Out in the Open: Sexual Differences in Art

"Telling the history of art without the history of gay people is like telling the history of slavery without mentioning black people," says David C. Ward, curator of Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. "There's been an entire history hiding in plain sight." In Hide/Seek, art history comes out of the closet and out into the open, working specifically in the area of American portraiture to give a general impression of the role of persons of sexual difference in the art we already know and love. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Out in the Open."

Forever Young

“Cezanne has never looked younger!” beamed PMA curator Michael Taylor at today’s press preview for the blockbuster exhibition Cezanne and Beyond. The culmination of 13 years of work since the 1996 Cezanne exhibition at the PMA, Cezanne and Beyond stunningly portrays the power of Cezanne’s influence on a wide range of artists across the entire twentieth century into the twenty-first hailing from all over the globe. PMA curators Joseph J. Rishel, Kathy Sachs, and Michael Taylor have done better than resurrect the old Cezanne—they’ve made Cezanne our contemporary.



By juxtaposing works by Cezanne with those influenced by him (above), the side by side comparisons really show the nature of influence between great artists, which the curators called more of a “resonance” than a direct following leading to derivative works. For example, after seeing the watercolors of Charles Demuth inspired by Cezanne’s watercolors, you appreciate the art of Demuth on its own merits, but you really understand the power of Cezanne’s watercolors, which I’ve always thought have been grossly underestimated. As Joe Rishel remarked, the fifty works by Cezanne in the exhibition provide a wonderful retrospective by themselves.



The PMA’s powerful Cezanne collection makes them the perfect (and for this exhibition, only) venue for this show. The PMA places its Large Bathers beside the National Gallery of London’s version (above), providing an opportunity for comparison not seen since the 1996 retrospective. (If only The Barnes Foundation could have allowed their version to join its siblings…) Dipping into their own collection again and again, the PMA gathers together Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, and others to pay homage to Cezanne. Cezanne and Beyond is a Cezanne showcase, of course, but it’s also a tribute to the quality and breadth of the PMA’s collection.



The highlight of the press preview for me was the opportunity to hear Joe Rishel (above) speak. His warm and witty voice pervades the entire show, just as the spirit of the late Anne d’Harnoncourt, to whom the exhibition is dedicated, hovers over it. Rishel stressed the humor of many of the pieces, just part of the show’s intent to show that Cezanne and all of these artists are as alive today as they ever were thanks to their continuing influence on the artists of today—not only still-living canonical artists such as Johns, Kelly, and Jeff Wall, but also newer artists such as Sherrie Levine and Francis Alÿs. Survey-style museums such as the PMA always face the danger of stagnating in the public’s perception, always being about the distant past. Cezanne and Beyond brings Cezanne to life brilliantly and stakes a claim for the museum and art itself as a vital and important piece of the here and now.

Random Musings:

—As much as the preview of Cezanne and Beyond was a celebration, it was hard not to think about the funeral of slain Philadelphia police officer John Pawlowski taking place at the same time at the other end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Philadelphia has seen too many of their police killed recently. The PMA lowered their flag to half mast (above) in Officer Pawlowski’s memory.
—Before entering the exhibition area, I saw a man in the restroom who could have passed for Cezanne’s twin. He turned out to be another member of the press, but if he’d handed me an apple and mumbled something in French, I would have believed that old Paul had returned from the beyond.
—The Cezanne and Beyond gift shop is offering large lenticular versions of several paintings, including one version of The Card Players and a still life. Cezanne played enough games with depth and perspective that the paintings themselves are disorienting, but looking at these lenticular versions almost gave me vertigo.
—The gift shop also already had t-shirts for the Arshile Gorky exhibition coming this October. PMA PR Director Norman Keyes introduced Michael Taylor’s Gorky contributions to Cezanne and Beyond as an amuse bouche for the Gorky retrospective. (I freely admit that I had no idea what an amuse bouche was before I started watching Top Chef.)

—I looked long and hard at Picasso's The Dream, but couldn't see any evidence of where its owner, casino mogul Steve Wynn, accidentally poked a hole through it. Kudos to the restorers! Here's hoping you got a better tip than just free breakfast at the Bellagio.

[Many thanks to the PMA for allowing me to attend the Cezanne and Beyond press preview. I will be reviewing the catalogue once I’ve conquered the 600-page behemoth. You can see more pictures from the Cezanne and Beyond preview at my Facebook page.]

Society Painter

In the late nineteenth century in America, William Merritt Chase’s name was synonymous with the word artist. Born November 1, 1849, Chase garnered most of the awards, presided over most of the societies, and generally introduced his presence anywhere art was discussed. In retrospect, someone such as the withdrawn Winslow Homer may seem the greater artist today, but at the time, but Chase put himself forward as what an artist should look like and how an artist should relate with the public. As seen in Chase’s painting In the Studio (above, from 1882), Chase even decked out his home and studio in the mode of a fashionable society painter. Sumptuous carpeting and lavish décor seem out of place in the paint-spattered world of what we think of as a working studio, but Chase sought to create a mood in his sitters and patrons congruous with their own upper crust expectations. For an America still striving to forge a cultural heritage on the verge of the twentieth century, Chase stepped forward and assumed leadership of what direction that culture would take.

Stylistically, Chase greatly resembles John Singer Sargent in the lightness of his touch and flair for the theatrical in works such as Carmencita (above, from 1890). The label of Impressionism sticks better to Chase than it does to Sargent, however. Thanks to his friendship with John Henry Twachtman and other American Impressionists, Chase easily slips into the category of Impressionist, which was only then gaining in popularity in America. When Chase returned from his studies in Europe in 1878, Impressionism was “the new thing” and Chase a bold experimentalist. Success and recognition, however, froze Chase stylistically. As other artists moved past Impressionism into the movements that would mark the beginning of the twentieth century, Chase failed to keep up in his own art, more content to repeat the works of the past and rest on his hard-earned laurels. It’s easy to dismiss Chase as a fuddy duddy of sorts, but his importance in the development of an arts culture in America can not and should not be denied.

Despite his own artistic entrenchment, Chase taught young artists such as Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Demuth, and Marsden Hartley who took his lessons and struck out on their own path with his blessing. While Chase taught his students the old ways of painting and thinking, rival teacher Robert Henri taught his charges the new ideas of a physical approach to art totally immersed in the life of the everyman that evolved into the Ashcan School. Things actually got physical as Henri’s students sometimes rumbled with Chase’s pupils over art. (I tend to imagine this as an artsy version of the Jets versus the Sharks.) Chase, however, never entered the fray, always floating above it all. In the 1890s, Chase summered at Shinnecock off of Long Island, rejoicing in the seaside beauty and painting his family in the open air in works such as The Fairy Tale (above, from 1892). In many ways, Chase lived a fairy tale existence, carefully constructing a persona as an artist and inviting young artists to indulge in that fantasy world momentarily while discovering their own creative reality.

The Great Figure

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
fire truck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city

--The Great Figure by William Carlos Williams

Inspired by his the poem “The Great Figure” by his friend William Carlos Williams, Charles Demuth set out to paint a “portrait” of the poet from the image of the poem. Demuth’s poetical portrait, titled I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold (above, from 1928), captures the speed and power of not only the roaring fire engine but that of the poet himself. Born November 9, 1883, Demuth became the quintessential precisionist painter of that small American school, taking the idea of photographic realism and marrying it to a poetic ideal, proving that the two art forms could peaceably coexist. Demuth’s association with Alfred Stieglitz and his circle allowed him to further his art and retain the position he has today.

Struggling with his homosexuality in America, Demuth traveled to Paris, seeking a more accepting culture. Hearing a group of American artists talking at a nearby café table, Demuth introduced himself and met Marsden Hartley. Hartley, in turn, introduced Demuth to his friend and supporter Stieglitz, which led to Demuth meeting Georgia O’Keeffe. Works such as After Sir Christopher Wren (above, from 1920) appeared in the shows that Stieglitz held for Demuth in his galleries, helping launch his career as an artist. O’Keeffe took care of the Demuth’s reputation at the end of his life. After Demuth entrusted his works to O’Keeffe’s care in his will, O’Keeffe carefully arranged with museums for them to become parts of the permanent collections, ensuring that he’d have a place in the annals of the American avant garde of the early twentieth century.

Throughout his public career, Demuth painted intriguing, almost architectural works such as My Egypt (above, from 1927). Privately, Demuth painted more sexually explicit homoerotic works, including a self-portrait set in a bathhouse. Those works related to his sexuality are at the center of a critical reevaluation of Demuth’s work today. Hopefully, this reevaluation will still allow the painter of complex, fractural scenes to emerge as a more rounded individual and not reduce him to simply a function of his sexual orientation.

The Student Becomes the Teacher

In works such as The Ironworker’s Noontime (above), Thomas Pollock Anshutz exemplifies the realist side of the Ashcan School that recognized the urban existence of the early twentieth century as the new grand subject for American art. Born October 5, 1851, Anshutz attended the PAFA as a student from 1875 through 1881 under the tutelage of Thomas Eakins. After graduating, Anshutz became Eakins’ designated assistant and chief photographer, remaining with the PAFA in some capacity for the most part until his death in 1912. Students such as Maxfield Parrish and Charles Demuth recall Anshutz as a gifted and giving teacher, supportive even when they took their art in directions other than his own brand of realism. Not until 1985 did scholars discover the dark side of Anshutz and his involvement in the conspiracy to oust Eakins, his friend and mentor, from teaching at the PAFA, the scandal that began Eakins’ sad marginalization from the American art world.

Anshutz learned well from Eakins. In works such as A Rose (above, from 1906), Anshutz shows not only the technique of Eakins but also some of the gift for bold color of John Singer Sargent. Rebecca Whelen, the woman in A Rose, was the daughter of one of the trustees of the PAFA while Anshutz taught there. Anshutz’s artistic output is relatively small, due in part to his commitment to teaching. In such works as A Rose, his photographic realism reflects his interest in photography, which Eakins encouraged and developed in making Anshutz his chief photographer in his many photographic experiements of nude bodies in motion. Maxfield Parrish’s use of photographs in his works resulted from Anshutz’s teachings.

As a devotee of Eakins, I cringe at the sight of Anshutz’s Self Portrait of 1909 (above), showing the painter as respectable teacher and painter, comfortable in his position in society, a position he helped deny to Eakins. Sidney Kirkpatrick in The Revenge of Thomas Eakins sees Anshutz as “the prime mover of this conspiracy” to remove Eakins from his teaching position at the PAFA after the episode involving a nude model. Anshutz himself took many of the nude photos that incriminated Eakins before the trustees of the PAFA and the court of public opinion, yet he led the secret movement within the PAFA to take Eakins' teaching position away. With Eakins gone, Anshutz easily slid into his open slot. Anshutz went on to teach many years and earn a minor place in American art history. Eakins taught sporadically after his expulsion before ending his teaching days completely after another sexually charged scandal involving his niece. Today, Eakins has his revenge in his towering reputation in relation to that of Anshutz, but that seems cold comfort today.

All You Need Is Love

Born Robert Clark on this date in 1928 in the town of New Castle, Indiana, the artist better known as Robert Indiana created some of the most memorable images of the 1970s, including his iconic LOVE image. Every true Philadelphian knows the LOVE Statue (above) in LOVE Park, famous for the statue and the skateboarders that formerly surrounded it. Indiana’s work represents the last stage of Pop Art, taking the same path as artists such as Peter Max but with fewer psychedelic props and a greater sense of art history.

Eat (above) from 1978 seems like a stylized advertisement, riffing on the pervasive nature of commercial design in America. However, the series of fives at the center alludes to Charles Demuth’s work The Figure 5 in Gold, a seminal abstract “portrait” alluding to William Carlos Williams’ poem “The Great Figure” that describes the sight of a fire engine (“Engine No. 5”) roaring through the streets on a mission. Indiana’s work’s deceptive simplicity belies a finer appreciation of art history, specifically American art history and the often torturous relationship America has had with abstract art. In works such as Eat, Indiana reawakens us to the abstract elements in the commercial designs all around us, showing us just how artful our everyday world is without making those symbols seem banal.

In 2003, Indiana painted a series of works called Peace Paintings as his response to the events of September 11, 2001 and the resultant conflicts with Afghanistan and Iraq. Four Diamond Peace Diamond (above), from the Peace Paintings series, asks multiple questions: “Where Oh Where Flees Peace?”; “Whither Has Peace Gone?”; “Whereabouts Hides Peace?”; and “Why Oh Why Has Peace Fled?” Indiana reproduces and interweaves the classic peace symbol throughout the painting. With its discordantly bright colors and 1960s visual language of pacifism, Indiana’s work may strike some as archaic, a reaching back into an unrecoverable past. I prefer to see it as a renewal of hope, an always relevant call for idealism, and a visual lesson that, indeed, in the end, all you need is love.