Floating Fifties Furniture

Last week I paid a brief visit to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (Canada), mostly because I'd never gotten around to visiting the place on previous visits and thought it was high time I did so.

The museum is modest in scale because the Victoria metro area is not large. The main exhibit when I was there had to do with the art of Victoria native Emily Carr, but it too was of modest scope.

An exhibit that aroused enough interest to justify a blog post had to do with Canadian furniture and industrial design from the late 1940s into the 1960s. I'll skip over the hi-fi sets and tabletop radios to focus on the furniture style which I'd half forgotten. Although the objects were Canadian, the core style is close to what was being done in the United States and elsewhere at the time.

The photos above are of objects in rough chronological order (if my all-too-quick glance at the information plaques sank in correctly). The top photo deals with the late 1940s and early 50s, the middle with the mid-to-late fifties and the bottom one with the late 50s and early 1960s.

Judging by appearance alone and not any designers' statements of intent, the goal was an appearance of lightness. This was in contrast to "heavy," "substantial" styles of traditional furniture. Horizontal elements tend to be thin. legs and supports are often in the form of thin metal dowels painted black so as not to intrude on the "floating" effect created by the bright or light colored horizontal bits.

A popular contemporaneous style was Danish or Scandinavian modern. Such furniture usually featured wood and fabric (which material and to what degree depending on function). It too tended to be uncluttered, but usually seemed more substantial than the rather extreme look pictured above.

From an interior and furniture design standpoint, the 1950s seem to represent an extreme of the modernist movement in keeping with Abstract Expressionism in painting which peaked at the same time.

Taos Artist House-Museums

Taos, New Mexico became an artist colony beginning around the turn of the 20th century. Its start is generally reckoned as the breakdown of a wagon that illustrator Ernest Blumenschein (1874-1960) and a fellow artist were using while exploring the American southwest. Blumenschein stumbled into Taos, New Mexico, the nearest town, and became enthralled by the scenery and quality of light. As time went on, other artists, including Nicolai Fechin (1881-1955) came to spend all or part of their time in the Taos area. Santa Fe, about 70 miles distant, collected its own set of painters.

The residences of Blumenschein and Fechin still exist, but have been converted to museums. Both are only a short walk from the old Taos town square.

Fechin's place is now the Taos Art Museum. It began as an old adobe structure that he modified using touches of Spanish Colonial and Russian dacha styles.

Blumenschein's house has a 1797 structure at its core and was enlarged over time. It features the art of Blumenschein, his wife and daughter. Works of other artists are rotated in, but tend to be restricted to one room so as not to crowd out the Blumenschein art. The same can't said of the museum at Fechin's; when I was there, only one room contained Fechin's works, most of the wall space being devoted to an exhibit by a currently active local painter.

Let's take a look:
Gallery

This is the Fechin house as viewed when approaching from the street; the museum entrance is at the rear.

Here is a cardboard model Fechin used when working out his modifications.

The dining room was the only one displaying Fechin's work the day I visited.

At least they left a self-portrait on the wall.

These are views of the living room.

Fechin's studio was in a separate building to the rear of the house. Here is an interior view, but the paintings are by the local artist, not Fechin.

This is a bedroom in the Blumenschein house. The artwork between the beds is by Blumenschein's wife, Mary Sheppard Greene.

Here is the Blumenschein living or perhaps dining room. Again, the main piece of art is by Greene.

Burton Silverman Goes Soft -- Or Not

While window shopping art galleries in Taos, New Mexico recently, I spotted the painting shown above ("Summer Night" ca. 2001) at Total Arts Galley. It was by Burton Silverman, yet it has a different "look" than the Silvermans I am familiar with.

The difference is that it's a lot softer looking than I've come to expect from Silverman. He tends to paint crisply, especially in focal areas.

Here are other examples of his work:

Gallery

The White Couch - 1997

Ambivalence - 2008

Anne Benson
At first, I wondered if he had changed his style. But no, he painted it about ten years ago and what he's done since is typical Silverman. What I think happened was that he allowed the setup surrounding his wife Claire to intrude into the foreground more than he usually does and had to soften it so that it wouldn't distract from her. Further, the interior lighting is somewhat softer than the starker lighting usually found in his interior scenes. The net result was a surprising Silverman (well, surprising to me).

I like Silverman's work a lot. He is extremely good at faces, which is why he has gotten many portrait commissions over the years since he abandoned his career as an illustrator. Plus, he has a quirk that fascinates me. Note that he includes fine, black lines in finished paintings. Some appear to be little accents that help define the structure of his subject. Others are more like the residue of sketching.

And I wonder how he does those lines. Since I'm too cheap to buy one of his demonstration videos, I'll have to guess. He paints in oil, so they probably aren't via pen and ink. Moreover, they're often pretty long, and that tends to rule out palette knives and most fine brushes due to the amount of paint they can hold. For now, my theory is he uses fine flat sable brushes, stroking sideways. Yet many of his lines are long and uniformly thin, which suggests the palette knife or pen theories I just set aside. Other theories or (better yet) solid information would be greatly appreciated, so please comment.

Matisse's Favorite Painting

I'm working my way through this biography of Henri Matisse in a belated effort to find out why there was all the fuss about him. Pages 72-74 and elsewhere deal with his purchase of and relationship to Paul Cézanne's circa 1879-82 "Three Bathers" at a time when he was nearly broke. Despite his lack of money, Matisse arranged to finance the painting because he considered it very important to his own art. He kept it for decades as a constant source of wonder and inspiration. An on-line reference dealing with this is here.

For those readers expecting any kind of halfway rational commentary regarding the painting and Matisse's longstanding relationship to it, forget the idea. Yes, to a very limited degree I can place this in the context of the Standard Art-Historical Narrative of the Triumph of Modernism. But that's about it.

You see, I've never ever in all my years viewing and reading about art been able to understand either Cézanne or Matisse. In fact, I don't really like anything either one produced. That includes the Three Bathers painting shown at the top of this post: so far as I'm concerned it's a crude piece of art having nothing of interest to me.

Obviously my take runs counter to the beliefs of a lot of famous artists, art critics and art historians who do find what they consider wonderful things in the paintings of Cézanne and Matisse. Yet somehow I don't think that I'll ever be persuaded that the two were as great as claimed.

My best guess as to why Cézanne and Matisse were venerated by modernist-leaning contemporaries is that it had something to do with the art-historical context and the timing of the appearance of their various works as well as the modernist veneration of creativity as an end in itself.

Cutaway to G.H. Davis

When I was young I used to come across illustrations by the Illustrated London News' technical guy G.H. (George Horace) Davis (1881-1960). I could find little on Davis on the Internet: this link has a biographical squib just below the portrait photos.

Not that I read the ILN anyplace but in the form of bound issues in the college library stacks, it's just that his work would be reproduced elsewhere and I would notice his distinctive signature.

Davis' specialty was cutaway illustrations where exteriors are selectively peeled away to reveal structural and functional interior details. His main subjects were airplanes and ships, though he also used his approach on other items as needed by his editor. And he did non-cutaway paintings on the side.

Here are examples of his work. Click on the images to enlarge.

Gallery

HMS Ark Royal - 1939

High-altitude aircraft - 1930s

Bristol Beaufighter - early 1940s

Hawker Hurricane - c.1940

Supermarine Spitfire - c.1940

Photo of a Spitfire and a Hurricane together

I'm pretty sure that Davis "freehanded" most of his illustrations. Compare his Hurricane and, especially, Spitfire with those in the photograph. A charitable explanation is that he had to do these drawings on a tight deadline and lacked time to work up the images mechanically from three-view drawings as an architect would do when preparing a rendering of a structure. This method or something analogous was used in Davis' time by cutaway artists for British aviation magazine who apparently were allowed longer lead-times. Artists who do paintings of aircraft also generally begin with mechanical delineation; failure to do so would run a strong risk of making a distorted image.

Another problem Davis and other aircraft cutaway specialist faced was security; too much detail might be useful to enemies in times before aircraft could be shot down and examined. For example, Davis' Beaufighter is the daytime version. The radar-equipped night fighter flew only over Britain on interceptor missions, so His Majesty's Government would be most unhappy if Davis had spilled any airborne radar-related beans in 1941 or '42.

John Whitcomb: Never-Changing Style

I recently posted the first in an occasional series of posts about illustrators who changed their style in order to maintain their careers. Those who failed to do that either had shooting star careers or were the fortunate few who successfully worked for decades with few or no adjustments. Most famous of the latter is Norman Rockwell, who never went out of style and now is on the fringe of being considered a member of the fine arts crew. J.C. Leyendecker had a long run as well, but fell out of favor after a 30-ish year run.

In the present post I deal with Jon Whitcomb (1906-1988) who also did well for decades with minor style adjustments. His brief Wikipedia entry is here. Matthew Innis provides examples of Whitcomb's work along with quotations dealing with the female face, Whitcomb's primary subject. A slightly sour take on Whitcomb is here.

For a number of Whitcomb illustrations that have dates assigned, click here. One illustration is dated 1930, but that must be incorrect, given the fashions depicted; I'd say 1940 would be closer.

This brings to mind the fact that I cannot find examples of his work from earlier than the late 1930s on the Internet (though I might have overlooked some). Whitcomb was in his early 30s by that time and surely must have been in a career-building mode before then. Illustration Magazine notes that Whitcomb is in the queue for a future article; perhaps that will reveal some early exmaples.

Here is some of his production (he presented himself as a businessman cranking out product, not as an artist):

Gallery

Advertisement for 1939 Cadillac 62
The illustration is signed, so presumably Whitcomb also did the car rendering. However, for years it was common for one artist to do the car and another one the setting. Until I get more information I'll take the signature as proof.

Magazine illustration - 1939
This was done about the same time as the car ad. It shows that Whitcomb had attained his mature style by that point.

Collier's magazine cover - 12 August 1941

"I think I love you" - magazine illustration
Archetypical Jon Whitcomb.

Woman wearing large hat
No signature, but plenty of web sites claim it's a Whitcomb. If so, I'd guess it was from the 1960s.

Minimal face
A great illustration, also likely from the 1960s (can any reader help us on this?).

Jon Whitcomb specialized in the "big face" type of illustration that emerged in women's magazines during the 1940s and remained dominant into the mid-1960s. He did it very well, creating personal fame and earning a bundle of money. Lovely though much of his work is, it's hard to argue that it's anything beyond superficial on any other dimension. From what I've read about him, it's a good chance that Whitcomb would agree as he hopped into his fancy car to head for the bank to deposit the latest check.

Artist's Name = Widespread Expression

When an artist becomes famous, the nature of that fame usually resides in the images of his work in public's mind. This is different from the fame of movie stars, actors, fashion models and others whose physical appearance is the leading "hook" for public grasping. A few artists are generally recognized by their appearance as well as their work, examples being van Gogh, Lautrec, Picasso and Warhol.

Then there is the odd case where the artist's subject matter becomes a concept that, in turn, is given the artist's name by the public. It's an odd path to artistic immortality, but there it is.

As an American, I naturally think of the Rube Goldberg machine, an elaborate, illogical sequence of odd connections that results in an outcome that could easily have been reached by simpler means.

Above is an example of a Rube Goldberg device and here is the Wikipedia entry for Goldberg who it seems earned an engineering degree from the University of California (Berkeley) before taking up the cartoonist's pen.

If I were British, I would use the term Heath Robinson to refer to the same sort of thing. Below is an example and here is his entry.

Robinson came from a family of illustrators and could whip up some nice, straight work in that field as well as his gizmo cartoons.

I don't know the inner thoughts of Goldberg and Robinson regarding the nature of their fame. But fame of a nice sort is rare, and if I had been them, I'd be happy to accept it.