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Coming Home: American Paintings,
1930-1950, from the Schoen Collection
November 27, 2004 - January 23,
2005
John Steuart Curry,
Thomas Hart Benton, Charles Burchfield, names that ring like a bell pealing
across a prairie 
landscape, are just a few of the artists whose stirring images
of strong, resilient Americans completed during the Depression and World
War II are on view at UM's LoweArt Museum from November 27, 2004 through
January 23, 2005. Coming Home: American Paintings, 1930-1950, from the
Schoen Collection, organized by the Mobile Museum of Art and the Georgia
Museum of Art, is on a tour of southeastern venues before its close in 2005.
The exhibition includes 128 works by 100 highly-productive artists who were
active during this significant period of American art. (right: Helen
Forbes, Landscape Mountains and Miner's Shack, 1940, oil on canvas,
34 X 40 inches)
Jason Schoen, from whose collection these works are on
loan, has accomplished at mid-life what many serious collectors never realize.
A native of Los Angeles, he began precocious shopping forays into the California
gallery scene while in high school. As an undergraduate in the history of
art at the University of Texas, Schoen spent hours in the library's special
collections department immersed in books illustrating the works of Curry,
Wood, Benton, and their peers. Neither he nor his professors could have
predicted that one day he would own works by these luminaries and exhibit
them in museums across the country.
Schoen's collection includes the numerous periods that
make up the American scene from 1930 to 1950 when the influences of the
Depression and World War II contributed to styles of art variously known
as Regionalism, Social 
Realism, Magic Realism, Surrealism, and Precisionism.
Coming Home features a wide range of painting styles that represent
the diversity of American art during the 1930s and 1940s, many of which
are reflected by works in the Lowe's permanent collection," says Denise
Gerson, Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs at the Lowe. "These
differences are evident in the naturalistic works, abstract images, and
surrealist paintings, all offering a revealing and panoramic look at this
tumultuous time in American history." (right: Joseph Hirsh,
Lunch Counter, 1941, oil on canvas, 15.75 X 38 inches)
Schoen has been most interested in having his collection
foster an understanding of the regionalist impulse that appeared in much
of the period's art. "A goal of mine," he writes," has been
to create a collection of regional art, which can serve as a study collection
and an introduction to an era, as a slice of life and a window onto an important
period in American history."
Commonalities between these artists are numerous. An overwhelming
number of the artists studied at New York's Art Students League with legendary
teachers William Glackens, George Luks, Robert Henri, and John Sloan. Others
traveled to study art in Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles.
Many of the artists in the exhibition worked on federally-funded
projects such as murals for post offices or federal buildings. The Great
Depression's New Deal program spawned the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP)
and the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts. Both offered employment
opportunities for artists to use public space as a canvas. Clarence Carter
painted a post office mural in Ravenna, Ohio, and others had local post
office assignments such as Philip Evergood in Jackson, Georgia; Henry Billings
in Columbia, Tennessee; and Lucile Blanch in Ft. Pierce, Florida.
Single women were paid wages equal to the men, and there
were as many women artists employed as men. Women artists in Coming Home
include Agnes Pelton, Grace Clements, Helen Lundeberg, Florence McClung,
Helen Forbes, and Ethel Magafan, among others.
The receipt of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation's
fellowships for professionals enabled artists to survive the challenging
economy of the Depression. Aaron Bohrod, Francis Criss, Jon Corbino, Adolph
Dehn, Lucile Blanch, and William Gropper were only a few of the large group
included in the exhibition to receive this prestigious award.
Involvement in socialist causes was not unusual, and many
artists were active in organizations like the John Reed Club, named for
a radical journalist and known for encouraging young leftist talent.
For the artists in Coming Home, their subjects were
the people and landscape surrounding them, and the resultant canvases evoke
emotional responses that could never be duplicated by camera, even the dramatic
authenticity found in the work of photographers Dorothea Lange or Gordon
Parks, both working contemporaries.
Now known as the documentary aesthetic, the collective
efforts of these artists framed the often intolerable plight of Americans
during the Depression. These powerful images render statistics unnecessary,
even when they are as compelling as the ones citing the drop in farm land
value from $57 million in 1929 to $36 million in 1933.
As illustrators working for magazines and corporations,
several artists recorded Americans working in the grain elevators of the
Midwest or tending the storage tanks of energy giants Standard Oil and Gulf
Oil. From city views of Manhattan to the barren landscape of a California
desert, the images in Coming Home reflect America and its people,
as commonplace as a wrangler and his cowpony or a flirting couple in Mobile.
Andrée Ruellan ventured away from traditional artist enclaves such
as Woodstock, New York, to work in the South. Others worked in the midwestern
and western states at the behest of federally-funded assignments. Peter
Hurd, Maynard Dixon and Clyde Forsythe balanced their eastern counterparts'
documentation of city and industry by recording a still open and as yet,
under-populated west. John McCrady, William Hollingsworth, Lamar Dodd, and
Charles Shannon studied elsewhere but returned to their native South to
work.
William U. Eiland, director of the Georgia Museum of Art
and one of the show's curators, likens the exhibition to America itself.
"The pictures in this collection, through the exhibition, not only
document a shared past but also provide assurance of a questioning present
and an uncertain future."
A fully-illustrated color catalogue with essays by Erika
Doss and Andrew Ladis accompanies the exhibition. Curators for the exhibition
are William U. Eiland, director of the Georgia Museum of Art; Paul W. Richelson,
curator of art at the Mobile Museum of Art; and Cecilia Hinton, curator
of education at the Georgia Museum of Art.
LECTURE
Featuring a wide range of paintings within the scope of
the American Scene Movement (between the Great Depression and WW II) and
representing various manifestations of realism, including "fantastic
realism," with a concentration on Regionalism and Social Realism. Thursday,
January 20, 2005. Lecture: 7-8 PM. Join Jason Schoen for a presentation
and discussion of his collection. Sponsored by the Fedor Family Endowment
for Art Education
CHECKLIST BY EXHIBITION THEME
- REGIONALISM:
-
- Midwest:
-
- 1. Thomas Hart Benton
- Fisherman at Sunset, 1947
- Gouache on paper
- 15 3/4 x 21 3/4 inches; 28 x 34 inches
-
- 2. Emil Bethke
- Dakota Grain Elevators, 1937
- Oil on board
- 23 5/8 x 35 5/8 inches; 24 1/2 x 36 1/2 inches
-
- 3. Lucienne Bloch
- Flint Flood, 1948
- Egg tempera on Masonite
- 19 3/4 x 14 inches; 24 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches
-
- 4. Aaron Bohrod
- Skokie Park Auto, 1935
- Oil on board
- 23 5/8 x 31 5/8 inches; 32 3/8 x 40 1/16 inches
-
- 5. John Steuart Curry
- The Death of Ray Goddard, ca. 1939
- Oil on canvas
- 23 1/2 x 29 1/2 inches; 30 9/16 x 36 9/16 inches
-
- 6. Guy MacCoy
- Resting, 1935
- Oil on canvas
- 22 x 28 inches; 29 x 34 inches
-
- 7. Dale Nichols
- Come to Supper, 1939
- Oil on canvas
- 29 1/4 x 39 3/8 inches; 38 1/8 x 48 1/8 inches
-
- 8. Dale Nichols
- The Derelict, 1937
- Oil on canvas
- 23 1/4 x 29 1/4 inches; 29 9/16 x 35 7/16 inches
-
- 9. Dale Nichols
- Early to Rise (March April), ca. 1939
- Watercolor and gouache on paper
- 11 3/8 x 11 1/2 inches; 21 3/8 x 21 3/8 inches
-
- 10. Dale Nichols
- On the Skating Pond (January- February), ca. 1939
- Watercolor and gouache on paper
- 11 1/2 x 11 1/2 inches; 21 3/8 x 21 3/8 inches
-
- 11. Fred Shane
- Entrance to Pike's Peak Region, 1940
- Mixed technique on canvas mounted on board
- 26 x 32 inches; 32 x 38 1/2 inches
- 12. James Turnbull
- Family of Black Sharecroppers, 1939
- Gouache on paper
- 10 3/4 x 15 1/8 inches; 17 3/4 x 22 3/4 inches
-
- Northeast:
-
- 13. Alexander Brook
- Stamford Gas Works, 1933
- Oil on canvas
- 26 x 36 1/4 inches; 32 1/4 x 42 1/2 inches
-
- 14. Charles F. Burchfield
- The Open Door, 1932
- Watercolor and graphite on paper
- 27 x 36 inches; 36 x 45 inches
-
- 15. Beatrice Cuming
- Old Houses with Children Playing, 1941
- Oil on canvas
- 24 x 32 inches; 29 1/4 x 37 inches
-
- 16. Adolf Dehn
- Along the East River, New York, 1946
- Watercolor on paper
- 20 x 30 inches; 24 x 34 3/4 inches
-
- 17. Katherine Schmidt
- Backstreet, Provincetown, 1938
- Oil on canvas
- 20 x 24 inches; 29 x 33 inches
-
- 18. Lawrence Beall Smith
- Back Bay Stairway, 1937
- Oil on canvas
- 27 1/4 x 21 1/4 inches; 37 x 31 inches
-
- Southeast:
-
- 19. Arnold Blanch
- Some Place in Georgia, 1940
- Oil on canvas
- 12 x 16 inches;
-
- 20. Lamar Dodd
- Sand, Sea and Sky
- Oil on canvas
- 20 x 28 inches; 25 1/8 x 33 inches
-
- 21. Robert Gwathmey
- Sunny South, 1944
- Oil on canvas
- 24 3/4 x 35 3/4 inches; 27 _ x 38 _ inches
-
- 22. William Hollingsworth
- Ah, The Mystery of A Southern Night, 1944
- Oil on canvas
- 23 1/2 x 29 1/2 inches; 30 x 36 inches
-
- 23. Mary Hutchinson
- Two of Them, 1934
- Oil on canvas
- 20 5/8 x 31 11/16 inches; 26 _ x 37 5/8 inches
-
- 24. Andrè Ruellan
- City Market, Savannah, 1942
- Oil on canvas
- 31 1/2 x 43 1/2 inches; 40 1/2 x 52 1/2 inches
-
- 25. Georges Schreiber
- The White House, 1945
- Oil on canvas
- 29 3/4 x 24 3/4 inches; 38 13/16 x 34 1/8
-
- 26. Charles Shannon
- Conversation Piece, 1936
- Oil on canvas
- 31 9/16 x 21 9/16 inches; 37 _ x 27 _ inches
-
- Texas and the Southwest:
-
- 27. Charles Bowling
- Church at the Crossroads, 1936
- Oil on Masonite
- 24 x 30 inches; 30 x 36 inches
-
- 28. Jerry Bywaters
- Texas Subdivision, 1938
- Oil on Masonite
- 20 x 24 inches; 25 1/2 x 29 3/4 inches
-
- 29. Fred Darge
- Shearing Season, ca. 1938
- Oil on canvas
- 24 x 30 inches; 28 x 34 inches
-
- 30. Otis Dozier,
- Abandoned House, 1935
- Oil on board
- 25 1/2 x 31 1/2 inches; 33 x 39 inches
-
- 31. Alexandre Hogue
- Pecos Escarpment, 1937
- Egg tempera on cradled panel
- 26 1/8 x 32 inches; 28 x 36 inches
-
- 32. Peter Hurd
- Rain on the Prairie, ca 1949
- Egg tempera on panel
- 25 3/8 x 42 5/8 inches; 32 3/8 x 49 5/8 inches
-
- 33. William Lester
- In Oklahoma, 1936
- Oil on Masonite
- 24 x 30 1/4 inches; 30 x 36 inches
-
- 34. Ethel Magafan
- Garden of the Gods, Colorado, 1938
- Oil on board
- 37 x 20 5/8 inches; 42 1/2 x 26 1/4 inches
-
- 35. Jennie Magafan
- Deserted Farm House, Colorado, 1941
- Oil and egg tempera on board
- 19 1/2 x 23 1/2 inches; 26 x 30 inches
-
- 36. Alfredo Ramos Martinez
- The Lonesome Indian, 1933
- Oil on canvas
- 43 1/2 x 35 5/8 inches; 49 3/8 x 41 1/2 inches
-
- 37. Merritt Mauzey
- The Parker Ranch, Texas, ca. 1939
- Oil on board
- 24 1/4 x 30 1/4 inches; 31 1/2 x 37 1/2 inches
-
- 38. Florence McClung
- Lancaster Valley, 1936
- Oil on canvas
- 24 x 30 inches; 32 x 38 inches
-
- 39. Oakley E. Richey
- Noon Heat, 1941
- Oil on canvas
- 20 1/4 x 24 1/8 inches; 24 x 28 inches
-
- 40. Coreen Spellman
- Heat Wave, Texas, August 14, 1943, 1943
- Oil on canvas
- 38 x 29 inches; 43 1/2 x 34 1/2 inches
-
- 41. Everett Spruce
- West Texas Incident, 1937
- Oil on board
- 20 1/4 x 23 1/8 inches; 28 3/8 x 31 1/2 inches
-
- California and the West:
-
- 42. Jon Atherton
- The Wharf, ca 1932
- Oil on canvas
- 22 1/2 x 30 1/4 inches; 26 1/4 x 30 1/4 inches
-
- 43. Victor Arnautoff
- The Fisherman, 1938
- Oil on board
- 33 3/4 x 25 inches; 40 1/2 x 31 3/4 inches
-
- 44. Jessie Arms Botke
- Flamingoes and Lotus, ca. 1939
- Oil and gold leaf on Masonite
- 30 x 25 inches; 39 1/2 x 34 3/4 inches
-
- 45. Conrad Buff
- Desert Garden, Big Tujunga, California, 1942
- Oil on board
- 35 1/2 x 47 5/8 inches; 41 1/2 x 53 3/8 inches
-
- 46. Phil Dike
- Elysian Park, Los Angeles, 1933
- Oil on board
- 30 x 30 inches; 38 x 38 inches
-
- 47. Maynard Dixon
- Where's Them Hosses?, 1944
- Oil on board
- 11 3/8 x 15 3/8 inches; 19 11/16 x 23 _ inches
-
- 48. Helen Forbes
- Mountains and Miner's Shack, ca. 1940
- Oil on canvas
- 34 x 40 inches; 37 1/4 x 43 1/4 inches
-
- 49. Clyde Forsythe