http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/entertainment/8290775.htm
Art collectors Tommy and Gill LiPuma of Cleveland.
Modernists get their due at last
New Cleveland exhibit shows why artists, work shouldn't be ignored
By Dorothy Shinn
Beacon Journal art and architecture critic
American Modernism has never received its due, and nowhere is that more true than in Northeast Ohio.
Here, now-revered artists of the 1910s and 1920s such as William Sommer and Charles Burchfield had to take on commercial jobs to put bread on the table, because they couldn't make a living creating the art works that we now drool over.
Elsewhere, our best and brightest artists fled America's harsh indifference to study in Paris and Munich, and from there tried valiantly to bring the spirit of Modernism back to the New World.
The development of Modernism came about during one of the most profoundly progressive and optimistic periods in Western history. New discoveries and inventions were being made, it seemed, almost daily.
The industrial revolution was on the upswing, new wealth was being created almost overnight, for the first time in human history we had something called leisure -- time not only to be reflective, but also lenient, confident and adventurous.
It was an age of robust experimentation that's since been overshadowed by the Great Depression, World War II and the artistic safe harbors of Naturalism, Realism and American scene painting.
It was also an era, albeit brief, in which exquisitely beautiful works were produced.
Opening today at the Cleveland Museum of Art is an exhibit that grants us a glimpse into that time and the artists who devoted their talents and lives to Modernism.
The exhibit, Modern American Masters: Highlights from the Gill and Tommy LiPuma Collection, on view through July 18, features works spanning four decades, 1906 to 1946.
It concentrates in some depth on the work of four American artists: Alfred Maurer (1868-1932); Marsden Hartley (1877-1943); John Marin (1870-1953) and Arnold Friedman (1879-1946).
It also includes works by John Graham (1896-1961); Patrick Henry Bruce (1881-1936); and Arthur Dove (1880-1946).
In the words of William H. Robinson, CMA curator of modern European art, the works contain many surprises ``by artists who have never received proper recognition for their contribution to the history of American Modernism.''
To complement the LiPuma Collection, Robinson has organized a second show featuring works by artists of the Cleveland School from the same era: Burchfield to Schreckengost: Cleveland Art of the Jazz Age.
Cleveland native and Grammy-winning record producer Tommy LiPuma and his wife, Gill, began collecting art more than 30 years ago.
Guided by a growing understanding of and appreciation for the period, as well as an independent spirit and passion for Modernism in its many forms, LiPuma has assembled a remarkable collection of paintings by leading American artists of the early to mid 20th century.
``I think he's really refined his vision,'' said Robinson.
But LiPuma has also been inspired by an ambition of sorts. ``It's my dream that artists like Friedman and Maurer get their due,'' he said.
Through the exhibit catalog and the works themselves, we begin to understand how the ideas of Modernism made their way here, and Maurer in particular was a key element.
Between 1908 and World War I, a group of young American artists emerged who were enamored with contemporary European art and felt little reluctance about testing the new idioms.
Maurer, who settled in Paris in 1900, became one of the first Americans to feel the influence of Henri Matisse and Fauve painting.
Max Weber and Arthur Burdett Frost Jr. were among the first Americans to join Matisse's new painting class, which started in 1907. They were quickly followed by Arthur B. Carles, Morgan Russell and Patrick Henry Bruce.
Between 1904 and 1912, many others, including Charles Demuth, John Marin, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Arthur Dove and John Covert, also lived and studied in Europe and felt the influence firsthand of Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Der Blaue Reiter (the blue rider), Orphism and abstract art.
When they began to drift back to America shortly before the outbreak of World War I, they brought the new forms and ideas with them, and for a brief time they had a profound effect on the American art world, helped in no small part by Alfred Stieglitz and his Fifth Avenue gallery, 291.
By the outbreak of the war in Europe, the realist impulse and the forms it created seemed as dry and leftover as yesterday's toast. But when the war was over, it was the turn of Modernism to feel rejected, as its promises had produced no sweeping social or political change, only chaos and death.
In the works of Maurer, Friedman, Hartley and Marin, we can see the promise of Modernism, but we also can sense their infatuation with the artist's life and their willingness to test and break every single rule of painting that they knew.
Friedman's crusty canvases, for instance, are examples of how we're taught not to paint in art school. Yet, in his hands, the crustiness not only works, it becomes an operational imperative.
Hartley's evocative, beautifully painted canvases should be studied for, if nothing else, his absolute mastery with the brush. His works, moreover, seem to prefigure the entire latter half of the 20th century, from his enigmatic, sometimes playful compositions (i.e., Philip Guston), to his poetic use of forms.
Dove pioneered the use of popular and commercial imagery in art. He began his sojourn in Europe as painting buddies with Maurer. At the beginning of this exhibit are two paintings, one by Dove and the other by Maurer -- Landscape (c. 1908-1909) and Port de Ferme (c. 1906-1907), respectively -- that appear to have been painted on the same spot on the same day.
Across the way in the Burchfield to Schreckengost exhibit (which should really be called the Sommer to Schreckengost show, not only for the chronological accuracy of the influences, but for the snappy alliteration), we are astounded at the number and quality of works by first Sommer, then Burchfield in the first gallery, then by the power of the Cleveland School works in the second gallery.
About 15 years ago, these roughly 60 paintings, done mainly between 1914 and 1941, looked somewhat stale and dated. Funny how time changes one's point of view. These works now look refreshed, as well as beautifully executed.
The two shows taken together give us a renewed appreciation for this almost-lost era in American art. Plus, we are treated to the privilege of seeing in depth the works of these important artists in the context of their time.
As an additional bonus, the museum has also mounted a mini-exhibit of LiPuma's Grammys.
The first-generation son of an Italian barber, LiPuma was born in Cleveland in 1936.
When he was young, he developed a bone infection in his hip that caused him to miss several years of school. Bedridden, and unable to do little except listen to the radio, he developed a passion for music, particularly the many idioms that constitute jazz.
LiPuma has been one of the industry's most innovative and successful pop and jazz producers, working for A&M Records, Blue Thumb Records, Warner Brothers, Elektra and the GRP, later renamed the Verve Music Group, where he is currently chairman.
He has produced 24 gold and platinum records, has received two Grammy Awards and 30 nominations. He has produced albums for Miles Davis, Barbra Streisand, the O'Jays, the Sandpipers, George Benson, Al Jarreau, Bill Evans, Natalie Cole, Anita Baker and Diana Krall.
Show: Modern American Masters: Highlights from the Gill and Tommy LiPuma Collection.
When: Opens today, on view through July 18. Closed Mondays and major holidays. Admission is free.
Where: Cleveland Museum of Art, 11150 East Blvd., Cleveland
Information: 216-421-7340 or www.clevelandart.org.
--
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Art collectors Tommy and Gill LiPuma of Cleveland.
Modernists get their due at last
New Cleveland exhibit shows why artists, work shouldn't be ignored
By Dorothy Shinn
Beacon Journal art and architecture critic
American Modernism has never received its due, and nowhere is that more true than in Northeast Ohio.
Here, now-revered artists of the 1910s and 1920s such as William Sommer and Charles Burchfield had to take on commercial jobs to put bread on the table, because they couldn't make a living creating the art works that we now drool over.
Elsewhere, our best and brightest artists fled America's harsh indifference to study in Paris and Munich, and from there tried valiantly to bring the spirit of Modernism back to the New World.
The development of Modernism came about during one of the most profoundly progressive and optimistic periods in Western history. New discoveries and inventions were being made, it seemed, almost daily.
The industrial revolution was on the upswing, new wealth was being created almost overnight, for the first time in human history we had something called leisure -- time not only to be reflective, but also lenient, confident and adventurous.
It was an age of robust experimentation that's since been overshadowed by the Great Depression, World War II and the artistic safe harbors of Naturalism, Realism and American scene painting.
It was also an era, albeit brief, in which exquisitely beautiful works were produced.
Opening today at the Cleveland Museum of Art is an exhibit that grants us a glimpse into that time and the artists who devoted their talents and lives to Modernism.
The exhibit, Modern American Masters: Highlights from the Gill and Tommy LiPuma Collection, on view through July 18, features works spanning four decades, 1906 to 1946.
It concentrates in some depth on the work of four American artists: Alfred Maurer (1868-1932); Marsden Hartley (1877-1943); John Marin (1870-1953) and Arnold Friedman (1879-1946).
It also includes works by John Graham (1896-1961); Patrick Henry Bruce (1881-1936); and Arthur Dove (1880-1946).
In the words of William H. Robinson, CMA curator of modern European art, the works contain many surprises ``by artists who have never received proper recognition for their contribution to the history of American Modernism.''
To complement the LiPuma Collection, Robinson has organized a second show featuring works by artists of the Cleveland School from the same era: Burchfield to Schreckengost: Cleveland Art of the Jazz Age.
Cleveland native and Grammy-winning record producer Tommy LiPuma and his wife, Gill, began collecting art more than 30 years ago.
Guided by a growing understanding of and appreciation for the period, as well as an independent spirit and passion for Modernism in its many forms, LiPuma has assembled a remarkable collection of paintings by leading American artists of the early to mid 20th century.
``I think he's really refined his vision,'' said Robinson.
But LiPuma has also been inspired by an ambition of sorts. ``It's my dream that artists like Friedman and Maurer get their due,'' he said.
Through the exhibit catalog and the works themselves, we begin to understand how the ideas of Modernism made their way here, and Maurer in particular was a key element.
Between 1908 and World War I, a group of young American artists emerged who were enamored with contemporary European art and felt little reluctance about testing the new idioms.
Maurer, who settled in Paris in 1900, became one of the first Americans to feel the influence of Henri Matisse and Fauve painting.
Max Weber and Arthur Burdett Frost Jr. were among the first Americans to join Matisse's new painting class, which started in 1907. They were quickly followed by Arthur B. Carles, Morgan Russell and Patrick Henry Bruce.
Between 1904 and 1912, many others, including Charles Demuth, John Marin, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Arthur Dove and John Covert, also lived and studied in Europe and felt the influence firsthand of Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Der Blaue Reiter (the blue rider), Orphism and abstract art.
When they began to drift back to America shortly before the outbreak of World War I, they brought the new forms and ideas with them, and for a brief time they had a profound effect on the American art world, helped in no small part by Alfred Stieglitz and his Fifth Avenue gallery, 291.
By the outbreak of the war in Europe, the realist impulse and the forms it created seemed as dry and leftover as yesterday's toast. But when the war was over, it was the turn of Modernism to feel rejected, as its promises had produced no sweeping social or political change, only chaos and death.
In the works of Maurer, Friedman, Hartley and Marin, we can see the promise of Modernism, but we also can sense their infatuation with the artist's life and their willingness to test and break every single rule of painting that they knew.
Friedman's crusty canvases, for instance, are examples of how we're taught not to paint in art school. Yet, in his hands, the crustiness not only works, it becomes an operational imperative.
Hartley's evocative, beautifully painted canvases should be studied for, if nothing else, his absolute mastery with the brush. His works, moreover, seem to prefigure the entire latter half of the 20th century, from his enigmatic, sometimes playful compositions (i.e., Philip Guston), to his poetic use of forms.
Dove pioneered the use of popular and commercial imagery in art. He began his sojourn in Europe as painting buddies with Maurer. At the beginning of this exhibit are two paintings, one by Dove and the other by Maurer -- Landscape (c. 1908-1909) and Port de Ferme (c. 1906-1907), respectively -- that appear to have been painted on the same spot on the same day.
Across the way in the Burchfield to Schreckengost exhibit (which should really be called the Sommer to Schreckengost show, not only for the chronological accuracy of the influences, but for the snappy alliteration), we are astounded at the number and quality of works by first Sommer, then Burchfield in the first gallery, then by the power of the Cleveland School works in the second gallery.
About 15 years ago, these roughly 60 paintings, done mainly between 1914 and 1941, looked somewhat stale and dated. Funny how time changes one's point of view. These works now look refreshed, as well as beautifully executed.
The two shows taken together give us a renewed appreciation for this almost-lost era in American art. Plus, we are treated to the privilege of seeing in depth the works of these important artists in the context of their time.
As an additional bonus, the museum has also mounted a mini-exhibit of LiPuma's Grammys.
The first-generation son of an Italian barber, LiPuma was born in Cleveland in 1936.
When he was young, he developed a bone infection in his hip that caused him to miss several years of school. Bedridden, and unable to do little except listen to the radio, he developed a passion for music, particularly the many idioms that constitute jazz.
LiPuma has been one of the industry's most innovative and successful pop and jazz producers, working for A&M Records, Blue Thumb Records, Warner Brothers, Elektra and the GRP, later renamed the Verve Music Group, where he is currently chairman.
He has produced 24 gold and platinum records, has received two Grammy Awards and 30 nominations. He has produced albums for Miles Davis, Barbra Streisand, the O'Jays, the Sandpipers, George Benson, Al Jarreau, Bill Evans, Natalie Cole, Anita Baker and Diana Krall.
Show: Modern American Masters: Highlights from the Gill and Tommy LiPuma Collection.
When: Opens today, on view through July 18. Closed Mondays and major holidays. Admission is free.
Where: Cleveland Museum of Art, 11150 East Blvd., Cleveland
Information: 216-421-7340 or www.clevelandart.org.
--
The Design-L list for art and architecture, since 1992...
To subscribe, send mailto:design-l-subscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To signoff, send mailto:design-l-unsubscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Visit archives: http://lists.psu.edu/archives/design-l.html