Museums

Ed Ruscha’s Head Scratchers

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

Show seen: Ed Ruscha/Now Then @MoMA

Who doesn’t like the Art of Ed Ruscha?

Installation view of the entrance, September 14, 2023. Images in this piece are thumbnails. Click any picture for full size.

Walking through the crowds at MoMA’s winter blockbuster, Ed Ruscha/Now Then, at MoMA over my six long visits bookending a terrible, six-week illness, I saw smiles as visitors moved from piece to piece, yet I couldn’t help but wonder how many of them felt they “understood” his Art. While humor undoubtedly plays a part in the craft of an Artist who knows you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, however they appear at first glance, his work usually leaves me scratching my head.

Returning to look at it again and again, that his work says something different to me every time I look at it has kept Ed Ruscha among my favorite Contemporary Artists. Judging from the crowds at MoMA, I’m far from alone in that. Having the chance to explore, and be mystified by, 200 pieces of his Art in Now Then from the, approximately, SIXTY-SEVEN YEARS(!) he’s been making it proved an all-too-rare chance to take a good hard look and try to get to the bottom of the mystery.

I Don’t Want No Retro Spective, 1979, Pastel on paper. The catalog for the last Ed Rusha Retrospective in 1982(!) is also known by the Ruscha on the cover of its catalog, I Don’t Want No Retro Spective, though the show’s title was THE WORKS OF ED RUSCHA. 

“All too rare,” as in Now Then is the first Ed Ruscha Retrospective here since 1982, (and so mine, too): over FORTY YEARS ago!1 The gap between them is another head scratcher given how popular Ed Ruscha’s Art is. The title Ed Ruscha: Now Then can be taken as a reference to the Artist’s penchant for revisiting his subjects over time, as well as the fact the show includes old and recent work, or a chance to see his older work now. It’s also a rare Retrospective of a West Coast Artist who came to prominence in the 1960s mounted on the East Coast. Bruce Conner didn’t live to see his at MoMA like Ed Ruscha has. Ed Kienholz, and Mr. Conner’s friend, Jay DeFeo, among others, are still waiting for their East Coast Retrospective.

Installation view from just inside the entrance of the first gallery looking into the second. Boss, 1961, the famous Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights, 1962, and the infamous OOF, 1962-3, left to right, all oil on canvas.

Walking through it, I became particularly fascinated by how his style(s) developed, and how Edward Joseph Ruscha IV became Ed Ruscha, one of the most influential Artists in the world among Modern & Contemporary Artists, if not THE most influential at this point in time.

Oklahoma-E, 1962, Pencil, colored pencil and charcoal on paper

Born in Omaha in 1937, his family moved to Oklahoma City when Ed was 5. Early on, he had a passion for comics and a love of typography, particularly as it appeared in commercial publications. All of these are combined in Oklahoma-E from 1962, a seminal year in his early career. His initial desire was to become a Commercial Artist, and it was towards that end that he left OKC after graduating High School to head to L.A. with a friend in a lowered 1950 Ford, to study it. He chose to go west rather than east because of the energy, glamour of it, and its “hot rods and custom cars2.” Unable to get into his chosen school, he was accepted at Chouinard Art Institute (later Cal Arts, where Henry Taylor would study in the 1990s). His teachers, disciples of Abstract Expressionism, “wanted to collapse the whole art process into one act3.’’ “It (Abstract Expressionism) was, in his opinion, ‘a solid way of thinking…If you think about the paintings that were done in the 1950s, I find them overwhelming, nothing but quality…It was a very powerful time in art.’ However, ‘…within AbEx there was no room for my ideas4.'” While this frustrated him, they did succeed in getting him to change his focus from Commercial Art to Fine Art, which we can all be grateful for. After Now Then, I wonder if they accomplished more.

While in school in 1957 he had an epiphany.

One of the most extraordinary works of the 1950s. Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces, 1955, Encaustic on newspaper and cloth over canvas surrounded by four tinted-plaster faces in wood box with hinged front. Seen in Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror at the Whitney in 2021.

“The breakthrough he sought came in 1957, when he spotted a small black-and-white repro of Jasper Johns’s 1955 Target with Four Faces in the Feb/Mar 1957 issue of Print Magazine. Encountering Johns’s painting was, he said, an ‘atomic bomb’ in his training, ‘a stranger fruit’ that he ‘saw as something that didn’t seem to follow the history of art. My teachers said it was not art. ‘I didn’t need to see the colors or the size…’ ‘I was especially taken with the fact that it was symmetrical, which was just absolutely taboo in art school- you didn’t make anything symmetrical…Art school was modernism, it was asymmetry, it was giant brush strokes…it was all these other things that were gestural rather than cerebral. So I began moving to things that had more of a premeditation5.’”

Dvision, 1962, Mimeograph on paper, One of five Prints by five Artists in the Portfolio issued in conjunction with the New Painting of Common Objects show.

That has continued to this day. Along the way, he and others (including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and James Rosenquist), built on what Johns, Rauschenberg and Marcel Duchamp had started: the “next thing” after Abstract Expressionism, an Art based in the recognizable, the familiar, the every day. Some called it “pop.” Personally, I see nothing but danger in trying to box Ed Ruscha (who has consistently eschewed boxes).

In fact, one word comes to my mind over and over again as I look at his Art over time: abstract. If I were going to use two words to describe it they would be “premeditated abstraction.” Look at Division, above. It contains what would become Ed Ruscha trademarks- text, typography, and images, combined in a way that are next to impossible for most viewers to “read.” If that’s not “abstract?” What is? Maybe his teachers would be proud after all. It was only through delving into his history, I found that 3327 Division Street was the address of his first L.A. studio6. The car might have been his. Does that mean there’s more of a backstory to it? I haven’t found it. In the end, for me this says there may, or may not, be personal meaning to some/many/even all of his Art, but, 60+ years on, they haven’t come to light. So, with Division, as with all his Art, the viewer is left to make of them what they will.

The two earliest piece in the show, SU, 1958, Oil, ink and fabric on canvas, (sixty-six years old!), left, with Dublin,, 1960, Oil and ink on canvas, right. Yes, a comma is added to the title.

Before graduating, he took hitchhiking trips that he immortalized in some of the earliest works in the show. the mysterious SU, 1958, the earliest, strikes me as a forerunner of what would come later. Even in these early works, text and imagery appear, though separately as different elements that seem to stand apart from each other until the viewer brings them together, or creates a narrative around them, in his or her mind. These elements have continued to this day, though he would soon start layering layering them. SU is, also, one of the relatively few of his works that refers to an actual person, the title referring to Su Hall, his girlfriend at the time.

Actual Size, 1962, Oil on canvas, 67 1/16 x 72 1/16 inches. His breakthrough work when it was included in the landmark New Paintings of Common Objects show. A Painted, flaming, “actual size” can of Spam in its lower section is accompanied by some brush marks that might be associated with Abstract Expressionism. In fact, a number of his early pieces, like Three Standard Envelopes, 1960, also include them. Given his prodigious technique, on display in this, I don’t see how these marks can be considered accidental. Jennifer Quick7 surmises these connote AbEx’s commercialization. I see them as Ruscha making this technique his own, using it in a way none of the AbEx Artists did. I also see it as an early example of the many forms that abstraction would take in his work.

A number of his early works are quite edgy, daring and ripe with a surprisingly loose use of the brush. Were these done for class to please his teachers, or…? In fact, even some later pieces, like his Stains portfolio, contains marks that seem right out of AbEx. These stands at the other end of the technical spectrum for an Artist who possesses a superb Painting technique, something he doesn’t get nearly enough credit for in my view. They also make me wonder if his AbEx disciple teachers had a bigger effect on their student than it might seem.

The rest of the gallery includes highlights of his early 1960s Word Paintings. We watch as he continued to strip away excess and refine his concept. Eventually, single words appeared alone on solid backgrounds This is interesting because he has said of his recent phrase Paintings that the backgrounds are simply that. Early on, as in Actual Size, they appear to be more.

Vienna, Austria, 1961. This striking Photo was in a vitrine in the show, which prevented my getting a decent picture. This image of it comes from the book Ed Ruscha and Photography, P.48

After  he graduated college, Ed spent 10 months on an extensive tour of Europe. While he reports not being impressed with the museums (among other things, he was disappointed by the lack of Contemporary Art), he took note of quite a bit of what he saw while out and about, particularly the street signs, with their foreign words, different design & typographies. He Drew and Painted a number of these, but he also put the new Yashica twin-lens reflex camera he was required to get in one of his classes to good use, taking a number of interesting Photos, beginning a revolutionary career in the medium in the process. Back home in fall, 1961, he set to work. Less than a year later his work was included in the landmark show, New Paintings of Common Objects at the Pasadena Art Museum, along with that of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Wayne Thiebaud and others, and so-called “pop” Art was born. Ed Ruscha has consistently rejected being boxed, though he rode on the coattails of the “movement,” and the word is still used in describing his work, ignoring the visual evidence.

The first gallery concludes with an infamous work. Does this look familiar?

Ummm…It might not be what you might think it is. It’s a detail of the center of the target in Jasper Johns’s, Target with Four Faces, 1955, shown earlier. Now, look at this-

Yes! One of the two “Os” in Ed Ruscha’s OOF, 1962 (reworked 1963). Just five years after he saw Target with Four Faces, Ed Ruscha Painted the above. Coincidence? Homage? Fallout from that “atomic bomb going off in my training?” My feeling is the visual evidence is pretty strong for making a case for any or all three.

Hello! I’ve never appeared on NighthawkNYC over its 8 1/2 years, except in my self-portrait in the Banner (and a picture in my last piece, here, from the distant past). Until now. I’m introducing myself to NHNYC readers in front of a Painting I have a personal connection to: OOF, 1962-3, Oil on canvas, 71 1/2 x 67 inches on Ed Ruscha/Now Then’s final day, January 15, 2024. As for my “personal connection” to OOF? Very, very few know. My thanks to the lady who graciously agreed to take this.

Personally, it’s hard for me not to think there’s an influence; in the colors, the shape of the circle/”Os.” Even if it’s subconscious. Looking at both of these works now, they’re both revolutionary in their way. The Johns has been discussed at length over the past 60 years. Does anyone else think OOF is a revolutionary work, let alone a masterpiece? I believe it’s both. Revolutionary? It’s possibly the first time (as far as I know) that a Painting features a “word” that Merriam-Webster categorizes as an “interjection,” and not an actual “word” per se. I also believe it’s an “alt masterpiece.” Seriously. The composition, colors, font, placement of the text are all perfect, belying Ed Ruscha’s mastery of typography and graphic design with sublime taste. OOF stands as the pinnacle of his early word Paintings in my view. Oof is a word, if it is one, that defies concrete understanding, making it a perfect (unofficial) conclusion of sorts to the series. Merriam-Webster says Oof is an interjection “used to express discomfort, surprise, or dismay8.” They point out “the first known use of the word was in 1777,” which I find hilarious. How do they know? Did they consult an Oofologist? They further define an interjection as “an ejaculatory utterance usually lacking grammatical connection9.”

Oof!

OOF everywhere around town. A first step to a better world! I yelled “OOF” but he didn’t stop.

As such it seems to me that OOF stands as an outlier among the single words Ed Ruscha chose as the subjects of his early 1960s Word Paintings (BOSS, HONK, ACE, SMASH, FLASH and NOISE, shown below, et al) because it is quite abstract. I wish I had asked viewers what the Painting said to them. Having owned it for 61 years, MoMA is well aware of its mysterious appeal. No doubt that is why the museum chose to emblazon OOF all around town as the focus of their show marketing.

Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western, 1963, Oil and wax on canvas, 71 1/4 x 67 inches. There are two Painted pencils in the piece, and lo and behold someone left another one on the floor, behind the left stanchion. I resisted the urge to move it for effect for this picture. Maybe, I should have…

Along with abstraction, it seems to me there are surreal elements in his work. Perhaps no single word Painting has these abstract/surreal qualities than Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western, 1963, which also represents an evolution. Ed Ruscha has long considered it one of his best Paintings[3, Per the wall card.]. In it, the mystery of the word is added to with three very realistic images, close to its own edge. Unusual for a Painting, or Art, it leaves the center, the focus of most Art, empty except for the background color. Most of the previous Word Paintings centered the featured word. As such, it’s both unique and a precursor of other works that combine words and images. It’s also both abstract, thought it depicts realistic objects, and surreal. If I read it from the left, the whole pencil lies quietly seemingly in mid-air. The word “NOISE,” another monosyllabic word, grows until it reaches the right side (again, like a speeding train) where it hovers above the broken pencil. The cheap western seems to be hovering in the air, too, like the left-hand pencil, where it wouldn’t make noise until it lands, which it might be close to doing. The Artist has created “action” from three still objects and a word.

In the catalog for that last major Ruscha Retrospective there’s this-

“The broken pencil calls to mind the incident Ruscha has referred to a number of times in interviews when as a child in parochial school he was regularly rapped on the knuckles with a pencil by a nun who caught him misbehaving in class. Is the pencil, then, simultaneously a symbol of expression and repression10?”

If this is the case, though Mr. Ruscha has not said that this incident is what’s depicted here, my reading of it wonders if the “Cheap Western,” i.e. the comic book which appears to be reaching the bottom of the piece, was struck from his hand when he was caught reading it in class, being a big fan of comics at this age, the broken pencil having been cracked over his hand. It’s also, simultaneously, an abstract and a surreal composition. As many have pointed out, it also leaves the center bare. It carries forward his use of the single word, while also taking it on a new tangent.

Bouncing Marbles, Bouncing Apple, Bouncing Olive, 1969, (not in the show) has much in common with Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western from six years earlier. One of countless Ed Ruschas that feel surreal to me. Here, he “sugar coats” the surrealism by using harmless objects like marbles and an apple on a welcoming green background. Leaving the olive, the looming black, and the fact that the marbles & apple are bouncing to stir up our imaginations, making the work decidedly not a “still life.” *- Photographer unknown.

Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western is another one-Painting revolution, like OOF was. Though both were only followed-up indirectly, as in Bouncing Marbles, Bouncing Apple, Bouncing Olive, 1969. Now, look at this-

Salvador Dali, Open Field with Ball in Centre and Mountains in Rear, Study for the Disney film Destino, 1946, Oil on masonite. Influence? Seen in MoMA’s catalog for their show Dali & Film.

Works like Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western and Bouncing Marbles, Bouncing Apple, Bouncing Olive (and other works that include marbles and olives) are so different from anything that’s come before in his work. Yet, as time went on, they are joined by many works that while they depict recognizable objects are very abstract, even surreal, including his recent Tom Sawyer Paintings. Most of them have no words, and taken as a group they now form a sizable part of his oeuvre. For my part, I trace them all back to Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western from 1963.

Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights, 1962, Oil on canvas 66 9/10 x 133 1/10 inches. An early L.A.-inspired work, like most of Ed Ruscha’s work its “meaning” is nebulous. At the time the famous Film studio was in decline and going through layoffs. One reading might be a comment on fleeting fame about to fade out, or like his PhotoBook, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966, possibly a hard realization for the Artist who relocated from Oklahoma City, that glamour is not all it appears to be from afar. It’s also a work that is reminiscent of a speeding, approaching train, a compositional device he would use again. Though it’s described as “Oil on canvas,” those are graphite lines leading to or from the vanishing point.

In 1962, L.A./Hollywood, its sites and culture began appearing in Ed Ruscha’s Art, as in Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights, a precursor to his multi-word and phrase Paintings. Over the succeeding 60+ years, few if any, Artists would become more associated with Los Angeles than Ed Ruscha is and has been. From then to now, words and image would coexist in his Art, while single words largely became multiple words and, beginning in 1973, short phrases that he has continued to create to this day.

By the beginning of the second gallery of Now Then, some of the core themes of his work have been created and already metamorphosize. This revealed the development of a working process based in an endlessly restless creative drive that would not let Ed Ruscha stay in one place for very long Artistically. What lay ahead over the next six plus decades(!) has been nothing if not the continually unexpected.

*-Soundtrack for this piece is “Down the Highway,” by a Musician who has been creating and performing for about as long as Ed Ruscha has: Bob Dylan, born May 24, 1941, 3 1/2 years after Ed Ruscha. Bob released “Down the Highway” the same year Mr. Ruscha created a number of the Paintings in this piece, on 1963’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 320 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate by PayPal 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 traveling Retrospective, THE WORKS OF ED RUSCHA, came to the Whitney Museum in 1982, one of five museum stops it made, when the Artist was about 45. ↩
  2. ER, Tate, P. 9 ↩
  3. Alexandra Schwartz, Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles, P.17 ↩
  4. Alexandra Schwartz, Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles, P.15 ↩
  5. Alexandra Schwartz, Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles, P.15 ↩
  6. E.R. Tate, P.100 ↩
  7. in her book, Ed Ruscha: Art & Design in the 1960s ↩
  8. Here ↩
  9. Here ↩
  10. I Don’t Want No Retrospective- The Works of Ed Ruscha, P.15 ↩

Sarah Sze: Timelapse- Freeze Frame

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

This is Part 2 of my look at Sarah Sze: Timelapse at the Guggenheim Museum. Part 1 is here.

Slice detail with Wright’s Oculus.

As I said in Part 1, there were so many amazing details in Timelapse I decided to devote a separate piece to them. I’m showing 40 as thumbnails. Click on any image for full size. There’s also a short video clip.

…and wonder about Timelapse I continue to…Show posters behind appropriate scaffolding, Seen on 10th Avenue, June 5, 2023.

The hub for the black string.

Following are Photos of details in the 8 Bays on the 6th floor. Please refer to the overall shots of each installation in Part 1 for orientation and where they are installed in each piece.

The following are details from Bay 1, The Night Sky is Dark Despite the Vast Number of Stars in the Universe

Detail of the Hammock in Bay 1. The Hammock over the ground floor pool and the Hammock Sarah Sze created in 2015 had a similar overlay. I believe the material on the floor is part of the installation, and hasn’t fallen through.

Detail of the far left corner of Bay 1, with a shadow from the Hammock and an image from River of Images.

The following are details from Bay 2, Travelers Among Streams and Cascades

Three details from the Painting, Travelers Among Streams and Cascades. This one from the left section…

Detail of the center section…

Detail of the right section.

The following are details from Bay 3, Slice.

Slice. Detail of the front.

Slice. Close up of the front. Shown here are a number of the recurring image “themes”: hands, birds, the Sun, fire, the sky and other aspects of nature.

Detail behind Slice with River of Images.

One of many levels and rulers.

Looking over a rung of a ladder to see the model of Slice in its Bay installed under it displayed next to the final piece.

Throughout Timelapse lamps were used apparently to draw the viewer’s attention to specific images or objects.

The following are details from Bay 4, Diver, Second of two parts and Images That Images Beget

The following are details from Bay 5, Times Zero

Times Zero, 2023.

The following are details from Bay 6, A Certain Slant,

Detail of the center surrounded by images of hands and objects.

Detail of the far right corner looking to the right from the image above. I imagine the salt from those blue containers is what is in the center of the circle.

Detail of part of the installation on the floor further to the right in the previous picture.

The following are details from Bay 7, Last Impression

An alternate, slightly closer view of Bay 5 from what I showed in Part 1. As you can see in the full size image, the empty frames to the right are attached to the strings that run across the gallery.

Some details of the ladder at the right side, front, of the Bay.

The following detail is from Bay 8, Things Caused to Happen (Oculus)

Short clip of Things Caused to Happen (Oculus).

The Artist points out that in the end, the digital images beamed on to Things Caused to Happen (Oculus) break up on the far wall.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “I’ve Seen It All” by Bjork. This time in the version with Thom Yorke.

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.

Van Gogh’s Cypresses: Art From Hell

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)

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). ↩

Cecily Brown At The Met: Bold, As Love

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

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’Keefe: 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.

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

Nick Cave: Beauty Deeper Than Skin

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Show Seen- Nick Cave: Forothermore @ the Guggenheim Museum

No. Not THAT Nick Cave.

THIS Nick Cave. The Artist standing in front of Tondo, 2018, Mixed media including wire, bugle beads, sequined fabric and wood at the opening of Nick Cave: Weather or Not at Jack Shainman May 17, 2018 . Tondo was also on view in Fororthermore.

Nice Cave, the multi-dimensional Artist, that is, who deserves every bit as much notoriety as the other, rightly very well-known Nick Cave, whose work I also admire. This Nick was born in 1959 in Fulton, Missouri, and now lives & works in Chicago, where he has been creating beautiful heart-rending Art for over 30 years. Art, largely created as his response to the world around him marked by racism, profiling and the murders of unarmed Black men and women.

Arm Peace, 2018, Cast bronze, sunburst and vintage tole flowers 85 × 39 × 12 inches. (One of two pieces in the show named Arm Peace.) In my book, this deserves to be “iconic,” as do a number of other pieces in Forothermore.

Even though I had seen a number of his shows at Jack Shainman, his books, and I have been in his presence twice, I was completely unprepared for Nice Cave: Forothermore his mid-career Retrospective at the Guggenheim. I went in believing Mr. Cave is one of the more important Artists working today. I left speechless.

Rescue, 2013, Mixed media including ceramic birds, metal flowers, ceramic Pug, vintage settee, and light fixture 91 × 78 × 54 1/2 inches, front, Nick Cave in collaboration with Bob Faust Wallpaper Near Rescue Works (New Work), 2021, TBC, Dimensions variable, on the back wall.

As a result, I’ve decided to let Mr. Cave, who has a gift for expressing himself in words, to go with his extraordinary gifts for visual expression, do much of the talking in this piece. In Forothermore, a number of the pieces I’d seen over the years, and many others, came together as a startling whole of 49 pieces over three sections: What It Was, What It Is, and What It Shall Be, in 3 locations in the museum. I must admit that I am not a fan of the side galleries the Guggenheim added during their expansion of Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece (which I fought at the time they announced them, and my argument was published in The New York Times, my first published writing). The newer galleries are oddly shaped, because Wright didn’t design these spaces to be galleries. In my view, they detract and distract from Wright’s original intention and design of Art in the Rotunda. That being said, Nick Cave: Forothermore was one of the more important shows in NYC so far this young decade, if not THE most important show I’ve seen. The Guggenheim deserves kudos for bringing it here.

Untitled, 2018, Mixed media including a bronze head and 13 American flag shirts, 23 3/4 × 15 3/4 × 12 inches

At first glance, much of Nick Cave’s Art, particularly his famous Soundsuits, look otherworldly until a close look reveals virtually all of it consists of everyday or found items used in incredibly imaginative ways. Part Sculpture, part Music, part furniture, part Collage, part fashion, and partially created using textile production and jewelry-making techniques, there seems to be no limit to what Mr. Cave’s pieces are or fixed rules about how they’re made. Still, all of what we see now is part of his extraordinary response to the reality of his life and that of other Black men and women.

It started early…

Penny Catcher, 2009, Mixed media including vintage coin toss, suit, and shoes 74 × 23 × 14 inches

“My mother told me when I was, like, eight years old, the complexity of what I would have to deal with. So knowing made me think, ‘I’ve got to build a thick skin. I’ve got to be able to operate in a world…that could work against me as opposed to for me. What do I do with that?'”1

Sea Sick, 2014. Mixed media including oil paintings, ceramic container, cast hands, and plastic ship 96 × 72 × 10 1/2 inches. At 8 feet tall, with 11 Paintings of the kind of 17th century ships slavers used mounted salon-style, each shown in full sails, almost looking to be going back and forth, at angles to inspire sea sickness among those on board, with a striking head and hands in the center, as if screaming “ENOUGH!” The head was a tobacco holder that was later sold as a spittoon!

“I have been racially profiled. I’m walking home with my portfolio from teaching. I am pulled…surrounded by undercover cops saying, ‘Lie down on the floor’– because the convenience store was robbed down the street. That has been my reality. Get it together up here (points to his head). Psychologically, I have to really get it together. And I just have to get quiet–to put it in perspective and to not lash out into rage. And if I do, lashing out for me is creating this (a Soundsuit). All of that becomes the impulse to create.”2

Soundsuit 2012 Mixed media including embroidery, fabric, vintage toys, rug, and mannequin Soundsuit: 127 × 98 × 93 inches

Best known to this point for his ongoing series of Soundsuits– works that combine all the processes listed earlier in an ultimate manifestation of that “thick skin” he referred to, that a performer then wears as one of many in  one of Mr. Cave’s joyous and bombastic performances. For display, the performer is replaced with a mannequin. The range of materials they have included over the years would fill a Sears Roebuck catalog. In spite of the long history of both fashion and theater, I have seen virtually nothing like them3. The Soundsuits brought him immediate fame. Their origin may be lesser known-

“The first Soundsuit was in ’92 in response to the Rodney King incident, the L.A. riots. I was sitting in the park one day  and just sort of thinking about, What does it feel like to be  discarded, dismissed, profiled?
There was this twig on the ground. And I looked at that twig as something discarded. And then I proceeded to just start collecting the twigs in the park. And I brought them all back to the studio. And then I started to build this sculpture. I started to realize that the moment I started to move in it, it made sound. Then it just literally put everything in perspective. I was building this suit of armor, something that I could shield myself from the world and society. And so out of that came this sculpture-performative kind of work.”4

Detail of a Soundsuit made largely from twigs. Soundsuit, 2011, Twigs, wire, upholstery, basket, and metal armature, 83 × 27 × 40 inches. Seen in full from the side in the next picture.

That “discarded” and “forgotten” twig set a precedent for the materials he’s used in his Art since, a collection of objects and materials that seems encyclopedic, some of which speak to Mr. Cave of his childhood, when objects like figurines were cherished family possessions. This creates a duality whereby even though a number of the objects he incorporates are offensive, even disgusting (like the spittoon in Sea Sick), it’s very hard not to see “beauty” and “Art” in Nick Cave’s work, particularly in how masterfully he combines everything in ways that are reminiscent of Duchamp, Rauschenberg and Betye Saar, among others, though in entirely his own way. In so doing, he’s forged a style without having one style. Along with the beauty, there’s an undeniable joy in a good deal of his work, which reaches its zenith, perhaps, in his live performances with dancers performing in his Soundsuits in a communal celebration.

Soundsuits. From left, Soundsuit, 2022 with vintage bunny, Soundsuit, 2015 with synthetic hair, Soundsuit 9:29, 2021-2022, Soundsuit, 2011 shown in the prior picture, Nick Cave, Soundsuit 9:29, 2021, Soundsuit, 2019, and Soundsuit 8:46, 2021, far right.

Yet, in spite of their outward appearance, all is not joy with his Soundsuits. Mr. Cave reveals how he sees them-

“I don’t ever see the “Soundsuits” as fun. They really are coming from a very dark place. The “Soundsuits” hide gender, race, class. And they force you to look at the work without judgment. You know, we tend to want to categorize everything. We tend to want to find its place. How do we, sort of, be one on one with something that is unfamiliar?”5

“I think after the first Soundsuit, I had a different approach to art making. And I realized that I was an artist with a conscience. The moment I did was the moment that  my life literally turned upside-down. I think it’s just me kind of experimenting. It’s like, you know, a scientist  exploring alternative ideas.”6

TM13, 2015. Mixed media including vintage blow molds, pony beads, pipe cleaners, mannequin, and garments, 89 × 48 × 49 inches. The Trayvon Martin Soundsuit.

“Trayvon Martin is a new work  that was shown at Cranbrook. It’s made up of a Black mannequin dressed  in a hoodie and sneakers and jeans. And then surrounding its body  is these plastic blow molds. Which are, like sometimes at Halloween, there are these plastic forms  that are set out in yards. And so they are surrounding this  sort of figure almost as guardians. But then over top of the entire structure is  this web that’s constructed out of pony beads. So from a distance, it looks like this amazing sort of gold  sculptural form until you get up close and you realize that there  is someone trapped inside.” 7

Wall Relief, 2013, Mixed media including ceramic birds, metal flowers, afghans, strung beads, crystals and antique gramophone
4 panels: 97 × 74 × 21 in., each. Perhaps the most complex work on view among many very complex pieces.

“The title (“Forothermore”) is a neologism, a new word that reflects the artist’s lifelong commitment to creating space for those who feel marginalized by dominant society and culture—especially working-class communities and queer people of color. The show both highlighted the development of Cave’s singular art practice and interrogated the promises, fulfilled or broken, that the late 20th and early 21st centuries offered to the ‘other,'” the Guggenheim said.

Untitled, 2018, Mixed media including round table, clay head, piano bench, carved head with vintage tole flowers, child pink chair, 19 carved heads, 1 carved eagle, cast polyurethane hands, 52 1/8 × 52 1/8 × 61 inches

“You know, I think at the end of the day,  it’s me giving back to the community  and being this sort of change agent. I want to change our way of  engaging with one another. I want to use art as a form of diplomacy. That’s why I’m in this state of urgency right now. And I don’t know. I just feel so unsettled. I’m doing what I’m doing, but I’m not sure if it’s happening fast enough.”8

Detail of Tondo, 2022, Metal mesh, hardware cloth, bugle beads, wire, sequin fabric and wood.

Nick Cave is rewriting the power of Art, to paraphrase Simon Schama. He’s doing it by channeling horror and pain- both experienced by others, and by himself, into “lashing out” by creating. And, he’s doing so in ways never before seen. I see a lot of Art, and I see a lot of shows. It’s not often that I am awestruck by an Artist’s creativity, but I am by Nick Cave’s. Still, it’s hard to really get a full sense of Mr. Cave’s extraordinary gifts. If Nick Cave can produce such beautiful and powerful work in a world like this, I can’t help but wonder what he’d create in a world without racism.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Peace,” by Gil Scott-Heron, a Bonus track from the 2014 reissue of his 1971 album Pieces of a Man.

Thank you, Maddie.

SPECIAL ADDENDUM- The NYC MTA recently completed the installation of Nick Cave’s monumental, 4,600 square feet, 3-part, permanent Public Art piece, Each One, Every One, Equal All, in the subway under Times Square, the latest in their absolutely stellar on-going series of Public Art projects for the NYC subway. It rivals Sarah Sze’s entire subway station installation (which I showed here) for the largest Art work in the NYC subway system. It took multiple trips to fully see the whole thing, and my look at it can be seen here.

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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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.

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-

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  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 ↩

Edward Hopper: The Last Traditionalist Faces Change

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

Show seen: Edward Hopper’s New York @ The Whitney Museum, Part 2. (Part 1 is here.)

Edward Hopper in his New York. With his wife, Jo, strolling the Museum of Modern Art’s Sculpture Garden in 1964. In this Photo, by Eve Arnold, Edward is glimpsed unawares like a good number of his subjects were. *-Photo by Eve Arnold, Magnum Photos. Thanks to Lana for finding it. Click any picture for full size.

Change is the only constant in the universe. For those, like me, for who New York City IS the universe, every day brings change. During Edward Hopper’s time here (1900-67), the City of continual change metamorphosized more than it ever had.

Screencap from the short Film, A Ride on the 6th Ave El, 1916. Edward Hopper frequently rode NYC’s elevated trains, and he was located closest to the 6th Avenue el, which he no doubt rode before, during and after 1916. He glimpsed more than one scene he turned into a Painting while riding one. *-Ford Motor Company video.

The advent of the tall building & skyscrapers (facilitated by the development of elevators with safety brakes), first in Chicago and then here, along with the ongoing spate of bridge building (Brooklyn Bridge, then Manhattan Bridge and others), the advent of the elevated train, the subway, electric lights, movies, and the rest, ushered in with them what we know as modern urban life. All of these inventions & developments brought side effects. Edward Hopper’s New York reveals that the Artist may not have been a fan of some of these changes.

Edward Hopper’s Art: What I See

As I said in Part 1, having the chance to see 58 Hopper Paintings from early through late in his career 14 times, Edward Hopper’s New York completely changed how I see his work. This is shocking to me because I’ve been looking at his work almost as long as I have anyone else’s- well over 40 years. To this point, I saw his work as one of the ultimate (and perhaps unsurpassed) expressions of modern loneliness and isolation in the Art of the 20thy century. But, this is a theme that requires human subjects (like the vast majority of his NYC work has, though he Painted these scenes with people elsewhere as well). What about the rest of his oeuvre; all the other scenes he Painted that don’t include people? These include landscapes he Painted in Maine, Cape Cod, and elsewhere in the U.S., and Paintings he made on, or inspired by, trips to Europe and Mexico. Some of the non-peopled landscapes include houses, buildings, bridges or other man-made structures. Some of them are pure landscapes. (An overview of the range of his work can be seen in any comprehensive book on Hopper. I particularly recommend seeking out Edward Hopper: The Art & The Artist, by Gail Levin, the catalog of the last U.S. Hopper Retrospective, at the Whitney in 1981.)

As a result of considering the whole, I’ve come to believe there are two primary threads, intentional, or not. that run through almost all of Edward Hopper’s work.

First, the “man-altered landscape,” i.e. what man has done with and to nature.

The man-altered landscape. Apartment Houses, East River, 1930. It seems fairly obvious what Edward Hopper thought of this waterfront development. All works are Oil on canvas, unless specified.

In Photography circles, this is what is called “New Topographics” in honor of the legendary Photo show of the same name at the Eastman House, Rochester, in 1975-6, eight years after Edward Hopper’s passing. The subtitle of the show was “Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape.” What man has done to and with nature, as in Apartment Houses, East River, is a theme I now see in more of Edward Hopper’s work than I see any other theme.

Room in Brooklyn, 1932

Yes, I even see the “what man has done with and to nature” theme in works like the sedately charming Room in Brooklyn, where “nature” is reduced to flowers in a vase. It’s interesting that Hopper’s flowers are higher than the background buildings.

Automat, 1927. Edward Hopper spent a lot of time in Horn & Hardart’s extremely popular Automat Restaurants in the 1920’s, so much that Jo worried he was drinking too much 5-cent coffee. It was worth it because he produced this, another of his show stoppers. Jo chided him for not being able to Paint beautiful women, but Automat certainly puts the lie to that. Its stripped-down composition is a masterpiece of including only the essential. I still wonder about that fruit bowl in the back, though. Is this an instance of “what man has done with nature,” along the lines of Room in Brooklyn?  The reflected receding lights are a master stroke.

A byproduct of what man has done with nature in cities, in Hopper’s time and everywhere since, which some call “progress,” is the effect of what man has built on those who live and work in these places. So, I now include all of Edward Hopper’s work that includes human subjects under this man-altered landscape theme, including his New York work (though not all of them include people- like Apartment Houses, East River, shown earlier).

Office in a Small City, 1953. Life in the cube. An example of what I call the “Hopper fish bowl.”

Many may see Edward Hopper as the “king” of depicting the isolation and loneliness that was endemic in 20th century modern life, and feels increasingly so in the 21st century, but after seeing it as his primary theme for so long, myself, I now believe he is depicting side-effects of this new modern urban life in the man-altered landscape to “turn up the volume” on his feelings about these changes. Therefore, when he depicts it, in my view, he’s also “commenting” on what man has wrought on his fellow man through altering the world so. All of this also makes me wonder about the melancholy that permeates his Art. Is it indicative of “the inner state of the Artist” (as I quoted Hopper saying in Part 1), or is it solely being used to depict the state of his subjects in the man-altered environment? Gail Levin’s Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography certainly provides fodder for the former-

“Raphael Soyer, for whom Hopper posed for a portrait…observed: ‘There is a loneliness about him, a habitual moroseness, a sadness to the point of anger1.'”

That makes me wonder if the effects of this new, modern world ON HIM is a good deal of what we’re seeing in his work/or, that he’s recognizing in people he sees.

Intermission, 1963. Edward & Jo Hopper were avid movie & theater goers, and Edward Hopper’s New York dedicated a gallery to his movie/theater work making interesting observations of how some theater sets and Films may have influenced the settings of some of his Paintings. Others, like this, are set in these venues. Intermission presents a “basic” idea in a theater environment, yet it makes me wonder- People have been going to concerts and theaters for many hundreds of years. Why haven’t I seen it done like this before?

The man-altered world’s effects on the population, then and now, run deep. So deeply, in fact, I’d been living with these symptoms for 40 years myself before I realized that they are what I was seeing them in Hopper’s work! ”

Was mankind meant to live this way?” may be another question his Art asks.

Nature. In all its natural glory. Blackhead, Monhegan, 1916–19. Edward Hopper in Maine. *-Whitney Museum Photo. Not in the show.

The second theme that I see in his Art is the unaltered natural landscape. These exclusively depict locations outside of NYC.

  “If you look at landscape painting from that time in America, there isn’t anyone close to him (Edward Hopper) in technique.” Alex Katz, Artist, and designer of the installation of Edward Hopper’s Maine at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in 2011 on Hopper’s landscapes.

I’ve come to believe his unaltered natural landscapes, like Blackhead, Monhegan, remain very under-appreciated. Though they are beyond the scope of this piece, I will say that it’s fascinating to me to consider that this one was done after Cézanne & Monet’s innovations; two of the “earlier French Artists” I referenced in Part 1. I don’t see their direct influence, though indirectly, his unaltered natural landscapes, like this, also strike me as “impressions,” as I called his New York Paintings there.

“There is a sort of elation about sunlight on the upper part of the house. You know, there are many thoughts, many impulses, that go into a picture … I was more interested in the sunlight on the buildings and on the figures than in any symbolism.” Edward Hopper2.

Landscape with Building, c.1900, Watercolor and graphite pencil on paper. *-Whitney Museum Photo. Not in the show.

As I mentioned in Part 1,  Edward Hopper’s New York sent me back to the beginning of his Art looking to see how his themes began and evolved. This non-NYC work from the year he started Art school strikes me as an early example of the man-altered landscape theme. At various points in his life, Hopper professed an interest in rendering “sunlight on buildings,” and he had a love of Architecture. You can say he’s expressing both here. But the building, rendered in a predominance of grey, certainly doesn’t look to be basking in the sunlight. It’s almost like he’s using the grey wash  (instead of simply leaving the paper a bare white) to downplay the effects of the sunlight. What strikes me is how forlorn and seemingly out of place the building looks in the peaceful landscape. 30 years later, Hopper Painted East River Apartments, shown earlier, again rendering the buildings in grey. The only sunlight in that Painting is playing on the buildings in the back. If he is not showing his love of “sunlight on the buildings,” in these, what is he showing us? Is he being Edward Hopper: Architectural critic? The encroachment of man into nature seems plausible to me. The unspoken question he may be asking is “What do you think of this?” A question I feel being asked in any number of his man-altered landscapes. Given what he said about no “symbolism,” is what I see a coincidence? A coincidence that runs through most of his work is most likely not a coincidence.

Remember how this looked on opening day in Part 1? Here’s the opening section on closing day, March 5, 2023.

What we call modern city life now only existed in Chicago, the birthplace of the tall building, and New York when Edward Hopper began to Paint here in the first third of the 20th century. Since, of course, it has spread everywhere, all around the world. There are countless millions more people living in these environments now than when he began rendering these places. In some ways, Edward Hopper was reporting from the front lines on the change that was happening around him in NYC. Change that was soon to happen in those countless other places around the world.

Early Sunday Morning, 1930. Edward Hopper is not going to hit you over the head with it. Instead, his subtlety is front and center here, in my view. The Whitney paid $3,000. for it in 1931, then featured it when the Whitney Museum opened to the public for the first time in November, 1931. 91 years later, it’s featured again.

For a long time I looked at Hopper’s famous Early Sunday Morning, 1930 as a charming Manhattan street view, one that depicts a block in my neighborhood 93 years ago. Now, I see it as something more ominous. I can attest that as 7th Avenue, shown here, runs North/South, the Sun, which rises directly behind the viewer, has never shone as Mr. H. has depicted it here- see the Photo of the site now in Part 1. Why did he do so? For me, the long shadows mimic the subtle dark rectangle extending off the canvas to the upper right. That’s part of the newer, tall building you can see in my recent Photo of this scene in Part 1, which was just going up when he Painted it. It’s the only building in this Painting that is still standing. The charm of the old human-scale neighborhood is evidenced by the barber pole, shown in full sunshine just to the right of the center of the composition, which emphasizes the human scale of the buildings. This is about to be lost as it is already being ominously encroached upon (if not engulfed) by “progress” (i.e. new tall buildings) while the City sleeps, i.e. while the public was helpless to stop it. This scene is about to be lost, which it was, as I showed. This idyllic, peace hides the loss of a world the Artist knew and loved, and the helplessness to do anything about it.

For me,  Early Sunday Morning is a work that encapsulates Edward Hopper’s melancholy as he was about to lose the City he loved, and a  “wake-up call” to those “sleeping” through what was happening around them. Now, it’s a reminder that there are always things happening most people aren’t all that aware of that will change their lives. Is he saying here, “Wake up, before it’s too late”?

The City, 1927. Change comes to Edward Hopper’s front door.

In The City, Hopper’s home, 3 Washington Square (see my picture of it from November, 2022 in Part 1), is seen in the row of buildings in the mid-distance. For me, everything about this screams distaste. This is Edward Hopper’s neighborhood; the block he lived on, on Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. From the vantage point of a new taller building to the east, the people now look like ants. Two, new, taller buildings are unceremoniously chopped off. Edward Hopper Painted, virtually exclusively, in the landscape format. I take this as another instance of holding on to his values and refusing to compromise by Painting tall buildings in the portrait format. Eventually, change would come up and knock right on his apartment door. In 1946, NYU, which was in the act of swallowing up much of the area, bought 3 Washington Square and proceeded to try to evict its residents. The Hoppers publicly fought NYU for a few years before winning permission to stay. They would both live out their lives here.

The show made me think about the locations he Painted, and those he didn’t Paint. The latter is easier- it’s interesting that in spite of living and working here for so long, he never Painted NYC’s most iconic landmarks- Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State, the Chrysler Building, The Metropolitan Museum (or ANY New York museum), and on and on. Instead, he found his meat in “second-tier landmarks” and everyday locations. Still, in each work, it seems to me that the notoriety of the building or bridge included isn’t his point. He down plays it or presents it as an element in a man-altered landscape composition, again asking, I believe, “What do you think of what man has done here?” Again and again, the takeaway for me was it was all about change: rapid change, or change over time.

Queensborough Bridge, 1913. All of Hopper’s bridge Paintings (including Macomb’s Dam Bridge, 1935, which has much in common with Queensborough Bridge) strike me as man-altered landscape works.

Bridges were a favorite subject for Edward Hopper going back to his time in Paris (I showed Le Pont des Arts, which he Painted there in 1907, in Part 1). Back in NYC, he Painted Queensborough Bridge in 1913, just 4 years after it opened in 1909! It has a few things in common with most of his other bridge Paintings. Most of them show the bridge from underneath, reminding us of human scale, and giving the viewer the sense he must have felt at the time of suddenly being VERY small. In this one, the first tower is chopped off by the top of the canvas- like he does with the new tall buildings. A sign of distaste? Also typical, the structure is cropped oddly and ends suddenly just past the right of center. This gives me the feeling that it’s not the sole focus of the composition. We also see East River and what is now Roosevelt Island with a colonial style (i.e. older) house. The house is in a bit shaper focus and is just to the right of center. The bridge draws the eye along until it suddenly trails off right over the house. Human scaled, it looks puny next to the huge bridge. The juxtaposition of size between these two man-made objects is jarring. Given the water in the foreground, which with the strip of land, represent nature, I see this as both an example of the man-altered landscape and how man changed it, first with the colonial style house, and again later with the bridge. The island looks fairly deserted, but it wouldn’t be for much longer as “progress” marched on inexorably.

Manhattan Bridge Loop, 1928. The lone figure, dwarfed by a wall in the Loop part of the Bridge, who adds so much, might have been a late addition to the composition. He does not appear in the Drawn Study on view in another gallery. Perhaps my favorite Painting in the show.

In the wonderful Manhattan Bridge Loop we aren’t seeing the bridge from underneath as he usually shows. We’re on a little known and now lost part of the Manhattan Bridge that was called the “Loop.” Built in 1906, Manhattan Bridge, which connects Lower Manhattan at Chinatown with Brooklyn across the East River, was another bringer of change to the City. It’s hard for us to imagine this now, but for several years after it opened in 1883, Brooklyn Bridge at 272 feet tall, remained the tallest structure in the Western hemisphere for a few years3! Walking across it, when you reach the middle of the Bridge, you suddenly find yourself out in the open, its structure having magically disappeared due to the genius of its design. Every time I stand there I try and imagine what it must have felt like to those who stood here in 1883 when, as far as the eye could see, nothing was higher than you were. What a feeling that must have been! It still is. At 336 feet in height, Manhattan Bridge was even taller. These tall bridges presaged the era of tall buildings, and the effect of these immense structures that dwarfed human scale must have had a profound effect on the populace. I get that feeling looking at Queensborough Bridge, in particular, the newness of suddenly feeling so very small in the presence of the new bridge. Perhaps this is also Edward Hopper’s motif for Manhattan Bridge Loop- with a twist.  Behind the wall the man walks in front of, which dwarfs him, and under the gantry, which mimics a bridge tower, is a trolley that ran on a loop from one side of the bridge to the other giving the work its title. In  Manhattan Bridge Loop, Edward Hopper finds a new way to express the size of the bridge versus the human scale world he knew. And guess what would happen to those buildings along the back.

Change continued after Hopper. The approach to the Manhattan Bridge (seen in the far distance under the arch) on May 18, 2023. That’s the Confucius Plaza complex on the right. The Loop Hopper Painted was located to the right behind the arch. The only way to access it now is to walk around the center arch on the Bridge roadway(!) and hope it happens to be as deserted as it is here, which it almost never is. No, thank you.

Not willing to risk life and limb as I did further below, I shot this from in front of the arch (part of which is seen at the upper right across the busy two-way roadway on May 18, 2023. This is approximately the scene of Manhattan Bridge Loop . Human scale was lost in a big way. Unlike Hopper, I’m using the portrait format to show just how tall the Confucius Plaza complex, which is where the buildings in the Hopper stood, is.

As in Early Sunday Morning, as time progressed, the beginnings of the loss of human scale in Manhattan Bridge Loop would only dramatically increase as time went on.

Approaching a City, 1946. Perhaps not one of NYC’s more scenic locations. The Artist visited the site, at Park Avenue at East 97th Street, the point where above ground trains become underground trains (and vice versa) going to and from Grand Central Terminal 55 blocks south, multiple times in 1945 to Draw it. Interestingly, the first work in Edward Hopper’s New York, my research reveals it was the last work shown in the Whitney’s 1950 Edward Hopper Retrospective catalog. I’ve been unable to find out if that means it closed the show. 

After the introductory wall of early works I showed in Part 1, Approaching a City, 1946, showing another bridge, is the first work in Edward Hopper’s New York, proper after the introductory wall. I was surprised by this choice, but the more I studied it, I’ve come to see it as a commentary on change in the City over time. First, I was interested that Hopper chose this site, given how far it is from his apartment (and mine). As a result, it’s a bit of an outlier among all the subjects of his NYC Paintings. That made me wonder if this, too, was another scene he initially glimpsed while a passenger on a train, particularly given its low vantage point, and then decided to go back and Draw it. I was so puzzled by the Painting and why he chose this location that I visited the site to see what the real thing would reveal.

Park Avenue & East 97th Street, February 15, 2023 with the area shown in the Painting centered. What strikes me is that factory Hopper shows in the center & left of the Painting. Was it really there in 1946, right across East 97th Street from an apartment building? I didn’t crop this picture to the area showing in the Painting to show that the entire surrounding neighborhood is residential, and these building look to me to be 100 years old, if not older.

Today, it’s not possible to get down low enough to recreate the angle he shows- unless you’re on a train coming or going from Grand Central Terminal, 55 blocks to the south. Standing above, I took considerable risk taking this photo, my back danger close to the traffic zipping by on Park Avenue behind me. Vintage Photos in the City’s archive from the early 1940s show there was no factory where Hopper Painted it. The neighborhood was, and is, residential, and I believe the buildings I saw there now were there then.

I spotted this fleeting scene in the Film, The Band Wagon, 1953, showing the scene Hopper Painted just 7 years after he did! It’s highly unlikely the buildings in the background had changed that much.

Instead, Hopper chose to show a range of Architectural styles from Colonial, far right, to brownstone, to its left, to the modern factory, center, which could be taken as a comment, or a lament, on change in the City over time (a bit like Queensborough Bridge, and Early Sunday Morning do for me). The evidence would seem to show that he modified the background buildings to suit his purposes. So, what does modifying an actual place in a Painting mean? It means the Artist is using “Artistic license,” and putting it at the service of his or her intentions. (So much for so-called “realism.”) He or she may also want to remove the distraction of the place from the “point” they are trying to make. In the case of Approaching A City, Edward Hopper replaced a residential building with a factory and placed it among other residential buildings. He also changed the Architectural styles of the other buildings. It’s up to the viewer to read this as he or she will. For me, it shows that if he did so once, he would do so again. And he did.

Therefore, when I look at the places he shows, whether or not they are actual places is now a secondary consideration, said the guy who spent decades looking for the “actual site” of Nighthawks. I was driven by the fact that Hopper had Painted actual sites. But, as time went on, he moved away from doing so because it no longer served his purposes, or he modified them as he did here. (For those interested in knowing more about the actual sites Hopper did Paint, and comparing them with his Paintings, Hopper authority, Gail Levin, the Whitney’s first Hopper curator, and author of both the Hopper Catalogue Raisonne and the definitive biography, has published a book of Photographs she took traveling in NYC, the rest of the U.S. and Europe of places Hopper Painted appropriately titled, Hopper’s Places.) Finally, the darkness inside the tunnel I find interesting. Is it a comment on where things are heading? Into the unknown4?

The Hopper Fish Bowl

A frame from the 1916 short Film, A Ride on the Sixth Avenue Elevated shows the train approaching a row of windows, which might have provided Edward Hopper, a regular rider, with ample opportunity for fleeting inspiration…

Life in NYC offers little privacy. New Yorkers are forced to adapt, but somewhere in the back of their mind lives the thought that “someone’s always watching.” That was born in the days long before video cameras, helicopter & drone surveillance! That Edward Hopper had his eyes open is seen by the number of his Paintings that look into a window. These strike me as new in Art. Some of these may have been inspired by fleeting, passing moments witnessed while a passenger on a train, others while on one of his walks around town. In any number of his Paintings we see one or more people behind glass. As I said in the caption for Office in a Small City, earlier, I call this the “Hopper fish bowl.” These include the “looking into a window” works, like Night Windows, 1928, which I showed in Part 1, and Nighthawks, which includes 4 figures behind glass.

Office at Night, 1940. A work that has haunted me for over 40 years. I saw it here for only the second time in person.

Office at Night, 1940, is another scene apparently glimpsed through a window. Or is it? In The Art & The Artist, P.60, Gail Levin quotes Hopper saying there are three sources of light for this picture- the overhead light, the desk light and the window. If it was a scene glimpsed while on a passing train there would need to be 4- with another window in the front. I think people who have seen many Hoppers will immediately assume this is another “glimpsed in passing” scene, as I have until I read that. Who else Painted something like this before 1940? I grew up being forced to work in an old office that looked a bit like this one as a child, so it always gives me the chills to see it. The quiet drama at work here speaks volumes, and says everything about what has become “life in the cube.” It seems to me that Edward Hopper owns the genre of Painting office interiors (including Office in a Small City, shown earlier), and the next one, all showing the effects of the man-altered landscape on those who live in these places.

 Edward Hopper’s New York, Now

New York Office, 1962. With a change in telecommunication equipment, this could be now in Downtown, NYC. In 500 years, if people make it that far, it’s hard for me to imagine this won’t still be speaking to them. Hopefully, it will have a better frame by then.

Beyond changing my thinking about his work, Edward Hopper’s New York made me realize that sooner or later, everyone who lives in NYC (and perhaps most other cities) for a period of time winds up lamenting the loss of what it “used to be.” Early Sunday Morning is, perhaps, the epitome of this, but I think it’s there in many of his works. I miss the NYC of the 1970s and the 1990s. The pandemic has changed the City dramatically, too. It’s still hard for me to believe that 45, 215 irreplaceable people have died in NYC from covid as of June 1, 20235. Building and renovation (i.e. “progress”) continues as robustly as ever- for better or for worse. Rarely has there been an Artist who documented change in the City as Edward Hopper did. In spite of all these changes, he never changed. He kept working in the landscape format until the end. There were only a handful portrait formatted Paintings in Edward Hopper’s New York, notably his Self-Portraits and his Portrait of Jo, and a few in the square format, like Office at Night. It’s easy for me to relate to his angst at losing part of what he loved. It’s obvious how much he cared. As we venture into this new time of change, Edward Hopper’s New York can also be seen as lessons to us now- before, during and after change.

What I’m saying here is what Edward Hopper’s Art says to me. As with all Art, it’s up to each of his viewers to take from it what they will.

Edward Hopper’s final Painting, Two Comedians, 1965. He and Jo taking a bow in front of a dark blue sky(?) background with a landscape prop to the right. At first glance, it seems a straight-ahead Painting. I now also see it as showing a man-made setting (the backdrop and prop) depicting the “natural world,” thus “flipping the narrative” from what man has done with and to nature in his final work. Or, is it a reminder that everything he’s shown us was created by by him, assisted by Jo, in paint?

Back at home, Edward Hopper always struck me as being somewhat out of place in Greenwich Village. It became the home of the beatniks and then the hippies as his life came to a close. He died on May 15, 1967- right at the dawn of the “Summer of Love.” Throughout his 84 years, Edward Hopper held on to his traditional values and way, as I discussed in Part 1. He never went with fads, changing styles, or trends. At times this made him seem “old-fashioned,” particularly in the face of Abstract Expressionism and then Pop, but he’s having the last laugh now. The crowds that flock to see his work wherever it’s displayed around the world are proof positive that his Art is speaking to more people right now than it ever has before. People everywhere have seen the modern, man-altered world that was new in his time in New York up close and personal where they live and have been effected by it- for better, for worse, or some of both.

 

Last look at Automat. Closing day, March 5,2023.

Another big take away from Edward Hopper’s New York came from observing my fellow show-goers. It struck me that that for many others, as it does for me, it serves as a confirmation of what they’re feeling wherever they’re living. That makes me wonder- was Edward Hopper a visionary, too? Did he foresee that what was going on around him in NYC between 1910 and 1950 would become a world-wide phenomenon? I tend to think he was NYC-centric, like I am. He was worried about what he saw going on around him in a place he loved and loved living in. He noticed the effects these changes had on his friends and neighbors and on total strangers he happened to glimpse for a fleeting moment as he moved around town. He froze those moments in oil paint where they have become frozen in many of our minds. That front line moved further and further until it covered much of the world in the following 100 years since he started.

Ending this series with the same piece I began Part 1 with: Edward Hopper’s Self-Portrait, 1925-30, begun 98 years ago. Seen on March 1, 2023. In 2022, I also featured it here, where you can see it close up.

“I saw the Edward Hopper exhibition at the Whitney Museum in the fall of 1995 and I was amazed at the number of people there and how they reacted to the paintings….Hopper seems to reach more people than any other American artist.” Alex Katz, Looking at Art with Alex Katz, P.88-9.

Since that show Alex Katz refers to in 1995, Edward Hopper’s star has continued to rise- both here and especially around the world, If Edward Hopper isn’t THE most popular American Painter world-wide right now (and he may be), the inexorable rise in popularity his work has seen these past 100 years tells me he will be just that one day soon.

Closing Day, March 5, 2023

For me, in the end, the very good thing about that would be that his popularity is not due to a fad, sex appeal, a glamorous lifestyle, or the trappings of celebrity. It’s solely due to his Art speaking to people! In this modern day & age, with all the trappings of 21st century life that Edward Hopper couldn’t begin to dream of…imagine that.

A Postscript that looks at some serious issues involving & surrounding the Art of Edward Hopper at the Whitney Museum is here. 

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin, who returns from Part 1. Feeling “blue” may be a symptom of the man-altered environment. Gershwin was the ultimate interpreter of his own Music, of course. After his early death, the charge of performing Gershwin authentically fell on his friend, the extraordinary Oscar Levant. Best known as a somewhat sarcastic actor in An American in Paris, and other Films, lesser known is as one of the great pianists of the 20th century he was the highest paid concert artist for quite a while. (If you want to be blown away, check out this segment from the Film, which may be the first Music video.) Here, he powerfully performs “Rhapsody in Blue” with Eugene Ormandy conducting. It is posterity’s eternal loss that the record companies never sat Mr. Levant down in front of state-of-the-art studio recording equipment and had him record every note George Gershwin wrote that included a piano part. I cherish what we have.

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  1. Gail Levin’s Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, Expanded Edition, P. 722. ↩
  2. Quoted in Sheena Wagstaff, “The Elation of Sunlight,” in Edward Hopper, Tate Exhibition Catalog, 2004, P.12 ↩
  3. https://www.history.com/topics/landmarks/brooklyn-bridge ↩
  4. Compare it with this from 1906. ↩
  5. Source and updated total, here. ↩

Edward Hopper’s Impressions of New York

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

Show Seen: Edward Hopper’s New York @ The Whitney Museum
Part 1 of 3 Parts.

Introduction

Smack dab in the heart of Edward Hopper’s New York, the Artist stares out at us in one of hs few Self-Portraits, one he began 98 years ago (1925-30). What would Edward Hopper make of his New York now? Click any picture for full size.

Edward Hopper. What more can I say about his Art? In 2015, I named this site after his masterpiece, Nighthawks, because of that figure with his back to us that no one ever talks about. I relate to him more than I do any other figure I’ve ever seen in a Painting because I’ve been that guy, alone in a bar, cafe or restaurant in Edward Hopper’s New York too many times to count.

The first time I ever saw Edward Hopper’s work was in the late 1970s in a friend’s parent’s copy of this massive 10-pound, 16 by 13 1/2 inch, monograph by Lloyd Goodrich 1 published by Abrams in 1978, with 306 pages and 246 illustrations, but only 88 in color, unfortunately. One or other of his Paintings has been lingering somewhere on my mind since. My banner has been a continual homage to Nighthawks for the past 7+ years2.

Mister Hopper’s Neighborhood

The heart of Edward Hopper’s New York for over 50 years: 3 Washington Square (center). Between them, he &  his wife Jo, lived on the top floor from 1913 to 19683. Beginning in 1947, they had to fight NYU, who took over the building in 1946, to stay. Today, the Hopper Studio has been preserved though the rest of the building is in active use by NYU, as it was when I shot this, November 16, 2022. Nighthawks, among countless other Hoppers, was Painted here4.

At this point, I have lived in what was his extended neighborhood for over 3 decades. I have sat in the Park right in front of his long-time home and wondered if he sat on this very spot. I’ve walked by numerous actual sites he Painted, and I spent a night in the Provincetown, Massachusetts  rooming house he Painted in Rooms for Tourists, 1945, while I was in Cape Cod fruitlessly trying to find his Truro summer house and drinking in the atmosphere of another area he Painted. Today, any number of times I’m reminded I’m literally walking in his footsteps on streets he is known to have walked. Living in his footsteps is probably more accurate.

Early Sunday Afternoon, March 26, 2023. Does this scream “Edward Hopper Painting?” 93 years later, it’s hard to see Early Sunday Morning, 1930 (which I discuss in Part 2), in this scene in my neighborhood, but this is where it was on 7th Avenue between West 16 & 17th Streets. Only the building partly shown on the right is in the Painting. I had to wait for the sun to go behind the center building (to the west) to take this shot, its glare still bleaches out the wall of the building on the right, proving the direction the Sun shines in the Painting was “Artistic license.”

A bit of my passion for his Art comes from this “shared experience” of this part of Manhattan at different times, but most of it lies in the endless mystery at the heart of his Art. Mystery that no amount of looking seems to solve. Until I saw Edward Hopper’s New York, that is. 300 pieces in here on NighthawkNYC.com since July, 2015, except for a bit at tail end of “My Search for Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks Diner,” this is the first time I’ve written about his Art.

Setting the Stage

Before the crush. Edward Hopper’s New York Member’s Preview Opening Day, October 13, 2022. A wall of early work, including Self-Portrait, Oil on canvas (as all works featured are, unless specified), right, introduces the show. For Hopper, 1906 marks the beginning of his life as an Artist, the year he graduated from Art school, then embarked on his first trip to Paris. He would return twice before 1910, then return to NYC to get his Art career started.

While not a career retrospective (there has not been an Edward Hopper Retrospective in the U.S. since Edward Hopper: The Art & the Artist in 1980-81 5), Edward Hopper’s New York is a career-long look at what is, perhaps, his most famous subject- New York City, where he lived & worked for almost 60 years. I took the chance to see its 58 Oil or Watercolor Paintings6 by Hopper, among the 200 works and items of ephemera on view, 14 times between its opening day, above, and its closing day, below.

Now. Or never. This is about as crowded as an NYC Art show gets. 5pm, March 5, 2023. One hour to go on its final day. The final weekend was sold out.

Edward Hopper’s New York was the very first time  I’ve seen so many Edward Hopper Paintings in one place. I went 14 times because who knows when I’ll get another chance.

There’s how Hopper Painted, then there’s what he Painted. I’m going to attempt to look at both. In this part, I take a look at how he Painted, i.e. his style, and how, and if, it evolved. In Part 2, I look at what he Painted in a piece that is a personal reaction to what I see when I look at Edward Hopper now. Having the chance to see and study this many Hopper Paintings from early through late in his career Edward Hopper’s New York completely changed how I see his work. This is shocking to me because I’ve been looking at his work almost as long as I have anyone else’s- well over 40 years. To this point, I saw his work as one of the ultimate (and perhaps unsurpassed) expressions of modern loneliness and isolation of the century. Now, I see that as ancillary to other themes, themes that occur even when there are no human subjects. Themes that occur in his work in and outside of NYC.

One great thing about Art is that it’s there for everyone to see and make up their own minds what it says to them. I’m sharing here what it says to me. I hope everyone will look at Edward Hopper, and all Art, for themselves. 

In a Restaurant, 1916-25, Charcoal on paper. For those who’ve criticized Hopper’s technique. He came by it honestly. 6 years in Art schools under esteemed Artist teachers. How they felt about his skill is evident in the fact that he was assigned to teach life Drawing, one of the hardest types of Drawing, before he graduated.

“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 Hopper7

Edward Hopper was born on July 22, 1882 in Nyack, NY, some 80 miles as the Owl majestically flies from the City. He visited the City as a child with his parents, then came here on a daily basis while attending Art school from 1899-19068. Towards the end of that time, he took up residence on West 14th Street, before taking three trips to Paris from 1906-10. After returning to the City, he lived at 53 East 59th Street9 before moving to 3 Washington Square in 191310.

Untitled (Study of Man Sketching in Front of a House), c. 1900, Opaque watercolor, fabricated chalk and graphite pencil on paper (recto); Graphite pencil, pen and ink and opaque watercolor (verso). *-Whitney Museum Photo. Not in the show.

Seeing that introductory wall, shown earlier, sent me delving deeper into Edward Hopper’s Artistic beginnings (1895, at about age 15, to 1913, when he moved into 3 Washington Square at about 31) for the first time, looking to see when his themes began, how his style and technique changed over that time, and what they could tell me about his familiar later work. Most of Hopper’s early work is in the Whitney’s Permanent Collection, thanks largely to the 1970 Jo Hopper Bequest. It is, unfortunately, too rarely seen, and in my view, under-considered.

From the beginning, one thing that stands out to me is that Edward Hopper was a “traditional” Painter. That is, he relied on his preliminary Drawings & Studies as the basis of his Paintings, as Painters had been doing for as long as there had been Painters. Though Photography was making steady inroads into all aspects of life, and being used by an ever-increasing number of Artists & Painters during his lifetime, Edward Hopper never used Photographs as the basis of his work11. Untitled (Study of Man Sketching in Front of a House), from the year his Art school studies began, may be of a fellow student or be a de-facto Self-Portrait. In either case, it shows something I imagine Edward Hopper did regularly for the rest of his career. In addition to relying on long-standing traditional methods, Edward Hopper steadfastly remained true to his vision. He not only resisted Abstraction, but he uncharacteristically fought against it in print, in a publication titled Reality, which he contributed to.

Le Pont des Arts, 1907. Edward Hopper Painted this outdoors near where he was staying on his first trip to Paris. So, it’s strange to see early on in a show devoted to his NYC work. Nonethelessless, it’s interesting for its style and for its content (see Part 2).

While in Paris, Edward Hopper saw shows of the work of the so-called “impressionists,” (a box I don’t subscribe to, so I will use “earlier French Painters” instead) but, apparently did not see the work of Picasso. It’s hard not to see their influence in this, but, at least for me, not that of any one Artist in particular stylistically. Under their spell, he seems to be doing his own take on it.

The question for me became- How far did this influence go, and how long did it last?

“It took me ten yers to get over Europe,” he said.12. Ten years after Europe would be 1920. Looking at the show, a case could be made it lasted much longer.

New York Corner (Corner Saloon), 1913 became a touchstone for me over my 14 visits. If it wasn’t for the familiar lamp post and the smoke stacks in the rear, you might think this is a corner in Paris. A charming and unique early New York work, it was in MoMA’s collection until at least 1981. At some point after, they sold it! A shortsighted mistake in my view.

After returning from Paris, the 28-year-old Artist set about surviving as one. To this end, his work as an Illustrator from 1917 to 1925 provided him with income until his work began to sell. His first show, at the Whitney Studio Club in 1920 (the predecessor to the Whitney Museum), with 16 Oils, produced no sales. In 1923, his Watercolors began to sell after they were shown at the Brooklyn Museum. Then, in 1925, The Met bought 15 Hopper Etchings. Later that year, he sold Apartment Houses to the Pennsylvania Academy, his first museum Painting sale. As his Paintings finally began to sell (mirroring the experience of Winslow Homer, to whom his Watercolors were compared, whose Watercolors also sold before his Oils began to13), in September, 1925, he was able to give up illustration14. Among his early Paintings, the wonderful New York Corner, 1913, caught my eye. It’s interesting to contrast it with this work by John Sloan, one of his teachers, Sixth Avenue and Thirtieth Street, 1907.

John Sloan, Sixth Avenue and Thirtieth Street, 1907. The Sixth Avenue elevated train, which Hopper frequented, runs to the left. The gold sign on the right reads “LION BEWERY,” which was the 6th largest brewery in the US in 189515. I believe this view may be looking downtown, if that’s the Jefferson Market Courthouse in the background. *-Photographer unknown.

New York Corner currently resides in the collection of the Canter Center, Stanford University. Upon acquiring it, their press release says, “New York Corner, created when the artist was 31 and considered the first work made in his representational style.” Wait. What?

“representational-noun 1. showing things as they are normally seen” Cambridge Dictionary

What’s “representational” about it?

In December, 1913, Edward Hopper moved into 3 Washington Square on the Park, where he would live for the rest of his life, so this may have been executed based on a scene near his East 59th Street home just before or just after his move (unless this is a scene on East 14th Street. There’s nothing like the background anywhere else in what would be his West Greenwich Village neighborhood.). When I look at New York Corner, I see an Artist who’s in transition. It seems to me Hopper is wrestling with the influence of his teachers Robert Henri & John Sloan, and what he’d seen in Paris. The top half (i.e. the building) is slightly more “representational,” slightly more resolved (especially in comparison to work he did in Pars, like River Boat or Le Pont Royal, both 1909, and American Village, 1912,), while the bottom half is entirely out of focus. The figures are more like shadows, the indistinct but distinctive gold signage is striking, and stands in stark contrast to the sign in the Sloan. It only adds more mystery to the feel of the whole piece. The upper two floors of the building feature windows that are not much different from those seen on the upper floor of Early Sunday Morning (which are more defined) or across the street from the diner in Nighthawks (ditto). He’s starting to get there.

New York Interior, 1921. Seen through a window, this wonderful piece is one of a number of Hoppers that reminds me of Degas. See Night Windows, below. Notice the clutter on the mantel. Then compare this with Room in New York, seen further below.

As I’ve said, I don’t subscribe to most of the “-isms” that proliferate in Art, and the world, and that applies to putting Edward Hopper in anything other than the “Edward Hopper box.” As time goes on, putting him in the “realism” box he’s usually stuck in seems increasingly problematic. To wit- In Gail Levin’s massive 780-page Expanded Edition of her Intimate Biography of the Hoppers I couldn’t find one instance of Edward Hopper referring to his Art as “realism.”

“realism-noun 1: corcern for fact or reality and rejection of the impractical and visionary” Merriam-Webster

Richard Estes, Times Square, 2004, Paintings don’t come much more technically astounding than this. Unless, they’re by Jan van Eyck. Having stood on this spot before, during and after 2004, I can certainly verify the overwhelming visual noise that still is Times Square, something that has never been more faithfully realized than it is here.

I’m sorry, but when I look at his Art, it doesn’t fit that definition. For another thing, “realism” in Art is a term that began seeing heavy use in the 19th century, though I’ve seen the term applied to Artists like Caravaggio, 1571-1610. In all that time, things have changed. In 1966, the year before Edward Hopper died, Richard Estes began Painting New York in ways that redefined what had been called “realism,” making everything stuck in that box previously look, well, “different.” While Edward Hopper often Painted scenes looking through windows, Mr. Estes took the art of rendering their reflections to an entirely new level, while often Painting at the hyperfocal distance, which added new depth to his depictions of the world. Suddenly, the eye was free to go anywhere on the canvas and it was all rendered “democratically” (i.e. with apparent equal weight) and in focus. Others, including Rod Penner, followed, pushing the envelope of what had been done, all the while in the service of Art. There was suddenly more than one kind of “realism!” Since none of them have put their Art in a box in their interviews, I certainly don’t subscribe to the terms others ascribe to their Art. Therefore, Messers Hopper, Estes and Penner reside in only one “box” each: the one with their name on it. “Realism” has been used for over 125 years! it’s past time to retire it. It’s outlived its supposed meaning.

Night Windows, 1928. Among the earlier French Painters, Edgar Degas is someone I see in numerous Edward Hopper compositions. Perhaps more than I see any other Artist. Hopper seemed to share Degas’s voyeuristic streak. Many of both of their Paintings show women being observed apparently without their knowledge.

It’s pretty plain to see that these recent developments are at odds with Edward Hopper’s style. Then again, I don’t think he was ever out to win the realism race. Hopper authority Gail Levin said his work has “the suggestion of reality16.”

Finally, there’s this for all those who box Hopper as a “realist”-

“I think I’m still an impressionist…” Edward Hopper.

Edward Hopper didn’t say that in 1913 after Painting New York Corner. He said it in 1962, a mere five years before he died! He said it in an interview published in Katherine Kuh’s book The Artist’s Voice: Talks With Seventeen Artists, in 196217. That Edward Hopper, who never minced words, or used them without careful consideration (like the careful consideration he gave every detail of his compositions) especially in the very few interviews he did, would say this so late in his life and career HAS to be taken seriously. So far, it hasn’t been. The “realism” noise surrounding his work remains deafening. I came upon the “impressionist” quote after already being convinced by the visual evidence in Edward Hopper’s New York that he took what he learned from the earlier French Artists and used it in his own way. He was one of the Artists who forged what some call an “American style,” an important goal at the time. Yet, his influences remained in his work throughout his life to the extent he chose to use them, in varying degrees, to suit his purposes in each particular work.

GeorgiaO’Keefe quoted on the back cover of the catalog for her 2021 show at Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Part of that influence, I believe, was that as time went on, Edward Hopper began removing unnecessary objects from his Paintings. It seems to me his work lives on its mystery. Isn’t too much information an enemy of mystery? He also stopped using “real” settings, creating his own, possibly based on actual places combined with his imagination. In spite of my decades of looking for the “real” Nighthawks diner, this may well be what he really did: he based it on a place he saw then modified it in his imagination to suit his purposes (and he said as much). And that is the key: everything superfluous went out of his Art. That’s one thing that makes Nighthawks such a brilliant, timeless, nebulous work.

The result? For me, many of Edward Hopper’s New York Paintings are “impressions.”

Room in New York, 1932.

I rest my case with Room in New York, from 1932. One of his masterpieces, in my view, it defies every single box Edward Hopper has been put in. It’s one of his many scenes looking into a window. Perhaps something he saw in a fleeting moment while riding the Sixth Avenue elevated train, or in passing as he walked, or maybe it’s a scene he imagined, possibly filtered through his own relationship experience. If, and it’s a huge “if,” this is (at least partially) filtered through his marriage, this may be as frankly as he ever depicted it. Look closer-

Edward Hopper’s “realism?” Bah humbug. A classic example of why I ignore boxes and just look at the work for myself!

Look! The faces have no details! This is by intent, of course. He obviously considered facial details to be unnecessary to what he was trying to express, or distracting from it. Is this what he meant when he said, “I think I’m still an impressionist…?” Isn’t this closer to the work of the earlier French Painters than anything else? No so-called “realist” Painted like this! Only George Seurat, among those earlier French Painters, Painted like this- on occasion (not all the time). In most Paintings that include humans, their faces and expressions carry the weight of the work. Not here in this scene that includes a woman and a man and not much else. How utterly daring! Without them, what’s a viewer to focus on? For me, all that’s left is the body language. And that red dress. “All dressed up with no where to go?” The woman in Nighthawks is also wearing a red dress. Could it be a pendant to Room in New York?

When people talk about the”genius” of Edward Hopper, for me, it’s on view in Room in New York, 1932. He had evolved through his education, his time overseas, his influences & experiences, and had arrived at the place of knowing, then executed it using his time-tested, traditional, methods. He knew what he wanted to say here, and had developed the confidence to leave out the non-essential (perhaps, inspired by seeing the earlier French Painters do it), including “minor details” like facial features! He created an impression of a scene, in my view, real or imagined, that mimics the fleeting moment that may have inspired it and somehow works perfectly, just as it is, without them.

Two on the Aisle, 1927.

In Two on the Aisle, from 1927, five years before Room in New York, the faces are “incomplete,” but more “defined” than the two in Room in New York. Perhaps he became emboldened to go further after works like this. 

The Sheridan Theater, 1937.

In Sheridan Theater, nothing is in sharp focus.

Then, in Morning Sun, 1952, the woman’s face (Jo was his model) is Painted so expertly (in my opinion) as to leave her expression ambiguous, making the work open to endless contemplation. These are just a few of the works that have “selective details,” i.e. details the Artist chose to include, or omit. In my view, this is always done to forward what he’s trying to express.

Boxes confine an Artist to one style. If the Artist says my work is in this box? So be it. It’s when other people put an Artist in a box that’s wrong in my view; for the Artist, and for not giving the viewer the chance to see the Art for themselves. Artists, being people, are free to change their minds, evolve, even move into other styles over time. Boxes don’t allow for this. Edward Hopper used his technique and the wide range of his skill as he saw fit in each work. A good number of them (i.e. many) strike me as “impressions,” and it’s their nebulosity that adds so much richness to considering them. There is enough detail in these to ring true with viewers, and enough vagueness to allow them to return to the work again and again. In other works, like Office at Night,1940, he chose to sharpen things up, but still managed to keep the mystery and the drama due to the brilliance of his composition and the realization it.

“Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world,” Edward Hopper18.

On the surface, these works may be “impressions” to my eyes. They are also transcriptions of the Artist’s “personal vision of the world.” Whatever you call them, they are as close as Edward Hopper got to making his inner world, “reality.”

*-Soundtrack for this piece is “An American in Paris” by George Gershwin, 1898-1937, a contemporary of Edward Hopper. Born 16 years after Hopper, he died, tragically of an undiagnosed brain tumor, 30 years before the Painter would. Hopper’s taste (if any) in Music is unknown to me, however as Edward Hopper’s New York points out in a room dedicated to it, he was an avid theater and movie-goer. As such, the name George Gershwin could not have been unknown to him. Gershwin, like Hopper, helped define what some call an “American style” of Music, as some say Hopper did for Art. Gershwin, who also Painted, was born in the City and spent most of his life here. Here “An American in Paris,” in homage to Hopper’s time there, is performed on a piano roll by George Gershwin, himself-

In Part 2, here, I take a look at what Edward Hopper’s Art says to me now, after immersing myself in Edward Hopper’s New York. Part 3 looks at some current issues surrounding Edward Hopper’s Art. 

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  1. The first Hopper authority, outside of his wife, the Artist Josephine Nivison Hopper aka Jo, and curator behind the 1950 Edward Hopper Retrospective and the 1964 Edward Hopper show. ↩
  2. In saying all of the above I am not saying that Edward Hopper is my favorite Artist, or I think he’s “the best.” I don’t believe in qualitatively comparing creative beings or works. ↩
  3. Edward passed in 1967. Jo, the Artist Josephine Nivison Hopper, continued to live there in failing health until she died in 1968. ↩
  4. Hopper worked on Nighthawks during the beginning of World War II for the U.S., having started it around the time of Pearl Harbor. In the Logbook of Hopper’s work, Jo recorded it being completed on January 21, 1942, as I show here. Jo worried German bombs would be falling through their skylight. Edward was too busy working to seem to care, or maybe he was escaping into work (Gail Levin, Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography Expanded Edition, P.348.) ↩
  5. on 2 floors of the old Whitney, who have mounted smaller shows juxtaposing Hopper with other Artists, since, as well as the floor they gave him in their Full House show in 2005, and the Hopper Drawing show, which I saw in 2013, which had over 200 Drawings and some Paintings, including Nighthawks, on loan, as I partially showed in my very first piece in 2015. ↩
  6. which does not include about 30 Illustrations whose media were not listed but many appear to include watercolor. ↩
  7. from a letter from Hopper dated 1935 quoted in Gail Levin, Edward Hopper As Illustrator, P.1. ↩
  8. Twice the length of time his teacher Robert Henri recommended. ↩
  9. Gail Levin, Intimate Biography, P.84 ↩
  10. While spending summers in Maine and then in Truro, MA. ↩
  11. The lone exceptions I’m aware of are his 2 Civil War-related Paintings which may have been based on Photographs he saw in a published collection of Civil War Photographs. ↩
  12. Gail Levin, Edward Hopper: The Art & the Artist, P.126 ↩
  13. Gail Levin, Intimate Biography Expanded, P.171 ↩
  14. https://archive.artic.edu/hopper/chronology/ ↩
  15. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Brewery,_Inc. ↩
  16. Gail Levin, Intimate Biography Expanded, P. 441. ↩
  17. P.135, as quoted in Sheena Wagstaff, “The Elation of Sunlight,” in Edward Hopper Tate Exhibition Catalog, 2005, P.25. ↩
  18. Statement in Reality #1 as seen in the show. ↩

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: Artist

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

The next lines are- “But my drawing is certainly very much less charming than its model. That, however, is not my fault. The grown-ups discouraged me in my painter’s career when I was six years old, and I never learned to draw anything, except boas from the outside and boas from the inside1.”

On April 6, 1943, the story broke that an alien being had descended to Earth; not in Roswell, New Mexico, but on the other side of the world from it as the owl flies in the Sahara Desert. This small being appeared to the pilot of a crashed plane, who was suffering from severe dehydration, over what turned out to be the last week of the visitor’s one-year stay on the Earth; just one of the planets he visited on a desperate mission to secure the protection of his beloved rose on his home asteroid (a world so small he once watched 44 sunsets on a single day), and rid it of a baobab infestation.

After a week, he suddenly disappeared.

The pilot lying at the foot of a cliff with his plane in the distance, 1942, Watercolor and ink on tracing paper. Not published in the final book, in which he chose to leave out any representation of the pilot. It’s damaged condition ironically echoes that of the plane.

On or about July 31, 1944, that pilot, the only person to witness & record the event and what transpired during that week, also suddenly disappeared with nary a trace at just 44 years of age. He left behind the story and renderings of their encounter.

The world has never been the same since.

Publishing history. 1943 1st Edition, 1st Printing copies of Le Petit Prince, in the original French it was written in, right, and The Little Prince, in the original English translation by Katherine Woods, left, both published in the USA by Reynal & Hitchcock who had asked Saint-Exupéry for a children’s book. This marked the first time the author had created Art for his books and/or their covers. It wouldn’t be until after the war that the book would be published in France.

April 6, 2023 marks the 80th Anniversary of the publication of The Little Prince by the remarkable Author, aviator, and resolute French patriot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (aka Saint-Ex). Charged with writing a “children’s book” by his publishers, the result is a book that defies categorization that is now 80 years in on its way to timeless.

You’re looking at a remarkable and historic Photograph. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry after his crash in the Sahara desert, 1935. *-per Alexandre Tanase of the Succession Saint Exupéry-d’Agay, Paris; “Saint Exupéry next to his Caudron Simoun C630 F-ANRY. It was not taken right after the accident (and, consequently, not by Saint Exupéry himself or Prévot). This picture and others (there is a full series of them) were taken a few days after Saint Exupéry and Prévot were found, when they came back with others, especially Suzanne and Emile Raccaud, the couple that hosted Saint Exupéry after he was rescued. It is either Emile or Suzanne who took the picture.”

“For I do not want any one to read my book carelessly. I have suffered too much grief in setting down these memories. Six years have already passed since my friend went away from me, with his sheep. If I try to describe him here, it is to make sure that I shall not forget him. To forget a friend is sad. Not every one has had a friend2“

The book is apparently set at the scene of Saint-Ex’s 1935 Sahara Desert plane crash which he survived only to almost perish of dehydration in the days after before he and his navigator/mechanic, André Prévot, were rescued by a passing Bedouin. The story was recounted in his memoir, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939, before he used it, again, as the setting of The Little Prince, the last book he would finish. Earlier this year, The Morgan Library presented The Little Prince: Taking Flight, which provided a fascinating look at Saint-Exupéry’s original Art for The Little Prince, as well as text and Art that he decided not to include in the final book. As a prior Morgan show, 2014’s The Little Prince: A New York Story, reminded us, he created the book in NYC while he was in exile after the fall of France in World War II.

1st edition/1st printing copy of Wartime Writings, 1982, with a foreword by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, from my collection.

“He was… against the armistice and ‘stole’ a transport plane in Bordeaux to convey forty young pilots to North Africa in a vain attempt to continue the war there. When he discovered that the armistice extended to North Africa as well as France, he was at an impasse…. Without being consulted, Saint-Exupéry found himself nominated for a position on the Vichy National Council, an offer he immediately refused. He did not, however, feel he could join the ‘Free French’ group behind General de Gaulle. (‘I should have followed him with joy against the Germans, but could not follow him against Frenchmen.’) …With enormous difficulty he obtained a passport for the United States…In December, 1940 he sailed from Lisbon to America. Once established in New York, he was depressed by the isolationist reaction of American citizens to war and shocked by the conflicts between exiled French groups (some of who harassed Saint-Ex over the Vichy Council nomination).” Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author and wife of Charles Lindbergh3.

It was in these circumstances that he wrote, and created the Art for, The Little Prince. On April 2nd, 1943, a few days before its publication on April 6,, at the age of 42, he boarded a troop transport with 50,000 soldiers and returned to France to return to combat.

No one or nothing could stop him, though I can’t tell if the soldier on the right is trying to. A die-hard patriot, Saint-Ex is seen piloting a reconnaissance plane in 1944, shortly before his death, in a scene eerily similar to what his departure on his last flight may have looked like. He crashed for the 5th time on one such flight around the time of this Photo. Yet, he managed to get permission to go back up. *-Photo by John Philips, from The New York Times, April 11, 2008.

By July, 1944, at 44, he was overage for a flier (38 was the cutoff), overweight, and suffering from the aftereffects of FIVE crashes4. He was unable to put his flight suit on by himself, or to turn his head to the left to spot enemy planes. Still, due to his prestige, contacts, non-stop politicking (he volunteered for every mission), and indomitable desire to fight, nothing would stop him. “I have no taste for war, but I cannot remain behind the lines.” he said5. After training in a P-38 Lightning, he flew 8 reconnaissance missions, one ending in his fifth crash.

The Little Prince: Taking Flight, Installation view, February 4, 2023.

Still, the powers that be somehow let him back in the cockpit for his ninth and what was supposed to be his last flight. While flying from Borgo, Corsica, headed for the Grenoble region of southern France, he suddenly disappeared, eerily like his most famous creation. Some facts are known, but there’s still no real evidence as to what happened to him6. In 2004, Stacy Schiff, author of a biography of Saint-Ex, wrote in The New York Times, “His was a noble death, made in the name of the greater good to which all of his literature returns. As his widow noted, the exit was custom-made, a meteoric fall at the end of a star-chasing life7.”

To date, The Little Prince (or Le Petit Prince, as Saint-Ex wrote it in his native French), has sold TWO HUNDRED MILLION copies8 and has appeared in 536 languages & dialects9. It continues to sell 1.8 MILLION copies a year10. 

Already, within one month of its U.S. publication there was discussion about just who The Little Prince was for. John Chamberlain wrote a glowing New York Times review of it within days of its publication, calling it “A fascinating fable for grown-ups.” Ad from The New York Times Book Review, May 9, 1943.

200 million copies sold, and I missed it. HOW is that possible? (Not that I am generally a fan of the very popular.) It was never assigned to me as a kid in school, and never found its way to me outside of it in my Art book-obsessed life. It was only after I met my Muse, Lana, who has been under its spell as her favorite book since she was 11, that I read it. Of its effects on her, she told me, “I looked at the sky and imagined the planet where the prince lives…I had many dreams about the little prince.” Coming to it later in life, it seems to me to be a book that one can read at any age (I do wonder how it would have hit me as a child). Saint-Ex was asked to write a children’s book by his publisher, but what he handed in is something that’s not quite a children’s book, nor purely a book for grown-ups. Which ever end of that telescope you look at it through, there are things that feel out of place.

The Little Prince opens with this image, ostensibly a “copy of the drawing” the narrator says he saw in a book. No doubt by Saint-Ex. Seen in my copy.

To wit, the very first image on the very first page of the book does make me wonder about the book’s intended audience. It’s surely something never seen in a “children’s book” before, or probably since, let alone right in the beginning of one. We are shown a Drawing of a boa constrictor wrapped around its prey, baring its teeth with the helpless, captured animal, looking straight into the jaws of death. Terrifying, even for this adult! Saint-Ex doesn’t stop there: the first THREE images in the book are of boa constrictors! “Toto, we’re not in Roswell anymore.” Such is the charm of the book, that I have yet to see anyone talk about this.

Looks harmless enough. The manuscript of the first page of the book showing Saint-Ex’s Drawing Number One, upper center, and Number Two, lower center. The Manuscript is written with graphite on “cheap, dime store tracing paper,” one Morgan staff member told me. Notice how the first image in the book, shown before, is in a different style than his Drawing Numbers One and Two. As I stood looking at this page I was struck by this question- How many billions of pieces of paper contain words and Art work on them? How many of them turned out to be the first page of an immortal book?

Saint-Ex “softens” their impact in Page 1 of his text by discussing his early Artistic life, not snakes. We are shown his Drawing Number One (a boa) and his Drawing Number Two (also a boa) and then are told that the grown-ups he showed them to thought they were Drawings of a hat. Creatively frustrated, we are told that “That is why at the age of six I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter.” (The Little Prince, P.2) At that moment, I was stopped by one question-

Is this true? 

10th Avenue, Chelsea, NYC, October, 2018.

In biographies of the Artist I could find no detail about his Artistic beginnings. A wall card in the show says “From a young age, Saint-Ex had a passion for art and literature, composing verse as early as six years old and illustrating his adolescent writings with doodles and caricatures.” In her biography of Saint-Ex, Stacy Schiff says, “His mother vouched for the accuracy of his many reports…11.” Those indirect words are all I’ve found. The earliest Art of his I’ve found is in the terrific complete collection of Saint-Ex’s Art titled Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:Dessins: Aquarelles, plumes, pastels et crayons (English title: Drawings: Watercolors, feathers, pastels and pencils) published in France in 2008.

The Complete Artwork. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:Dessins: Aquarelles, plumes, pastels et crayons, published by Gallimard, France, 2008. Notice how Saint-Ex drew this figure’s head and face, and his unique way with hatching.

It begins with Drawings Saint-Ex did for “skits” accompanying his plots, which the wall card might be referring to, to be put on by he and his siblings for their mother at about 13. Nothing earlier is shown, so I was unable to verify his beginnings from age 6. From then on, he seemed to Draw incessantly evidenced by the fact the book totals 328 pages.

“It is for that purpose, again, that I have bought a box of paints and some pencils. It is hard to take up drawing again at my age, when I have never made any pictures except those of the boa constrictor from the outside and the boa constrictor from the inside, since I was six. I shall certainly try to make my portraits as true to life as possible. But I am not at all sure of success12“

Though he had never included his Art in his books before The Little Prince, Drawing was by no means a new endeavor for him. In fact, the Art of The Little Prince shows this. The Drawings are executed with skill, invention and imagination. They show a sublime economy. Not one line is superfluous, and the coloring is done with subtlety and terrific taste.

The little prince on the planet invaded by a baobab, 1942, Watercolor and ink. At the time he Drew this, France had fallen to the Nazis, who had taken over all of Europe except for Great Britain. It’s hard for me not to see the baobabs in The Little Prince, which were taking over the little prince’s entire planet, as symbolizing the Nazis. The little prince struggles daily to rid his planet of baobabs, eventually leaving his planet/asteroid in search of better ways to.

It’s up for discussion how much of The Little Prince is cloaked autobiography and how much is a fairy tale. Certainly the plane crash in the desert and the pilot as the narrator line up on the side of ringing truth. Did he hallucinate the little prince while suffering extreme dehydration in the days after the crash? Saint-Ex was far from home when he wrote The Little Prince, and in need of friends. His little prince is too. When asked by the fox if he is looking for chickens, he replies,”I am looking for friends13.” The baobabs standing in for the Nazis, then engulfing his homeland and most of Europe, would be a plausible metaphor.

As published. “Perhaps you will ask me, “Why are there no other drawing in this book as magnificent and impressive as this drawing of the baobabs? The reply is simple. I have tried. But with the others I have not been successful. When I made the drawing of the baobabs I was carried beyond myself by the inspiring force of urgent necessity14.” It’s easy to see everything that was at stake for him at that moment in those words, and in this Drawing of the baobabs devouring his planet. Things that would cost him his life.

So would the little prince’s beloved rose being a characterization of Saint-Ex’s wife, Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry, according to quite a few.

Unknown Photographer, Portrait of Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry, ca. 1940-43. Consuelo was also an Artist & writer, who wrote a memoir of the couple’s relationship titled The Tale of the Rose.

The Morgan would seem to be one of them, and they included a beautiful portrait of her in the show next to a card reading “CONSUELO, THE ROSE.”

1st Edition/1st Printing copy of Night Flight, 1932, minus the dust jacket. From my collection.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is no one-hit wonder. The Little Prince was not his first rodeo. An early novel, Night Flight, was made into a 1933 Hollywood feature film of the same name starring Clark Gable, John Barrymore, Helen Hayes, Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy. His memoir, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939, won the prestigious (U.S.) National Book Award, and is still #3 on National Geographic’s list of 100 Greatest Adventure Books. Yet, I seriously doubt any of his many readers were prepared for what he gave them when The Little Prince was published here 80 years ago, and posthumously in France after the Liberation. For one thing, its prose is dramatically of a different style than that of Night Flight or Wind, Sand and Stars. It’s stripped down, almost zen-like, which enhances the open-ended nature of his words. This is immeasurably furthered by his Art, which often includes details not to be found in the text.

The entrance foyer for The Little Prince: A New York Story, at the Morgan Library, 2014. Photos were not permitted inside, so the photos of the Art shown here are from the Morgan’s The Little Prince: Taking Flight, 2023.

In 2014, Lana’s passion for the book convinced me to read it for the first time, just in time to see the landmark show, The Little Prince: A New York Story at the Morgan Library, an amazing, and fortuitous, coincidence. The Morgan relates the genesis of their involvement with The Little Prince thus-

“As he prepared to leave the city to rejoin the war effort as a reconnaissance pilot, Saint-Exupéry appeared at his friend Silvia Hamilton’s door wearing his military uniform. “I’d like to give you something splendid,” he said, “but this is all I have.” He tossed a rumpled paper bag onto her entryway table. Inside were the manuscript and drawings for The Little Prince, which the Morgan acquired from her in 196815.”

The entrance for the one-gallery The Little Prince: Taking Flight, Morgan Library, February 4, 2023.

I returned to The Morgan in January, 2023, to see the compact The Little Prince: Taking Flight16. Size didn’t matter; both shows were endlessly intriguing. A New York Story featured more of the manuscript, alongside a new translation of unpublished sections, than Taking Flight does. The latter is more focused on his Art- both published and unpublished. Of course, over both shows it was the Art that struck me, but I didn’t really appreciate it in my initial exposure to it in 2014 until later.

Over my three visits, The Little Prince: Taking Flight was never less crowded than this. January, 13, 2023, with another 3+ weeks left to run.

After seeing both shows, as I began looking into the long history of The Little Prince, I discovered that quite a few others have taken their shot at relating the story visually- in Art, Film, on the stage, in Opera, and you name it. I started exploring this realm, but was stopped almost immediately in each case. Why? For me, in each instance, whatever I looked at only served to send me running back to Saint-Ex’s version- i.e. his Art. 

Wait a minute. No one I’ve read has referred to Saint-Ex an “Artist.”

Installation view, The Little Prince: Taking Flight, January 23, 2023.

The “simple” Art he created for The Little Prince has held up against anyone else’s visual interpretation of it thus far. Here, for me, was the first, and the most important, “proof” that indeed he was an Artist, and an under-rated one at that. Then, the more I delved deeper into his Art, the more impressed by it I became. In The Little Prince, his work is beautifully subtle. In his Art (the original Drawings for which were rendered in the delicacy of pencil or ink and watercolor), we get the essence of his words, but often extra details that add even more layers to the text, and in a sense create a dialogue with it, while being essential and an irreplaceable part of the the whole experience that only the author, who was also the Artist, could create.

The little prince standing on the edge of a cliff, c.1942-3, Brown ink on paper. Everything about this is interesting: from the hatching on the lines, to the unique flowers (possibly roses), to the way Saint Ex carries the composition off without a single excess line.

Of course it is beloved by those who love the book, but why hasn’t his Art received more attention and acclaim as “Art?”

For one thing, I believe Saint-Ex purposely set a trap with the way he presents his Art. On the first page (showed earlier), he shows us his Drawings Number One and Two, which appear to be “simple” line drawings colored with watercolor (though he says he used colored pencil as a child). These are the traps. Having lowered our “Artistic expectations” about as low as possible right from the start (which also takes the pressure off of himself as the Illustrator of the book), he then proceeds to present much more finished Art as the book progresses.

Taking flight. The little prince flying over a planet with mountains and a river, 1942, Watercolor and ink.

Herein lies the second phenomenon: Only the Artist who happens to also be the author knows more than he or she’s said in the text. The little prince’s outfit, shown in the first image in this piece above, is a perfect example of what I mean. It is not described in anything near this detail we see in the Painting in the text! It seems to me that this is why the interpretations of others haven’t spoken to me. Saint-Ex has this unfair advantage over them that leaves them guessing.

“The flower that you love is not in danger. I will draw you a muzzle for your sheep. I will draw you a railing to put around your flower. I will–” (The Little Prince, P.28)

A major takeaway from The Little Prince for me, something I continue to think about, and one that I have not heard others address, is that over and over the narrator attempts to use Art to solve the little prince’s problems. First, by repeatedly Drawing him a sheep until he hits on one (that is quite abstract, zen-like, and reminds me of something the great Marcel Duchamp, a fellow French contemporary who was living in Greenwich Village in 1942, would come up with. As far as I know, they never met.) that satisfies him. Then, in the quote, above, and again, during his final encounter with the little prince the narrator feels Art is a key to solving a dilemma. Therein lies the sprit of a true Artist. In fact, more than one renowned Artist has told me they hoped their work “would change the world.”

The little prince looking at a mountain range, 1942, Watercolor and ink.

Over time, much of his Art (as seen in Dessins) shows a propensity for portraits and figures. Most of them are not “finished” to the degree we see in The Little Prince. I particularly find his faces to be unique. They’re drawn economically, with what appears to be quick lines, selectively minimalistic, and some daring details including a rakish lines forming a kind of “unibrow” in a number of them. It’s hard to tell the gender of a number of his Portrait and Figure Drawings, something that continues in some of The Little Prince Drawings. A number of his portraits are striking. Some appear to be quick sketches, others are more finished and more like “traditional” studies or portraits. But it is those that are “sketch-like” that stand out for me. Looking through the book, we see early echoes of what we would see in The Little Prince. Figures stand alone in fields, some sharing body or vague facial similarities to the little prince.

Unknown Photographer(s), Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, (Per Alexandre Tanase of the Succession Saint Exupéry-d’Agay, Paris) “taken in 1937  or 1938, in the apartment he was renting at the time, 15 Place Vauban in Paris.”

There are some who feel his books have, largely, the same “message.” Perhaps, it’s not surprising, then, that, as Dessins shows, was, also, a continual evolution of figures leading up to what stands as his final & ultimate realization. But, he was only 44 when he died. As different as The Little Prince is from Wind, Sand and Stars, which preceded it, all bets were off for where he would have taken his work had he lived. He remains, tragically, another great Artist taken from us all too soon by the war, along with Anne Frank and Charlotte Salomon, among too many others.

Am I saying that no one else should try to visually interpret The Little Prince? That’s up to them. I’m sure there are many who enjoy what has been created based on The Little Prince, and probably will with future interpretations. 

For itself, under the scrutiny of 2 museum shows, Saint-Ex’s Art surprises- as the book has countless readers. His Art comes across as ephemeral as its subject. For one thing, he created much of the Art for his timeless book on cheap dime store tracing paper: much of it bearing the visible watermark of Fidelity Onion Skin, a paper that clocks in at all of a 10 pound weight17!. Some of his pencil lines are fading. There is a cigarette burn hole right in the middle of one Drawing. Another has been crumpled up as if it were thrown out, then rescued. Others show signs of coarse handling. Through it all, his art has held up for 80 years. 

I was staggered when I saw this. Saint-Ex’s identity bracelet that he wore on his final flight found in a fishing net in 1998. Seen at the entrance of The Little Prince: A New York Story  at the Morgan Library in 2014.

Among the countless other things it is, The Little Prince is a lesson in what really matters in the face of the temporality of all things, the overwhelming noise that surrounds them, and all the things that don’t really matter we waste our lives on. Of invisible connections, of love, loss and longing in the aftermath of the little prince’s sudden disappearance (uncannily mimicked by the sudden, mysterious disappearance of its creator, himself, a year after its publication). One of my reasons for writing this piece was because The Little Prince reminds me of what I learned in my journey through cancer in 2007. In my February, 2017 10th Anniversary of treatment piece, “Cancer Saved My Life,” I wrote that I learned love and being loved were all that mattered in life, echoing the Fox’s lesson in The Little Prince valuing invisible connections over all. This February, as I mark 16 years free of cancer, I would add something I believed at the time but did not say: Art also matters. Art is one way to live on after death.

“All I had was a common rose…,” the wall card for this Drawing was titled. The little prince lying on his stomach, 1942, Watercolor and ink.

Francis Bacon said it took 75 to 100 years for art to be considered Art. I’ve always felt it took longer. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry has been living on for almost 80 years after his death through his work. With almost 2 million copies continuing to be sold each year, The Little Prince shows no sign of passing into obscurity. Will future generations of kids or adults be immune to its charms? It seems to me it will take something radical to happen to human beings to make them immune to it. My bet is by that point Saint-Ex will also have finally received due recognition as an Artist. 

…maybe they both did.

 

 

 

-For Lana, who sees with her heart, Happy Birthday!

 

 

 

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “It’s No Good” by Depeche Mode from their album Ultra, 1997.

“Don’t say you’re happy
Out there without me
I know you can’t be
‘Cause it’s no good…”

My sincere thanks to Alexandre Tanase of the Succession Saint Exupéry-d’Agay, Paris for his insights & expertise. 

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  1. The Little Prince, P.10-11 ↩
  2. The Little Prince, P.18. ↩
  3. from her Introduction to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wartime Writings 1939-44, P.xiv. ↩
  4. These include a 1923 crash outside of Paris that left him with a fractured skull. The infamous, near-fatal, December, 1935 Sahara desert crash recounted in Wind, Sand and Stars and The Little Prince. A 1938 crash in Guatemala which left him with injuries that never healed, and a crash on a reconaissance mission just prior to his disappearance. ↩
  5. Quoted by Anne Morrow Lindberg, ibid, P.xvi ↩
  6. Sources for this paragraph are here, here, and here. ↩
  7. Per. ↩
  8. Per ↩
  9. Per ↩
  10. Per ↩
  11. Stacy Schiff, Saint-Exupéry, P.101 ↩
  12. The Little Prince, P.19. ↩
  13. The Little Prince, P.66 ↩
  14. The Little Prince, P.24. ↩
  15. https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/little-prince ↩
  16. From Alexandre Tanase of the Succession Saint Exupéry-d’Agay: “…this second Morgan exhibit was created following A la rencontre du petit prince (Meet the little prince), a unique retrospective presented in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, from February to June 2022, for which the Morgan framed and lent some sheets of the Little Prince manuscript, that was shown in France for the first time. This exhibit had more than 600 items, and was noteworthy especially for the artwork shown: many drawings presented for the first time (notably some Little Prince watercolors from the Consuelo Collection), and many that were discovered after the publication of the Album you mention in your article (which is from 2006, not 2008). For instance, the now famous Lettres à une inconnue. The links to this exhibition website: https://madparis.fr/A-la-rencontre-du-petit-prince-2120 and https://madparis.fr/A-la-rencontre-du-petit-prince). If I mention this, it is because you may then be interested in the catalog that was published for this event (by the same editor, Alban Cerisier, who worked on the 2006 book, Dessins). This second book is a reference concerning Saint Exupéry’s artwork.” ↩
  17. Fidelity Onion Skin is STILL in production! One vendor characterizes it as- “Our best option for onion skin paper is Fidelity Onion Skin. This thin yet surprisingly strong paper is constructed from a true 10 lb. 100 percent wood fiber, giving you all of the most desirable onion skin qualities. This specific line is beloved by crafters in need of paper that offers easy folding, great acceptance of inks and optimal strength. Fidelity’s version is chlorine-free and features a smooth, uncoated finish. Popular choices include 25 x 38 and 8.5 x 11 onion paper.” ↩