Knox Martin | She

A solo exhibition of recent works by internationally acclaimed artist Knox Martin, is set to run at the LGTripp Gallery in Philadelphia, September 13 through October 26, 2013. The exhibition will include paintings from Knoxʼs celebrated She series, as well as the unveiling of a new painting, Genesis.

A leading member of the New York School, Knox is a contemporary of artists Alfred Leslie, Alex Katz, Al Held, and was a mentor to Robert Rauschenberg. Although connected to the avant-garde of this pivotal time in American art, he continues to transcend labels and develop his artwork in distinct and masterful ways. 

She includes seven paintings revolving around Knoxʼs long-held interest in the female form. With his use of metaphor, Knoxʼs paintings point to something more mysterious and transcendent. Sinuous contours and vibrant shapes move across the flat picture plane hinting to the feminine. In his She paintings there is no ground as the “she” is all encompassing, the very composition of each painting. In his essay for She, William Fried writes, “Parts of her body move to intercept our gaze when we try to look beyond her. We cannot look beyond her just as the artist cannot free himself of her power in his mind.” The female form is therefore simultaneously treated as Knoxʼs subject and object. As with many artists before him, Knox's “she” is an archetype, a muse to be explored and celebrated.

Danae (Homage to Titian) | 2012

Palladium and gold leaf and acrylic on linen

80 in. x 65 in.

© Knox Martin/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

A renowned New York painter, sculptor, muralist, poet, and a scholar of art history, Knox has exhibited worldwide. Using a variety of media, Martin is known for his use of vibrant colors, sensuous gestures, rhyming of metaphor and the flat picture plane. Two of his most famous works are the monolithic 12-story wall painting titled Venus and the six-story wall painting Woman with Bicycle, both in New York City. Knox’s artwork is included in collections worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the National Academy of Design, among others. 

Dedicated to his art practice as well as teaching, Knox has held faculty positions at Yale Graduate School of the Arts, New York University, the University of Minnesota, and the International School of Art in Umbria, Italy. He continues to teach Master Classes at the Art Students League of New York. Throughout his career, Knox has been the subject of numerous articles, books, essays, and writings.

George Catlin and Native American History

Artist George Catlin (1796-1872) journeyed west five times in the 1830s to paint the Plains Indians and their way of life. Convinced that westward expansion spelled certain disaster for native peoples, he viewed his Indian Gallery as a way to rescue their culture from possible oblivion.

Catlin delivered lectures, conducted tours, and hosted receptions for the press. Beginning in 1840, he staged the first Wild West shows. Early casts of characters featured Englishmen and boys dressed in costumes from the artist's own collection, who sang, danced, and whooped their way through mock battles. 

In the spring of 1845, Catlin took a group from the Iowa nation and his Indian Gallery to Paris where their performances drew the interest of such cultural figures as Victor Hugo and Eugène Delacroix. When the Iowa returned to the United States, they were replaced in turn by a second group of Ojibwe, who so entertained King Louis Philippe that he asked them to perform for the royal family and invited Catlin to exhibit his collection at the Louvre.

On the heels of the installation of the Indian Gallery in the Louvre, Catlin was invited to exhibit in the Paris Salon, France's premier art show. Catlin was praised by Charles Baudelaire, the most important French critic of the age, for capturing "the proud, free character and noble expression of these splendid fellows in a masterly way."

Catlin lobbied the U.S. government for patronage throughout his career, hoping Congress would purchase the Indian Gallery as a legacy for future generations, but by 1852 he was bankrupt. A Philadelphia industrialist paid his debts and acquired the Indian Gallery, and soon after Catlin's death, the paintings were donated to the Smithsonian. Today, Catlin's Indian Gallery is part of the American Art Museum's permanent collection, recognized as a great cultural treasure, offering rare insight into native cultures, and a crucial chapter in American history.

Stu-mick-o-súcks, Buffalo Bull's Back Fat, Head Chief, Blood Tribe | 1832
Oil on Canvas | 29 in. x 24 in.
Smithsonian American Art Museum

Comanche Meeting the Dragoons | 1834–35
Oil on Canvas | 24 in. x 29 in.
Smithsonian American Art Museum

Frieze of American History | United States Capitol Rotunda

The Frieze of American History in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol contains a painted panorama depicting significant events in American history. The frieze’s 19 scenes is the work of three artists: Constantino Brumidi, Filippo Constaggini, and Allyn Cox. The frieze is painted in a monochrome of whites and browns that resembles sculpture. It measures eight feet four inches in height and approximately 300 feet in circumference. It starts 58 feet above the floor.

The frieze was painted in true fresco, a difficult and exacting technique in which the pigments are applied directly onto wet plaster. As the plaster cures the colors become part of the wall. Consequently, each section of plaster must be painted the day it is laid.

Begun in 1877, the Architect of the Capitol reported, "The belt of the Rotunda intended to be enriched with basso relievos [low relief] is being embellished in real fresco representing in light and shadow events in our history arranged in chronological order, beginning with the Landing of Columbus ..." The final section of the frieze was completed in 1953 and dedicated the following year.

The frieze depicts (click links below for detail of each section):

America and History
Landing of Columbus | 1492
Cortez and Montezuma at Mexican Temple | 1520
Pizarro Going to Peru | 1533
Burial of DeSoto | 1542
Captain Smith and Pocahontas | 1607
Landing of the Pilgrims | 1620
William Penn and the Indians | 1682
Colonization of New England
Oglethorpe and the Indians | 1732
Battle of Lexington | 1775
Declaration of Independence | 1776
Surrender of Cornwallis | 1781
Death of Tecumseh | 1813
American Army Entering the City of Mexico | 1847
Discovery of Gold in California | 1848
Peace at the End of the Civil War | 1865
Naval Gun Crew in the Spanish-American War | 1898
The Birth of Aviation | 1903

In 1986, Congress appropriated funds for cleaning and restoration of the frieze to remove accumulated grime, overpaint, and streaks caused by leaking water. The conservation treatment, completed early in 1987, restored the original details and vividly brought out the illusion of relief sculpture. Minor repairs were made in 1994.

Samuel F.B. Morse and Gallery of the Louvre

Gallery of the Louvre | 1831-33
Samuel F.B. Morse
Oil on Canvas | 6' x 9'
Terra Foundation of American Art | Chicago

Samuel F.B. Morse began his career as an artist with a goal of fame as an historical painter. He was fascinated with large paintings depicting significant events throughout history. Longing to build a legacy in a young country yet to discover and invent itself and realize its artistic greatness, Morse went to London to study. There he created the six by eight foot historical canvas, The Dying Hercules, selected to hang in an exhibition at the Royal Academy. For the first time, Morse saw his work praised. Yet much to his dismay, he was forced to paint portraits for financial support. He announced in a letter to his parents dated May 2, 1814, “I cannot be happy unless I am pursuing the intellectual branch of the art. Portraits have none of it, landscape has some of it, but history has it wholly.” In 1822, he put his talent for portraiture to work in his depiction of the House of Representatives, containing more than eighty portraits of Congressman, Supreme Court judges, journalists, janitors, even including his father as a spectator in the gallery. His attempt to show the grand ideal and orderly process of democracy at work was not received as Morse had hoped and he returned to portraiture.

Within a short period, Morse suffered the death of his wife, father, and mother, forcing him to contemplate his own mortality and artistic legacy. He soon departed for Paris to pursue what he conceived to be his greatest work. Morse set his sights on a grand painting of the Salon Carré in the Louvre. Upon his inspection of the famous room, he was disappointed to find it filled with the work of contemporary artists. Morse decided to "rehang" his version of the Salon with the paintings he so admired from the Renaissance, bringing what he deemed to be the greatest art back to America for all to admire.

Morse spent an entire year, every single day, copying in miniature the paintings of Rubens, Titian, Van Dyck, and others, even including da Vinci's Mona Lisa to be shown in his version of the Salon Carré. As he undertook this Herculean task, Paris was in the grips of horror of a cholera epidemic that claimed more than 19,000 lives in six months. Morse was terrified and hurried to complete his task and return home to America. In all, he copied 38 paintings by 22 masters for inclusion. Gallery of the Louvre incorporates ten figures, some friends, acquaintances, and symbolic images, with the most conspicuous being Morse himself, center stage, leaning over the shoulder of a young art student. Also, rendered in the painting is friend and fellow American in Paris, author James Fenimore Cooper ("Last of the Mohicans") who joined Morse at the Louvre daily to encourage his endeavor.

By the summer of 1833, Morse had completed the grand painting and put it on public view in New York for an admission charge of 25 cents. The public showed little interest and it was purchased for $1,300, far less than the $2,500 Morse had hoped to command for this work of art. In 1982, it was purchased for $3,250,000, the highest sum ever paid until then for a work by an American artist.

Years earlier, at a gathering of the National Academy of the Arts and Design, while awarding prizes to young artists, he told them that if they expected a painter's life to be one of ease and pleasure, they were greatly mistaken. It was a "life of severe and perpetual toil." They must expect "continual obstacles and discouragements, and be prepared to encounter illiberality, neglect, obscurity, and poverty." Only an "intense and inextinguishable love of art" could sustain them to bear up, and if they did not feel this love, they should "turn while yet they might to other pursuits."

While the Gallery of the Louvre failed to be understood by its American audience, Morse ultimately achieved his quest to join “in the constellation of genius” by another means of international communication, the telegraph and Morse Code.

Pablo Picasso and Les Ballets Russes

The Ballets Russes—the most innovative dance company of the 20th century—propelled the performing arts to new heights through groundbreaking collaborations between artists, composers, choreographers, dancers, and fashion designers. Founded by Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev (1872–1929) in Paris in 1909, the company combined Russian and Western traditions with a healthy dose of modernism, thrilling and shocking audiences with its powerful fusion of choreography, music, and design.

Legendary artist Pablo Picasso was introduced to Diaghilev by Jean Cocteau in 1916, leading to his first ballet commission for Parade in 1917. Picasso artfully designed costumes and stage sets, working closely with the Ballets Russes for several years, even marrying the dancer Olga Khokhlova during this period.

The sets were modern, innovative, and new, the costumes colorful, complex, and whimsical. The sheer size of some of the costumes challenged the dancers to gracefully execute the ballet. But, the overall effect was a dazzling mix of Cubism and Picasso's playfulness. See this and so much more at Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909–1929: When Art Danced with Music at the National Gallery of Art, Washington now through September 2, 2013.

See also related blog post: Giorgio de Chirico and Les Ballets Russes