Eye of
Modernism
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
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Works on paper, to show
"the hand of the artist."
Untitled works by Guston, Pollock and Rothko from
1940-50 are simply filling up space. Extreme precision characterizes Reginald
Marsh's watercolor of a steamship, New Mexico's scrubland is precisely notated
in a 1936 O'Keeffe watercolor, two pastels by Joan Mitchell (1959) give precise
indications, two drawings by Agnes Martin (1970's) are precise intersections,
Ellsworth Kelly's Dracena II (1983-85)
shows an incredible precision of draftsmanship, and O'Keeffe's Peruvian
Landscape (1956-57) a careful attention to details. Abstractions,
O'Keeffe's early Abstraction with Curve and Circle is a lunar
abstraction, Charles Demuth's Sailing Boat (1916) is a clear Feininger abstraction, Preston Dickinson's undated In
the Suburbs is a Geometric Abstraction, Sam Francis's 1973 acrylic on paper
is inner and outer abstractions, Helen Frankenthaler's
1984 acrylic on paper is mighty abstractionism, John Marin's Maine seascape is
Chinese abstraction, Abraham Walkowitz's Cityscape
is a universal abstraction, in Arshile Gorky, Chagall
meets Abstract Expressionism (note Oldenburg in the lower left), Christo's 1981 Package on a Handtruck
Project is a Bauhaus abstraction, and Stuart Davis's magnificent Gloucester
Wharf (1926-35) is Western Abstraction. The joke's on Watteau in Arthur B.
Davies's Female Nude (The Prude) (cut off at the nose) and Thomas Hart
Benton's Barroom in the Missouri Boot Heel (with its THANK YOU sign,
akin to Davis) show a very humorous, caricatural
side. Max Weber's jigsaw puzzle view of New York and Carl Holty's
patternings, Milton Avery's curved space, Romare Bearden's organizational principles, Motherwell's massive taurine
organization (Elegy to the Spanish Republic, 1959), and a very superb
organization by Charles Burchfield (An Alley in Salem, Ohio, 1917), De
Kooning's comprehensive architectural study (Woman, chalk, c. 1952),
O'Keeffe's architectural modeling (Untitled [Patio Door], graphite, c.
1946), Frank Stella's architectural model, Study for Warka
(1973), and Diebenkorn's architectural city plan (Ocean
Park, 1979), Arthur Dove's contrasting values of yellow and blue (Mountain
and Sun), Franz Kline's color 3-D, Kenneth Noland's orange-blue-red-green
center surrounded by yellows and "marginal comments" (you face it),
O'Keeffe's Pond in the Woods (1922) and Bleeding Heart (1932), a
modulation or reds, blues and greens, and a variation of tones in lavender,
pink and green, a Rothko of 1958 in recessive yellow and forward red, Joseph
Stella's study in reds and oranges on black, The Quencher (Night Fires),
c. 1919, give you some idea.
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Andy Warhol conveys some show business
with the nervous, hammy lines of Untitled (Campbell's Tomato Soup),
1983, and Marilyn Monroe, 1980. The dramatic representation of Cy Twombly's Untitled (14 Papers for Sherwood), 1985,
equals that of Everett Shinn's Spoiling for a Fight, New York Docks,
1899. David Smith puts marker to paper to design a jaunty cubist portrait
akin to Lipschitz's Sailor, O'Keeffe pays
homage to Odilon Redon in
a 1962-63 Untitled (Abstraction), Morris Graves to Athena in Offering
(1957). Jasper Johns's identified tachisme (Ale Cans I, 1974), Ruscha's public
statement (1984, 1967), Robert Smithson's snake-like wisdom, Mark Tobey's shaped Pollock, there's a good deal of variety.
John Sloan's Street Scene is a very great drawing, O'Keeffe's Calla
Lily Turned Away (1923) is a creamy emotional pastel, Nadelman's
Head Facing Left is sculptural forms applied to Rimmer,
George Luks's Seated
Man is a very patient study. |
