Painting & Drawing

Van Gogh’s Cypresses: Art From Hell

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

This new decade promptly brought with it the coronavirus pandemic, then a rolling lockdown in response. Isolation followed worldwide to a degree not seen since the equally devastating Spanish flu pandemic, 1918-20. I imagine most of us experienced isolation, or close quarters living, more than we had in our lifetimes. Still emerging from mine, as others are around the globe, it was somewhat ironic and timely that The Met chose Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) as the subject of its 2023’s summer blockbuster show. I also found it fortuitous. There’s spending a few years alone. Then, there’s spending virtually your entire adult life alone. As a momentous day dawned in my life, one I had dreaded spending alone- Who better to spend it with than Vincent van Gogh?

Perhaps no one I know of was more familiar with isolation and being alone than Vincent was. 

Welcome to The Met! In all my years of going to The Museum as I call it, currently 1,800+ visits since 2002, I’ve never seen TWO banners (left & right) up devoted to the same show. And, as I was soon to find out, it’s not like there weren’t other terrific shows going on! And, after all these years, I still get a tingle up my spine when I see this in front of me. Seen on June 2, 2023. Click any image for full size.

The Met’s Van Gogh’s Cypresses, centered on his depictions of the coniferous tree in his Art from March, 1888 through May, 1890, which the curators compare to his iconic sunflowers in his oeuvre. I, however, couldn’t get the backstory out of my mind. Rarely mentioned on the wall cards, was the utter hell Vincent was living through during the final year and a half covered by the show. In a life marked by struggle & loneliness, perhaps nothing he experienced was as bad as the confluence of hardships Vincent van Gogh faced from December 23, 1888 through May, 1890, when the show ends, 2 months before his death by suicide or murder.

The maze-like ticket line. You buy yours, then get on the “virtual line” and wait for a text…

I saw Van Gogh’s Cypresses three times. Each time, I bought my ticket, then waited on the “virtual line” for 2 hours before it was my turn to go in. Well, if I could pick a place on Earth to be “stuck in” with 2 hours to kill, “Oh, PLEASE let it be The Met!” Suffice it to say that during my waits I saw exceptional shows: Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid; Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter; In Praise of Painting: Dutch Masterpieces at The Met; and Philip Guston: What Kind of Man Am I? ! Two I’ve subsequently written about. PHEW. And then, I then spent close to 3 hours in Cypresses each time. 

During my wait I also checked out Vincent in the Permanent Collection upstairs to reconnect with his work that wasn’t in the show. I wrote about this gallery in 2018 when they were reinstalled after the skylight project had been completed here. Notice the light coming in from above.

Along the way, I realized I have been looking at Vincent for over 40 years. Van Gogh’s Cypresses is the FOURTH major Met Van Gogh show I’ve seen. In 1984, I saw Van Gogh in Arles. In 1986, Van Gogh in Saint-Rémy and Auvres (which includes the period covered in Cypresses), and in 2005, Vincent Van Gogh: The Drawings. Each one terrific1. The common denominator of each show is Susan Alyson Stein, who was on the staff of the first two, rose to co-curator of The Drawings, and now curator of Cypresses. Her legacy at The Met is approaching that of Carmen Bambach, Met curator of Drawings & Prints, who has given us the landmark Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer and Leonardo da Vinci: Master Draftsman, among others. HOW Ms. Stein, her team, & The Met ever got MoMA to part with The Starry Night, perhaps MoMA’s biggest single attraction, for the entire summer amazed me.

You may never see this again. MoMA’s Van Gogh wall on July 4, 2023 with The Met’s Irises, center, in the spot previously (and currently as of October 20, 2023) occupied by The Starry Night. Unfortunately, its original pink background has faded and apparently can’t be restored.

On a visit to MoMA this summer, I discovered The Met had “traded”/lent Vincent’s Irises, 1890, for it, which MoMA hung in The Starry Night’s spot. Interestingly, both it, and the work to its left in the picture above, The Olive Trees- Saint Rémy June-July, 1889, were Painted while Vincent was in the Asylum, the subject of the central, Part II of the show, but are not included in Cypresses because neither depict them.

Meanwhile, at The Met, Cypresses begins in somewhat subdued, though beautiful, fashion.

Drawbridge, May, 1888, All Paintings shown are Oil on canvas unless stated. The cypresses stand off to the side.

Arranged in three Parts, Part I of the show takes place in Arles from March, 1888 to early Spring, 1889. Vincent is hard at work trying to build on all he’d seen in his prior 2 years in Paris, a time that saw his work go from the dark, almost monochromatic, earth tones of works like The Potato Eaters to vibrant color. His palette has opened up, his journey to being “the first great colorist. Great…great colorist,” as David Hockney called him2, has begun. Now, he was after a style of his own. Note the very flat sky in Drawbridge, the first Painting in the show.

Installation view of Part I. The entrance is on the far right. Drawbridge straight ahead.

Throughout this period, and for the rest of his life, he juggled the influence of countless Artists, including the so-called Impressionists, the so-called Post-Impressionists and Japanese Woodblock Prints, all of which can be seen in Drawbridge. He had met and been influenced by Georges Seurat3, Paul Gauguin and Claude Monet (who was represented by his Art dealer brother, Theo, for a time), among others. His mission now was to develop his own style and begin to have his work sell, like theirs was beginning to. Totally dependent on Theo for money to survive, the heat was on.

Garden at Arles, July, 1888. Another flat sky, but notice how everything else is different. It has an almost spontaneous feel to it, until you see the Drawing next to it, now below. It’s endlessly fascinating to compare them both. 

Looking at the Paintings and Drawings in Part I, almost no two share entirely the same style. In Drawbridge, and Garden at Arles, above the skies are fairly flat. That would end. Notice the difference in the landscapes in both Paintings, created 2 months apart. In Part 1 we see the state of flux his style was in, indicative of his efforts to meld all he had seen in Paris and in Japanese Prints into a style of his own.

Garden with Flowers, July-August, 1888, Reed pen and ink over graphite on wove paper. Yes, a reed pen, which is made by cutting and shaping a single reed straw or length of bamboo. In Part I, a Drawing is pared with its resulting Painting a few times. Though some of his work, like Garden at Arles, above, has a “spontaneously dashed off” look to it, this is deceiving. Studying both, it’s striking to me how exact Vincent was when it came to translating his work from Drawing to canvas. Close looking reveals that even the smallest details are faithfully copied over from one to the other. After. you’re done studying that, then ponder his choices of color for each part.

By 1888, his Drawings, on the other hand, needed no additional inspiration beyond what he seems to have learned from his passion for Japanese Prints, which he amassed a sizable collection of. At least, that’s the only explanation I can find for them- there is none in Western Art that I know of. His Landscape Drawings from this time, like Garden with Flowers above, were and are, singular. Ever since I saw them in depth at The Met’s Van Gogh: The Drawings show in 2005, I continuously marvel at how he now saw and rendered fields, trees, and skies, especially since earlier on his Landscape Drawings, like this one, were much more “traditional.” His evolution as a Draftsman was as quick and as stunning as that of his as a Painter, and are among the most remarkable things about Vincent’s Art career.

Theo would convince Gauguin to join Vincent in the Yellow House in Arles, after offering him financial assistance to do so. This would FINALLY be the beginning of the realization of Vincent’s dream of establishing the “School of the South.” Arriving in September, the two co-existed for a while, but their personalities were bound to combust at some point. Very little is said in the show about what happened to Vincent next.

Still Life of Oranges and Lemons with Blue Gloves, January, 1889. The culminating work in Part 1. The prevailing serenity of this work, with cypress branches surrounding the basket, is shattered when you realize that this was Painted a few weeks after the attack that resulted in Vincent cutting off his left ear! In and out of the Arles hospital in January, and caught in an overwhelming fear of another attack (which he would have a few weeks later4)- all of which he was dealing with alone- HOW is it possible he could Paint this?

On that fateful December 23rd, 1888, the stuff hit the fan with Gauguin. Things had been festering while the two passionate & volatile temperaments were largely stuck inside working in close quarters due to the winter weather, until the boiling point made Gauguin announce he was leaving Arles to return to Paris, ending their “experimentation” in the Yellow House and Vincent’s long-standing dream of a “School of the South.” As if this wasn’t upsetting enough, Vincent had just received a Letter announcing that his brother Theo planned to marry, ending his hopes for the two brothers to live & work together. These portents of abandonment, the dashing out of hope (critical for someone as isolated as Vincent was), and the impending Christmas holiday, which reminded the Artist of his horrible falling out with his family one Christmas past, apparently conspired to bring on an attack5. The exact illness Vincent suffered from is still the subject of hot debate 130+ years later. Some say it was due to his drinking. Other theories include syphilis and epilepsy. In the throes of all of this he cut off his left ear, apparently leaving only the earlobe, then wrapped it and took it to a brothel that Gauguin may, or may not, have been in at the time. Barred entrance, he presented it to the “sentry” at the door, then went home and collapsed6. Theo was summoned, but stayed only a few hours before rushing back to Paris(?), with Gauguin! Vincent was hospitalized in Arles, with an initial diagnosis by the 21-year-old medical student on duty as suffering from frontal lobe epilepsy.

Vintage advertisement for the Asylum in Saint-Rémy. Notice the walls around the Asylum. *-Photo from the Van Gogh Museum

He would be in and out of the hospital7 until, steps ahead of his neighbors who had signed a petition to have him removed from their midst, he decided to VOLUNTARILY admit himself  to the insane asylum in nearby Saint-Rémy, in May, 1889, which is the point at which Part II of Van Gogh’s Cypresses begins. Phew…

Installation view of Part II, which is centered on a veritable “murder’s row” of 5 Van Gogh Masterpieces, highlighted by The Starry Night, right of center, with the Met’s Wheatfield with Cypresses partially hidden by the column. In my view, these are some of the most unfathomable Paintings in the entirety of Western Art history given the circumstances of their creation. It’s stunning how The Starry Night breaks up the vibrant sunshine in the others as the only nocturnal work among them.

For the next year, in particular, and for the short rest of his life, his fears of another attack proved well founded. He had had smaller attacks before the December, 1888 attack in which he cut off his ear. He would have four serious attacks in the year he spent in the asylum.

“Each time he hoped would be his last. ‘A more violent attack,” he feared, “could destroy my ability to paint for good.’ But instead, the attacks grew longer and fiercer; the intervals between them, shorter; his behavior, more bizarre and violent. Once, while in the garden, he scooped up a handful of dirt and began to eat it. Another time, he assaulted his asylum escort, accusing him of being a spy for the secret police.”

“With each escalation, the misery between attacks deepened and the leash of restrictions tightened. He was confined to the asylum; then to his dormitory; then to his room; then to his bed. He spent almost two months deprived of “open air.” His throat swelled up with sores. He barely ate or spoke, and wrote no letters. At times, he longed for death, if only the next attack would be his last. ‘I hated the idea of regaining my health,’ he later recalled, ‘always living in fear of relapses … I preferred that there be nothing further, that this be the end.’” Van Gogh: The Life, P.772

When Painting was forbidden, that might have been the hardest for him being the only thing he cared about. Painting was all he had left. (I shuttered as I wrote that.)

A (partial) list of the breakdowns/attacks Vincent suffered as they appear in the Index of Van Gogh: The Life. Arles is where he was in Part I of the show, where the smaller attacks led to the big “ear-cutting attack”. He was in the Asylum in Saint-Rémy in Part II. Only the major, ear-cutting, attack on December 23, 1888 is even mentioned, in passing, in the show.

But, as horrible as all of that must have been, there were still more levels of hell in store for Vincent. Things got worse. 

“Is there a reason for today?
Do you remember?”
*- Cream “World of Pain”

If you love Vincent van Gogh, this woman deserves your thanks. Johanna (Jo) van Gogh-Bonger was Theo’s wife for a year and a half before he died of syphilis, six months after Vincent died. Vincent strongly resented her coming in and “taking” Theo from him. Though she knew nothing about Art she inherited Vincent’s Estate from his brother and went on to make Vincent one of the most popular & beloved Artists in the world today. She did it by realizing Vincent’s Letters were the key to getting people interested in him. She edited & published them, though her edition is out of print, and not the one seen here in The Met’s bookstore, June 2, 2023. Hans Luijten’s biography is extremely detailed and is recommended- after you read Van Gogh: The Life and Vincent’s Letters.

As if his all of that wasn’t enough, during this time, he often went for a month or longer without hearing from Theo, who was busy with his impending marriage to Jo Bonger, finding and preparing an apartment for the new couple, and then for the arrival of their first child- ALL of this pained Vincent greatly, Theo being his lifeline to the world & support in it. As if that wasn’t enough, furthering his intense feeling of abandonment & isolation, Vincent was not allowed to explore the surrounding countryside for the first month in the asylum. A man now regarded among the great Landscape Painters the world has yet seen was forced to settle for the asylum’s enclosed garden and seeing the surrounding countryside from his window- a window with bars on it!

Somehow, NONE of this stopped him from creating masterpieces.

Landscape from Saint-Rémy, June, 1889. June, the month after his arrival, would be the key month in his year at the Asylum.

“I have two landscapes on the go of views taken in the hills. One is the countryside that I glimpse from the window of my bedroom. In the foreground a field of wheat, ravaged and knocked to the ground after a storm. A boundary wall and beyond, grey foliage of a few olive trees, huts and hills.” Letter to Theo (Letter 779, June 9, 1890).

Painted in June, 1889, almost exactly one month after he arrived in the asylum, this is the view from his 2nd floor bedroom window- minus the bars. It’s very interesting to me that he left the bars out. (There is a work in the show of the wall in his studio that shows its window with bars, shown below.) It certainly wouldn’t have been salable at the time if he had included them, but, how much more so is this? This is a Painting about nature- the land (with distant, almost incidental, cypress trees), the hills, the sky- and not a defacto “self-portrait.” Or is it? The wheat has been “ravaged and knocked to the ground after a storm,” confined in a space bordered by “a boundary wall.” Is that an analogy to his condition and situation at the time? There’s nothing more about it in Letter 779, so it would only be my speculation. IF that is not the case, and Vincent’s sole intention is what we see- without the bars that he saw- then I find it utterly transcendent. Note the mountains and the way the huts are situated- they would have another life.

Inside his life in the asylum. Vincent was granted the use of an empty room downstairs from his room as a studio. Window in the Studio, October, 1889, Chalk, brush, oil paint, and watercolor on paper, seen in Part III, shows a window he saw the outside world through- this time with the bars on it. Note the Artwork hanging in the upper right corner.

The opening of Part III: Vincent’s window, left, with the actual work he shows in the upper right corner hanging next to it- Trees in the Garden of the Asylum, October, 1889, right. It shocked and almost overwhelmed me when I realized this work hung in his asylum Studio. As such it’s one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever seen (even beyond Art). Vincent chose this work to look at while he was living a horror show.

“Outside my window is a tree
Outside my window is a tree
There only for me” *

Here he is, having admitted himself to an insane asylum(!) with an ailment that doctors still argue about, entirely alone, surrounded by the insane, and living in fear of suffering another attack. Still, his Letters reveal he put himself under continual pressure to develop his own style AND create work that was salable to justify the expense Theo was incurring and, possibly, support himself. Yet, in spite of ALL of this he SOMEHOW managed to create 150 Paintings, including any number of masterpieces! Among them, what is now, perhaps, the most beloved Painting in the world- The Starry Night– which he Painted that same June- one month after entering the asylum, during a period when he was not allowed outside at night!

“I can hear all the cries of the city
No time for pity
For a growing tree
There is a world of pain
In the falling rain
Around me” *

Is this the “greatest” Painting in Western Art? While I don’t believe “best” exists in the Arts, a case can certainly be made for just that. I think an even stronger case can be made that it is the most revolutionary Painting of its time and before. It’s unprecedented. In any event, it certainly must be among the most loved today, if it is not THE most loved Painting in the world. But? It twasn’t always thus! There is no Painting I’ve stood in front of more often in my life than The Starry Night, June, 1889. That’s because MoMA owns it, I live here and I make a point of seeing where they have installed it on each visit8. No matter- Every single time I see it, it thrills me. Seen here during the first time of all those I haven’t seen it at MoMA. The Met, June 2, 2023.

That’s right- Perhaps, the most famous night Painting in Art history was Painted indoors because the Artist was not allowed outside at night. (Read that again. I almost typed it twice it’s so hard to believe.) When you compare it to Starry Night Over the Rhone, September, 1888, which he did Paint outdoors at night, the difference becomes obvious. Stuck inside, to create The Starry Night, he combined a few Paintings he had already created into a night scene. He “borrowed” the horizon of hills from the recently completed Landscape from Saint-Rémy shown earlier. Front left is a large cypress, the tree having arrived as a focus after having lived in the background as seen earlier. The Met’s curators make the case of the numerous meanings the tree has had down through the centuries, death among them, given its frequent appearance at cemeteries. Long life, another, given the 1,000 year life of some. It would be central for a few months that summer, then, it suddenly disappeared from his focus, again relegated to the distance. This makes me wonder if the cypress had a connection with Paul Gauguin, who Vincent was eternally trying to win back after the disaster before Christmas the year before. The sky, the stars and the moon, however, are something else entirely- something not based on an earlier Painting he or anyone else did. Here, in all its glory, we finally see Vincent coming into his own!

After he Painted it, Vincent came to regard The Starry Night as a “failure!” He sent it to Theo, as he did all his Paintings. Theo didn’t know what to do with it. He railed against Vincent exploring stylistically, considering efforts like this to be “unsalable.”

“’it is better to attack things with simplicity than to seek after abstractions’, he confessed to having erred in the past with images like La Berceuse and the second Starry Night (i.e. this one, from June, 1889), both of which he dismissed as ‘failures.’ ‘I allowed myself to be led astray into reaching for stars that are too big,’ he wrote, ‘and I have had my fill of that9.'”

Vincent promised to toe the mark and produce more conventional work. That sound you hear is the wind rustling through the trees caused by countless millions of Art lovers today shaking their heads in disbelief.

You’re looking at the reason The Met had to get MoMA to lend them The Starry Night. Under the terms of its acquisition, the Met’s Wheatfield with Cypresses, June, 1889, is not permitted to leave the building. In the show, it was displayed immediately following the immortal nocturnal work. Both were Painted in June, 1889, as was Landscape from Saint-Rémy, shown earlier, making June, 1889 one of the most historic months in Art history. Wheatfield with Cypresses is usually displayed on its own wall in The Met’s Permanent Collection Galleries, signifying how The Museum feels about it, though they have 24 Paintings by Vincent! MoMA has 3. Wonder why I heart NYC?

Let’s think about it for a moment. The Starry Night is a one-Painting revolution that no one followed! Almost every other work of daring has inspired imitators or disciples, from Picasso’s Cubism to Seurat’s “chromoluminarism,” as he called his style (others have called it “pointillism”), to Jackson Pollock’s abstractions. Artists who are or were influenced by Van Gogh (like Edvard Munch) seem to me to be “more generally” influenced by him than influenced by The Starry Night specifically. Vincent, himself, infrequently revisited his Starry Night innovations later. Can you imagine what it would have been like if had taken them from the get-go in June, 1889 and ran with them?

Though it’s a copy of The Met’s Wheatfield with Cypresses, it’s titled A Wheatfield, with Cypresses, September, 1889, now in the collection of the National Gallery, London. The two were hung side-by-side in a once in a lifetime chance to study them together. I spent a few hours over 3 visits just going back and forth between these two masterpieces, comparing a detail in one with that in the other. Vincent’s style at this point bordered on total freedom, yet a close look reveals how amazingly similar these two Paintings are- except for the brushwork (and the clouds). The Met’s Painting is rich with impasto, the London picture is much more refined with a greatly toned down exuberance in the application of paint.

You never hear Vincent mentioned as an “abstract” Painter, yet looking at the “London” version of The Met’s Wheatfield, which Vincent Painted 3 months after the original, it would seem to me the case could be made as elements here border on abstraction. As if The Starry Night wasn’t enough of an indication of it, the two Wheatfields with Cypresses are more examples of how far he was now ahead of his time, in my view, having started out a mere 8 years earlier as a beginner! Just incredible.

One of the very best things about Art shows is the chance to see related pieces now housed in distant corners of the earth reunited for a brief moment, like this.

Yet, despite having this apparent “freedom,” he still stuck to his original composition down to small details, though with modifications. It’s fascinating to notice what he did change and wonder why.

Cypresses, June, 1889. To my eyes, all the forms seem to want to just fly off into what we might call pure abstraction. It’s interesting the taller cypress is cut off.

It seems to me that even more than Seurat, from June, 1889, on, Vincent was pushing the frontier of what would be called “Modern Art” a few years later. I wonder if not having a formal Art education allowed him this freedom to continually break rules he may, or may not, have even been aware of.

Meanwhile, over at the Guggenheim Museum, I saw this- Vincent’s Mountains at Saint Rémy. While not in the show, I’m including it because it was Painted one month after The Starry Night and Wheatfield with Cypresses in July, 1889. While it doesn’t include cypress trees (as far as I can tell), it says much about the direction Vincent’s style was going.

While many credit Manet as the beginning of Modern Art, a case can be made that what became known as “20th Century Painting” really started in the works we see on this wall that Vincent painted from June to September, 1889- while he was in an insane asylum.

Cypresses and Two Women, February, 1890, Oil on canvas. Vincent is back at work on the cypresses, and it all has changed so much. He intended this Painting to go to Albert Aurier, the author of one of the very first reviews of his work, in January, 1890, in appreciation. In it, he called Vincent a worthy successor to the seventeenth-century Dutch masters10. This work speaks volumes of what that meant to him.

After the June whirlwind, cypresses continued in his work, as we see in the remainder of Part II, then in Part III, they almost completely and suddenly disappear.

The final wall shows that by the end of his time in the asylum, in spite of all he had endured, Vincent had indeed created his own style.

The Landscapes in the final gallery are more varied, before the final work brings it all to a rousing climax.

A Walk at Twilight, May, 1890. The penultimate work in the show is a fresh and daring approach to early evening. All the trees, including the cypresses, appear to be vibrating as if trying to shake free of form. The cypresses, though, are now ancillary in the background.

In his Letters while he was there, Vincent speaks about wishing he could stay in the asylum. SOMEHOW, in spite of it everything, he managed to create 150 Paintings, including some of the great masterpieces in Western Art, as I said, while he was there. Then, in May, 1890 he left. Two full months later, he would be dead.

A Walk at Twilight, May, 1890. A cypress stands smack in the middle in an evening work that harkens back to The Starry Night from 11 months earlier, possibly proving that perhaps Vincent didn’t think it was such a “failure” after all. Painted 2 months before his death, it’s a work that can be read in any number of ways. For me, it may be the summation of Vincent’s achievement as a Painter and innovator.

By all accounts Vincent van Gogh was extremely hard to get along with, especially for any length of time. He drank too much. He smoked too much. He was obsessive about everything he cared about and he cared about a good many things. He could be intensely argumentative in defense of what he believed. He had a LOT of trouble finding love, or even real & lasting friendships, and on and on…Then, there’s his Art.

Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat, 1887, my personal favorite work in entirety of The Met, Painted on the raw, unprimed side of the canvas (because he had already Painted on the primed side and apparently couldn’t afford more canvas), which adds to the unique texture of the work. I’ve looked at it countless times over quite a few decades now and every time I see it, I marvel at its unique way of seeing the world. Interestingly, no Self-Portraits are included in the show. This was seen on September 15, 2018 in the Permanent Collection galleries.

“As for himself, he said, ‘as a painter I shall never amount to anything important, I am absolutely sure of it11.”

Vincent was a very astute observer of Art and Artists even before becoming a Painter. So, it’s odd he was so wrong about his own Art. Still, here’s the thing I can NEVER get past-

Beginning at the incredibly late age of 27, Vincent’s Art career lasted exactly TEN YEARS from July, 1880 to July, 1890!12
His entire Painting career lasted barely NINE YEARS, from 1881 to July, 1890!

The fact that one could ask the impossible to answer question “Is The Starry Night the greatest Painting ever?,” as I posited earlier, and have it taken seriously regardless of the outcome, shows me how utterly remarkable what Vincent van Gogh’s accomplished in one decade is. Painters as diverse as Francis Bacon and David Hockney, both astute, lifelong students of Art history, consider him to have been right up there with the very greatest Painters who ever lived! Far be it from me to argue with them, but that they would consider someone who Painted for 10 years in those terms is hard to imagine. The approximately 2,100 Artworks he created, including about 860 Paintings are extraordinary- if only for their stylistic diversity as I’ve found looking at them for 40 years13.

In 2018, I wrote a piece wondering what Vincent would make of his popularity today. For someone who lived without anyone in his life, and so little acceptance & love THIS level of both- worldwide- would have to be both the ultimate irony, and completely overwhelming.

With all he had to face- isolation, loneliness, fights with his parents14, illness, poverty, years of struggle and rejection attempting to find his way in various occupations, and everything else- though a good deal of it (if not all) he brought on himself (could anything make him more human?)- before becoming a beginner Artist at 27(!), HOW is it possible he was able to overcome ALL of it to create many of the most beloved works of Art in the world, including a good many while in an insane asylum?

The only answer I’ve found is that he loved Painting THAT much. No matter what, no matter everything I’ve delineated above, and everything else I haven’t- he overcame ALL of it by Painting.

It just boggles my mind.

*-Soundtrack for his piece is “World of Pain” by Gail Collins & Felix Pappalardi and recorded by Cream on Disraeli Gears, 1967.

 

(A “Postscript: My Journey to Vincent” follows below, or may be seen here.)

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  1. Each lives on in terrific catalogs, which are all highly recommended. ↩
  2. David Hockney on Vincent van Gogh. ↩
  3. Vincent’s time with Seurat, Paul Signac, Emile Bernard and Charles Angrand in Asnières, a Parisian suburb, which directly precedes the period of Cypresses, was the subject of a fascinating show at the Art Institute of Chicago concurrent with, but otherwise not connected to, Van Gogh’s Cypresses ↩
  4. on February 4, 1890, per vangoghletters.org ↩
  5. In Van Gogh: The Life, the authors, Stephen Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, correlate Vincent’s attacks with the level of stress & strain he was under. ↩
  6. Van Gogh: The Life, P.704 ↩
  7. and having the 3rd attack since December on February 26, 1890 per vangoghletters.org ↩
  8. As I’ve written, it’s endlessly puzzling how MoMA can spent 2 BILLION dollars on renovations this century and apparently never consider where they are going to display their most popular pieces- particularly The Starry Night, which has continually been relocated often without ever finding the “perfect” spot. ↩
  9. Van Gogh: The Life, P. 784 ↩
  10. Here ↩
  11. Van Gogh: The Life, P.743 ↩
  12. Like that of Jean-Michel Basquiat. ↩
  13. Just page through a copy of Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings, one of my Desert Island Art Books, to see for yourself, the “Brick” edition is about $25. new. ↩
  14. His mother, Anna Carbentus, who had Painted and gave him his first Drawing lessons, and who survived him by about 17 years to 1907, 2 years after the first big Van Gogh show mounted by Jo, never warmed to his Art (Van Gogh: The Life, P.795). ↩

Postscript: My Journey to Vincent 

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This is a postscript to my piece Van Gogh’s Cypresses: Art From Hell

“How will I know you when I see you
In the brightness of light”*

WHO are you, Vincent? Staring out at us with that laser beam-like gaze it almost seems like he could speak to us and tell us. If only getting closer to him were only that easy… A Self-Portrait on the back cover of Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings. Click any photo for full size.

As I said, I’ve been looking at Van Gogh’s Art for over 40 years. It’s taken almost as long to get closer to the man. Like many, perhaps, most people interested in Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), I read Irving Stone’s Lust for Life, and Dear Theo (which Stone, who never knew him, gallingly subtitled Vincent’s “Autobiography,”) and later saw the famous Film, Lust for Life, starring Kirk Douglas as Vincent, which was set in some of the actual sites. I bought it all as gospel. I read, but downplayed, the part where Mr. Stone mentioned that he had “made up” episodes to fill the gaps (paraphrased from recollection. I no longer have his books).

My collection of 45 Van Gogh postcards, bought in the early 1970s for 10 cents a piece. They served me well until I got a book on his work years later. Almost every single one depicts a work I hadn’t seen in person because they are in European collections, except for The Met’s Lilacs, in the lower left. Also included is Gauguin’s Portrait of Vincent, lower right. Two would appear in Van Gogh’s Cypresses decades later.

Captivated when I saw Vincent’s Art in The Met and MoMA on my very first Art museum visits as a young teen in the early 1970s, I bought 45 picture postcards from both at 10 cents each because they showed work I hadn’t seen. Most were from the new Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. I was intrigued, and it didn’t go away.

My set of The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh edited by Jo van Gogh Bonger, a later printing I’ve kept in its original open shrink wrap to protect the slip case. She first published her edition in 1914.

In the 1980s, I was gifted the 3-volume set of Vincent’s Letters, a set that happened to be edited by Jo van Gogh Bonger, wife of Vincent’s brother, Theo, for a year and a half before he died 6 months after Vincent. She inherited Vincent’s estate (i.e. his Art & discovered his Letters in Theo’s desk), but having no experience with Art, didn’t know what to do with it. After delving into the material, she realized that Vincent’s Letters, most of the surviving ones to Theo, were the key to getting people interested in his Art. She edited & published them, put together a large show of his work in 1905, and worked passionately to get his Art seen, even making a trip to the U.S. to assess prospects here.

Jo’s Preface to The Complete Letters, 1914, reproduced in my later printing. It’s one of the most remarkable accomplishments in Art history that, with no knowledge or background in Art, she was able to find a way to present Vincent so the world would “get” him, making him one of the world’s most popular Artists in the process. In so doing, she influenced how Artists have been presented to the public ever since.

I didn’t know any of that at the time I got her set. In it, I began to see that Irving Stone was selling fiction. So was the Film! Reading his own words, as Jo well knew, the real man came vividly to life in his exceptional prose. Vincent’s Letters are among the most compelling of any Artist yet published.

How’s this for “closer to Vincent?” Detail from The Starry Night, 1889, in Van Gogh’s Cypresses, shot without a zoom lens, as close as the guards would allow (a safe distance). Yin/Yang, maybe?

“How will lI know you when I see you
In the bareness of spring
I will know you by starlight
where the road’s echoes sing”*
“Many years passed before Vincent was recognized as a great painter,” Jo writes. She omits the fact that it was she that got him that status in the world. Jo van Gogh-Bonger put me, and countless millions before and after me, on the road to knowing Vincent better. If you love Vincent’s Art, you owe her your thanks. Thank you, Jo!

Van Gogh: The Letters, the Van Gogh Museum’s exceptional 5-volume set includes extensive annotations and many illustrations. Now sold out, it’s all available online, where it is updated as new information becomes available. One of my Desert Island Art Books. *- Van Gogh Museum Photo

The problem was that Vincent’s 902 Letters only cover part of his life, the earliest dating from September, 1872, when he was 19. Others have undoubtedly gotten lost over time, and some things were withheld by the family. Also in the 1980s, I saw 2 excellent Van Gogh shows at The Met, as I mentioned, Van Gogh in Arles and Saint-Rémy and Van Gogh in Auvres. and then the Drawings in 2005, each of which brought me even closer to Vincent’s Art. For those that missed them, the catalogs for each show are excellent and full of great information.

Bringing Vincent into closer focus. My copy of Van Gogh: The Life, just after I bought it new. I’ve raved about it repeatedly. Though it contains 958 pages, the footnotes are to be found on the book’s website. It will remain the definitive biography for at least the immediate future.

In 2011, the landmark 958-page exhaustively researched biography, Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith was published along with the equally exhaustively researched & annotated five-volume set of Van Gogh’s Letters, both with the cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum and Foundation, which exists due to Jo, and then her & Theo’s son, Vincent Wilhelm Van Gogh, who donated Vincent’s Estate to the Dutch state who, in return, built the Museum. 

Vincent was a very astute lover of Art, with a cutting eye that quickly got to the essence of a piece, or Artist, under his consideration.Tthe new Van Gogh and the Artists He Loved, by Van Gogh: The Life’s co-author, Steven Naifeh’s, is an in-depth look at a subject that no one has covered, until now.

I wasn’t able to put Van Gogh: The Life down. It not only brings Vincent to life on an as close to a day-to-day basis as we’ve yet had, it takes the reader inside his thinking & decisions, his unceasing misfortunes & pain, and then, his illness. One of the most extraordinary biographies I’ve ever read, it completely rewrites our understanding of Vincent’s life and, quite controversially, his death. The Life is essential reading for anyone interested in Art1 or Vincent Van Gogh, in my view. This past year, The Life’s co-author, Steven Naifeh, published Van Gogh and the Artists He Loved, an in-depth look at Vincent’s life-long obsession with Art & Artists, which provides fascinating insights into his exceptional taste and the influences of other Artists on his work. 

Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings. In my view, any Van Gogh library begins here. Is it perfect? No. I dream of a book of just all the Paintings, each printed at optimal size on one page with details on the facing page. That’s not meant to denigrate the text, which has held up well. Still, all the Paintings are printed in color and the book lists for $25.00! Possibly the greatest value in Art books today.  This is the small, “Brick” size. Taschen has published a number of larger sizes, but has not released an XXL edition. No one else has published a Complete Van Gogh as far as I know. Its place on my Desert Island Art Books list was automatic.

“Walking by the sea
See the names floating by
Trying to find each other’s
Trails in the sky”*

All of this shows that over 133 years after Vincent’s passing researchers, authors and Art historians have continued to set the record straight and bring the world closer to the man and his life. Given all the “loose ends” that remain in his biography, I look forward to future discoveries & revelations that will bring us still closer.

The case that Vincent committed suicide and wasn’t murdered is not open and shut in my book.

Among those, I fervently hope the mystery around his death that Van Gogh: The Life reveals can be finally settled and the man left to rest in peace.

“How will I love you when I know you
In the greyness of mist
I will love you forever
Where sadness has kissed.”*

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Folk Song” by Jack Bruce from his classic album Harmony Row, 1971. Which makes me realize I’ve been looking at Vincent for almost 50 years…

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. Providing insights in to how he was able to succeed as an Artist though he began at age 27! ↩

Cecily Brown At The Met: Bold, As Love

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Show seen- Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid @ The Metropolitan Museum through December 3, 2023.

The show’s opening brought me to a dead stop. Click any image for full size.

Over the course of its generous run, from April 4th through December 3rd, Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid  has had some VERY serious competition among great Art shows up in NYC’s museums for Art lover’s attention this year. Consider- MoMA had the excellent Georgia O’Keeffe: To See Takes Time (April 9th through August 12th), and now the equally excellent Ed Ruscha / Now Then (September 10th through January 13, 2024). The Whitney has Henry Taylor: B Side (October 4th through January 28, 2024). In addition to Death & The Maid, The Met had its summer blockbuster, Van Gogh’s Cypresses (May 22- August 27), and the just opened Manet/Degas (September 24th through January 7, 2024). Phew! While all of them deserve mention as “Show of the Year” candidates, in my opinion, Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid is the biggest breakthrough Painting show in a NYC museum since Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing, 2021-2, which I wrote about here. It provided the first opportunity we’ve had to see an overview of her work outside of books. Seeing 50 of her Paintings, Drawings, and Monotypes in person left me feeling that the show is a game-changer that will rewrite the Art world’s appreciation of Cecily Brown’s Art & her standing in Art– even though both are well-established. Her diligence and continual hard work over the past 25 years has paid off in spades. The fruits of her labors explode on the walls.

Time passes slowly. Painted during the initial outbreak of the pandemic, the stunning Selfie, 2020, Oil on linen, kept me transfixed at the entrance as minutes passed, mirroring in a small way the time the Artist spent creating it. In fact, mirrors are a key, recurring, element in the show. Anchored by the reclining figure to the right, and the vanity with the round mirror to the right rear, the whole has a feeling of claustrophobia, from too much time spent in the same place that every last detail becomes all-too-familiar. It’s perfectly chosen to begin the show in my view (or, end the show, depending on which end of the show you enter from) as it sets the stage for (or culminates) a show that covers about 25 years and includes very recent work.

One night in 2004, I met Cecily (who was born in London in 1969) when she and a date happened to sit down next to me at East of Eighth, the now-lost Chelsea bar/restaurant/Mother Ship on West 23rd Street a few doors west of the legendary Hotel Chelsea. At that point, the buzz around her was just forming. Days earlier, I had read an article about her in the Art press intrigued by the fact that she is David Sylvester’s daughter. Mr. Sylvester will always be remembered by Art history for being the interviewer in what is, perhaps, the most important Artist interview book yet- Interviews with Francis Bacon, (one of my Desert Island Art Books). A book that helped form my long-standing obsession with Mr. Bacon. It was right in the middle of my decade of drawing (small “d”) daily, which I was when she sat down. Recognizing her from the article, I quickly put my sketchbook away. I told her I had read the article and we chatted briefly, then I let her get back to her date.

No You For Me, 2013, Oil on linen. The viewer looks into the mirror on a vanity at a figure in a room. It appears there’s a spanking going on. Perhaps as close as Cecily Brown comes to the realm of Francis Bacon isn’t that close at all.

I regret I didn’t get a chance to ask her if she met Bacon. Cecily’s Art has been influenced by his, I’ve read, and they both seem to me to be on the cutting edge of “abstracting” the portrait, yet the influence might be in spirit as opposed to a direct visual or stylistic influence as far as I can see. As many have pointed out, Cecily Brown lives on the edge between abstraction and figuration, more or less. Whereas “pure abstraction” leaves nothing “familiar” for the viewer to hold on to, Cecily Brown usually does, even if it’s just the title. In the work included in the show I felt there were “handles,” so to speak, in virtually all of the pieces that lead the viewer into her world.

Francis Bacon, Seated Woman, 1961, Oil on canvas, which sold for $28 million in 2015, Oil on canvas, seen at Skarstedt, June 24, 2022.

In Bacon, the world (through his eyes) is represented to an apparent larger extent, but then the figure or figures are rendered with a selective fluidity that allows the Artist to mould them to his intentions. This often makes them seem out of place in their settings. In Cecily Brown’s work, even though many of her works depict interiors, there is no stylistic difference. Everything is rendered as part of the whole.

The moment I realized Cecily Brown had arrived as a Painter to be reckoned with. A Day! Help! Another Day!, 2016, Oil on linen, 109 x 397 inches (that’s just over 33 FEET long!) seen in Cecily Brown, A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!, Paula Cooper Gallery, October 31, 2017.

Since 2004, as I’ve followed her career and gone to her shows, her work has grown, and grown on me, continually. The record shows I’m not alone in that. Though she quickly gained major gallery representation, and shows in European museums, it seems to me the Art world has been slow to fully “get” her, like here, as incongruous as that may be to say for an Artist who has achieved her stature.

Sketchbook, 2004, Oil pastel, ballpoint pen and pencil on paper, from the year I met her. The image on the left is at the heart of the show. A woman embraces a skeletal figure, whose knee is between hers. Possibly a copy of Edvard Munch’s Death and the Woman, 1894-5, a Print in The Met’s collection, here, this motif appears in Cecily’s recent Painting Death & The Maid, 2022, shown below, revealing how long this subject has been on the Artist’s mind.

Early on, her work was quite sexually oriented, then it steadily opened up. As it did, more and more people began to see the breadth of her talent. The real turning point for me came on October 31, 2017l, when I walked into Paula Cooper Gallery and was face to face with A Day! Help! Another Day!, seen earlier, in Cecily Brown: A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!

Death & The Maid, 2022, Oil on linen. The title of the famous String Quartet #14 by Franz Schubert, “Death & The Maiden,” is shortened here to “Maid,” possibly as a reference to Ms. Brown’s time working as a maid to pay for Art school. The center of her Painting shows the titular figures embracing and Death’s leg extending to the left, climaxing the influence of Munch’s Death and the Woman, as seen above. “Death & The Maiden” is also the title of a Painting by Albrecht Dürer’s remarkable student & friend, Hans Baldung, from 1517, which can be seen here. That might be the earliest use of the title.

In April, almost exactly 19 years after I met her, Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid opened in the hallowed halls of The Metropolitan Museum, in the same gallery I saw Louise Bourgeois: Paintings in, an interesting coincidence (two European-born women Artists who settled in NYC for good a half-century+ apart). Having moved to NYC in 1994, after winning a plane ticket, it’s the first show she’s been given by an NYC museum. I think she might say the wait was worth it.

Installation view with The Picnic, 2006, Oil on linen in three parts, center, on the wall.

Brilliantly selected from the past three decades and installed (with the involvement of the Artist), it all hangs together seamlessly. Though her style has evolved over the years of her still-young career, the show really does all look like part of a whole. This is aided to no end by the continuity of themes- vanity, death, interiors, and influences & dialogues with Art history.

Full of Face, Full of Woe, 2008, Oil on canvas in three parts. With a title that comes from the “Monday’s Child” nursery rhyme, it’s the first Cecily Brown Painting in The Met’s Permanent Collection. It captivated me when I first saw it last year in the Modern & Contemporary Galleries, and again in the show. Note what appears to be a woman looking in a vanity mirror in the left panel.

The first thing that was apparent to me is how her work looks like no one else’s. She has achieved a style instantly recognizable as Cecily Brown. A major achievement in its own right. The second thing that stands out for me is how deeply and continually she mines Art history. There are references to Munch, Bruegel, Manet, Rubens, Hogarth, Gilbert, Frans Snyders, Dutch & Flemish Still Lifes, among others here, but the resulting work is completely her own no matter the origin, and provides for an interesting “conversation” over time. Filtered through a different viewpoint, experiences and century into nothing less than a striking personal vision, one that strikes me as unprecedented, though I do see a kinship to the work of her teacher, Maggi Hambling and occasional echoes of the late-50s work of Janice Biala.

Blood, Water, Fruit and Corpses, 2017, Oil on linen.

“My red is so confident he flashes trophies of war
And ribbons of euphoria
Orange is young, full of daring
But very unsteady for the first go ’round
My yellow in this case is not so mellow
If fact, I’m trying to say it’s frightened like me
And all of these emotions of mine keeps holding me from
Giving my life to a rainbow like you.” *-  Jimi Hendrix, “Bold as Love”

The third thing that’s instantly apparent is her color. For the past eight & 1/4 years, I’ve posted a piece of Music as the “Soundtrack” for each piece I’ve written here. As I walked through Death & The Maid, one song screamed at me from the walls: “Bold as Love” by Jimi Hendrix.

“Bold” sums up much of Cecily Brown’s work for me. In her daring and boldness lies energy and excitement.

As for “Bold as Love,” Hendrix “paints a vivid picture of the spectrum of human emotion using colors,” as genius.com puts it. Virtually every color Jimi writes about is powerfully featured at one point or other in the show. I’m not saying this is a literal interpretation, of course. It’s a reflection of the power of color as a language. The choice is not as arbitrary as it might seem. In the early years of the past decade, Ms. Brown was so taken with the cover image for Jimi’s 3rd album, Electric Ladyland, the last album he completed in his lifetime, that she did a series of Paintings based on the original cover Photo for the U.K. release that was banned for its U.S. release.

All is Vanity (After Gilbert), 2006, Monotype

Cecily Brown’s color strikes me as being that of life. Of being alive. As Adrian Piper pointed out in her brilliant MoMA show, A Synthesis of Intuition, in 2018, “Everything will be taken away.” In death, the colors of life are one the of the first things taken away. Here, it runs as a consistent and compelling counterpoint to the theme of death. It’s interesting that in some of the work that seems to be more centered on death (not all), the color is washed out.

Untitled (Vanity), 2005, Oil on linen

The other thread is the the face/the temporality of youth/and the body (which takes many forms, including the frequent “looking in a mirror” works). Of course, any living body must confront the idea and the reality of death. In the show, it’s the central focus, but it has been one of her central themes, among others, virtually all along. This makes her unique among major Contemporary Painters. While many address it, I can’t think of anyone who makes it a main focus. The show is also interesting for a virtually complete absence of her earlier sexual work.

Vanity Shipwreck, 2021-2, Oil on linen

On the technical side, her compositions, she says, come together in the making. In a number of pieces, figures are in the center, and everything else happens around them. The same feeling occurs in Selfie, though the figure is in the lower corner, and in pieces like Carnival and Lent, below, where bits of figures pop up all over, virtually awash in all that surrounds them. “Abstraction?” What could be a more realistic representation of the chaos of contemporary life where everyone is continually bombarded from all sides, by everything?

“You start with something that’s say, a day old, and then you look at the different directions it can go. And in a way, you can argue that you’re never losing anything, because you try and always keep those things in mind. You have to be willing to lose it all. And that really does happen all the time in painting. And I always want to keep that possibility, just to go back to what kind of painter I am. That’s what I call being a painterly painter, and what’s kind of old-fashioned about it is that attitude that you can lose it all….the paint itself telling the story. The idea that paint can carry or contain a sort of life of its own. Paint traps energy1.”

Carnival and Lent, 2006-8, Oil on linen. Cecily Brown’s take on Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Fight Between Carnival and Lent, 1559.

I’m struck by the fact that Jackson Pollock could only do his so-called “drip” Paintings from 1947-1952. Ms. Brown has been working in, and developing her style for almost 30 years. Then, there’s her technique, her brushwork. Whereas she said that “Paint traps energy,” her brushwork brings it. 

Detail.

It seems to me that the recent pieces included in Death and the Maid (particularly Selfie, the titular work shown earlier, and A Year on Earth, below) show her reaching a new level. Though her work probably looks very abstract to many viewers, including this one, almost all of them have titles that ground them in the “known world,” separating her from many abstract Artists (though she is not one. Cecily Brown’s work only belongs in the Cecily Brown “box“) who use “Untitled” most often. Titles which function as one of the “handles” I referred to earlier,

A Year on Earth, 2020-21, Oil on linen. Begun in the early months of the pandemic.

Mounted near the end of the show, it could be just me and my life these past 4 years, but I found her Painting BFF incredibly moving.

BFF, 2006-15, Oil on linen.

The wall card explains that Cecily’s teacher, the Artist Maggi Hambling, “once told her to make painting her best friend, as it would always be there for her.” It seems to me that’s not only true for the act of Painting for Painters, but also in the act of looking: Painting is always there for everyone!

There’s a feeling Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid gave me that made me just not want to leave it. I’ve thought about what that feeling is and why I had it since I did leave (to go see the gigantic Manet/Degas show- about 12 galleries worth!). One thing I can say is that it’s a feeling I live for. It’s not only being in the presence of great Painting- there’s plenty of that on view in Manet/Degas as well as everywhere in The Met. It’s the excitement of being in the presence of something alive, pulsing with energy and color with a vibrancy that jumps off the wall- and a lot of it! In Death and the Maid we get a first chance here to play catch up and take stock of 25 years of Cecily Brown’s Art and accomplishment, while getting set up to watch where she goes from here. That’s exciting, too.

This May, I ran into Cecily, again, when we were both leaving the opening of Rosa Loy’s wonderful new show (separately, of course), though I didn’t get the chance to speak to her. It said a lot to me that she was out and about seeing Art, even while her own show was up on the walls at 1000 5th Avenue. I took it as a sign she’s not slowing down or resting on her laurels; she remains fully engaged in the Art world around her, which has inspired her all along.

In the end, you just never know when that person who happens to sit down right next to you one night is going to wind up being one of the world’s major Painters less than 20 years later.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Bold As Love,” by Jimi Hendrix from his immortal album Axis: Bold As Love.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. Cecily Brown, Phaidon Contemporary, P.38 ↩

Philip Guston, George Segal, Jeffrey Gibson, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Wade Guyton: NoteWorthy Shows, Summer 2023

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What do Philip Guston, George Segal, Jeffrey Gibson, Njideka Akunyili Crosby and Wade Guyton have in common? At least three things. One, they’re all Artists. Second, they each had a NoteWorthy Show up in NYC this summer. Third, I bring them together in my look at each of those shows here as part of my coverage of the busiest summer in the NYC Art world since before the pandemic began.

Philip Guston: What Kind of Man Am I? @ The Metropolitan Museum

Installation view of 5 of the 8 works on view in this gallery gleaming under the just completed skylight project. Another work, one of his “abstractions” from the 1950s, which I wrote about here, was hung outside the door in the corridor to the Modern Wing to my right. Click any Photo for full size.

In Part 3 of my series on Edward Hopper’s New York I wrote about the Whitney Museum’s handling (mishandling?) of the extraordinary Jo Hopper Bequest in 1970. I mentioned that it was a lesson for other Artists going forward. In December, 2022, word came that Musa Mayer, daughter of Philip Guston (1913-80), had decided to donate 220 works by her father to The Met. As an American Artist (born in Canada), there’s little doubt the Whitney Museum of American Art (who currently own 3 of his Paintings, and 6 Drawings) was considered for this gift at some point (I surmise). Did their handling of the Jo Hopper Bequest (in which they the Whitney THREW OUT virtually all of Jo Hopper’s Art, and have recently sold a notable Edward Hopper Painting), enter into her decision?

Musa Mayer, the lady responsible for this extraordinary gift, discusses the finer points of one of her father’s Nixon Drawings @ Hauser & Wirth in January, 2017.

I don’t know. Ms. Mayer opted to make this exceptional & vitally important donation to The Met. 

Riding Around, 1969, left, and Sleeping, 1977, right, both Oil on canvas.

To mark the occasion, The Met mounted Philip Guston: What Kind of Man Am I?, a concise, but powerful show of 8 Paintings. The show focused on the last decade of the Artist’s work from 1969 to 1980 and includes nothing but major works, in my opinion, including one of his “Klan” Paintings (which I wrote about in depth here). His last decade has gotten more and more attention as time has passed, after initially puzzling many viewers. Installed near the Impressionist and Van Gogh galleries, and not in the Modern & Contemporary Galleries across the hall (where at least one Guston is usually on view), I took that as an indication of The Met “saying” that Philip Guston is an Artist for the ages. I bet he’d be proud. 

George Segal: Nocturnal Fragments @ Templon

Guiness Gold, 1995, Plaster, wood, acrylic, silverprint, 96 x 64 x 45 inches.

I can’t remember the last George Segal show I saw- if I’ve ever seen one. In fact, Mr. Segal (1924-2000), a contemporary of Philip Guston, may be best known to many New Yorkers through his Public Art installed in Port Authority Bus Station and his Gay Liberation Monument in Sheridan Square. Otherwise, it seems he has fallen into eclipse since he passed. So, George Segal: Nocturnal Fragments at Templon was a welcome surprise and an eye-opener. 

Bus Station, 1995, Plaster and mixed media, 96 x 175 x 33 inches.

Mr. Segal is, perhaps, best known for his meditative Sculptures, but he was also a Painter and installation Artist. To this point, I’ve only seen his work in public settings, where the Artist places his figures in the existing surroundings. In Nocturnal Fragments we get to experience the full George Segal “effect” in environments of his own creation. It’s something no other Sculptor does and it works wonderfully here.  The show provides a wonderful opportunity to experience the full effect of Mr. Segals’s skill over a generous period of time on two floors. I found it a breath of fresh air.

The Encounter, 1996, Plaster, wood, acrylic, silverprint 96 x 64 x 45 inches.

“Discovered” in a so-called “pop” Art show in 1962, Nocturnal Fragments shows, again, that Mr. Segal is much more and his work long ago outlived that tired box– if it was ever even in it!

Blue Woman Sitting on a Bed, 1996, Plaster, paint and wood, 96 x 96  x 83 inches. A different take on a scene that Edward Hopper mined often.

An influence on Duane Hanson and Ron Mueck, George Segal’s work has a unique mystery that reminds me more of Rodin than it does either of those two fine Artists. It seems to me it has more than held up since his passing, which should lead to his work being seen more often. I think a whole new generation of Art lovers will find much to like in George Segal’s work. 

Jeffrey Gibson: Ancestral Superbloom @ Sikkema Jenkins

Have you ever seen a Painting shaped like this? SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME, 2023, Acrylic paint on elk hide inset in custom wood frame, 103 x 69 x 5 inches, hanging on the Artist’s Wallpaper (Untitled, I was told)  which had a 3-D effect up close.

Jeffrey Gibson: Ancestral Superbloom was one of the most beautiful shows of recent memory, and aptly titled. A virtual supernova of color, most of the pieces centered on a quote from a popular song lyric, turning it into something of a mantra. 

THINGS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME, 2023, Acrylic paint on canvas inset in custom frame, acrylic velvet, acrylic felt, glass beads, plastic beads, vintage pinback buttons, druzy crystal, artificial sinew, nylon thread, cotton canvas, cotton rope, 60 x 50 x 5 1/2 inches

His gifts with color are obvious at a glance, but it’s the clarity of his compositional conceptions and how extremely well he executes them that impress me, along with his fresh approach to, well, everything.

Detail of THINGS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME.

His work is incredibly detailed, requiring and rewarding viewers to work their way around each piece, with each detail adding to the richness and intricacy of the experience.

The show coincides with the publication of An Indigenous Present, a NighthawkNYC NoteWorthy Art Book of 2023, , conceived by Mr. Gibson, which features the work of 60 Indigenous Artists. It’s the best introduction to/overview of this work I’ve seen- an amazingly rich collection. 

THE STARS LOOK VERY DIFFERENT TODAY, 2023, Acrylic on canvas, glass beads, artificial sinew, inset to custom wood frame, 88 x 80 inches. A line from David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Gibson: Ancestral Superbloom continues to add to his stature and importance.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby: Coming Back to See Through, Again @ Zwirner

Blend in – Stand out, 2019 Acrylic, colored pencil, charcoal, and transfers on paper 95 3/4 x 123 3/4 inches

Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s NYC debut, which this was, has been a long time coming. Perhaps best known to most from the series of enthralling books published around shows elsewhere, her work is in the Permanent Collections of The Met, MoMA and the Whitney Museums. Pretty precocious for an Artist only born in 1983 (in Nigeria, living and working in L.A. this century). Her career has been in steady ascent. Her latest work shows an amazing juxtaposition of time and techniques through her use of transfers and paint. Frankly, looking as closely as I could, I couldn’t figure out how she does it.

Potential, Displaced, 2021, Acrylic, colored pencil, and transfers on paper 72 1/4 x 60 inches

Layers of photo transfers are seamlessly combined with layers of paint. Each one increasing the depth and adding countless details to the story. Everything is rendered with such smoothness it was beyond me to discern layers that I knew were there. Her craft is as stunning as her Painting.

“The Beautyful Ones”Series #10: A Sunny Day on Bar Beach, 2022, Acrylic, colored pencil, pastel, charcoal, and transfers on paper, 78 1/2 x 53 3/4 inches.

It’s all in the service of her subjects, some she’s apparently related to, some not. They’re each treated with such compassion and understanding, it’s hard to tell which are which.

Detail.

Ms. Crosby’s work rewards the casual glance, and extended close study, while serving as something of a bridge from her life now (in the US since 1999), to her Nigerian upbringing. In the process, it helps others begin to understand it, as she presents it in a multifaceted memory standing on layers of time, history and place.

Wade Guyton @ Matthew Marks

Installation view. All works are Epson UltraChrome HDX inkjet on linen 84 x 69 inches each.

Wade Guyton’s installations are always an interesting element of his entire show experience. In fact, his book Zwei Dekaden emphasizes just that aspect in over 200 installation views over two decades. It’s now like it wouldn’t be a Wade Guyton show without the installation. And so it was at Matthew Marks. The unique steel rack installation was explained thus- “In 2021 Guyton moved into another floor of his studio building that the previous tenant, a clothing company, had filled with metal hanging racks. Rather than remove the racks, he repurposed them to hang his paintings for storage. In the current exhibition, Guyton has duplicated this set of racks and installed paintings in the same manner,” per the press release.

I couldn’t resist making the installation part of seeing the work.

The work looked handsome on its mounts and the structures themselves provided for interesting “other” views of each piece as a visitor moved through the racks. Cross members added unexpected elements to works on the next row and provided a chance to see pieces at a bit of a distance.

Untitled, 2022, (WG5374)

But all of this is secondary to what’s being displayed. Wade Guyton has been at the forefront of combining Printmaking and Painting in interesting ways for a long time. Admirers will find new takes on some familiar themes, but there is also much that is new. The sense of being “somewhere else” was interrupted by pieces based on New York Times front pages; recent headlines jarring a visitor back to “reality.” I love how he incorporates images/Photos into his work, and some of the printing of others has a “squeegee” look that always reminds me of Jack Whitten. Here, it’s still fresh and it’s nice to see the Artist continue to find new possibilities. As he has, once again, with his installation. Both work extremely well together.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

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Rod Penner’s America: Small Town Nation

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Show Seen- Rod Penner: Small-Town Meditations – Traveling exhibition seen in NYC @ Meisel Gallery

“America: A Nation of Small Towns”
Title of the 2020 United States Census Report.

Small towns in the big town. The opening, NYC, March 18. 2023.

I’ve already written as much, and maybe more, than anyone else has about Rod Penner’s Art over the past six years. Most recently, I wrote my fifth Penner piece, an extensive look and the first anywhere, at the first full-length book on his work, Rod Penner: Paintings, 1987-2022. If Mr. Penner’s work speaks to you and you haven’t seen a copy, make a point to. It accomplishes the rare double feat of being equal parts long-awaited full-length Monograph and Catalogue Raisonne, containing everything he’s Painted through 2022, in one volume. All of this being said, my pieces on his Art were based on seeing one show of smaller Paintings in 2017 and two works in a prior group show. This spring, I finally had a chance to see a show with a more representative overview of his work going back to 1998. I came away feeling I saw much in his work I hadn’t seen before.

My only previous Rod Penner solo show, in 2017, consisted solely of 6 by 6 inch and 5 by 7 inch Paintings, each jam-packed with detail. Though Sands Hotel & Cafe/Vaughn, MN, 2019, Acrylic on canvas, is a huge 31 by 64 inches (almost 5 1/2 feet long!), the detail is every bit as stunning, representing a staggering amount of work. I continually get lost looking at the fore and mid-ground in what strikes me as a bit of an unusual composition. But, of course, there’s much more to it. Click for full size.

Rod Penner: Small-Town Meditations consisted of a group of 17 Paintings that establish Mr. Penner as the foremost Painter of small town America working today, inheriting the mantle from John Salt, and Charles Sheeler & Edward Hopper before the late Mr. Salt (1937-2021).

John Salt, Red Mailbox #2, 2015, Casein on linen, 45 x 65 inches. Seen in 2018 in the same space occupied by Rod Penner: Small-Town Meditations. Casein is a water soluble medium that derives from milk casein, and is used masterfully here to create such a rich, yet mysterious, atmosphere.

Rod Penner was born & raised in Canada before marrying his wife, Debbie, and relocating to Texas in 1988, where the majority of his work is set. In the Q&A I did with him in 2017, the Artist said this about the beginning of his Painting career-

“Shortly after arriving in the Lone-Star State, I rediscovered the work of John Salt and felt an instant connection. I couldn’t drive past a trailer home (and there are many in Texas) without thinking “Salt.” At this point, I wanted to spend more time in the studio and less time searching out subjects to paint, so I started driving around the town we lived in and took photos of these tract houses that were everywhere. I found them visually interesting. As with all the streets and buildings that I paint, these homes, under certain weather and lighting conditions, became transformed. I painted my first tract house in 1989 and it sparked a series of paintings that were later shown at O.K. Harris in NY.”

614/House with Daffodils, 1998, 10 1/4 x 15 inches, Acrylic on board.

While people appear in very few of his Paintings, right from the beginning, virtually every piece he’s created is rich with their presence. First, there’s what people have built on the land that signifies them. Then there’s the condition of these structures, which are steeped in individual modifications and adornment. Some are in need of attention; perhaps a new coat of paint or repairs. It seems that the occupants are too busy living in them to do them right now. In addition to the building, we often see the evidence of human habitation: toys, tools or lawn implements in the yard; though vehicles are not seen nearly as often as they are in John Salt’s homestead works where they are one of his trademarks. Combined with the lived-in condition of the house all of this makes for a de facto “Portrait” of its inhabitants, in my view. His work is rich in character, one thing that sets him apart. Character adds an incalculable amount of depth to his Paintings. In a larger sense, his work is a “Portrait” of how, and where, many Americans lived in the last half of the 20th and early parts of the 21st centuries.

212/House with Snow, 1998, 36 by 54 inches, From here on, all works shown are Acrylic on canvas unless noted.

The idea of “home” looms large in Rod Penner’s oeuvre, striking me as one of his main themes, be it in actual houses or motels (temporary homes), like Sands Hotel & Cafe/Vaughn, MN, 2019, shown earlier. None of his homes are palatial. Rather, they are all well lived-in. The roofs and paint look weather-worn, as if they’ve survived countless storms or harsh winters. It’s easy to make this fit the “Portrait” analogy. A number of his Texas scenes include snow- something the rest of us may have trouble associating with one of America’s southern-most states, but the terrible storms they’ve had these past years are changing that. Snow makes these scenes look they could have been seen in many other places in the country. Yet, in spite of it all, they’re still standing, and much of the same can no doubt be said of whoever lives in them.

212/House with Snow, 1998, a masterpiece in my view, sums up so much about the broad and vague idea of “home.” For me, that doesn’t necessarily mean a place; A person could be “home” for someone, and much of what I see here, and the feelings it generates, would still apply. Like virtually all of Rod Penner’s Paintings 212 cries out to be seen up close.

How much you see in a Rod Penner Painting is only limited by how long you look at it.

A number of his House Paintings are set during the Holidays. In this detail from 212/House with Snow, we see the Christmas tree lying diagonally in front ready to go out with the trash & recycling. A poignant image by itself. It’s been there a little while given it’s snowed since it was put there. A toy bus (maybe a Xmas present?) pokes out from a red box with an intricate logo on it- all in this stunning little section, which is typical of all of Rod Penner’s Paintings. Oh! That’s before you get around to admiring the incredible detail on the Christmas tree branches, the tree trunk behind it, or the condition of the paint on the house and garage! Then, there’s the ground…

Yet here, as in all Rod Penner’s work, in my opinion, he puts the detail at the service of Art. The detail is revelatory, like a well-turned sentence in a great novel, or like the floor in Jan van Eyck’s The Annunciation in Washington. It never preaches. It never gives too much away, leaving it all to the viewer. In fact, when I first met Mr. Penner, he was reluctant to speak about his Art. He told me he wanted his Art to speak for itself. Personally, I’m glad he has softened that stance a bit and has spoken about his work, especially in his Artist’s Statement in his book. I only wish the Art media respected what the Artist says about his/her own work more than what anyone else says about it.

Bar-B-Q/Marble Falls, TX, 2022, 12 x 18 inches. The latest in a long and memorable series of roadside eateries and gas stations. Those foreshortened signs to the left must have been fun to Paint.

Another theme in his work is life on the move: gas stations and roadside eateries loom large here, in addition to motels.. This makes it apparent that the Artist gets around since every scene he renders he has visited in person. Sometimes, it’s hard to look at these and not smile. What may be Mr. Penner’s subtle sense of humor can be at once poignant, and again tack sharp. In person, the Artist is quick to smile, so it’s hard not to see that coming across in his work at times. At the March opening, two visitors were present who had traveled all the way from Marble Falls, TX for it. Well-familiar with the real-life Bar-B-Q back home, it must have been a strange, but welcoming, feeling to see its likeness hanging on the wall in a SoHo gallery thousands of miles from home.

Buy Pecans Here/San Saba, Tx, 2021, 31 by 52 inches.

Buy Pecans Here/San Saba, Tx, 2021 marks Rod Penner’s return to large Painting after his series of small San Saba pieces I saw in his last NYC solo show. When I look at this, I see an early 21st century “History Painting.” The Old Masters famously rendered scenes from history, usually in suitably large scale. Here, Rod Penner shows a number of stages of San Saba’s history in one scene in the recent past (2021). In the back, San Saba County Courthouse, 1911, peaks out of the trees and rooftops, surrounded by what man has built in the area in the following 110 years, including telephone poles and power wires, which may now carry the internet, including NighthawkNYC. San Saba is known as the “Pecan Capital of the World,” so the appropriately sized Pecan store sits stolidly on the earth occupying much of the right side as if anchoring that reputation. Further down the block on that side is G&R Grocery, behind the white pickup. Across the street in the rear the red brick of “Station” peaks out- that’s the only word left on its sign. Mr. Penner featured both of these buildings in his San Saba Series of small Paintings in 2016-7, which I showed here. Buy Pecans Here also got its own Painting. In the front left is another one, the former San Saba Butane Co., which he immortalized in a show-stopping small Painting of the same name, looking a bit more the worse for wear than it does even here. Yet, it’s still standing, seemingly waiting for what’s coming next. The ground weather and the skies add incalculably to the mood. An unfathomable amount of work must have gone into this Painting.

Like San Saba Butane, a number of the places he Paints are out of business. I don’t have to tell anyone how prevalent that is, wherever you are, in the age of the pandemic, before and “after.” Yet, it’s something rarely seen in Painting. Businesses opening, being active, and going out of business are part of the business cycle. That is the “history” I see in Buy Pecans Here/San Saba, Tx.

Bertram Supply Co., 2015-6, 31 by 52 inches.

Rod Penner Paints democratically. I’m not referring to politics. I’m using the word in its original meaning. That is that Rod Penner Paints everything he shows us with equal weight. Virtually everything, front to back, is in focus, like it is in many of Richard Estes’s Paintings. Everything is shown at the hyperlocal distance, as Photographers say1. Therefore, it’s up to each viewer to decide what’s important to the narrative they weave in their mind. It also allows for different scenarios at each viewing with different things standing out each time.

Compositionally, it seems to me that many, if not most, of Mr. Penner’s Paintings, and all those shown here, consist of three horizontal “bands” or areas. He presents the sky in a top band, the buildings/main subjects in the center band, and the ground weather in the lower/foreground band. One of the subtler joys of Rod Penner’s work is that he is a master of rendering the ground effects of weather (i.e. rain, snow, graupel, mud, or the baked naked earth), a bit like JMW Turner was a master or rendering skies (in a completely different way, of course). The ground weather is a unique, and often stunning, part of most of his Paintings, easy to overlook, but not to be missed. The detail they contain is astonishing and in addition to adding so much to the “narrative,” they also hint at how much time and thought went into every inch of his Paintings- regardless of size.

Welcome to PennerVille. A close look at Bertram Supply Co., reveals the Artist’s name on the street sign, with “Rod E.” foreshortened for the cross street sign under it, indicative that he’s put his name on this scene. It’s becoming his genre.

Rod Penner: Small-Town Meditations sums up in capsule form Rod Penner’s accomplishment. To me, that is nothing less than preserving the lives that countless Americans have lived these past 40 years in paint. Rod Penner is creating a body of work that defines and preserves what a good deal of America- small town America (which most of America consists of)- is and has been like these past 4 decades as much, if not more, than any other Artist has.

Having said that, I would also add that I’m not sure that that’s his point! It may be. Or, it may simply be what I’m seeing in his work. His Art is open-ended enough so that everyone is free to see in it what they will.

Rod Penner discussing how he created some of the detail in Yellow Light/Brenham, TX, 2004-5, 15 x 25 inches with a visitor behind him at the opening, March 18, 2023.

Saying all of this would seem to overlook the most obvious characteristic of Rod Penner’s Paintings: his world-class technique. His technical skill (readily seen in the details from Bertram Supply Co., or 212/House with Snow, above) approaches the level of the Old Masters. Yet, technique, by itself, does not make Art. In Rod Penner’s case, his technique is only the beginning of the story. Every time you look at his work, you get to write your own ending for it. 

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Small Town” by John Mellencamp.

My prior pieces on Rod Penner are-

“The Vermeer of Marble Falls, Texas,”April 28, 2017

“Rod Penner: Brilliance, Under Cloudy Skies,” June 10, 2017

“Q&A With Master Painter Rod Penner,” June 14, 2017

“Rod Penner’s Neighborhood,” August 3, 2017

and- “NoteWorthy Art Books- Rod Penner: Paintings, 1988-2022,” April 7, 2023.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. The focus distance at a given aperture on a lens where everything after that point is in focus, and somethings before are as well, depending on the settings and the lens. ↩

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s Survival Map

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Show Seen: Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map @ The Whitney Museum

Indian Madonna Enthroned, 1974, Mixed-media.

It took 83 years for Jaune Quick-to-See Smith to get her first NYC retrospective. As if that’s not notable enough, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map is also the “largest and most comprehensive show of her work to date,” the Whitney says of its installation of 130 of her Paintings, Drawings, Prints, and Sculptures covering almost 5 decades of her career on its 5th floor, where it follows Edward Hopper’s New York, and 3rd floors.

Self-Portrait, 1974, Pastel, graphite pencil and charcoal on paper. The Artist showing herself with 6 arms.

Born in 1940, a citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, the show reveals Jaune Quick-to-See Smith to be an Artist of her time, one that is fluent with contemporary Art styles and techniques. An Artist, and a person, passionate about the well-being of her people and the world in which they, and we all, live. Yet, she’s also been ahead of her time in bringing many issues her people face to the Art world, which has only recently begun to be more open to Indigenous Artists.

Homeland, 2017, Oil and acrylic on canvas, radiates from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation’s Flathead Reservation in Montana.

Indian Map, 1992, Oil, paper, newspaper and fabric on canvas.

Survival Map, 2021, Acrylic, ink, charcoal, fabric, and paper on canvas

As a result, it seems to me that her work has been on the line between being of its time and ahead of its time throughout her career, both in terms of style and content. She proves herself fluent in moulding the language developed by her peers to her purposes over her career while also creating as many of her own innovations.

Jasper Johns, Flag, 1954-55, Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood, three panels, seen at MoMA, 2017.

McFlag, 1996, Oil, paper and newspaper on canvas with speakers and electrical cord

Among the numerous Artists she references, including Magritte and Picasso, two names repeatedly came to mind, both at the forefront of the developments in American Contemporary Art of her time. Maps and Flags play a central role in the work on view, echoing Jasper Johns (B. May 15, 1930). Whereas Mr. Johns’s intentions for using the flag and maps remains, like most of his work, ambiguous, Ms. Quick-to-See Smith uses them to powerfully present the lives and issues faced by Indigenous People. 

Robert Rauschenberg, Gull (Jammer), 1976, Sewn silk, rattan poles, and twine, 1976, seen at MoMA in 2017.

Other works echo Robert Rauschenberg (Oct 22, 1925- May 12, 2008).

Ronan Robe #4, 1977, Oil, beeswax, charcoal and soot on canvas with lodgepole.

In 1985, the Artist got involved in efforts to save Petroglyph Park in New Mexico, creating what would become her Petroglyph Park Series, 1985-7, and marking the beginning of the appearance of current events in her Art.

Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People), 1992, Oil, paper, newspaper, and fabric on canvas with found objects on a chain. Perhaps a history of exploitation with “trinkets” being exchanged for land. A number of the sports teams whose ephemera hangs above the Painting, have subsequently changed their names, some have not. Other items shown remain in production, including children’s toys which cheaply knock-off Native American culture.

Historic events don’t escape her attention, either.

9 Monotypes from the Custer Series, 1993. The work next to the lower right is after Magritte. The text reads, “This is not a peace pipe.”

Wall card for the Custer Series.

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation’s Flathead Reservation is located in Montana, site of the Little Bighorn. Canoes, often labelled “Trade Canoes” (except for the one above), are a recurring theme, each one rendered strikingly differently.

Trade Canoe: Making Medicine, 2018, Mixed media, foreground, Green Flag, n.d., on the back wall.

Detail.

Trade Canoe: Forty Days and Forty Nights, 2015, Oil, acrylic, oil crayon, paper and charcoal on canvas, introduces the show, and is seen to the left in the picture of the show’s lobby, seen further below.

In addition to having her eye on what’s going on around her, her Art also has a wonderful way of looking back to the rich history of her culture. Messages of protest are side by side with sage wisdom. Her Chief Seattle Series (or C.S. Series), 1989-91, does this wonderfully and adds a timeless element to her work. The Wall Card says-

The Garden (C.S. 1854), 1989, Oil, rubber hose, crushed tin and aluminum cans, and nails on canvas. C.S. is Chief Seattle and The Garden is part of Chief Seattle Series from 1989-91. It reads, “WE are part of the EARTH and it is PART of US, C.S., 1854.”

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith has created an important, innovative and powerful body of work that somehow all manages to remain of the moment no matter when she created it. On the one hand, that’s a sign the country hasn’t evolved faster and how much remains to be done. 

Memory Map shares the 5th floor with Josh Kline: Project for a New American Century, which is compelling in its own right. The shows overlap as both express concern over climate change and the impact of social, economic and technological change on the labor force.

On the other hand, it’s a testament to the Artist’s range, humanity, and perhaps above all, her perseverance. 

Celebrate 40,000 Years of American Art, 1995, Collagraph. A reminder that the ancient, original Art of our land has yet to be fully appreciated.

In some ways, the case of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith reminds me of Alice Neel, who didn’t see her first full-length monograph published until she was 83, the year before she died. Shows of, and books on, her work have increased ever since. I expect Ms. Quick-to-See Smith to also receive increasing attention as time goes on, and hopefully, she will still be around to see, and enjoy, it. Memory Map proves she deserves every bit of it. 

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Now That the Buffalo’s Gone” by Buffy Sainte-Marie, who was born on the Piapot 75 Reserve in Saskatchewan, Canada. She announced her retirement from live performance earlier this month after 60 years of performing.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

NoteWorthy Art Shows: Spring, 2023

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As I celebrate the 8th Anniversary of NighthawkNYC.com on July 15th, my thoughts turn to some excellent shows I saw but didn’t get a chance to write about! I’ll take a brief look at a few I call NoteWorthy here…

Robert Rauschenberg: Spreads and Scales @ Gladstone Gallery-

Robert Rauschenberg has been one of my favorite Artists since I discovered his work in the 1980s. In 2017, I wrote an extensive series on the plethora of shows going on around town then during what I termed “The Summer of Rauschenberg.” Spreads and Scales was a concise but very interesting show of work I’ve never seen before reinforcing my belief that no matter how much of his work you’ve seen, even 15 years after his passing in 2008, there’s work of his that you more than likely still haven’t seen.

William Christenberry & RaMell Ross: Desire Paths @ Pace-

RaMell Ross, Sleepy Church, 2014, left,  and William Christenberry, Church, Sprott, Alabama, 1981, both Pigment print mounted on dibond.

An interesting, unexpected paring of the work of the late Photographer, William Christenberry, perhaps best known for his association with William Eggleston, and the Academy Award Nominated Filmmaker & Artist, RaMell Ross, who I last saw in a solo show at Aperture Foundation in June, 2018. Interesting became compelling in its final gallery.

RaMell Ross, Return to Origin, 2021. From the upper left- the Artist working away while in transit, sealed in the box; two video stills- the truck after unloading the box, simultaneous shot of RaMell inside; one of the panels showing the Artist’s inscriptions during transit; the box labelled “DRY GOOD.”

There, sitting on the floor was a very large box cryptically labelled “DRY GOODS” in a large stencil on the exterior, I looked at it, noticed there was writing all around the inside and then when I was about to move on I saw the accompanying video. It turns out RaMell Ross created & used the box to reenact Henry Brown’s legendarily daring act of mailing himself out of slavery to freedom in 1849! Mr. Ross shipped himself, sealed in this box, from Rhode Island to Hale County, Alabama. The trip took 59 hours, all the while the contents were unknown to the contracted truck driver whose gooseneck rig was carrying the crate. The journey, captured on the video, was being shown on that nearby monitor. In addition to reminding today’s viewers of Mr. Brown’s incredible feat (in a smaller box), it also reminds me of the preciousness of freedom. Something not fully appreciated, until it’s gone.

Uta Barth @ Tanya Bonakdar-

Frozen poetry. …and to draw a bright white line with light (Untitled 11.10), 2011, Inkjet Prints.

Compositions 5, 12 & 7, left to right, each Inkjet Prints from 2011, seen next to a street-facing picture window. Uta Barth’s work has had me deeply under its spell for the past three years.

Sundial (07.6), 2007, Mounted color Photographs.

In my opinion, Uta Barth is one of the most under-appreciated Photographers working today. I came across a copy of her retrospective The Long Now a few days before the pandemic shutdown and its poetry captivated me. With empty streets and empty rooms everywhere for the following months on end, I saw “Uta Barths” everywhere. Her spell has continued ever since. Artists who change the way I see the world are few and far between.

Installationv view of one section of ...from dusk to dawn, 2022, Mounted color Photographs with single-channel video monitor, includes an embedded video on one of these pieces that changes frames so subtly you may not see it change.

Finally having a chance to see her work in person @ Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Uta Barth presented one, large, new piece, …from dusk to dawn, 2022, in multiple sections that nearly wrapped around the entirety of the downstairs main gallery and a curated selection of “classic” Uta everywhere else in the gallery. The new piece showed one location of Richard Meier’s Getty Center, L.A., over the course of a year, as it changed with time. Being in California, we don’t see the variety of weather we might in some other place, but with Uta Barth it’s always about the light. 

Tauba Auerbach: Free Will @ Paula Cooper Gallery-

One of the rising stars of the Art world, Tauba Auerbach’s latest, her first NYC show since her acclaimed early mid-career retrospective S v Z @ SF MoMA, 2021, didn’t disappoint while offering the usual surprise.

Foam, 2023, Acrylic on dibond. One of a series of Paintings(!) of foam as seen through a microscope.

“The exhibition is an expression of curiosity about spontaneously emergent structure, tendency and habit, and their intersection with the notion of free will. The work brings together historical rendering techniques like pointillism and midtone drawing with microscopy, algorithmic image processing, off-loom weaving, spraying techniques and mathematical surface modeling,” per the Press Release.

Org, 2023, Glass, nylon coated steel cord, 2 x 80 1/2 x 41 3/8 in.

New were incredibly detailed “pointillistic” (her term) Paintings accompanied by tables of intricate objects and a number of equally interesting sculptural works in the adjoining gallery. Both the objects in the main gallery and these “sculptures” reminded me that Tauba Auerbach has her own publishing company, Diagonal Press, which produces fascinating and intricate books and multiples.

Spontaneous Lace, 2023, Kiln-formed glass in aluminum

It might be premature for me to say this, but Tauba Auerbach reminds me a bit of Frank Lloyd Wright, to me one of the great Artistic geniuses of all time. Ms. Auerbach is not an Architect, as far as I know, but her work reminds me of the brilliance of Wright’s “ancillary” designs for his buildings: his fabric designs, dishwear, furniture and rugs. Frank Lloyd Wright continually pursued “building the way nature built,” i.e. “organically,” as he called it. Much of Tauba Auerbach’s work is inspired by nature and carries forward some of its techniques, as seen here in Free Will. Barely in her 4th decade, the high esteem attached to her name is well-deserved in my view, and she is definitely an Artist to keep a close eye on.

Ruby LaToya Frazier @ Gladstone Gallery-

Steadily, Ruby LaToya Frazier has been building a remarkable oeuvre, equal parts documentary and Art, in her own, unique, way. Her latest show, Ruby LaToya Frazier at Gladstone consisted of one major work– More Than Conquerors: A Monument for Community Health Workers of Baltimore, Maryland 2021-22, 2022 made up of 66 archival inkjet prints mounted on 18 stainless steel I.V. poles, which amounted to stations.

At each stop her Photographs were accompanied by personal statements from the subject that were every bit as riveting as Ms. Frazier’s work- no small feat. The show was a wonderful table-setter for Ms. Frazier’s mid-career retrospective set to open shortly at MoMA. An Artist & Activist who has focused so much of her work on groups and communities deserving wider attention it’s my hope the show will do just that for her work and career.

Nicole Eisenman Prince @ Print Center New York-

Beer Garden, 2012-7, Etching, acquatint, and drypoint with chine colle, A stunning 44 3/8 by 51 3/4 inches!

A fascinating and insightful retrospective of yet another side of her work: her seldom-seen prints. A wonderful presentation of 40 works, including new and rare works. A plethora of unique styles and compositions kept the show fresh and exciting, and I imagine would prove new even to those who know her Painting and Sculpture, which were seen to terrific effect in her New Museum survey in 2016, for which this show offered a marvelous, if delayed, addendum.

Machine Learning Kiss, 2018 Collagraph, 19 3⁄4 × 20 inches. *-unknown Photographer.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

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NighthawkNYC.com Is 8! A Look Back…

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

As the world continued to emerge from the horrors of the pandemic, it was business as usual for the galleries while the museums breathed a sigh of relief as they welcomed back the numbers they had seen pre-covid, though foreign tourists have not returned to NYC in their pre-pandemic numbers. That probably won’t last forever. There was a steady stream of very good and excellent shows throughout the year. In case you missed some, I’ll look at some of those that stood out for me and that I wrote about here, and everything else I covered, as I take a look back at Year #8 of NighthawkNYC.com: July 15, 2022- July 14. 2023…

Through the glass darkly to revisit Year 8…You’d need a telescope to see The Gulf Stream, center, from the show’s entrance, which announces it as the centerpiece for the entire exhibition. There were a lot of very good Paintings before, and after, you got to it.

Not Your Father’s Winslow Homer – Published on August 8, 2022. An expansive show big enough to show the American master’s broad accomplishment while delving into his themes- well-known and lesser-known, beginning with the Civil War and its aftermath. Incalculably influential during his life and after, Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents at The Met showed the relevance of his Art continues.

Louise Bourgeois’s Guarantee of Sanity – Published on August 25, 2022. One of the final shows mounted under Sheena Wagstaff as The Met’s Chair of Modern & Contemporary Art, Louise Bourgeois Paintings proved to be a worthy culmination to a very memorable tenure. For those, like me, only familiar with her Sculpture and Installations, her Paintings proved every bit as compelling. The question for me became how have they been so overlooked for so long?

William Klein: A Thousand Times YES – Published on September 21, 2022. One of the most influential Photographers of our time and one of the most endlessly curious, William Klein’s long career (1948-2013. 65 years!) as seen in ICP’s William Klein: YES was continually fascinating. In such a long career, landmarked with classic PhotoBooks, great and/or important Films1, and countless indelible images, what I love most is that he began as a Painter. His Paintings are rarely seen, so, in addition to EVERYTHING else he did that was on view, this was a wonderful chance to see some of them.

Hughie Lee-Smith, Self-Portrait, 1964, Oil on canvas, 24 x 20 inches.

Hughie Lee Smith: Leaving History Behind – Published on September 30,2022. The “history” of Art is written way too quickly in my view. It takes at least 100 years for the dust to settle and for those looking to really appreciate what’s been done. As seen at Karma’s Hughie Lee Smith, Hughie Lee Smith is a classic example of someone who was overlooked in the initial rush to judgment. As a result, I expect his name will heard more and more often as time goes on and more people see his work. As a result, his place in the 20th century Art history books will then be secured.

You’re a Painter. You’re 32. Your Yvonne and James II, 2021, Oil on canvas, was bought by, and is hanging in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, directly opposite Kerry James Marshall’s show-stopping Untitled (Studio), 2014 in their largest Modern & Contemporary Art Gallery, #915. If that’s not a “Wow,” what is?  June 18, 2022.- My caption as it appears in the piece.

Jordan Casteel: Surviving the Buzz – Published on October 20, 2022. It’s been a while since a new Contemporary Painter shot to the level of universal acclaim that Jordan Casteel has during the pandemic. Her New Museum show, Jordan Casteel: Within Reach took the Art world by storm. Heady times for any Artist, let alone one barely 30 at the time. Needless to say, the NYC Art world turned out in numbers to see what she would do next. I attended the opening of her first show since Within Reach, Jordan Casteel: In Bloom at Casey Kaplan, something I don’t often do, for a look-see myself.

Detail from Untitled (That’s the way we do it), 2011/2020 Digital print on vinyl wallpaper, seen at David Zwirner. Over the past 50 years Barbara Kruger’s style has become iconic to the point where now A LOT of people wish they could design like Barbara.

Barbara Kruger: Red & White and Read All Over – Published on November 1, 2022. Though her influence is, literally, everywhere you look these days, her Art is not shown all that often in NYC. After I got over the disappointment that the MoMA PS1 half of the show, a retrospective, had been canceled due to covid, I made do with the MoMA Atrium installation of a new site-specific work, and her concurrent David Zwirner show, spread over 3 of their galleries.

Diane Arbus At 99 – Published on November 10, 2022 – I’ve seen numerous Diane Arbus shows over the years going back to the incredible Diane Arbus: Revelations at The Met in 2005, one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen (DON’T MISS the Revelations Exhibition catalog! Either in The Met’s original edition or the recent Aperture reprint), but I hadn’t written about Ms. Arbus because pictures were not allowed to be taken in any of her shows. Finally, for the recreation of the legendary 1972 MoMA Retrospective at David Zwirner, they were. Many years of looking, and thinking about her work, had been simmering leading up to it.

Jane Dickson at the opening for her show at James Fuentes, April 7, 2022, while her work was also starring in the Whitney Biennial.

Jane Dickson: The Artist Laureate of Times Square – Published on December 8, 2022. Jane Dickson is something of an urban legend. By that I mean that she & her Art have been known for many years but it’s been a well-kept secret. Her latest show opened at James Fuentes while her work was starring in the Whitney Biennial showing that the word is finally getting out.

Endless compositional variety. Installation view of Jean-Michel Basquiat: Art and Objecthood @ Nahmad Contemporary.

Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now You See It, Now You Can’t – Published on December 22, 2022. One of the most amazing things about the Art of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s enduring popularity in 2022, for me, is that you can’t actually see his Art in person! Very, very few museums have him in their collections- still(!), and shows are infrequent. Curious to see if the real thing lived up to the hype, I’ve taken every chance I’ve had to see his Art in person going back a decade, now. In fact, I’ve now written about Mr. Basquiat more on NighthawkNYC than I have any other Artist! In 2022, I saw 2 more big shows of his work, Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure and Jean-Michel Basquiat: Art and Objecthood, bringing my total to 9 shows seen. In this piece I ponder “where to” with the Art of Basquiat in 2022, and the future.

Jeanine Heveaux and Lisane Basquiat, Jean-Michel’s sisters, at the book release in NYC on April 12th.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, At 62 – Published on December 22, 2022. The biggest Basquiat show of the past decade, by the number of pieces on view, 200, Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure marked the first time his family, who inherited his estate, showed their collection. While it included a few major pieces, most of the work on view was not quite up to that level (in my opinion). That’s not all that surprising since the Artist sold so much of his work right after he created it. Still, it was an important show for anyone with an interest in Basquiat, and very well installed. In the lead up to the opening, I met both of Jean-Michel’s sisters.

Business, as usual. A local record store in action.

What’s Left Unsaid About Remixed Classic Albums – Published on January 19, 2022. Records labels have a license to print money when it comes to reissues. Bonus extra tracks and other goodies are added to the package to get buyers, including many who already own the record, to buy it (again)! But, what exactly are you getting? I think more attention needs to be paid to just WHO is doing the remixing of classic albums, and even why! The Artists signed off on the original versions, and as time goes on, fewer and fewer of them are left to sign off on remixes or reissues! And, there’s little they can do about it if they’ve signed the rights to the recording over to the record company. This is my look at all of this: our Musical cultural heritage is at stake!

Kerry James Marshall: Return of the Mastr – Published on February 9, 2023. Kerry James Marshall returned with his first solo show after the legendary Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, which I wrote about here, the Painting show of the decade among those I saw.

If you don’t think he’s an “Artist,” try imagining The Little Prince without Saint-Exupéry’s Art.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: Artist – Published on March 21, 2023. Two shows at the Morgan Library made me wonder why no one even mentions Saint-Exupéry’s Art when discussing his timeless classic, The Little Prince. In honor of the 80th Anniversary of its publication, I look at just that.

Remember The Light: On The Passing of Wayne Shorter – Published on April 7, 2023. Wayne Shorter has been one of my Musical Gods for most of my life. I was lucky enough to see him perform quite a few times, and each was indelible. My thoughts on the passing of one of the great Musical geniuses of our time.

Rod Penner at his easel at work in the early stages of what would become Buy Pecans Here/San Saba, TX, in 2021 as seen in the book.

NoteWorthy Art Books: Rod Penner: Paintings, 1987-2022 – Published on April 7, 2023. 35 years coming, Rod Penner FINALLY gets a full-length book worthy of his Art. Not just that, it includes EVERYTHING he’s Painted. I took the first in-depth look at it anywhere!

Room in New York, 1932. Remember that song, “Eyes without a Face?” Well, this is “faces without eyes!”

Edward Hopper’s Impressions of New York – Published on May 5, 2023. I visited the Painting show of Year 8, Edward Hopper’s New York. at the Whitney Museum, fourteen times. As a result, it took three pieces, written over 9 months, to cover. Part 1 focuses on my problems with Edward Hopper’s Art being termed “realism.” I don’t see it that way. If the faces in Room in New York, above, don’t have eyes, how “real” can they be?

Early Sunday Morning, 1930. A block in my neighborhood 93 years ago. I now see it as an ominous warning.

Edward Hopper: The Last Traditionalist Faces Change – Published on June 5, 2023. Part 2 focuses on what I see when I look at Hopper now after seeing Edward Hopper’s New York.

Night Shadows, 1921, Etching. One of the first pieces by Hopper to speak to me. Looking at it, I wonder- who is the lonelier? The man walking on the street, or the observer? A similar experience is to be had with Nighthawks.
I chose this piece because it seems to me there are shadows encroaching on the Art of Edward Hopper in 2022-23. Seen at Edward Hopper’s New York.

Edward Hopper At The Whitney: Troubling Choices – Published on June 8, 2023. My 3-part Edward Hopper series concludes with a look at some troubling decisions the Whitney has made regarding the Art of Edward Hopper and the Josephine Hopper Bequest, the most extraordinary gift an American Painter has yet made to an American museum.

Performing Scarlatti…in a motorcycle jacket on the harpsichord. And, performing his 555 Sonatas(!) extraordinarily, with HIV.

Scott Ross: The Modern Ancient – Published on June 7, 2023. My look at the late Scott Ross, a true renaissance man and individualist, who’s best known for his marvelous recordings of Baroque Music…on the harpsichord, no less.

Filled with a lifetime’s fruits of observations, insights, and revelations. No Art lover should be without it, in my humble opinion.

Kenn Sava’s Desert Island Art Books – Published on July 12, 2023. After Months of agonizing over the final cuts, here they are! The Art books that have held up for me, while continuing to inform & inspire, that I can’t live without.

Counting this piece, I wrote TWENTY-ONE full-length pieces in Year 8! My Thanks to everyone who has read one, or more, of them, and my special thanks to all those who have book Art, books and Music from my collection, which I am selling off to help keep this site going. Your support is VERY appreciated, and still needed!

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. imdb lists him as the Director of 24! ↩

Kenn Sava’s Desert Island Art Books

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

A BookMarks Special. 

A reader writes, “Hey, Kenn. Leaving cost as a secondary concern, what are the Art books you’d take with you to that desert island?”

Wow…one of the hardest questions you could ask me. First, I’d never go to a desert, or any island without a museum, but I’m game. I’ll take “Art” to mean Paintings, Drawing, Sculpture, leaving Photography aside. (That way I’d get to take more books! Ha!) Well, cost is a PRIMARY concern for me, but I’ll make it secondary here. My criteria are 1) the importance & quality of the Art and 2) how well is it presented? Ok. After months of pondering it, here they are! (In no particular order…)

SPOILER ALERT! There are NO AFFILIATE LINKS in this piece! If you buy one of these somewhere, how about making a donation so I can keep helping you discover Art and books? 

Kenn Sava’s Desert Island Art Books

Filled with a lifetime’s fruits of observations, insights, and revelations. No Art lover should be without it, in my opinion.

The Story of Painting, Sister Wendy Beckett, DK Publishing.
The first book I simply must mention is one that had a bit to do with inspiring me to start NighthawkNYC.com, which is about to begin its ninth year: Sister Wendy’s The Story of Painting. A phenomenal accomplishment, covering the history of Painting right up to very recent times, her observations are based in what she sees in the work itself! In so doing, Sister Wendy showed the world how to look at Art without the noise surrounding it from those who would tell you what you “should” see so you can see Art for yourself. I first read Sister Wendy Beckett back in her days as a contributor to the excellent Modern Painters Magazine, before her BBC & PBS TV Series make her world-famous. Still, at the moment, if you look for it (it’s out of print), The Story of Painting can be had reasonably. I prefer the hardcover, mine shown above, because I wore out my softcover copy years ago. Yes, some of the blown up details are out of focus, making me wonder about the editors, but’s that’s no reason for the slightest hesitation- most of the 450 images over 800 pages are fine. This is a book that should always be in print, so it’s past time for a new edition! There is an exceptionally well done TV Series of the same name that is available on DVD, and her other, lesser-known TV Series, like Sister Wendy’s American Collection, in which she visits 6 U.S. museums are also amazing. Seeing her in the same halls of The Met that I frequent always gives me chills. All her shows are essential and should be rerun as often as any show is. Luckily, there is a Complete Collection of her TV Series in a DVD box set. I missed her when she retired to live in seclusion in her trailer, as I wrote here, and more so since her passing, which I mourned here, but what she left us lives on in me, which I try and share here, and countless others. I hope it continues to inspire countless millions indefinitely.

Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings, Taschen
If I were to take only one Art monograph, you might be looking at it. I’ve looked at it more than any other Art book besides The Story of Painting. Vincent became an Artist late in life, at about 28, and his career barely lasted 9 years. Yet, the intensity of his dedication to his craft saw him create about 2,100 works, including about 860 Paintings! The evolution of his style is continual after his earliest, “dark” period. Meanwhile, his life was full of tumult, disappointment, and unimaginable pain & suffering. Currently the “Brick” edition, which measures about 6 by 8 inches, $25. list, and/or XL edition, $60. list, are in print. Virtually the exact same book in 2 different sizes. Large or small, either is an incredible value. I’ve got both and each sees steady use. Choose small, shown above, if you want a ready reference, perfect for your bedside or backpack. Choose XL if you want to see the Art in a larger size. My look at the reinstalled Van Gogh Paintings at The Met, pondering what Vincent would think, is here. I’ve begun a piece on Van Gogh’s Cypresses, currently at The Met.

With its NoteWorthy Art Book of 2020 designation.

Rembrandt: The Complete Paintings, Taschen XXL
The canon of the Master’s Oils seems to be changing daily, even 354 years after his death! It has already changed since this was published in 2019. Still, unless you hit the Mega Millions, or are able to fly around the world and see all the Rembrandts on view in the world’s museums, this is as close as you’ll ever get to seeing them all. Even if you were able to do that, you’d only see some of them because museums rotate/lend their collections and those in private hands are probably inaccessible to you. Still, even if you were somehow able to see all of them, you’ll never see them this close. Nuff said. My hope is they update it in a few more years. In selecting this, I must mention my other go-to Rembrandt book- The Rembrandt Book by the legendary Dutch Art specialist, NYC-born, Gary Schwartz. Aptly titled. Essential. My look at Rembrandt’s First Masterpiece at the Morgan Library in 2016 is here.

My sealed XXL before being “touched.” In this case, “XXL” equals 19 pounds!

Michelangelo: Complete Works,  Taschen XXL
Michelangelo’s canon doesn’t change nearly as often as Rembrandt’s does, but it does look different when his Art is cleaned or restored (like the Sistine, which looks incredible now, as seen in here, though I hope no damage was done to it in the cleaning). But as I mentioned for the Rembrandt XXL, you’ll never seen all of it, and never this close. Trust me- The Vatican is NOT letting you up on a scaffold in the Sistine! The XXL is out of print and goes for $500. and up in VG or better condition. The $60. XL is almost as good and is still in print as are the two Bricks that include this material- Michelangelo: The Complete Paintings, Sculpture and Architecture and Michelangelo: The Graphic Work for his Drawings, My look at the monumental Michelangelo Divine Draftsman and Designer, at The Met in 2018 is here. One of the top 3 or 4 Art shows I’ve ever seen, it brilliantly revealed for all-time that Michelangelo, the Draftsman and Designer, may be the most overlooked aspect of his super-human genius, and just possibly his most under-rated talent. The Met’s catalog accompanying Divine Draftsman and Designer is one of the very best books on Michelangelo there is- and I’ve owned a lot of them.

Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective, Museum of Modern Art
HOW could I do a list like this and NOT include a Picasso book? In 1980, I made two trips back to NYC while I was on the road with a band, just to see MoMA’s Picasso Retrospective. The hype leading up to it called in a “once in a lifetime, must-see show.” The reality was just WOW! It marked the beginning of my Art show-going life. If my Art-going career had ended then and there I really couldn’t complain; it’s never been topped by anything I’ve seen since. The show, which filled ALL of the “old” MoMA,  was just overwhelming…mind-boggling. Almost ONE THOUSAND Paintings, Sculptures, Drawings, Collages, Prints, Ceramics, etc., etc. MoMA lent 230 works to other institutions to make room for it. I’ll never forget seeing his earliest works, which the show began with, including Science and Charity, which he Painted at 15(!), and and already being staggered by his talent TWO GALLERIES in, with the entirety of MoMA (THREE FULL FLOORS!) still ahead of me! The catalog published to accompany the show is a classic as well. It’s still to be had quite reasonably in hardcover, like mine above, which I bought at the show, or softcover (check it for yellowing first. It’s 43 years old and my copy makes no mention of acid-free paper). It’s endlessly staggering to page through it and realize that ONE PERSON created ALL of this! If you said of it, “THIS was the ultimate testament of man’s creative accomplishment in the 20th century,” I, for one, couldn’t argue with you.

Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, Skira Rizzoli
THE Painting show of the 2010s among all those I saw lives on in the terrific catalog that accompanied it. It’s still one of the two best books on Mr. Marshall, one of the most important Painters working today, along with the Phaidon Contemporary Kerry James Marshall book. You need both, but in a pinch I’ll take Mastry. I wrote about the show here.

I bought my copy used so it was pretty much like this. Out of print for a long time, it’s very hard to find now in VG condition for less than $200.

Neo Rauch, Taschen XXL
Perhaps the world’s most enigmatic living Painter, Neo Rauch’s work continues to both baffle me and hypnotize me in equal measures. Leave it to Taschen to create the most stunning book on his work published so far, even though his bibliography is ever-expanding and the track is fast. 12-years-old at this point it sorely needs to be updated with the work he’s done since added though the essay remain excellent. Long out of print and commanding big bucks, I’d advise holding off on it now and hope Taschen gives us a new edition with all of his work for the past decade+ added. In fact, I spoke with Neo Rauch this spring about just that and he told me another Painting book is coming out next year. It didn’t sound like it would be an Updated Taschen Neo Rauch.

*- Estate of Francis Bacon Photo

Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonne, Martin Harrison, The Estate of Francis Bacon
It seems like the Francis Bacon bibliography gets bigger every few months, but this will ALWAYS be THE place to begin, and end, when it comes to seeing his work. Especially ALL of it! His 584 Paintings are beautifully shown in 800 illustrations over 1,500+ pages in five volumes. Text by the world’s foremost living Francis Bacon authority, Martin Harrison (who also contributed to Saul Leiter’s Early Color, one of THE essential PhotoBooks of the 21st century). Here’s the thing- the Estate has said that once it’s sold out, “it will never be reprinted.” Gulp.

The Complete Oil Paintings of Edward Hopper & The Complete Watercolors of Edward Hopper, both Norton
The 4-volume Edward Hopper Catalogue Raisonne by Gail Levin and published by the Whitney in 1995 is more well-known, but it sold out and copies currently BEGIN at $1,000. per. Lesser-known is that the Whitney then sold the two volumes of The Complete Paintings & The Complete Watercolors from the set as stand-alone volumes. At this point, they’re actually probably harder to find. Recently a reader asked me for a Hopper recommendation. It’s really strange that there isn’t a comprehensive book on Hopper’s Art over his whole career currently in print. (The Whitney’s catalog for Edward Hopper’s New York is good, but it’s focused on his NYC work.), as I recommended in Part 2 of my recent look at Edward Hopper’s New York, seek out Gail Levin’s Edward Hopper: The Art & The Artist, the catalog for the last Edward Hopper Retrospective at the “old” Whitney Museum in 1981. Just beware the book is 42 years old now. Look at it before you buy a copy and make sure the pages haven’t yellowed, which this book is very prone to, since that drastically affects the color of the Art.

Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective, Guggenheim Museum
By far the most comprehensive look at almost all of Robert Rauschenberg’s career to 1997. A show I saw and will never forget. Mr. Rauschenberg was involved in its making (there’s a great video online of a brief interview with him as he stands on Frank Lloyd Wright’s ramp). The Artist would go on to live & work for another 11 years, and I am particularly a fan of his late work. Still, this is a glorious book, one I have gone through 3 copies of. The essential visual reference to Robert Rauschenberg’s Art. He remains one of THE most influential Artists on the Art I see in 2023. My look at what I called “The Summer of Rauschenberg” in 2017 is here.

*-National Gallery of Art Photo

Georgia O’Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonne, National Gallery of Art, Washington
A “name” here at home, Ms. O’Keefe is only beginning to be better known around the world. I believe her stature is only going to grow and grow from here on. This book shows why. Her work is singular, always based in nature with her one-of-a-kind vision, and just plain gorgeous. As we’re seeing right now in her terrific MoMA show, Georgia O’Keeffe: To See Takes Time– her work holds up gloriously!

Rothko by Christopher Rothko & Kate Rothko Prizel, Rizzoli Electa
Runs, doesn’t walk, to the head of its class. Some may still prefer Yale’s Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas, but it’s 25 years old now. Who better to write a book on their father than Mark Rothko’s son and daughter? They know whereof they speak on all things Rothko after spending their lives as closely involved with his work as anyone- not to mention actually living with the Artist. This all came home to me in spades when I met Kate and got to speak to her about a number of things Rothko-related. She thinks this is the better book, and when she told me that I didn’t get the feeling she was speaking out of bias. The handsome book in a slipcase includes an extremely wide range of work- on canvas and paper, from all periods. The 1999 Rothko Retrospective at the “old” Whitney changed my life, turning me back to being Art-centric from Music and made me a fan for life. My look at Mark Rothko: Dark Palette, 2016, is here.

Ralston Crawford by William C. Agee, Twelvetrees Press
Ralston Crawford is one of the most overlooked Artists I can think of, and I’ve been obsessed with his work since the Whitney Retrospective more years ago than I care to think about. Though shows have been scarce, books have begun to appear over the past decade. This is still the best comprehensive overview, but I hope a REALLY worthy Ralston Crawford book will be coming. Oh, he was also a very talented Photographer, as Keith Davis’s fine book The Photographs of Ralston Crawford reveals.

Vermeer: The Complete Works, Taschen
There are other excellent books of Vermeer’s complete Paintings, including those by Arthur Wheelock of the National Gallery, DC, and the late, lamented Walter Liedtke of The Met who was tragically killed in a train accident a while back. Both of those are excellent for their texts, the Taschen book is essential for its Photography. There hasn’t been an XXL-sized edition, but Vermeer: The Complete Works is now available in either the Brick size, pictured, or the XL size. You can’t go wrong either way- see my comment on Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings for why, though when it comes to Vermeer, you can’t get TOO close!

Caravaggio: The Complete Works, Taschen
The XXL is long out of print but seeing his work THAT large is an amazing experience if you can find one. The Brick and XL remain in print, and both work well. Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro has been infinitely influential, from Rembrandt on down, no less so today. And so his work remains essential for Photographers, those interested in Film, and of course Painters.

Dali: The Paintings, Taschen
Dali seems to be in a bit of eclipse these days, but anyone who saw the huge Dali Centennial Retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum in 2004-5 knows this is temporary. This remarkable book contains all his Paintings from a very long and very productive career that was marked by almost as many styles as his contemporary Picasso. Originally published as a Volume 1 & 2, now in one volume, available in the Brick or XL size. If you don’t think Salvador Dalí belongs on this list, look through a copy of this book and then tell me he doesn’t.

Getting harder to find- Frida Kahlo: The Complete Paintings, sealed, in its shipping box.

–Frida Kahlo: The Complete Paintings, Taschen
Unless you’re besties with Madonna, this is likely to remain THE very best place to see the astounding, indelible work of the Mexican genius. What else is there to say? Oh! My money is that Taschen will re-release it in smaller sizes, but if you want to see her work in FULL effect, the XXL, the only edition of it thus far, which seems to be disappearing, is likely to remain THE BEST place to do that. I wouldn’t wait long.

Diego Rivera: The Complete Murals, Taschen
Completing the only husband/wife team on this list, this is a terrifically important concept beautifully realized. It’s hard to feel now what a revolution Diego Rivera and the other Mexican Muralists created when they began making Murals in Mexico. They later created them elsewhere and along the way influenced many of the great Artists of 20th and now 21st century Art, including Jackson Pollock. Available in the XL size, I would have my doubts about how good it would be as a Brick.  But in the XL you can study all the marvelous detail on each Mural in a generous size.

Basquiat XXL seen here in its original, printed, shipping box, which has been replaced with an all brown box in recent printings.

Basquiat, Taschen XXL
The XXL is likely to forever be THE best place to see the most Basquiat Art as close to life size. There is a Brick edition, part of Taschen’s 40th Anniversary series, which is slightly edited, but that’s the tradeoff for the deep savings ($30 for the Brick vs $200 for the XXL). Neither can be beat among ANY Basquiat book currently in print, in my opinion, and I’ve owned or seen most of the books published on his work to date while I was doing research for the numerous pieces I’ve written on the Basquiat shows in NYC in 2019 and 2022, which can be seen here.

UPDATE, July 15, 2023- In response to my list, a reader wrote, “Basquiat? Could you tell me why he’s on your list?” Sure. Jean-Michel Basquiat is the most compositionally diverse and compositionally inventive Artist I can think of- besides Robert Rauschenberg. As I pointed out in my piece, his compositions alway surprise me, and virtually no two are alike. That’s remarkable. Jean-Michel was ahead of his time in addressing many issues that are now foregrounded in Art, and in the world, today. This is the best book to experience all of that.

Yes, my choices are books that contain Art. As an Art writer, I want to see the Art- as much as I can by any particular Artist I’m interested in. I’m also interested in his or her biography and the circumstances surrounding the creation of the Art. I don’t read Art criticism for 2 reasons. 1) I’m planning on writing my own take on the work, and 2) with all due respect, I don’t want to be influenced by what anyone else says about it. I need to see the Art for myself and I encourage (and have always encouraged) everyone to see Art for themselves. That being said, among Art books that are primarily text (well, the Sister Wendy is both), three stand out for me-

*-Van Gogh Museum/Thames & Hudson Photo

Vincent van Gogh: The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition (6 volumes), Thames & Hudson
A long time ago I was gifted the 3-volume set of Van Gogh’s Letters edited by Johanna (“Jo”) van Gogh-Bonger who, also wrote a Preface/Rememberance of Vincent. I still have them. This will forever be a very special set. If you love Van Gogh’s Art and don’t know the name Jo van Gogh-Bonger, get thee to a nunnery! Mrs. Van Gogh-Bonger was Theo’s bride, then quickly his widow when he died 6 months after Vincent in 1891. She inherited Vincent’s estate (i.e. virtually all his Art and Letters) after his tragic suicide or murder (in spite of everything, I remain unconvinced he wasn’t ((accidentally?)) murdered. See below..). She is THE person responsible for making Vincent van Gogh the world-wide phenomenon he is today. She believed his Letters were the key to understanding his Art. She was proved right. She edited a collection of them, which has stood until this expanded edition. Her passion for Vincent’s Art led to the creation of the Van Gogh Museum, after her son donated their collection to the Dutch state who agreed to build the building. The VG Museum undertook an updated edition of Vincent’s immortal Letters in 2009, an unparalleled body of writing in Art history, and authorized the publication of Vincent van Gogh: The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition in six volumes. WORD!- It’s ALL available for free online, with updates, which the books don’t get! (I just saved you the thousands of dollars the set goes for on Amazon right now! PLEASE donate so I can keep turning you on to things like that. Thanks.)

An older edition with black & white illustrations inside. Get the current edition. It has color illustrations.

Conversations with Francis Bacon by David Sylvester, Thames & Hudson
I’ve never read better interviews with an Artist. Period. Mr. Sylvester is Cecily Brown’s dad. I’ve met Cecily, but didn’t get to ask her if she met Francis…

Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Random House
There are a lot of great Artist’s biographies out there, and some terrific Autobiographies, too. However, I just can’t put Van Gogh: The Life down. Like so many others, I grew up believing the fiction written by Irving Stone (Lust for Life, which became the equally fictionalized Film, though it was shot in some actual places, and his Dear Theo.). It’s way past time the record on Vincent’s life was set straight! After I discovered his Letters I began to get the picture. Here the gaps are completely filled in. The decade of research, with the help/permission of the Van Gogh Museum, shows on every page. There’s also a website especially for the book’s footnotes(!), and, unlike many/most Art biographies written by non-Artists, the Art commentary is spot on. Not an easy thing to do with someone like Van Gogh. BRAVO!  I recommend looking for the hardcover, which is out of print. The cover of the paperback is a little thin for an almost 1,000 page book, and this book is almost guaranteed to be the definitive Van Gogh biography for, at least, the foreseeable future. It includes an appendix in which the authors lay out their theory that Vincent DID NOT COMMIT SUICIDE- he was accidentally murdered!!! They followed this up with an equally insightful supporting article in Vanity Fair. I find their case compelling.

The big takeaway of all this will no doubt be that I’m a big fan of Taschen. When it comes to Art books, I’ve said as much before. TEN books listed here are published by the German firm. Their Photography books, however, are VERY hit or miss, and could use a few more “hits.” I’ve said a few times that the Taschen small “Brick” sized books (with the newest releases bearing the “40th Anniversary Edition” moniker) are THE best value in Art books today. You could build a terrific Art library out of just Bricks, to coin a phrase. Taschen books consistently feature the most color illustrations of the Art in the highest quality Photographs and publication using excellent paper and always have a rock solid binding. From the Bricks to the XL to the XXL editions (of almost the exact same book, but, be aware, though Taschen doesn’t mention this: my side-by-side comparisons reveal the Bricks may be edited down subtly from the XXL in places- that’s the trade off for saving 85% of the price!), you pick your price point, and the size you want, and you’re good to go on so many of the Artists they include. In fact, only Phaidon can compare with them in terms of the roster of Artists they have published in-depth monographs on. Phaidon stands alone when it comes to their superb Contemporary Artists monograph series. Taschen’s roster is mostly older Artists, though more Contemporary Artists are being included. 

*-Soundtrack for this Piece is “Desert Island Disk” by Radiohead from A Moon Shaped Pool, 2016, the title of which is a play on the BBC Radio show Desert Island Discs.

This piece is dedicated to The Strand Bookstore, where I’ve discovered more great Art (& Photography) Books than anywhere else the past 45 years. This year, The Strand celebrates their 96th year. My previous BookMarks pieces are here.

THERE WERE NO AFFILIATE LINKS IN THIS PIECE!

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

Edward Hopper At The Whitney: Troubling Choices

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This is the Postscript to my series on Edward Hopper’s New York at the Whitney Museum, which may be found here-

 Part 1: Edward Hopper’s Impressions of New York

Part 2: Edward Hopper: The Last Traditionalist Faces Change

The Postscript follows-

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*-unless otherwise credited)

Postscript

“Train wheels running through the back of my memory
When I ran on the hilltop following a pack of wild geese
Someday, everything is going to be smooth like a rhapsody
When I paint my masterpiece.”*

After ALL I said in Parts 1 & 2 about Edward Hopper’s Art & Edward Hopper’s New York at the Whitney, all is not sunshine in the world of Edward Hopper’s Art in 2022-3 in spite of the show’s resounding popularity.

Edward Hopper, Night Shadows, 1921, Etching. One of the first pieces by Hopper to speak to me. Looking at it, I wonder- who is the lonelier? The man walking on the street, or the observer? A similar experience is to be had with Nighthawks. Seen at Edward Hopper’s New York. I chose this piece because it mimics the shadows I see surrounding the Art of Edward Hopper in 2022-23. Click any picture for full size.

While Edward Hopper might not have been a fan of some of the changes he saw going on around him, as I showed in Part 2, those who are admirers of his work may not approve of some of the choices being made involving his Art by the Whitney Museum, the  holders of the largest collection of Edward Hopper’s Art in the world. Their holdings, built up over the prior 40 years, ballooned to extraordinary size when they became the beneficiary of the Jo Hopper Bequest in 1970, which gifted them Edward & his wife Jo’s estates (including both of their Art; Jo was an Artist, too), an unprecedented gift from an American Painter to an American museum. Edward Hopper chose the Whitney as his beneficiary due to Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney having been an early supporter of his Art. In 1920, Mrs. Whitney’s manager, Juliana Force, gave him his first one-man show at the Whitney Studio Club, the predecessor of the Whitney Museum. After he passed in 1967, Jo Hopper was too ill to change his wishes- which she may well have done had she been in better health1.

Going…going…SOLD! Cobb’s Barns, South Truro, 1930-3, Oil on canvas. I spent two days in Truro, MA, where the Hoppers spent their summers, back in the 1980s, drinking in the air, the light and the atmosphere Hopper loved for most of his life. *- Whitney Museum Photo. Not in the show.

In May, the Whitney sold (at least) one Edward Hopper Painting, Cobb’s Barns, South Truro, 1930-3 from the 1970 Bequest. I find that quite worrisome (Wait. No. There is no strike-through button in WordPress- make that “I’m sickened by this”) for any number of reasons. For one thing, from what I saw over 14 visits to Edward Hopper’s New York, it looks to me that Hopper’s popularity is, and has been, steadily increasing, world-wide to the point that he is now among the most popular American Artists world-wide, if he is not now the most popular. Is the Whitney “selling at the top” in parting with his work now? Or, is their selling short-sighted?

Of course, no one can foresee the future, and though the Art market has done nothing but go higher since the late 1980s, no bull market lasts forever. As a result, I would have chosen something else to sell while the market is high. With all due respect to the other Artists in their collection, something else not by Hopper. In spite of all that’s already been written about his work these past 100 years, it seems to me it’s still early in the assessment of Edward Hopper’s Art & accomplishment. His work with human subjects has received so much attention that his landscapes, for example, are still to be fully assessed & fully appreciated, I believe, as I said in Part 2. They have begun to receive more attention this past decade, but there is still much to learn from them. Therefore, the Whitney’s decision to sell one of his Landscapes (a man-altered landscape, as I characterized these in Part 2) comes with the risk of being premature. I believe they will be worth more as time goes on. Apparently, so does the buyer.

Unbeknownst to most visitors to Edward Hopper’s New York on the 5th Floor, upstairs on 7, the Whitney has been rotating Edward Hopper works in half a gallery. Seen in January, 2023, these three are from his trips to Paris, 1906-10, and so not appropriate for inclusion in the New York show. Like his Landscapes, they have been overlooked to this point.

Besides his Landscapes, his early work (to 1922) also remains under-appreciated and considered it seems to me.

“In every artist’s development the germ of the later work is always found in the earlier. The nucleus around which the artist’s intellect builds his work is himself; the central ego, personality, or whatever it may be called. and this changes little from birth to death. What he was once, he always is, with slight modification. Changing fashions in methods or subject matter alter him little or not at all.” Edward Hopper2

There has not as yet been a full assessment done of them. In light of the powerful work that came later it’s easy to pass these by, but in them I see the germs of much of what was to come. It may be that this early work and his landscapes turn out to not be as popular as his later work. That doesn’t mean they’re not important for other reasons.

Soir Bleu, 1914. A work that has puzzled viewers for almost 110 years also seen on the Whitney’s 7th floor Permanent Collection galleries in January, 2023, while Edward Hopper’s New York was up on the 5th.

One of the most notorious pieces of his early work, Soir Bleu, 1914, is a unique outlier in Edward Hopper’s oeuvre. A work depicting a scene ostensibly in Paris but Painted in NYC after he returned, it doesn’t quite fit with what came before, or after. Exactly what is going on here has mystified many. It’s another example of how far Hopper studies have to go.

Earlier this year I looked at the state of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Art and concluded that there may not be enough in his family’s collection to open a museum. Jean-Michel sold much of his Art as he created it, so much of it had long been dispersed when he died in 1988. His estate went to his family who retain was was left (which formed the basis for the show Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure, which I wrote about here). The Whitney, on the other hand, currently shows over 3,000 pieces by Edward Hopper from their collection online. They just might have enough to open something of a substantial, permanent, rotating, Edward Hopper exhibition, if not an outright museum! (They have been running a small rotating selection of his work in part of a gallery on the 7th floor where they display work from the Permanent Collection for a while, part of which, seen in January, 2023, I show above.)

Can you imagine what a big deal an Edward Hopper Museum in NYC would be? No other Artist has one here…yet. I can only begin to imagine how much it would enhance the value of their collection. Should they? Obviously, the finances would need to be considered, and I have no idea how that would shake out. It’s just one possible avenue the Whitney can explore. Have they? No one knows.

The selling of Hopper’s Art at this point makes me wonder what the long-term plan is for their Hopper holdings. It’s a question I think more people should be asking. My opinion is that at this point (June, 2023), I would not only hold on to everything they have, I would be adding to it.

The Whitney’s history of managing the extraordinary 1970 Jo Hopper Bequest has already proved littered with questionable decisions, this sale being only the latest. They sold some of it early on until the public outcry caused them to stop. I can’t help but wonder how The Met would have handled the Hopper gift. They have received extraordinary gifts from the estates of Diane Arbus and Walker Evans (among others), both of which they have handled masterfully, in my view.

Unfortunately, there’s more…

Jo Painting, 1936, Oil on canvas. Jo Hopper doing what she loved doing most. Though he met her when they were both Art students of Robert Henri, Edward was not a fan, or supporter, of her Art. Seen in Edward Hopper’s New York.

You may have noticed that I said the Whitney  are “the  holders of the largest collection of Edward Hopper’s Art in the world,” though I mentioned the Jo Hopper Bequest gifted his and Jo’s Art to the museum. The reason I didn’t mention hers is that they no longer have it. The Whitney allegedly disposed of most of Jo Hopper’s work that was included in her 1970 gift with her husband’s work, as hard as that is to imagine.

Regarding the woman, herself. Gail Levin, the Whitney’s first Edward Hopper curator and author of the definitive Hopper biography, Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, based on decades of research into Edward, Jo, and their relationship, writes at length about his wife of 43 years, Josephine Nivison (“Jo”) Hopper. Based on her feelings as expressed in the unpublished Diaries she kept for about 30 years, and interviews, the resulting picture is not a pretty one for those who look at Edward with admiration. At her husband’s death, everything passed to Jo, who was ill, and then blind, the final year of her life. She was in no condition to change her husband’s intentions and gift their estates to another institution. After the Bequest went to the Whitney, they then hired Gail Levin to curate it. She recounts what she discovered when she looked for Jo’s Art-

“In going through the Hopper collection, I expected to see Jo’s art as well as Edward’s. I had read James Mellow’s article in the Times, describing canvases by Jo in the bequest as “generally pleasant, lightweight works: flowers, sweet-faced children, gaily colored scenic views.” But I found nothing. Dealing with the bequest, (Whitney Director John) Baur naturally looked for advice to (Lloyd) Goodrich, his immediate predecessor as director and Hopper’s recognized interpreter and friend. Together Baur and Goodrich rejected Jo’s work as unworthy of the museum. They arranged for some of her paintings to be given away; they simply discarded the rest. They saw no need to invest even in archival photographs. Ironically, the only paintings from this group that can now be traced are four that went to New York University, which had troubled the Hoppers for years with efforts to evict them from their home.

In all, only three works by Jo were added to the Whitney’s permanent collection. None was ever exhibited. All three had disappeared by the time I began work in 1976. None has ever turned up 3.”

Ms. Levin also states that “From what remains of Jo’s paintings, it is clear that she was not the major talent that her husband was4,” Still, her importance, as a witness, a model, a partner & wife, and for what she went through during their 43-year marriage is only going to grow as time goes on, I believe, especially if her Diaries are ever published. The importance of her work will also rise, as a result- above and beyond whatever judgement is placed on its quality. The result is that history has been forever denied everything her work would tell us. Another reason to be angry at the way the Bequest has been handled.

3 works by Jo Hopper seen in Edward Hopper’s New York. Left to right- 74 Stairs to Studio at Three Washington Square, 1932, Stove and Fireplace, Three Washington Square, 1932, Back of E. Hopper, 1930, Each Watercolor and graphite on paper.

Edward Hopper’s New York honored his wife and the Jo Hopper Bequest, which made up the vast majority of the work on view, by including 3 of her Watercolors. 2 were on loan.

Unfortunately, there’s still more…

Essential for researchers and anyone interested in Hopper’s Art, or the man and his wife, Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, by Gail Levin, out of print for a while has just been reprinted again. At 700+ pages, it’ll fill all your summer reading needs.

As if selling Edward Hopper’s work and discarding Jo’s is not enough to diminish the Whitney’s Hopper holdings, they may have been further diminished by theft of Hopper’s Art from his estate! Gail Levin has called out the man behind a donation recently made to the Whitney, part of which was included in Edward Hopper’s New York (none of which I showed- purposely), with a mysterious (to put it politely) provenance. According to her, this man (who I will not name here) may have stolen quite a bit of Art & ephemera from the Hopper estate while he had access to their properties when he was serving as a caretaker- all of which should have gone to the Whitney under the terms of Jo Hopper’s will, as Edward’s survivor. This person kept what he took, sold some of it, and has donated some to the Whitney. About 1,000 pieces may still be in the hands of his heirs. If ALL of it had gone to the Whitney, as the Hoppers intended, the world would be that much closer to gaining a full appreciation of the Hopper’s Art & accomplishment. And, the Whitney would be that much closer to a Hopper Museum.

Screenshot of the homepage of Gail Levin’s “Ethics & Visual Arts” site. I so admire her courage & dedication.

Ms. Levin brought the subject of this alleged theft to public light in 2012 around the time of the Whitney’s Hopper Drawing show. Earlier, after she discovered it, she brought it to the attention of the Whitney, who subsequently fired her as a result, she says. Wait. Weren’t they outraged when they heard about this? What did they do about it, besides fire Gail Levin? The controversy was rekindled when Edward Hopper’s New York opened in October including some of these questionable pieces. She has revealed the full story in a series she calls “Ethics and the Visual Arts.”  I feel it’s important that anyone who cares about Hopper’s Art read what she has to say about what happened, here. (She also did a video interview earlier this year about all of this which may be seen here.)

Robert Henri, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, 1916. I wonder what Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, whose collection of American Art became the basis of the  Whitney Museum, would make of how the Jo Hopper Bequest has been handled. Mrs. Whitney was also an under-appreciated Sculptor. Seen on the 7th Floor while Edward Hopper’s New York hung on the 5th, January, 2023. Robert Henri taught both Edward & Jo Hopper a decade earlier, and Painted a Portrait of Jo.

It’s hard not to feel outraged and violated by all of this. So, I do!

It’s my hope a thorough investigation will take place into all of this- including the Whitney’s mysterious involvement in it, according to Ms. Levin, and if it is determined the pieces were gained illicitly by this man steps are taken to rectify it as soon as possible. As extremely concerning as this all is on Hopper’s Art, it seems to me it also serves as a warning to living Artists to learn from this and safeguard their own estates and intentions.

This extremely troubling episode Gail Levin has brought to the public’s attention cast a shadow on what was otherwise an excellent and important show. I hope it will be the last Hopper show it hangs over.

Cobb’s Barns, South Truro hanging in the Oval Office of the White House where President Obama is admiring it. February 7, 2014. *-Photo by Chuck Kennedy.

Between the Jo Hopper Bequest and the Hopper they have in their Permanent Collection, what amounts to the Edward Hopper Archives at the Whitney is very likely their most important holding at this point. They have a huge responsibility to the public, now and in the future, to protect and preserve it. It’s past time Art lovers speak up about what’s been going on with it and get some concrete answers.

“Everyone was there to greet me when I stepped inside
Newspapermen eating candy
Had to be held down by big police
Someday, everything is going to be different
When I paint my masterpiece”*

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “When I paint my masterpiece,” by Bob Dylan from Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. II, 1971-

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. Source for all of this information is Gail Levin, Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, Expanded Edition, 2007, Introduction & P.128 ↩
  2. from a letter from Hopper dated 1935 quoted in Gail Levin, Edward Hopper As Illustrator, P.1. ↩
  3. Gail Levin, Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, Expanded Edition, P. xvi ↩
  4. Gail Levin, Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, Expanded Edition, P.723 ↩