Page 47 - Studio International - February 1966

on experiment. Patrick Henry Bruce, Alfred Maurer and spective. There is, for instance, the case of John Covert,
Max Weber were among Matisse's first students when who was an artist until 1923, gave up painting entirely
he began his school, while Stanton MacDonald-Wright until 1949, and can be credited with the first sophisti-
and Morgan Russell were deep in their experiments with cated use of collage in America. His 1919 Brass Band
colour, calling themselves Synchromists. Joseph Stella is an elegant study in relief movements made with
armed himself with Futurist theory during those years, strings. Then there is the even stranger history of
and John Marin and Arthur Dove were both stimulated Gerald Murphy, who began painting at the age of 33,
by encounters with unprecedented audacity in painting. produced only ten paintings in nine years, and then
But when the First World War broke out, and most of abandoned it. One of those paintings is Razor of 1922,
these Americans headed for home, their reception was a true ancestor of Pop painting, done with remarkable
anything but cordial. Except for Alfred Stieglitz, who skill, and far closer to recent conceptions of the use of
persisted in exhibiting avant-garde painting and sculp- popular advertising imagery than even the early works
ture in his Gallery '291', and who published long and of Stuart Davis.
distinguished criticisms in his magazine Camera Work Among the strongest personalities was Marsden
during those years, there were few responses that were Hartley, whose works from his abstract period still
not hostile. Even after the 1913 Armory Show, which command respect. Hartley always had his own way of
had called out the wrathful and enlightened the few, assimilating European influences. It is hard to imagine,
there remained an atmosphere of provincial hostility. though, where he might have found the means to
Because of this unwelcoming situation, the growth of paint his 1916 Movement 9 which in its dense opacity,
sustained experiment was severely inhibited. Many of its composition of congruent planes, and simplicity of
the artists in this exhibition were undoubtedly as gifted two-dimensional structure, resembles nothing of the
as many a European, but simply languished for want of period. It is more like a post-World War II image, closer
nourishment. Few were the individualists, such as Marin to Poliakoff than to Picasso.
and Dove, who could support the silence. The result There are many hints of things to come in the sporadic
was that in many instances the 'roots' shrivelled. With inventions and isolated experiments of a number of
the best will, one cannot count the early American artists represented. Morton Schamberg's studies of
abstractionists as essential to the evolution of modern machines, for instance, presage later American absorp-
art. New American generations did not turn to them tion in precise mechanical studies. There is considerable
for inspiration, but to Europe, as they themselves had Picabia influence in his work as there appears to be in
once done. Charles Sheeler's admirable studies of flower forms,
For all that, there are some sharp surprises in the but nonetheless these are startling events in American
exhibition which should cause a revision in our per- art history.

Morton Schamberg Arthur G. Dove John Storrs
Mechanical Abstraction 1916 George Gershwin-Rhapsody in Blue II 1927 The Dancer 1922
Oil on panel 19 1/2 x 15 5/8 in. Oil on metal mounted on illustration board Height 6 1/2 in.
Louise and Walker Avensberg 18 1/2 x 13 in. Polychrome plaster
Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art Lent by the Downtown Gallery, New York Lent by the Yale University Art Gallery