair that you have ever seen! A red not golden but copper–as Venetian as a dream!” Hiffernan quickly became Whistler’s primary model and for several years was his domestic partner. She helped bring order to his chaotic personal affairs; in 1866, the artist recognized her importance by giving her power of attorney and making her the sole heir in his will.

Whistler and Hiffernan lived together in Rotherhithe, and in 1861 she began sitting for the portrait that became “The White Girl.” In this painting, she’s placed in front of a white damask curtain: wearing a white muslin dress, she holds a white lily in one hand and stands on a white animal skin rug. She has an enigmatic expression, and her long red hair cascades down her shoulders to blare against the portrait’s whiteness. Whistler submitted “The White Girl” to the Royal Academy for its annual exhibition in 1862, but lacking any moral message, the portrait caused only harrumphing. It was rejected both by the Academy and by the Salon in Paris, though in 1863 it was accepted by the Salon des Refuses, a protest exhibition organized by Gustave Courbet.

Whistler wanted “The White Girl” to proclaim his presence as an important artist. White paint was a notoriously difficult medium, and he created a seven-foot-high portrait in various shades of white to declare his fabulous mastery. As British artist Ian McKeever has written, Whistler’s use of white was meant to be impressive. The whites on his palette were “Flake White,” “Titaniaum White,” “Permanent White,” and “Zinc White”—all were “furtive, there but never quite there…shying away from whiteness, preferring the shadows….The painter works with the flat surface of colour, yet paradoxically desires…to give colour a full body.” In “The White Girl” Whistler used whites with a flourish, reveling in the textures he created. (Ian McKeever RA, “Whistler’s Whites: Creating Presence with a Pared Down Palette,” in Royal Academy Magazine 6 May 2022.)

Left: James McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, 1861–1863, 1872, oil on canvas, overall: 83 7/8 x 42 1/2″.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Harris Whittemore Collection. ID: 5158-001

The bigness of the canvas also broadcast Whistler’s rejection of portraiture in the grand manner. “The White Girl” was not a major commission by an important patron, nor was Hiffernan a subject of high standing. Instead, as National Gallery co-curator Charles Brock explains in his catalogue essay, this portrait “was the freelance work of a struggling, insecure young painter without clear national identity–a rascal,” and the model was “a striking, red-haired woman, unidentified, and with little or no social standing.” (177)

“White paint was a notoriously difficult medium, and [Whistler] created a seven-foot-high portrait in various shades of white to declare his fabulous mastery.”

At the same time, Whistler was proclaiming his leadership in the Aesthetic Movement. Instead of art as a morality play, he helped publicize the concept of “art for art’s sake”—the idea that aesthetic values like brushwork and color were much more important than uplifiting narratives. As Elaine King has written, Whistler and other artists of the Aesthetic Movement “argued that the primary quality of a work of art resided in its beauty, which translated into its formal elements of line, shape, and color.” (Elaine A. King, “Whistler’s Mother,” in AMERICAN ICONS, 2006)

Whistler painted two more portraits of Hiffernan in white—one placed her standing by a fireplace holding a Japanese fan and glancing at her reflection in the mirror (1864); the other had her reclining on a sofa and staring straight at the viewer (1865). His passion for Asian art is evident in these works, and show how Whistler helped generate the late 19th century European vogue for Japaese and Chinese art. He also embraced the use of musical terminology to describe his works, believing that art, like music, provoked the senses and evoked feeling. He named his “white” paintings of Hiffernan “symphonies,” and–at the suggestion of his patron Frederick Leyland–later called his Thames-side paintings “Nocturnes.”

Right: James McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl, 1864, oil on canvas, overall: 30 1/8 x 20 1/8″.
Tate, London, Bequeathed by Arthur Studd 1919 © Tate, London 2017. ID: 5158-010

The “Woman in White” exhibition brings together all three white “symphonies” for the first time in the United States. The opening gallery showcases the National Gallery-owned “Symphony in White No.1: The White Girl” (1861-63), and unites it with the second and third of Whistler’s “Symphony in White” paintings. In addition to these visual “symphonies,” this section features Hiffernan in other settings, including the dockside “Wapping” (1860-64), and “Purple and Rose: The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks”(1864), where she’s dressed in a silk kimono and holds a Chinese vase.

In the second gallery, Whistler and Hiffernan are shown in etchings and drawings that convey their everyday life in the apartment where they lived, and in Whistler’s studio. Two notable works are the drypoints “Jo” (1861) and “Weary” (1863).

Gustave Courbet, *Jo, the Irish Woman*, c. 1866/1868, oil on canvas, unframed: 21 3/8 x 25″. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri (Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust) 32-30. ID: 5158-043

Whistler and Hiffernan joined Gustave Courbet on a working vacation in 1865, and Courbet convinced Hiffernan to pose for him as well. In addition to examples of her modeling for Courbet, the exhibition’s third gallery displays paintings of women dressed in white by other artists who were inspired by Whistler’s symphonies. Among the artists who chimed in on “The White Girl’s” popularity–and whose works are exhibited here–were John SInger Sargent, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and John Everett Millais.

Along with paintings and other art works, the last gallery of the exhibition features letters and documents that portray the complex relationship between Whistler and Hiffernan. Whistler was an eccentric egoist and made his own rules. He was never monogamous, and in 1870 fathered a child with Louisa Fanny Hanson. Hiffernan, who no longer lived with Whistler, nevertheless raised the boy with her sister. Whistler’s son “Charlie” became the primary connection between the artist and his erstwhile muse until Hiffernan’s death of bronchitis in 1886.

The exhibition’s intention–to establish Joanna Hiffernan as Whistler’s creative collaborator–is hampered by the absence of evidence. Although she apparently drew and painted herself, none of her art survives. The exhibition press release argues that, despite the lack of records or proof of her own art, it is enough to invite visitors “to participate in covering Hiffernan’s humanity by considering the essential mystery of who she was.”

Right: James McNeill Whistler, Letter, Whistler to Fantin-Latour with sketch of “Symphony in White, No. 3”, August 16, 1865, pen and brown ink on cream laid paper, overall: 8 1/4 x 5 3/8 in”. Pennell-Whistler Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. ID: 5158-084

This assumption indicates that the organizing museums are motivated by the current redefinition of a “muse’s significance.” The idea of a creative male artist and his passive female model is detritus from days when art-speak was dominated by “the male gaze.” Recent art history scholarship has focused on women’s importance, notably in such works as Margaret Gabriel’s NINTH STREET WOMEN (2018), and Ruth Millington’s MUSE: UNCOVERING THE HIDDEN FIGURES BEHIND ART HISTORY’S MASTERPIECES (2022). Millington describes how many “muses” were female artists themselves –Edouard Manet’s favorite muse Victorine Meurent showed her work at the Paris Salon; Picasso’s “muses” included Dora Maar and Francoise Gilot, both of whom were important artists. Maar introduced Picasso to black and white photography, and Gilot contributed to “Guernica.” Lee Miller sat for Man Ray, but was no passive muse to his male artistry–rather, she and Ray fueled each other’s creativity. Miller was an accomplished photographer in her own right, and became known especially for her World War II combat photography.

James McNeill Whistler, *Symphony in White, No. 3*, 1865–1867, oil on canvas, overall: 20 1/16 x 30 1/8″. The Henry Barber Trust, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, Bridgeman Images. ID 5158-001.

What about Joanna Hiffernan? Was she an active artistic collaborator for Whistler? How do we judge her contribution? The evidence exists that she was a domestic partner whose beauty inspired his creativity for nearly twenty years, and this serves as the crux of the exhibition’s rationale to “foreground Hiffernan in relation to the making, reception, and cultural context of the many images of her.” (Catalogue, 9)

The organizing museums seek “to contribute to ongoing discussions concerning gender and identity in the history of art.” (ibid.) But unlike the roles played by such muse/artist/collaborators as Meurent, Maar, Gilot, or Miller, the evidence of Joanna Hiffernan’s creative participation is murky. Curator Charles Brock sums up why he believes showcasing Hiffernan is nevertheless worthwhile: “The exhibition and catalogue bring together all the works featuring Hiffernan and everything that is currently known about her while encouraging viewers to come to their own conclusions about the nature of her relationship to Whistler and who she was. Depending on how they understand the terms, some may see her as an active collaborator, others as a more distant muse, or something in between. This searching, elusive quality is in many was part and parcel of the works Hiffernan and Whistler created together.” (Brock to AH, 7/8/22)

After James McNeill Whistler, *The Relief Fund in Lancashire, The Major’s Daughter, The Morning Before the Massacre of St. Bartholomew,* and *The Nun in “Count Burkhardt” (Once a Week)*, 1862, wood engraving; proofs, sheet: 8 3/4 x 22 9/16″. Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1922, 22.112.2-.5. ID: 5158-077.

The exhibition has wonderful art, and Joanna Hiffernan’s presence in Whistler’s life and art is undeniable. But was she Whistler’s creative collaborator? The National Gallery in Washington and London’s Royal Academy suggest that she was. The good news is that we’re learning more and more about such women—we’ve learned that Degas’ “Little Dancer” was 14-year-old Marie van Goethem, the daughter of a Belgian tailor and a laundress who was a student dancer in the Paris Opera Ballet. And thanks to this exhibition, more is known about Joanna Hiffernan. But a veil of mystery remains. Despite the models/muses/mistresses/children captured in his wake, Whistler remained surprisingly detached about real life connections. What mattered was the painting that appeared with his brushstrokes—the magic that happened when he pursued “art for art’s sake.”

By Amy Henderson, Contributing Editor

THE WOMAN IN WHITE: Joanna Hiffernan and James MacNeil Whistler, will be at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., through October 3,2022. There is an accompanying catalogue of the same title edited by Margaret. F. MacDonald. www.nga.gov.

Pittsburg’s Frick Museum, “Romare Bearden: Artist as Activist & Visionary”

The Romare Bearden Foundation in New York organized the traveling exhibition Romare Bearden: Artist as Activist and Visionary currently on view at the Frick Museum in Pittsburgh. For over fifty years Bearden portrayed and commemorated in his art the life that surrounded him. New York, Charlotte, NC [where he was born] and Pittsburgh were the cities of Bearden’s childhood and each made an indelible impression on him that influenced his art for decades. He benefited from living in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance. Bearden’s family’s apartment on West 131^st Street in Harlem was a hub where such cultural giants as W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, and Countee Cullen, as well as artists Aaron Douglas and Charles Alston, and jazz musicians Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, and Andy Razaf frequently gathered. As an adolescent Bearden became immersed in jazz and blues—this was convenient given his home was only a few blocks from The Lincoln Theatre, Savoy Ballroom and other music venues.

The Frick Art Museum, part of the Frick Art & Historical Center at “Clayton” in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

What is distinct to the Frick’s presentation is Bearden’s connection to Pittsburgh. Melanie Groves, curator of the Frick’s presentation of this exhibition, expressed, “The opportunity to present Romare Bearden: Artist as Activist and Visionary, not far from where the artist first took up drawing in his early years, and in a city that inspired and informed much of his work, is an honor for the Frick.” In 1925, he moved to Pittsburgh to live with his maternal grandmother and graduated from Peabody High School in 1929. She operated a boarding house that provided rooms for black steel mill workers, many of whom had recently migrated from the South. Seeing and hearing the workers stories impacted Bearden perspective about the life of these workingmen, especially their dissatisfaction with working conditions and pervasive racial discrimination. Moreover Bearden’s artistic interests were developed in Pittsburgh when his boyhood friend, Eugene Bailey, taught him how to draw; though his interest in art waned for a while after Bailey’s premature death. Another connection of Bearden to Pittsburgh is an expansive tile mural bursting with color, “Pittsburgh Recollections” that he created it in 1984 for the original Gateway Center T station and reinstalled in 2012 the Gateway Center light-rail station downtown. It was water damaged in 2011 however was saved after its estimated worth was $15 million. A collage of this mural is on view at the Frick.

Although he graduated from New York University in 1935 with a B.S. degree in science (with thoughts of going on to medical school) Bearden persisted drawing as a cartoonist for the university’s magazine Medley, depicting humor from the 1930’s and made editorial drawings for the Saturday Evening Post as well as for the Baltimore Afro-American.

Romare Bearden, in his army uniform, a photograph taken by Carl Van Vechten, 1944

In 1935 he decided to become a visual artist after meeting a group of people who later founded the Harlem Artists Guild. African-American artists including Augusta Savage, Charles Alston, Elba Lightfoot, Louise E. Jefferson and Arthur Schomburg created the organization. By 1936 Bearden was a member of the 306 Group, named after the studio lofts at 306 West 141^st Street, where colleagues frequently met to share ideas. Additionally Bearden enrolled at the Art Students League and it was here that he studied under the German artist George Grosz, known for his caricatural drawings and biting paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. Grosz played a significant in Bearden’s artistic growth, introducing him to the works of Daumier, Goya, Breughel, and Köllwitz and such old masters as Ingres, Dürer, Holbein, and Poussin.

After his military service in the US Army during WWII, Bearden decided to go to Paris in 1950 to study philosophy at the Sorbonne on the G.I. Bill. In the ‘City of Light’ Bearden met Georges Braque, Constantin Brâncu?i and other French and American artists and writers. Unsurprisingly, he spent time studying works in museums and galleries as well as travelling to Nice, Florence, Rome, and Venice.

It is this multifaceted exposure to the past that formed the core of Bearden’s understanding about the formal qualities of art in addition to how to meld his unique message into the rich vibrant paintings, drawings, collages, and photomontages where he beatified Afro-American experience in the United States.

The Frick exhibition begins with Bearden’s early work from the 1930s including the editorial cartoons previously mentioned as well as a painting titled “Soup Kitchen”, and several pieces of his commercial work. In these works one can see his early ability as a draftsman and a compassion for politics, race and social injustice.

Romare Bearden, *Baptism* (1975). Screenprint. © 2022 Romare Bearden Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

A large section of this show titled Visualizing the African American Landscape highlights Bearden’s endeavors to portray a layered image of Black America, interconnected by social history, ritual, and a pursuit of justice. Bearden produced some of his largest and most innovative works between 1967 and 1969 though he continued to experiment formally and to engage in social issues throughout his career. Although many refer to his art as collages, Romare Bearden insisted his works were “paintings, not collages”, because he used the techniques and materials of collage to create the rhythms, surfaces, tones, and moods associated with painting. The civil rights movement also influenced his art prompting him to become more representational and socially conscious. Even though his collage work evinces inspiration from abstract art, it also displays traces of African American enslaved crafts, especially patchwork quilts, and the use of found materials.

“Throughout many of the pieces Bearden’s knowledge of Cubism is apparent. This is evident in his use of flattened space and angular forms with areas of bright color framed by black outline.”

Romare Bearden, Homage to Mary Lou (The Piano Lesson), (detail), 1983. Lithograph. © 2022 Romare Bearden Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Courtesy DC Moore Gallery, NY.

Memories of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, abound in his art confirming Bearden’s roots in the rural South. Inspired by improvisational jazz music, Bearden started creating collages in 1964 depicting African-American life in the rural South and Harlem. Bearden’s piece “The Piano Lesson”, 1983 inspired August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “The Piano Lesson”. Also from this series is Bearden’s lithograph “Homage to Mary Lou” (The Piano Lesson), 1984 in which he depicts a music teacher and her student in a Southern parlor. He dedicated this image to Williams a great jazz pianist, who, like Bearden, moved from the South to Pittsburgh. Both work are similar in color, composition and structure and were inspired by two Henri Matisse paintings “The Piano Lesson” (1916) and “The Music Lesson” (1917).

Another section titled Bearden and Women depicts strong images of women, who he portrays as healers, protectors, and goddesses. Black Women throughout the ages have played a vital role in the fight to cure many social injustices in American society. This includes the abolition of slavery; voting rights; education for all and the end of segregation. Resilient women in his life undoubtedly inspired Bearden. “Falling Star,” 1980 a vivid colorful image is an exceptional lithograph layered with meaning. Perhaps Bearden was inspired by John Donne’s poem, “To Catch a Falling Star” implies the impossibility of finding a truly good woman. The falling star against the vibrant blue sky outside the window may perhaps signify such a woman. A tall black woman, dressed in colorful attire confidently stands while sipping tea. She fills a large portion of this composition yet appears oblivious to the scene outside her window. Another striking work in this section is “The Woman”, 1985; collage and pigment on board. The frontal portrayal of a hefty, anonymous woman fills the frame in this colorful work. The strong woman is engaged in her own thoughts somewhat akin to Mary Cassatt’s portrayal of her mother, “Reading Le Figaro”. Throughout many of the pieces Bearden’s knowledge of Cubism is apparent. This is evident in his use of flattened space and angular forms with areas of bright color framed by black outline.

The final segment of this exhibition, “Li’l Dan: the drummer boy, A Civil War Story”, contains collages and watercolors from the only children’s book Romare Bearden illustrated and wrote. It is believed he wrote the manuscript and made the illustrations some time in the 1970s although, it was never printed. Simon & Schuster published the manuscript in 2003 along with the original paintings and collages that were found among Bearden’s papers. Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote the introduction. It is a memorable tale about a slave boy who loved to play his drum and used his music to save a company of Union soldiers. According to Robin Kelly who was married to Bearden’s niece, “At the time, there were a slew of books on African American history, an increasing number written for children. Bearden was hardly joining the bandwagon, but he must have seen a need for a book that resists the story of how oppressed we were under slavery but rather focused on how important African Americans were in bringing liberty and freedom to the entire country. The fact that black music and black people, in this sweet tale, quite literally save America, is precisely one of those metaphors that have driven much of his visual art.” The imagery in this historical fiction illustrates Bearden’s acute talent as an illustrator who tells a compelling story filled with compassion and optimism.

This exhibition provides viewers with only the tip of the iceberg of Romare Bearden’s in-depth oeuvre. He was immensely prolific yet not recognized as a major American artist because the art world in the United States maintained the same prejudices and segregation of society. Fortunately “the times they are a’ changin” for Afro-American artists as more people recognize the major contributions these artists have made. Moreover Sam Gilliam, a pioneering abstractionist, who has made work for six decades is finally getting the respect and exposure that is also long overdue. Artists as Bearden and Sam Gilliam are dissimilar from many black artists today who put social justice ideology above their final art product. The earlier Afro-American artists had an ability to captivate and experiment with the cultural history that interested and shaped them. Jed Perl has written, “The erosion of art’s imaginative ground, often blamed on demagogues of the left and the right, is taking place in the very heart of the liberal, educated, cultivated audience—the audience that arts professionals always imagined they could count on. The whole question is so painful and so difficult that I have frankly hesitated to tackle it. It is relatively easy to point to the deformations of art at the hands of politically correct left-wingers and cheap-shot moralists on the right, as the late Robert Hughes did in the fast-paced, witty series of lectures that he published as Culture of Complaint in 1993…The challenge for everybody who is involved with the arts—with opera, dance, and theater companies, museums, symphony orchestras, newspapers, magazines, and publishing houses—is how to make the case for the arts without condemning the arts to the hyphenated existence that violates their freestanding significance.”

By Elaine A. King, Contributing Editor

Romare Bearden: Artist as Activist and Visionary

Frick Museum, Pittsburgh

April 30, 2022 – September 18, 2022

D.C.’s Renwick Gallery Celebrates Its 50th

Centrally-located across from the White House, the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery (part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum) is the nation’s flagship museum of American craft and decorative arts. Opened in 1972, the museum is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year by showcasing widely-diverse perspectives of craft and design with the exhibition THIS PRESENT MOMENT: CRAFTING A BETTER WORLD. The museum launched an acquisitions campaign in 2020 to enlarge the number of Black, Latinx, LGBTQ+, Indigenous, and women artists represented in its permanent collection. More than 200 craft objects were collected, and over 130 of these newly-acquired works are among the 171 artworks on display in THIS PRESENT MOMENT. Nora Atkinson, the Fleur and Charles Bresler Curator-in-Charge for the Renwick helped organize the exhibition with Mary Savig, the Lloyd Herman Curator of Craft, and Anya Montiel, curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

The National Gallery of Art Showcases ‘Afro-Atlantic Histories’

This Spring, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has opened AFRO-ATLANTIC HISTORIES — an enormous exhibition that visually explores the far-flung diaspora of the Western slave trade. Organized in 2018 by the Sao Paulo Museum of Art, the show originally had a Brazilian focus. But NGA Curator Kanitra Fletcher has reconfigured it now as an exhibition with a vast canvas that conveys the impact and legacy of the African Diaspora across four continents–Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean, and Europe.

The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Uncovers Picasso’s ‘Blue Period’

Another Picasso exhibition? Yes, he was brilliant and there are new generations waiting to discover his significance—but is there really anything new to say? The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, and the Art Gallery of Ontario think there is, and have co-curated a new exhibition whose ambitious purpose is revelation. To achieve this goal, PICASSO: PAINTING THE BLUE PERIOD showcases how X-Ray imaging reveals young Picasso’s emergence as a distinctive painter in his early career in Paris and Barcelona. There is always room for new ideas in art history, and Phillips Head of Conservation Elizabeth Steele believes that since much conservation work is done behind the scenes, sharing their work with the public “is a unique chance to spotlight the science of preserving art.”

NYC’s Almine Rech Gallery with Sarah Cunningham: “In Its Daybreak, Rising”

Almine Rech presents “In Its Daybreak Rising,” an exhibition of eighteen new abstract oil paintings by Sarah Cunningham. The exhibition is unusually focused and pure in its means. The semi-abstract works with representational underpinnings speak for themselves; their surprising immediacy quickly engages the viewer. One is not asked to read long texts pertaining to the show, or to contend with convoluted explanations of current trends that abound from the Metropolitan Museum to galleries in every art district in New York. Abstract painting comes in many guises; the works are often visually attractive, but ultimately fail to convey meaningful content, which would make them matter more authentically. Beauty is never wrong if it is authentic, but without an in-depth foothold, it can tilt toward the decorative, Sarah Cunningham’s works have no link to decoration. The psychologically complex works present configurations of thick worked media that create depth, movement, and inner space.

New York City Opera & Museum of Jewish Heritage: ‘The Garden of the Finzi-Continis’

Despite countless closings, postponements, cancellations, empty seats, Covid interventions, and the annoying requirement of having to wear a mask, present proof of a vaccination with a valid government issued photo ID, and go through a security check, even before you enter the theatre, New York City’s theater scene appears to be chugging along, surprisingly so, with an abundance of better than- usual fare.

Maryland’s Glenstone with Charles Ray: An Ongoing Series of Rotating Exhibitions

Charles Ray is known for his uncanny realistic sculptures of cars, plants, and humans. He has been making art for nearly five decades. He was born in Chicago and moved to L.A. in 1981 where he continues to reside. Ray has had a flourishing international career; exhibiting his work in numerous prestigious venues as three Venice Biennales, Kunst Museum Basel, five Whitney Biennials, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago and Documenta to mention only a few. Although he is known for such iconic figurative works as the Family Romance, 1993; Boy with Frog, 2009 and his experimental statues. Ray’s work does not lend itself to specific categorization since it is ever evolving and rooted in the time and place of its conception