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Although many people today consider Washington an artistic backwater - especially in comparison to cities like New York, Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco and others - in the art heydays of the 1960's, a regional art movement called the Washington Color School did have some fame in the rarefied airs of the upper crust of the art world.
The late Gene Davis, a generous man and talented painter, was one of the key members of this movement, which included power names such as Morris Lewis (for a really funny account of how Lewis came to paint thin stripes read Tom Wolfe's "The Painted Word," a terrific book which should be required reading in art school), Kenneth Noland and others.
Davis is regionally well known for his color stripe paintings, the trademark of the Color School; the 18 pieces currently on exhibition at the Marsha Mateyka Gallery in Dupont Circle range from some impressive examples of this genre as well as some very poor drawings, which (when compared with the powerful, bold colors we have come to associate with Davis and the School), seem childlike, forced and quite boring.
The exhibition makes us wonder at the dilemma faced in the art world when faced with a well know artist's poorer works, and we see the answer in this exhibition - hang them up anyway! The power of Davis' color work is further diluted by some terrible felt tip marker drawings, which wouldn't merit a passing grade in a High School drawing class, much less exhibition in a gallery of Mateyka's caliber, but then after all, they are Davis originals - and they remain unsold!
This vastly generous artist, and his equally generous wife donated nearly 600 original works to the National Gallery of American Art a few years ago,- upon Mrs. Davis' death (Gene Davis also died a few years ago). This flooded the Davis art market, and coupled with the art implosion of the 1980's helped to plummet Davis' prices.
The fact that Davis works hang in every major museum and that the National Gallery of American Art, of which he was a commissioner, has attempted to revive interest in his works with several exhibitions (which received lukewarm attention from the public), has not helped to rekindle interest in the works of an otherwise important painter and a terrific human being.
Thus the exhibition not only becomes interesting from the point of view of seeing the works of a member of Washington's last significant art movement, but an abject lesson on the state of today's art world.
During the month of July, at the same National Gallery of American Art where Davis served as a commissioner, the works of 73 year old Miriam Shapiro are a terrific treat and a lesson in feminist history to new members of that once vibrant and now galvanized movement.
It is difficult to describe Shapiro's works; suffice it to say that she delivers incredibly busy images made from handkerchiefs, towels, lace, quilts and other items. These are superbly feminine works by a woman deeply entrenched in the history of women's liberation (she was a founder of the feminist program at the California Institute of the Arts and helped convene the now famous West Coast Women's Artists' Conference).
The saying "only Nixon could have gone to China" applies to this show as only Shapiro could have gotten away with the heavy handed femininity (not feminism) of the 25 pieces in this exhibition.
One piece, "The Heartland" is shaped like a heart and illustrated with flowers and kaleidoscopic boxes.... it is well: cute! This is meant as a compliment to an artist whose honesty in her art is evident and who now has the pedigree to get away with delivering an art which most museums and galleries (were they not Miriam Shapiro's art) would snub away as crafty and too feminine. A terrific show, which hangs until July 20, 1997.