Museum of Flight: July 2014 Visit

Every so often I leave the realm of painting and illustration to post about architecture, design, transportation, museums and such. Today's post deals with a museum devoted to flight and, to a lesser degree, space travel.

The subject is Seattle's Museum of Flight, usually ranked as one of the better American aviation museums. It has ties to Boeing, but I offhand don't know if any are formal. Its Wikipedia entry dates its founding to 1965, but it wasn't until the mid-1980s that its permanent facilities began to be opened to the public.

Here are some photos I took on a recent visit:

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The main buildings are sited next to the Boeing Field runway and near the flight path to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, so visitors experience a good deal of air traffic. Here is a view taken near the main entrance. To the right is the tail of a B-47 Cold War era bomber. The white-shrouded plane to the left is a World War 2 vintage B-29, still under restoration. In the far distance are downtown Seattle skyscrapers. The intermediate distance reveals a couple of UPS cargo planes at the far side of the runway and a large smattering of other aircraft.

Here is a Boeing 787 Dreamliner demonstration aircraft trundling down the taxiway prior to a take-off, perhaps to the Farnborough air show.

A few aircraft are positioned near the museum entrance including this B-17F and the B-47 just mentioned.

Since the opening of the Smithsonian's aviation museum on the Washington, DC's Mall, large halls with suspended aircraft have become a useful cliché for aircraft museums, including the Museum of Flight. Some of the planes seen are a DC-3 airliner (top), Lockheed Blackbird (bottom), and a replica GeeBee racer (the yellow plane near the center of the photo).

A Boeing Model 40 reproduction.

Boeing 80A-1 tri-motor transport from 1929.

Boeing Model 100 (P-12/F4B) built 1928. This aircraft was a civilian version of the Navy F4B-1 fighter that is painted to look like an Army P-12.

Interior of the "Red Barn," Boeing's factory during the 1920s.

Across a major street from the main part of the museum is the Airpark containing several larger aircraft. Seen here the tail of a Concorde supersonic airliner, the first VC-137B Air Force One (Presidential aircraft), a Boeing 727 airliner, and at the right, the first Boeing 737 airliner.

Badly in need of a paint job is the first Boeing 747 airliner. Below the cockpit windows are blurred names of the flight crew for its maiden flight, 9 February 1969 -- more then 45 years ago.

Here are a Lockheed L-1049G Super Constellation, the Air Force One, and the Concorde.

Inside the Personal Courage Wing that houses World War military aircraft, many of which are from the now-defund Champlin collection. I think the name is silly and perhaps politically correct: Why not simply call it something like World War Warplanes Wing, which would be truthful. But this is Seattle, after all (sigh). The lower floor deals with World War 2 and has lots of interesting stuff, jammed so closely together that it's difficult to photograph the planes. Seen here (clockwise from the bottom) are a P-51D Mustang, a Soviet Yak 9-U, a P-47D Thunderbolt and a P-38L Lightning. Mostly hidden behind the P-38 is a Goodyear FG-1D version of the Vought F4U Corsair. This aircraft was fished out of Seattle's Lake Washington years after it crashed during the war.

A replica Albatros D.Va from the Great War housed on the second floor of the wing.

Herman Richir, Belgian Portrait Artist

Herman Jean Joseph Richir (1866-1942) painted subjects other than portraits, but he seems to have been best-known for the latter. Biographical information in English is skimpy on the Internet, so you might consult Wikipedia entries in French or Dutch and click on the Translate button if you are unfamiliar with the language to get a sense of his career.

Back around the 1600s, long before Belgium existed, the area produced major artists such as Peter Paul Rubens. And this continued following the 1830 creation of the current Belgian state, though by that time Paris had become the dominant European art center. Some Belgian painters moved to Paris for career reasons, while others remained and generally paid the price of international obscurity. (Exceptions include the Symbolists Fernand Khnopff and James Ensor, and the Surrealist of sorts, René Magritte.)

Richir made his career in Belgium, was not a modernist, and catered to a wealthy and even royal clientele, so he is essentially unknown to art history. This might be changing thanks to the Internet's ability via search engines to turn up works of artists who failed to make the Modernist Narrative that dominated much of the second half of the 20th century.

So it was that I stumbled on some Richir images and added them to my data base. Below are some of those that I found interesting. From what I can tell, not having seen any original paintings, Richir was a skilled painter who did images that satisfy my eye, at least. But like many others I write about here, what was missing was that je ne sais quoi that could have made his art distinctive.

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Thé (Les peintres Juliette et Rodolphe Wytsman) - c. 1896

The Snow Fairy - 1918

Madonne

Standing woman

Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians - 1930

Queen Astrid of the Belgians

Woman in blue gown

Jamilé, the Artist's Model

Morton Roberts, Isaak Brodsky and the Revolution

The distinction between historical art and political art can be fuzzy. Whether a painting or illustration falls into one category or the other is often a subjective judgment. One might think that a painting of some event from Greek or Roman times would be a history painting pure and simple. But even there, if the painting depicts one side of a conflict in a more favorable light than the other side, then a political statement of sorts is involved. This probably doesn't matter much if the subject is not related to politics or ideology at the time the painting was created. However, I'll contend (until I change my mind) that if an artist paints a scene from history in such a way that commentary is made about current (for the artist) events, then this is political art. And artistic commentaries on events or people contemporary to the artist are indeed examples of political art.

The present post deals with the era of the Russian revolution of 1917 and two artists who dealt with it.

First is Isaak Brodsky (1883-1939), mentored by the great Ilya Repin in pre-revolutionary times, who became and advocate for, and practitioner of, Socialist Realism in the USSR under Stalin's regime. His Wikipedia entry is here. Brodsky's public painting after the revolution was was largely political.

Morton Roberts (1927-1964) was a fine illustrator and painter who died far too soon. David Apatoff wrote about him here, Leif Peng presented some images here, and a biographic sketch is here. If you can find a copy, issue 22 of Illustration Magazine (Spring, 2008) has an article about Roberts. Otherwise, you can click here, and flip through that issue on-line.

Roberts illustrated Life Magazine articles on the Russian Revolution that appeared during 1959. Although the Cold War was going strong then, Roberts' illustrations strike me as being far more historical documentation than political commentary. But judge for yourself.

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Brodksy: Demonstration - 1930
I don't know if Brodsky was depicting a pre- or post-revolution rally here. It seems he wasn't afraid to paint crowd scenes.

Brodsky: Lenin at a Rally of Workers - 1929
Another crowd scene. Again I don't know the date of the occasion being depicted. It, and the scene in the first image, might even have been inventions by Brodsky, showing typical events of 1917-23.

Brodsky: Day of Constitution - 1930
Crowd again.

Brodsky: Mikhail Frunze - 1929
A portrait of a revolutionary figure who met a controversial end. Click here for biographical information on Frunze.

Brodsky: The Execution of the Twenty-Six Baku Commissars - 1929
This took place during the civil war between the Reds and the Whites.

Roberts: Rasputin - 1959
Rasputin's Wikipedia entry is here.

Roberts: Assassination of Stolypin - 1959
For information on Pyotr Stolypin, click here.

Lenin Addressing Troops - 1959
This might be Lenin's famous arrival at the Finland Station in Petrograd.

Windy Gaetano Bellei

I probably didn't drill deeply enough into Google, so all that I can report now is that Gaetano Bellei (1857-1922) apparently was born and died in Modena, Italy. And he spent at least part of his career there, because some of his paintings include the name of the city along with his signature.

Bellei was a good draftsman and created many paintings featuring accurate drawing and a painting style tending fairly strongly to the hard-edge school. He seems to have been successful (though I can't be sure of this, lacking a biography), and that was because he often painted everyday scenes and characters with a sentimental twist. This approach has long been popular with a public that likes to see art that they can relate to.

Artists that cater to that public can do well financially (think Thomas Kinkade, for a recent example), but at the price of being scorned by "sophisticates." I happen to think that sophistication can be carried too far if it becomes an end in itself, which might be one reason why I title this blog Art Contrarian. Moreover, I have no problem with artists who can make a decent living from their work; becoming famous and pulling down high auction prices after one's death doesn't strike me as satisfactory. That said, even though I appreciate Bellei's technical skill, I would not have any of his paintings hanging on a wall in my place.

What caught my eye regarding Bellei was how he depicted wind in a few of his works. I include those below along with a few other paintings by him and others to provide context.

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Bellei liked to paint pretty women. This one's skin is shown soft and perfect. The clothing and background are essentially hard-edge style painting, perhaps reflecting a likely academic training for the artist.

But it wasn't all pretty women. Here he has three generations of a family in a sentimental setting.

Back to pretty girls. Here are two on their way up a staircase to a masked ball. Except they are not wearing masks, having removed them temporarily so that we can better see who they are. Note that one is a blonde, the other brunette.

Now for some wind. A conventional windy scene, here.

Now a blonde and a brunette, but not necessarily the same ones we just saw at the ball.

A blonde and a brunette again, but this time it's raining, though they don't seem very wet yet.

Same thing, though the brunette now has a different skirt. Note that the setting is about the same in all three paintings (the dome in the background is a tip-off). What interests me is that Bellei includes rain with the wind, whereas almost every other painter of pretty women in stormy settings only features wind.

Boreas - John W. Waterhouse - 1902
Here I include some paintings by other artists showing wind and women, starting with this Waterhouse.

A Gust of Wind (Judith Gautier) - John Singer Sargent - 1886-87
A sketch, rather than a finished work by Sargent. The main indication of wind is Mme Gautier holding her hat down.

Gil Elvgren pinup
Golden Age Pinup artists such as the great genre master Gil Elvgren could use wind as a cause for showing off some hose and underwear.

Leopold Seyffert: A Once-Prominent Portrait Painter

Leopold Gould Seyffert (1887-1956) painted portraits of many famous Americans during the first half of the last century, but whatever fame he had during his lifetime has largely faded. For once, Wikipedia has an extensive biographical entry on a not-well-known artist, and it attests to his professional success.

As best I can tell, I've never seen a Seyffert painting. Or if I have, it didn't register in my memory. So I cannot offer a firm opinion regarding his merit as a painter. His works seen on the Internet strike me as being entirely competently done. What might be missing is a sense of flair or personal style such as can be found in works of portrait painters such as John Singer Sargent, William Orpen, Philip de Laszlo and Giovanni Boldini, among a number of others.

Here are examples of Seyffert's portrait work. His paintings of nudes can be found elsewhere on the Internet.

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Leopold Stokowski - c.1912
This portrait was Seyffert's career breakthrough work. It no longer exists, having been "lost at sea" according to a Stokowski Web site.

Samuel Insull
Insull was a famous and controversial business figure.

Samuel Henry Kress
Kress founded a five and ten cent store company, became rich, and purchased art that later was donated to a number of smaller art museums around the USA.

Henry Suzzalo
Suzzallo was president of the University of Washington and famously got fired.

My Family

Katherine Abbott Bigelow

The Emerald Gown (Helen Adele Fleck, the artist's first wife)

In My Studio - 1931

Elizabeth Arden
This portrait was finished because it is signed. But it is sketchier than all the others shown here. Perhaps for that reason, I'm inclined to like it best.

Flapper New York: Etchings by Martin Lewis

Shadow Dance - 1930
[Images copyrighted by Martin Lewis estate: click to enlarge]
The etching above astonished me when I first saw it. Yes, the backlighting and shadows cast towards us make the scene dramatic, and must have been even more dramatic to viewers 85 years ago when such a lighting scheme was a rarity in illustration and fine arts.

What impressed 1920s buff me was the depiction of the young women in flapper dress and how alive they seem. In fact, they seem more alive than people in almost every black-and-white 1920-1930 vintage still photograph I've seen, and I have seen plenty of such images. (The score: artist 1, camera zero.)

I do wonder about the setting. Unless Lewis was using a lot of artistic license, the summertime sun angle shown is impossible for Manhattan's avenues that run roughly north-south (north northeast to south southwest, actually). However, sunshine comes directly down the cross-town streets late in the day around the time of the summer solstice. So what we seem to have is a late June afternoon or early evening view of a major Midtown street -- 34th, 42nd or 57th. I'll guess it's 42nd Street, though it's quite possible that Lewis simply invented the background.

For some reason, I'm somewhat indifferent to etchings, which might be why I had never heard of Martin Lewis (1881-1962). Lewis was an Australian who eventually came to America, worked in illustration at first, then shifted to etchings and would up his career as an art instructor. He is known to have helped his friend Edward Hopper in learning the craft of etching. His Wikipedia entry is here, and more detailed biographical information here.

I find it hard to comment on artistic properties in Lewis' work. That's because his depiction of late 1920s - very early 1930s Midtown Manhattan and the young women there strikes me as be so true to life or perhaps to my imagination, and that overrides artistic considerations for now.

My first brush with New York City came 26 years after Lewis made that etching Yet aside from the dismantling of Midtown elevated lines, the cityscape hadn't changed very much since 1930 due to the Depression and World War 2 putting a near-halt to construction. Perhaps that is another reason his images resonate with me.

Whereas Lewis was a master of outdoors flapper New York, he didn't seem to venture inside. The artist who perhaps best captured Jazz Age glamour at parties and other social occasions was his almost exact contemporary, illustrator Henry Raleigh, whose life and art are discussed by David Apatoff here.

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Street Scene, Evening, New York City

New York Harbor, Under the Manhattan Bridge
I include these two images to show Lewis' painting style.

American Battleship - 1916
United States Navy battleships built around 1910-1920 were equipped with cage masts, as seen in Lewis' etching. Those masts were replaced by sturdier structures when the battleships were given their first major refit. This is one of the earliest known Lewis etchings.

Bay Windows - 1929
Now for a set of New York City scenes.

Glow of the City - 1929
Must be a Monday laundry day. The illuminated skyscraper in the distance is the Chanin Building on the corner of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue that opened in 1929. I'm a little puzzled by the view because we seem to be looking to the southwest from someplace in the East 50s, yet the foreground neighborhood is more what I would expect to find if the site was in the East 20s and we were looking northwest. I suspect Lewis actually was depicting the latter view on the copperplate, but it got flipped when printed.

But that reasoning might be wrong. The orientation of the Chanin building indicates that the foreground would be on a wide north-south avenue rather than a more-likely east-west street. So perhaps Lewis simply invented the scene from bits of New York, figuring viewers would be none the wiser.

Correction: Examination of an old aerial photo of NYC shows the orientation of the Chanin tower to be roughly north-south. So the etching setting indeed might have been down in the low 30s in backyards between cross-streets.

Relics (Speakeasy Corner) - 1928
Another scene with backlit shadows. Lewis did a convincing image of the car, something that many artists cannot do for some reason.

Snow on the "El" - 1931

Subway Steps - 1930
I like this image a lot because that's what New York subway station entrances were (and are) like. It seems windy on the street, but the billowing skirt of the young woman descending the steps could be from an updraft caused by a train entering the station below.  Also closely observed is the woman at the right trudging up the steps.  Ditto the discarded newspapers on the steps.

Windy Day - 1931
Lewis has people leaning to our left, into the strong wind. But a few of his windless etchings show people leaning in the same direction. For some reason, many of us slant our drawings, the very professional Lewis being no exception.

Chance Meeting - 1940-41
The Roaring Twenties and flappers are long gone and World War 2 approaches America. Clothing fashions had changed, and Lewis could not give them the spark he provided a dozen or so years earlier.