Museums and Culture

It was to be a classy night out in the city.  Two young ladies (me and my mother) making their way to 88th Street and 5th, the National Academy Museum, for a VIP opening night event.  Not too shabby, eh?  I’ve never been to an opening of an art exhibit, let alone been invited to one by the art patron, in this case, Henry Justin!  I was quite honored to be among those in attendance, all fancily dressed, nibbling on finger food and sipping on champagne.  Some of the artists were even in attendance!  See It Loud, the exhibition, features seven post-war American painters, who all brought something different to the art world of the time.  I was pleasantly surprised that I liked most of the work, since I still claim I’m not a fan of modern art – when will I stop saying this and acknowledge the fact that I enjoy too many modern exhibits for this to be true?  There were two artists in particular, though, that caught my eye: Stanley Lewis (1941- ) and Neil Welliver (1929-2005).

What initially drew me to the work of Stanley Lewis was the fact that his landscapes seemed to be so detailed from far away.  Upon closer examination, I realized there was so much more that was to be seen.  Art critic Lance Esplund has said that Lewis’s work is a mixture of naturalism and cubism.  In reading the exhibition catalog, I learned that early on in Lewis’s career and education, he was influenced by the cubist style, but in a different way than Pablo Picasso and Braque.  Instead of distorting his composition with his brush strokes, he would “cut up sections of his canvas, staple them onto a new ground, and then rearrange the parts like a jig-saw puzzle” (Bruce Weber).  Though Lewis used this technique in his early works, it was still apparent in the paintings on display at the National Academy Museum.  If looked at closely, staples and extra pieces of canvas were visible beneath the masses of paint.  One thing that I loved about some of his paintings was the texture he was able to achieve with his strong impasto strokes.  Weber says that Lewis “wanted to learn how to paint the details and not lose the surface.”  I think this desire is beautifully brought to fruition in Two Houses in Leeds from 2004.  When looking at the image in the art catalog, you can’t grasp the texture he attains.  But up close, in the small room at the back of the exhibit, one can see that a lot of the details are not painted, but layered – the siding on the house isn’t delineated by a darker pigment, rather the texture creates a shadow that gives an illusion.  On display were also several graphite drawings done by Lewis.  These expressive pieces really convey the hard work he invested in them as he cut away, ripped, and added paper to create texture and depth.  Weber states that Lewis’s work is one of toil and labor – reminding me very much of action painters such as Jackson Pollock and de Kooning (though I much prefer Lewis’s pieces).  I am greatly excited by the fact that he, along with another artist featured (Paul Resika), will be hosting a conversation on their artwork at the National Academy later this month which I plan to attend!

I am considerably more interested in the moment than in location.  There are intervals in one’s life and mind when everything is, for a second, real and clear…  They are not entirely visual but rather encompass one’s entire psychology.  The air is crystalline; its direction is absolute; light falls with astounding clarity; every object sits in its designated space or moves with incredible precision; every gesture is right; the mind functions free of distraction.  To paint, for me, is to build a construct with an exact parallel to these experiences.  The color reaches its ultimate pitch; the forms are utterly one; the materials are entirely dematerialized.  A muteness settles over the canvas, and that moment of which I spoke is present again. -Welliver

As I walked around the room with Neil Welliver‘s large, square canvases, I was in complete awe.  The precision and detail was phenomenal, and the scale in which he painted was grandiose to say the least!  Upon closer inspection, I could tell that the detail he achieved was due to an almost “paint-by-numbers” approach – I give credit to my mother for stating this!  He hardly blends his pigments, but still they seem to meld together to create a cohesive painting.  In reading about what Bruce Weber has to say, I learned that Welliver’s mentor was Josef Albers, an important figure in color theory.  I can see how he took Albers’ approach to color and incorporated it into his own landscapes.  The scenes that Welliver depicts weren’t planned.  He would walk among his many acres of land in Maine, sketching multiple views he came across, until one spoke to him.  But, after he finished one of these magnificent paintings, he “really couldn’t care less.  The paintings for [him] are residual… they are in fact ‘tracks in the snow,’ behind [him].”  Can you imagine?  After so much work – he, similarly to Lewis, compares his methods to Pollock and de Kooning – he has no connection to his masterpiece!

I would definitely recommend visiting this exhibit at the National Academy Museum.  In addition to Lewis and Welliver, pieces by Leland Bell, Paul Georges, Peter Heinemann, Albert Kresch, and Paul Resika are on view.  The exhibition is immense and expansive, and not only does it showcase these twentieth-century artists, it shows off the magnificence and beauty of the building as well.

See It Loud
National Academy Museum

Marina B. Nebro