There’s a new Winslow Homer mural at the bend of Maplewood and Poplar on the former Linsky’s service station property, Cape Ann Auction headquarters since November 2022.
159 Maplewood Avenue, Gloucester, Mass. Read more about this Studio fresh mural project inspired by Homer’s works here (Awesome Gloucester).
Both Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) and The Flirt depict figures in a cat boat in Gloucester harbor.
Image: Winslow Homer (1836-1910), The Flirt, 1874, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art acquisition, 2014 (Mellon collection)
Image: Winslow Homer, Breezing Up (A Fair Wind), 1873-1876, oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art acquisition (Wildenstein Gallery), 1943. Gift of the W. L. and May T. Mellon Foundation.
The Winslow Homer marker on the corner of Dale Ave & Main for Gloucester’s HarborWalk features Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) thanks to permission from the National Gallery of Art.
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) was a famous Japanese artist who came from humble beginnings and was active in the Edo period. He was an influential and revered artist and fine arts professor in his own lifetime. Hokusai eked out a living as a printmaker and illustrator, setting off on his own after years with the prestigious Katsukawa School, a premiere teaching and publishing powerhouse specializing in the ukiyo-e style color woodblock prints. A life in art and print publishing is tough going now and it was then. To supplement his income, Hokusai changed his name some 20 times, selling his surname or ‘brand’ to select pupils. He produced three of his most popular bodies of work when he was in his seventies. Hokusai died at 90 impoverished financially though not in obscurity. Students and friends paid for his funeral.
Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence at the MFA, lays out 100 examples of Katsushika Hokusai’s lifework in every period, genre, and medium, his famous woodblock series, new discoveries and rarities, and the Japanese and Western cultural exchanges that impacted his own practice. About 200 works of art by other artists spanning 200+ years demonstrate a sample of Hokusai’s relevance and inspiration to artists he knew or taught, and to artists and movements, generation by generation and around the globe, since his death.
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston established one of the largest and finest Asian art departments in the world in the 1890s thanks to art historian curators, collectors, and benefactors. Highlights are featured with great care because of their fragility and easy rotation because of the depth of the museum’s holdings. The collection was amassed early and driven by four scholars. The inventory acquired by Ernest Fenollosa, an art historian, educator, and later, curator. was eventually purchased by Charles Weld, Boston physician and collector, with the stipulation that it be given to the MFA. The bulk of the MFA’s Hokusai trove were collected by Dr. William Bigelow.
Thanks to the MFA collections, its acquisitions and gifts, and great temporary loans, this exhibition celebrates Japanese art, especially Hokusai, emanating from his most iconic and lasting image, Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), 1830-32. Also known as The Great Wave ( an abbreviated and generalized title that amplified sales) the woodblock print is from Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji, a series so popular the artist increased it to Forty-six. You might not know the man but you likely know that surf.
MFA’s installation–loosely chronological
Japanese artist Katsukawa Shunshล operated the most popular ukiyo-e studio and Hokusai was employed there for over a decade until Shunshoโs death. Eventually Hokusai became an independent artist & teacher. The exhibition unfolds with masterpieces by both Hokusai and Katsukawa Shunshล and with exceptional work by their students and peers. After this introduction to the ‘lineage’ years, the installation is grouped by themes dear to Hokusai juxtaposed with work by artists in the decades following his death in 1849. The broad survey is an introduction to how the Japanese woodblock industry and ukiyo-e art and culture influenced French fashion, design, and the art movements which inspired modern art (and vice versa).
By the time of the Great Wave, Hokusai maximized landscapes which was novel at the time. With so much sea and sky, the color blue in every hue and tone is everywhere. Imported and available by the 1820s in Japan and cheap (unlike ultramarine), the synthetic dark blue pigment known as โPrussian blueโ was stable and could be used to create deep, rich velvety blue and great transparencyโa game changer for artists and woodblock prints.
installation photos below: Catherine Ryan. Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence. MFA, Boston. March 30, 2023. Pinch and zoom to enlarge. Right click or select “i” for information for captions.
Floating the idea of the floating world
Ukiyo-e prints (images of the floating world) were invented when demand became so great a mass marketing innovation was required. Sellers could not afford to nor fill the orders which became too time consuming and limited by labor costs and pool of artisans. Although woodblock prints were original and labor intensive in other ways, hundreds of single sheets could be pulled in a day. Bright and colorful art for all, disseminated worldwide, ukiyo-e art was an early format example of mass media.
Shunsho | hokusai
Two Shunsho immersive six panel screens
Early Hokusai
fellow ARTISTS
Some students, some famous, some rediscovered- Hokusai II, Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi, Katsushika Taito II. Hokusai’s daughter signed her work Katsushika ลi
LATE HOKUSAI and prussian blue
Mostly examples from series after 1830s on when he was in his 70s: 36 Views of Mt. Fuji, Large Flowers, Small Flowers, Waterfalls, Remarkable Views of Bridges, Fifty-three Stations on the Tokaido Road. (The far younger Hiroshige born in 1790 produced 10 prints of famous places in 1825 before Hokusai, 69 Stations Kiso Road in 1835, and 100 Views of Edo in 1856 two years before he died in the cholera epidemic.)
japonisme. Impressionism. Post-Impressionism. Art NOUVEAU. late 19th C
Ipswich icon Arthur Wesley Dow
Like Hokusai, Dow (1857-1922) was an artist and influential teacher. He spread the gospel of composition and design, Japanese culture and ukiyo-e art, in America. And similarly to Hokusai, fine arts students gravitated to his own wildly influential instruction book. A Dow woodcut and dory were grouped with Ushibori by Hokusai, from the Mt. Fuji series. See the blue!
20th C
Color woodblock prints by Edna Boies Hopkins, an American artist active in the early 20th C who lived in Japan and France, studied with Dow, and was an influential member of the Provincetown Printmakers are on view. I am proud to write that back in 1986, I co-curated the first Hopkins solo exhibition retrospective since the 1920s and authored the essay and catalogue. The research for the project meant time spent in Ipswich and the Ipswich Historical Society for a close study of Arthur Wesley Dow.
21st C – MITSUI’s lego gREAT wAVE
Christiane Baumgartner’s 2017 monumental woodblock print on Kozo paper, The Wave
RIP Yvonne Jacquette, so glad to see her complex work included, a fittingly zig zag aerial nocturne view of famous NYC bridges no less, Two Bridges III, 2008 woodcut printed in dark ink on Okawara paper and acquired by the MFA before her passing at the end of April.
People were thrilled to encounter Hokusai’s The Great Wave in person and waited in line because of its scale and beauty. Multi-generational families shared the experience and wanted to take pictures which moved me tremendously. Hokusai and his peers, and artists influenced by them, produced series of cherished vistas and visual poems and legends for all price points. The LEGO installation helped ground the show and bring the joy, humor and blockbuster awe that ukiyo-e genre and series did in its time–before movies, photography, animation, easy travel, etc..
The LEGO commission by master builder Jumpei Mitsui riveted visitors of all ages on the days I visited the exhibition (if not in the art press I’ve read since). When you know the price point and target audience for the ukiyo-e art, i.e. the commoner and its arduous, technical process, the LEGO Great Wave homage– colossal, blue, and an exacting marvel of another sort– was a great fit to underscore connections to the past and engage audiences. Its scale and drama heightened the perspective of the crews and the boats in a way that other selections did not.
People looking at art
on view at the MFA, Boston: Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence
On the nose pairings
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On this day, a rescue at sea, December 29, 1885. Boston Globe story presented accounts from both crews and was published January 2, 1886, (author possibly Tom Herbert)
DRIVEN TO THE SEA: In the terrible gale at Christmas Time. Facing Starvation and Cold on the Schooner Alaska. Timely Rescue by Hardy Men of Gloucester.
Still another is added to the long list of stories of terrible sufferings at sea and gallant rescues that will long make memorable the month of December, 1885. The schooner Clytie of Gloucester arrived in port Thursday night, with the schooner Alaska in tow, the latter vessel showing evidence of the trying ordeal through which she had passed. The story of the recue as told by Captain Courant of the Clytie, is one of thrilling interest.
โTuesday morning,โ said he, in his bluff, hearty manner, โjust at daybreak, we sighted a vessel way off on the horizon. We could not make out shwa she was, or what she was doing. We couldnโt really make out whether there was anything the matter with her or not, she was so far away. I went up on the house with the glass. It looked then as if she was an anchor, but we knew that could not be so, as there was no bank there. By and by, as it grew lighter, and we worked up nearer, we saw the signals of distress flying. We were then under two reefed foresail, with bonnet off the jib. When we saw she was in distress we put two reefs in the mainsail and stood up for her. Remember all this time it was a howling hurricane. It was a different thing out there 150 miles at sea, with the great waves threatening to send us to Davy Jonesโ locker every minute than what it is to tell of it here in comfortable quarters. When we got near the vessel we saw at once that it would be impossible to board her. So we laid by the rest of the day and all night, and the next morning, though it was still dangerous work,
We Got Out One of the Dories
and got aboard. I tell you it was a hard sight, and the story of terrible suffering from hunger and exposure was a pitiful one. The schooner was the Alaska from , N.B. She sailed Friday, with a crew of six besides the captain, but was met by a fearful gale when outside, and forced to drop anchor. The gale, however increased to such an extent that both cables parted, and the schooner drifted helplessly out to sea. From that time until Tuesday morning, when we discovered her in latitude 42 50 north, longitude 67 21โ west, she was driven about at the mercy of the wind and waves. Their provisions gave out, and death by starvation stared them in the face. They grew weaker and weaker, but still were obliged to do what they could to keep the vessel afloat. Their sails were gone, their decks swept with the waves, and they were drenched to the skin. The cold increased, and with it, their sufferings. Death must soon have ended all if we had not sighted them just as we did. But even under those circumstances the captain didnโt want to desert his schooner; he said she was all he owned in the world, and he had almost rather go down with her than lose her. There was, however, no water, no kerosene and nothing to eat on board, and the vessel was in a dangerous position. She had been loaded with hay and wood, but her deep load of wood had long ago been washed overboard. As I stepped on board the craft, which seemed just
Ready to Take Its Final Plunge,
the Captain stepped forward and said:
โCan you give me some men to help me work my vessel?”
โNo, sir,โ said I, as I glanced about the wreck; โin the first place, there isnโt a man aboard my vessel would take the risk of going with you.โ
โAnd you wonโt let me have even one manโ said he in despair, as he began to see his last chance of saving his vessel disappearing.
โNo,โ said I, โI wouldnโt leave one of my men aboard this craft to take his chances with you if she was loaded with gold.โ
He then offered me $100 for a man, but of course, I refused.
โI will,โ said I, โdo one of two things: I will take your crew aboard my boat, or I will put a crew aboard your vessel and try to work her in.โ This last offer I made on condition that I should receive $1000 if I got the vessel in port safely. I was off on a fishing trip, and of course I couldnโt lose my voyage for nothing. It might pay me $1000, and it might not, but that was about fair for the loss of my voyage. He offered me $500 and then $700, but I told him I wouldnโt take $999; that $1000 was only the fair thing. He finally consented and signed the following agreement:
December 29, 1885
I hereby agree to pay the schooner Clytie the sum of one thousand dollars ($1000) to help save my vessel and crew. JOSEPH BISHOP.
Of course in doing even this I had to take my chances of losing my voyage, for we were in a dangerous position, and the chances of saving the vessel were poor. I told him I would take him into the first port I could. The wind was fair for the Nova Scotia coast, but it is a bad place there, and I told him I would try to get him into either Boston or Gloucester. I put six men aboard. The wind favored us, and here we are safe and sound.
โThe names of my crew who ran down in the Alaska? Oh, they were Pat Foley, Dick Welch, King Silva, Frank Tijer, John Shea and John McNultyโa good set of boys they are, too.โ
โHow are the crew of the Alaska getting along?โ
โWell, they suffered terribly, but will be all right in a few days. The mate is the worst off, his feet and fingers being frozen. It was a close call for them all, but you know we seafaring men have to take our chances.โ
Captain Courant, sch. Clytie
A “Sully Miracle on the” Sea story! Now from the sch. Alaska point of view:
LASHED TO THE WHEEL: Experience of the Crew of the Alaska Given by Captain BishopโTheir Miraculous Escape
Captain Bishop of the schooner Alaska was found aboard his vessel, which is lying on the north side of Union wharf. When asked about his trip, he said it was the roughest weather he had seen for over thirty years.
“We started,โ said he, โfrom Harvey, N.S., Christmas afternoon, with a deckload of cordwood and hay in the hold for James Stevenson of this port. It was blowing pretty hard at the time, but we supposed it would soon moderate. After running about two miles, and when off Grindstone Island, we decided to anchor, as the wind appeared to be increasing. We placed two anchors ahead and let out 210 fathoms of chain. At 2 oโclock the next afternoon the chains parted, and the vessel drifted into the Bay of Fundy. It was then snowing hard, the sea was tremendously high, and it was blowing a terrific gale from the northeast by east. It was impossible to carry any canvas, so we rode along under bare poles. At midnight the storm was fearful. The high seas washed continually over the decks, and the two men at the wheel had to be lashed, otherwise it would have been impossible for them to remain on deck. At 3 oโclock Monday morning we hove the vessel too by a peak in the mainsail. At 7 oโclock we were to north-northwest, with part of the three-reefed foresail and peak of the mainsail, the rest of the mainsail and two jibs having been blown away. At 3 oโclock that afternoon we found ourselves near the breakers, on the southern point of Grand Manan. In the meantime it changed from snow to hail and were then able to see ahead for the first time since Saturday. The first thing we saw was that we were going ashore inside of Gannet rock.
Our stern was close into the breakers when the keeper of the light motioned to us to steer to the south, which we did, and the vessel passed out safely. All this time the sea was mountains high and washing clear over the lighthouse.
The mate and two seamen had their hands and feet badly frostbitten, while my limbs were partially paralyzed Monday evening the wind veered around to north-northwest. At 10 oโclock Tuesday morning, when 130 miles east by south of Cape Ann, we met the fishing schooner Clytie, which towed us to this port. The Alaska had her boat and deckload carried away.
Boston Globe report published Jan 2, 1886
The vessels:
Itemized on List of vessels district of Gloucester August 1878, Gloucester archives
Gloucester Harbor. Alaska. 63.87 tonnage.
Masterโs name M.M. Murray Number 455
Built in Gloucester in 1867 by George Norwood & Sons
Gloucester Harbor. Clytie. 72.17 tonnage.
Masterโs name A.C. Browell #125,125
Built in Gloucester 1873 Rowe & Jordan
2019 article about the history of the (now deteriorating) Gannet lighthouse (yes, for the birds that were there) with interview of former lighthouse keeper: “The Gannet Rock lighthouse soars above a rocky islet off Grand Manan, an old beacon of light for fisherman. But the tower, built in 1831, is battered from years of neglect. It was abandoned in the early 2000s and stopped being maintained by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in 2010. “
Winslow Homer, Ship building Gloucester Harbor, 1873
Same year as Clytie was built
Scenes of vessels/fishing industry in Gloucester harbor and accounts of winter storms
1876
Ten years earlier, “The December Gales of 1876” chapter from The Fishermen’s Own Bookcomprising The List of Men and Vessels Lost from Gloucester, Mass., from 1874 – April 1, 1882 AND a Table of Losses From 1830, together with Valuable Statistics of the Fisheries, ALSO Notable Fares, Narrow Escapes, Startling Adventures, Fishermen’s Off-Hand Sketches, Ballads, Descriptions of Fishing Trips, AND Other Interesting Facts and Incidents Connected with This Branch of Maritime Industry, Entered according to Act of Congress, 1882, Procter Bros., Lib of Congress
1902
Clarence Manning Falt
1920s & 1930s
Leslie Jones, others
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“An Off Season Stroll Through Edward Hopper’s Vision of Gloucester” Boston Globe article by Diane Bair and Pamela Wright. Reporters enjoyed a wonderful Cape Ann Museum Walking Tour followed up by a visit to Cape Ann Brewery. Read the piece here
Also, a classic Winslow Homer painting, Weatherbeaten, 1894, from the Portland Museum of Art, Maine, is featured on the cover of the Arts section as part of this review by Murray Whyte. “Mythmakers: The Art of Winslow Homer and Frederick Remington” is up through the end of November.
Last chance to see Homer at the Beach: A Marine Painter’s Journey, 1869-1880 closing December 1, 2019.ย “Eyewitness” companion show at Harvardcontinues through January 5, 2020.
Cape Ann Museum hours Thanksgiving week
11/28/19 THANKSGIVING — CLOSED
11/29/19 Friday 10am-5pm
11/30/19 Saturday 10am-5pm
12/1/19 Sunday 1-4pmย last day extended hours 10am-5pm!
Cape Ann Museum 27 Pleasant Street, Gloucester, MA 01930
(978) 283-0455
Winslow Homer: Picturing the Tropics Illustrated talk and extended hours at the Cape Ann Museum
GLOUCESTER, Mass. (August 15, 2019) โ The Cape Ann Museum is pleased to present a special evening of programming on Thursday, August 29, 2019 from 5:00 โ 9:00 p.m. This is the first in a series of four nights, throughout summer and fall, when the Museum will be open extended hours. In addition to galleries staying open for viewing, there will be illustrated talks, musical performances, artmaking opportunities, cash bar and more! Extended hours are free for CAM members or with Museum admission. There will be additional costs for special lectures or musical performances.
On Thursday, August 29 join Bowdoin College professor Dana Byrd for Winslow Homer: Picturing the Tropics at 7:00 p.m. The artist Winslow Homer (1836-1910) is belovedย for his moody representations of crashing surf against the rocky Maine coastline. The artist, however, was no recluse. He enjoyed traveling for pleasure and new painting subjects. During the last decades of his life, with box camera and painting kit in hand, he visited a number of tourist locales, among them, the Bahamas, Cuba and Florida. This talk will explore Homerโs varied depictions of the tropics, to revisit this important, yet little addressed aspect of his oeuvre. This lecture is $10 for CAM members; $20 nonmembers (includes Museum admission). Reservations are required and can be made at camuseum.eventbrite.com or by calling 978-283-0455 x10.
Highlights of the evening also include watercolor painting; a cash bar featuring Cuba Libres & rum punch; and a chance to see Homer at the Beach: A Marine Painterโs Journey, 1869 โ 1880.
Dana E. Byrd is a scholar of American art and material culture at Bowdoin College. She received her PhD from Yale University in 2012. Her research engages with questions of place and the role of objects in everyday life. Her book manuscript, โReconstructions: The Material Culture of the Plantation, 1861-1877,โ examines the experience of the plantation during the Civil War through the end of Reconstruction.
This program is offered in conjunction with the special exhibition, Homer at the Beach: A Marine Painterโs Journey, 1869-1880, which is the first close examination of the formation of Winslow Homer as a marine painter. The exhibition will be on view until December 1, 2019.ย The Cape Ann Museum will be its sole venue.
Tondo photo image credit: Winslow Homer. St. Johns’ River, Florida ca. 1895 pinhole (from an Eastman Kodak #1 camera) photograph Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maineโ. Photo portrait courtesy of Dana Byrd. Homer watercolors various collections: Art Inst. Chicago, Harvard FOGG (completed with sections from Yale), National Gallery, Cummer
A sunset adventure aboard the Schooner โThomas E. Lannonโ
ย GLOUCESTER, Mass. (August 15, 2019) โ The Cape Ann Museum is pleased to present an evening sunset harbor cruise on Sunday, August 25 at 6:00 p.m. In celebration of the special exhibition Homer at the Beach: A Marine Painterโs Journey, 1869 โ 1880, the Museum has partnered with the Schooner โThomas E. Lannonโ to illuminate Winslow Homerโs time in Gloucester. This program which includes a two-hour sail, light refreshments (wine, beer & snacks), a chance to watercolor paint and tales of Homerโs time in Gloucester is $60 for CAM members; $75 nonmembers. Advanced registration required. For more information visit capeannmuseum.org or call 978-283-0455 x10.
The exhibition, Homer at the Beach: A Marine Painterโs Journey, 1869-1880, is the first close examination of the formation of Winslow Homer as a marine painter. The exhibition will be on view until December 1, 2019.ย The Cape Ann Museum will be it sole venue.
In 1869, Winslow Homer (1836โ1910) exhibited his first picture of the sea. He was an ambitious New York illustratorโnot yet recognized as an artistโand freshly back from France. Over the next 11 years, Homerโs journey would take him to a variety of marine destinations, from New Jersey to Maine, but especiallyโand repeatedlyโto Gloucester and other parts of Cape Ann. It was on Cape Ann that Homer made his first watercolors and where he discovered his calling: to be a marine artist. And it was in Gloucester in 1880, at the end of these 11 years, where he enjoyed the most productive season of his life, composing more than 100 watercolors of astonishing beauty. Homerโs journey forever changed his life and the art of his country.
The Schooner โThomas E. Lannonโ was built in 1997 in Essex, MA. Berthed at historic Seven Seas Wharf at the Gloucester House Restaurant, Rogers Street, Gloucester, the Lannon offers two-hour sails and private charters from mid-May through mid-October. Theย โThomas E. Lannonโย is named for owner Tom Ellisโ maternal grandfather, who fished out of Gloucester from 1901-1943. On August 25 join the Cape Ann Museum and the Ellis family for a sail and imagine what it was like to sail on a fishing schooner out of Gloucester a hundred years ago.
Image credits: Winslow Homer (1836-1910), Sunset Fires, 1880. Watercolor on paper, 93/4 x 13 5/8. The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Gift of the William A. Coulter Fund, 1964.36.ย
Steve Rosenthal The Schooner โThomas E. Lannonโ in the Harbor #1 2019. Archival pigment print. Cape Ann Museum. Gift of the photographer, 2019.ย
Mark your calendars! Cape Ann Museum announces super special exhibition and ancillary programs:
Homer at the Beach: A Marine Painterโs Journey, 1869-1880
An Exploration of the Earliest Marine Works of Winslow Homer
On view: August 3 to December 1, 2019
GLOUCESTER, MASS. (June 2019) โ This summer, the Cape Ann Museum will exhibit 51 original works by renowned American artist Winslow Homer. The exhibition, Homer at the Beach: A Marine Painterโs Journey, 1869-1880, will be the first close examination of the formation of this great artist as a marine painter. The exhibition will include loans from more than 50 public and private collections and will be on view from August 3 to December 1, 2019. The Cape Ann Museum will be its sole venue.
In 1869, Winslow Homer (1836โ1910) exhibited his first picture of the sea. He was an ambitious New York illustratorโnot yet recognized as an artistโand freshly back from France. Over the next 11 years, Homerโs journey would take him to a variety of marine destinations, from New Jersey to Maine, but especiallyโand repeatedlyโto Gloucester and other parts of Cape Ann.
It was on Cape Ann that Homer made his first watercolors and where he first developed an identity as a marine artist. And it was in Gloucester in 1880, at the end of these 11 years, where he enjoyed the most productive season of his life, composing more than 100 watercolors of astonishing beauty. Homerโs journey forever changed his life and the art of America.
This exhibition will include a remarkable variety of works by Homer and a broad range of period objects to reveal new aspects of the artistโs oeuvre, for the first time placing these paintings, drawings and even ceramic work in their rich geographic, cultural and historical settings, on the 150th anniversary of Homerโs first paintings of the sea. Period clothing, ship models, and historic photographs and prints will add context to the work. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue with 150 full color images and essays by prominent scholar John Wilmerding and by William R. Cross, curator of the exhibition.
As a companion to Homer at the Beach, the Cape Ann Museum will also display an exhibition by nationally renowned photographer Steve Rosenthal. Rosenthal has spent the last year walking in Winslow Homerโs footsteps, exploring the sites that inspired Homer and capturing them through the lens of his camera.ย Rosenthalโs exhibition will allow visitors to explore changes in the local landscape over the past 150 years and how it has stayed the same. Rosenthal willย present a gallery talk on Saturday, October 19 at 9:30 a.m. A full schedule of related programming for Homer at the Beach appears below and will include a lecture series beginning on August 17 and a scholarly symposium to be held during the weekend of October 5, 2019. Companion walking tours and sailing experiences are also planned to add to the understanding of Homerโs work.
Homer at the Beach is curated by William R. Cross, a consultant to art and history museums and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He has many years of leadership experience serving clients and managing teams in the investment management industry and serving museums and other non-profits. He has authored more than 200 articles and lectures, generally related to art, architecture and local history, and has a special passion for placing art in context, unveiling beauty and narrative meaning embedded โ and often hidden โ in objects. A graduate of Yale (B.A.) and Harvard (M.B.A.), Cross lives in Manchester, Mass.
Homer at the Beach: A Marine Painterโs Journey, 1869-1880 at the Cape Ann Museum will run concurrently with Winslow Homer: Eyewitness at the Harvard University Art Museums, a complementary exhibition opening August 31st.
ย This exhibition has been supported by The Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts, Inc., as well as by four leadership gifts from generous individuals, and by 50 additional sponsors at varying levels who have collectively made this initiative possible.
Cape Ann has long been recognized as one of this countryโs oldest and most important art colonies and the collection of the Cape Ann Museum contains examples of works by many of the artists who came to Cape Ann, including Marsden Hartley, Cecilia Beaux, Edward Hopper and John Sloan. At the heart of the Museumโs holdings is the single largest collection of works by early 19th century artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804-1865). A native of Gloucester, Lane worked as a lithographer and a painter and his works on display at the Cape Ann Museum capture the townโs busy seaport in its heyday. The Cape Ann Museum is dedicated to illuminating the diversity of life on Cape Ann by collecting, preserving and presenting the interconnected stories of art and industry during the past 400 years. As such, the Homer at the Beach: A Marine Painterโs Journey, 1869-1880 exhibition represents an important moment for the Museum as it seeks to build greater audiences and awareness of the institution regionally, nationally and internationally in anticipation of the Museumโs 150th anniversary in 2023.
ย Homer at the Beach Related Programs
Visit capeannmuseum.org for ticket information
LECTURE SERIES
Saturday, August 17, 10:30 a.m. Elizabeth Block, Metropolitan Museum of Art The Cape Ann Museum and Historic New England invite you to take a fresh look at Winslow Homerโs seaside paintings. Elizabeth Block, Senior Editor at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, presents Homerโs paintings within the context of womenโs bathing, dress, and hair practices of the early 1870s and as an extension of the artistโs early magazine illustrations. (This program will be held at Coolidge Point: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial, 9 Coolidge Point, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass.)
Winslow Homer: Picturing the Tropics Thursday, August 29 at 7:00 p.m. Dana Byrd, Bowdoin College The artist Winslow Homer (1836-1910) is belovedย for his moody representations of crashing surf against the rocky Maine coastline. The artist, however, was no recluse. He enjoyed traveling for pleasure and painting new subjects. During the last decades of his life, with box camera and painting kit in hand, Homer visited a number of tourist locales, among them the Bahamas, Cuba and Florida. This talk will explore Homerโs varied depictions of the tropics, to revisit this important yet little addressed aspect of his oeuvre.
Homerโs Wine-Dark Seas Saturday, September 14 at 2:00 p.m. Marc Simpson, Independent Scholar From 1873 to at least 1905, Winslow Homer made watercolors that figure among the most glorious of his achievements. “You will see,” he said, “in the future I will live by my watercolors”โand this has proven to be the case. But even in the context of these remarkable accomplishments, his views of sunsets and fireworks done in Gloucester in the summer of 1880 stand out. Consideration ofย them, and of a small cluster of later works, prompts reflections on both Homerโs spirituality and his heroism. These in turn, especially in the context of comparisons that have been made between Homer and his colleague James McNeill Whistler, raise questions about how we write art history.
Winslow Homer and the North Sea Saturday, November 16 at 2:00 p.m. Elizabeth Athens, University of Connecticut This talk examines the influence of Homerโs time in Cullercoats, England, on his portrayal of the sea. While his earlier works cast the coast more benignly as a place for leisure or industry, his later canvases present the sea as a site of struggle between humanity and the natural world.
SYMPOSIUM
Winslow Homer: New Insights Saturday, October 5
This full-day symposium will include presentation of scholarly papers, lunch and a closing panel discussion followed by a reception. Participants will include: Henry Adams (Ruth Coulter Heede Professor of Art History, Case Western Reserve University); Kathleen Foster (Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Curator of American Art and Director, Center for American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art); Ethan Lasser (incoming John Moors Cabot Chair, Art of the Americas, MFA Boston); Martha Tedeschi (Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director, Harvard Art Museums); and Sylvia Yount (Lawrence A. Fleischman Curator In Charge, The American Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art). Papers will be presented by: Adam Greenhalgh (National Gallery of Art); Diana Greenwold (Portland Museum of Art); Judith Walsh (Buffalo State College); Asma Naeem (Baltimore Museum of Art); Ross Barrett (Boston University); Melissa Trafton (University of New Hampshire).
SAILS
Homer Sunset Sail Wednesday, August 7 at 6:00 p.m.
All aboard the Schooner Ardelle for a sunset cruise in Gloucester Harbor. Enjoy tales of Winslow Homerโs time on Ten Pound Island and beyond. Wine, beer and snacks included. $60 CAM Members; $75 nonmembers. Advanced tickets required.
Homer Sunset Sail Sunday, August 25 at 6:00 p.m.
All aboard the Schooner Thomas E. Lannon for a sunset cruise in Gloucester Harbor. Enjoy tales of Winslow Homerโs time on Ten Pound Islnad and beyond. Wine, beer and snacks included. $60 CAM Members; $75 nonmembers. Advanced tickets required.
WALKING TOURS
Homer in the City
Discover the geographical, cultural and historical setting where Winslow Homer lived and painted in the late 19th century. Offered on August 11, 18 & 24; also throughout the fall, dates TBD. $10 for CAM members; $20 non-members (includes Museum admission). Registration required.
e Cape Ann Museum has been in existence since the 1870s, working to preserve and celebrate the history and culture of the area and to keep it relevant to todayโs audiences. Spanning 44,000 square feet, the Museum is one of the major cultural institutions on Bostonโs North Shore welcoming more than 25,000 local, national and international visitors each year to its exhibitions and programs. In addition to fine art, the Museumโs collections include decorative art, textiles, artifacts from the maritime and granite industries, three historic homes, a Library & Archives and a sculpture park in the heart of downtown Gloucester. Visit capeannmuseum.org for details.
The Museum is located at 27 Pleasant Street in Gloucester. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Sundays from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Admission is $12.00 adults, $10.00 Cape Ann residents, seniors and students. Youth (under 18) and Museum members are free. For more information please call: (978)283-0455 x10. Additional information can be found online at www.capeannmuseum.org.
photo caption:ย Winslow Homer (1836โ1910), Children on the Beach, 1873. Oil on canvas, 12 3/4โ x 16 3/4โ. Private collection.
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WINSLOW HOMERย Yacht in a Cove Gloucester Harbor_ca 1880_watercolor_upcoming Sothebys Nov 2018 American sale. Pre-sale auction estimate is $200,000 – $300,000
Last spring a Homer image of Gloucester boys in a dory fetched $400,000. Relatable, though not Gloucester:ย Life Brigadeย is expected to fetch 4x that amount at Sotheby’s; another classic motif ,ย Gathering Wild Blackberries,ย is estimated to sell for $150,000-$200,000. There is a smashing Marsden Hartley of Dogtown.
EDWARD HOPPER_Two Comedians_ upcoming Sotheby’s American sale Nov 2018_from Sinatra collection_The pre-sale estimate is 12 million to 18 million. (Not a Gloucester Hopper- there are no Gloucester Hoppers in these November sales)
STUART DAVIS Private Way, 1916.oil on canvas. Christies Nov 2018 presale auction est 60,000 to 80,000
Besides Stuart Davis, artists featured include Jane Peterson, Martha Walters, Hayley Lever, and George Bellows. There’s a classic Nahant work by William Stanley Haseltine and a marine themed WPA mural study by Lyonel Feininger.
EDWARD HOPPER Chop Suey, 1929, 32 x 38 inches, oil on canvas, Christies steep presale estimate 70 million to 100 million (from Barney A. Ebsworth collection) There are no Hopper works featuring Gloucester in these sales.
Click on thumbnails to enlarge the photo and see descriptions. I’ll post results after the sales.ย
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Legions of fans visit local, national and international museums to see icons of American 20th century art by Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer. Some of this art was inspired by Gloucester, MA. One more Hopper or Homer Gloucester scene in any collection would be welcome, but in Gloucester it would be transformative.
The City of Gloucester boasts a world class museum that would be the ideal repository for a major Hopper and Homer of Gloucester. It hasn’t happened, yet. It should! I feel not enough of a case has been made for having originals right here in the city that inspired some of their most famous works and changed their art for the better.
Edward Hopper Captain’s House (Parkhurst House),ย one of the few original Hopper works remaining in private hands, is slated as a promised gift to Arkansas’s Crystal Bridges Museum of ย American Art.ย Crystal Bridges opened in 2011 and will have acquired 4 examples of Hopper’s art — 2 paintings, 1 drawing and 1 print–with this gift.
I think Arkansas would have been ok with three.
The only known Winslow Homer seascape painting still in private hands is a great one inspired by Gloucester. Bill and Melinda Gates own Lost on the Grand Banks, 1885. I saw it at the auction house back in 1998 just before the sale. What a fit for Gloucester and Homer if it found its way back here!
Edward Hopper’s Gloucester Street also went to the west coast, purchased by Robert Daly. I’d love to see this one in person! The corner hasn’t changed much since 1928 when Hopper painted the street scene.
Hopper’s downtown Gloucester scene, Railroad Gates, is not on public display.
I’m surprised and hopeful that there are paintings of Gloucester by Hopper that could be secured. There are tens of drawings including major works on paper. I saw this Gloucester drawing, Circus Wagon, by Edward Hopper at the ADAA art Fair back in March 2016.
Davis House (25 Middle Street) was sold at auction in 1996.
I’m keeping tabs on most of them. The only way they’re going into any museum is through largesse. Why not Gloucester?
Homer and Hopper watercolors in private collections can’t be on permanent view due to the medium’s fragility. (Exciting developments in glazing and displays are being developed that go beyond the protective lift.) The Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester, MA, cares for works of art as well as any institution.
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Toodeloos! and Island Art and Hobby at 142 Main Street is year round fun. They’ve consolidated two long standing creative and well curated independent local stores together into one space: both a fabulous local toy store and a professional art supply shop.
Toodeloos! is between the Birdseye and Winslow Homer HarborWalk story moment markers, and a short jaunt to the summer cinema at I4C2.
gentleman reading the Winslow Homer plaque on the HarborWalk trail today, Gloucester MA
James Owen Calderwood and Cape Ann Art Haven murals are such a great pass through on Parsons between Main and Rogers (across the street from Toodeloos!)
And from the HarborWalk marker at St. Peter’s park, it’s easy to check out the new murals by Danny Diamond at Cape Ann Brewery 11 Rogers Street!
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A thoughtful and thought provokingย forumย was held this morning at the Cape Annย Museum. The discussionย was led by Ed Becker, president of the Essex County Greenbelt Association, with presentations by Mark Carlottoย fromย Friends of Dogtown; Tim Simmons, restoration ecologist;ย Mass Audubon’sย Chris Leahy; and Cape Ann Museum representative Bonnie Sontag.
Speakers,ย left to right, Mark Carlotto, Chris Leahy, Tim Simmons, Bonnie Sontag, and Ed Beckerย
Today, the undeveloped areas of Cape Ann look much as it did when Champlain arrived in 1606, aย mostly verdant forested peninsula, with some land management of grasslandsย conducted by the Native Americans that farmed and fished the landscape. In the coming months, the community will be examining how to restore very specific areas of Dogtown to the years when the landscape was at its most productive and richest in biodiversity, approximatelyย 1700 to 1950. Mostย areas will remain forested and others will be returned to grasslands, moors, meadows, and pastures, similar to how it appearedย when 19th and 20th century artists such as Homer, Hopper, Hartley, and Brumback painted Dogtown Common.
Marsden Hartley Whales Jaw sketch
Brumback’s view of Dogtown in the eaqrly 1900s
A typical Dogtown landscape of today
Tim Simmons charmed the audienceย with his “Blueberry Metric,” a formula whereby prior to grassland restoration, it takes approximately one hour to pick four cups of blueberries. After a blueberry patch has been restored, the time to pick a pie’s worth of blueberries is reduced to just 20 to 30 minutes. Here is Tim explaining how fire management helps blueberry bushes become more productive:
Not only blueberries but many, many species of wildlife, especially thoseย in sharp decline,ย such as Prairie Warblers,ย Eastern Whippoorwills, native bees, and nearly all butterflies, will benefit tremendously from restoring native grasslandย and meadow habitats.
This is an exciting time for Cape Ann’s open spaces andย a great deal of input from the communityย will be needed.ย A facebook page is in the making. It takesย time to effect positive change, but the alternative of doing nothing is not really an option at all. Eventually a fire will occur and when landscapes are not managed well, the outcome may wellย be cataclysmic.
From the Cape Ann Museum: The once open landscape of Cape Ann, a mosaic of glacial boulders, pastures and moors, has given way over the past century to a uniform forest cover. Through short presentations and public engagement, this forum examines the issues, methods and benefits of restoring this formerly diverse and productive landscape. Can Cape Ann once again include the open, scenic terrain that inspired painters, writers, walkers, bird watchers and foragers of wild blueberries? Come and lend your voice to this exciting and important conversation moderated by Ed Becker, President of the Essex County Greenbelt Association. The forum is offered in collaboration with Essex County Greenbelt, Friends of Dogtown, Lanesville Community Center and Mass Audubon.
Successional forest regenerationย graphics and images courtesy Google image search
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Granddaughter Claudia Wilson-Howard writes Good Morning Gloucester seeking any information, biographical “tidbits”, or recollections about fine artist Winslow Wilson who resided in Gloucester and had studios in Gloucester and Rockport ca. 1946-1972.She is working on an excellent project: a digital resource about her grandfather.
“I am the granddaughter of Winslow Wilson,” she writes, “an artist who spent most of his life on Cape Ann, painting under two names in two studios. One studio, in Gloucester, the second in Rockport, and a member of the Rockport Art Association from 1946-1972, he was an active member of the art community. I have developed a website (www.winslowwilson.com), which is a work in progress. I am attempting to develop as detailed a biography as possible, and was hoping …to reach out to the community to help gather any tidbit of information. Thank you very much!”
Arthur William “Winslow” “Tex” Wilson, also known as Pico Miran was an American artist–primarily a painter– born on July 20, 1892 in Brady, Texas. His family moved to Junction, TX, where he graduated from high school, also the address he used while attending Harvard. Wilson was a veteran of the First World War (National Guard, AEF) deployed to France 1918-1919. He died November 18, 1974 in Miami, FLA.
At Harvard
Wilson transferred from Texas A&M University to Harvard. Roy Follett his professor at Texas A&M described Wilson’s impact on him as “atomic”, possessed with a creative intellect that surpassed the teacher’s. And then the unthinkable…
For Wilson, life changed punishingly July 4, 1912 as he accidentally and horrifically killed his fellow undergrad, a friend and co-worker Merle DeWitt Britten on the job, driving the streetcar that crushed him. Wilson left Harvard, then came back. He skipped classes. At times he soared. He was a writer and editor of The Harvard Monthly literary magazine with an impressive group of multi talented peers and friends: ee cummings; John Dos Passos; critic Gilbert Seldes; poet (Pulitzer prize winner) Robert Hillyer; poet (later Director MA Historical Society) R. Stewart Mitchell; Scofield Thayer*; and James Sibley Watson*.
images: Arthur Wilson undergraduate writing published in The Harvard Montly
The Harvard Monthly was founded in 1885 and ceased publication in 1917, its aim “to publish the best (undergraduate) articles, fiction and verse by students in the University.” The words “and verse” were added after E.E. Cummings gave their class commencement speech in 1915 on “The New Art” extolling contemporary expressions in music, the visual arts, and literature. “What really brought down the house was Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons,” he’d later say about this bit in the speech:
“unquestionably a proof of great imagination on the part of the authoress, as anyone who tries to imitate her work will discover for himself. Here we see traces of realism, similar to those which made the “Nude Descending a Staircase” so baffling. As far as these “Tender Buttons” are concerned, the sum and substance of criticism is impossible. The unparalleled familiarity of the medium precludes its use for the purpose of aesthetic effect. And here, in their logical conclusion, impressionistic tendencies are reduced to absurdity. The question now arises, how much of all this is really Art? The answer is: we do not know. The great men of the future will most certainly profit by the experimentation of the present period. An insight into the unbroken chain of artistic development during the last half century disproves the theory that modernism is without foundation; rather we are concerned with a natural unfolding of sound tendencies. That the conclusion is, in a particular case, absurdity, does not in any way impair the value of the experiment, so long as we are dealing with sincere effort. The New Art, maligned though it may be by fakirs and fanatics, will appear in its essential spirit to the unprejudiced critic as a courageous and genuine exploration of untrodden ways…how much of all this is really Art? The answer is: we do not know. The great men of the future will most certainly profit by the experimentation of the present period.” – ee cummings 1915
ee cummings portrait of Thayer, printed in the Dial
*The Dial was founded by James Sibley Watson and Scofield Thayer. Emily Sibley Watson, Founder of Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester was friends with Marianne Moore
1917 NYC apartment with Cummings
Wilson and e.e. cummings (1884-1962) were roommates at Harvard, friends who hit the town. (There’s one story with them caught at a prostitute’s apartment.) They remained friends enough to room together more and carouse Greenwich Village. Thanks to $1000 from Thayer, Cummings joined Wilson in New York at 21 East 15th Street in 1917.
There are striking parallels, comparisons, and secrets in the lives they led. Both men were artists and writers that had tragic and shattering life experiences, and estranged and scandalous family stories.
According to Virginia Spencer Carr‘s 1984 biography of John Dos Passos, Dos Passos envied these two: “Wilson was already signing his paintings (when he signed them at all) “Winslow Wilson” and Dos Passos surmised (when?) that he would be recognized eventually for his stunning portraits and seascapes. He was convinced that Cummings was too assured a reputation as a painter and saw Dudley Poore as the best poet of the lot from Harvard who aspired to a career in letters.”
All three enlisted in WW1. Cummings signed up for the volunteer ambulance corp along with Harvard chums Hillyer and Dos Passos. Cummings ended up a POW and wrote a novel about the experience, The Enormous Room. Cummings said he was a self-taught painter, helped along by friends from Harvard. Did he sign up for classes in New York? Where did Wilson study art in New York before WW1?
(Incidentally, Gertrude Stein was also a volunteer camion; it seems like a ‘who wasn’t?’ roster. The majority of the 3500+ drivers came from ivy league schools, especially Harvard. The American Field Service (AFS) ambulance unit grew to be the largest and was founded by Gloucester’s own A. Piatt Andrew in 1915, after helping out the year before.)
1920s
After the War, Wilson was in New York and abroad in Paris, and London (infamously). There was a blink of a marriage and divorce from Elizabeth Brice, and a daughter Caroline, a dancer, that he never saw again. At 34, Wilson and his 19 year old girlfriend Winifred Brown abandoned a baby. It was an international scandal. Wilson’s family stepped up and his brother Ernest raised the boy as his own. It was four decades before the baby learned about his biological parents. I know these wincing details because that boy, H Robert Wilson, is a good writer and did the research.
Arthur Wilson signed his paintings as “Winslow” Wilson, which fits as a wink at Homer. Seascapes as a subject. Private solitary life. It also works as a visual swapping out of “Tex” for East Coast “Winslow”. The initials become double letters (like e.e. cummings), and nearly a double name, minus one letter and there’s an anagram of Wilson. It’s even a way to differentiate his name ‘Arthur Wilson’ from other artists and writers with the same name(s), initials (AW or the comic Aww), and friends. Winslow Wilson is decidedly not Edmund Wilson (though like many writers he credits “nearly everything” about his sources of style as a painter to him), artist Edward Arthur Wilson, artist Arthur Wilson (UK), artist Arthur Wilson (LA), artist Edward Adrian Wilson, to name a few.
Mostly, Wilson using “Winslow” seems a deliberate break from his traumatic past: living with the death of his friend, letting his family down, fighting in WW1, divorce, scandal, family secrets, and that difficult ee cummings portrait poem about him.
ca. 1922 ee cummings poem ‘Arthur Wilson’
E.E. Cummings poem “Three Portraits” (I. Pianist II. Caritas III. Arthur Wilson) is published in the modernist magazine the Broom: An International Magazine of the Arts, Volume 2, Number 4, July 1922. Founded and backed not nearly enough by Harold Loeb and Alfred Kreymborg, the Broompublication was a short lived (1921-24) modernist monthly featuring “unknown, path-breaking” writers and artists (reproductions, original designs, translations). The cummings poem ‘Arthur Wilson’ was illustrated with woodcuts by Ladislaw Medgyes. The issue’s cover design was by Fernard Leger;
Cover design by Fernard Leger, Broom, Volume 2 No. 4, July 1922
Picasso, Modigliani and William Gropper drawings were reproduced inside.
The text for III. Arthur Wilson follows (refer to the image for the visual spatial break in cummings prose).
III. Arthur Wilson as usual i did not find him in cafes, the more dissolute atmosphere of a street superimposing a numbing imperfectness upon such peri- grinations as twilight spontaneously by inevitable tiredness of flang- ing shop-girls impersonally affords furnished a soft first clue to his innumerable whereabouts violet logic of annihilation demon- strating from woolworthian pinnacle a capable millenium of faces meshing with my curiously instant appreciation exposed his hiber- native contours, aimable immensity impeccably extending the courtesy of five o’clock became the omen of his prescience it was spring by the way in the soiled canary-cage of largest existence.
(when he would extemporise the innovation of muscularity upon the most crimson assistance of my comforter a click of deciding glory inflicted to the negative silence that primeval exposure whose elec- tric solidity remembers some accurately profuse scratchings in a recently discovered cave, the carouse of geometrical putrescence whereto my invariably commendable room had been forever subject his Earliest word wheeled out on the sunny dump of oblivion)
a tiny dust finely arising at the integration of my soul i coughed
, naturally. -E.E. Cummings
Like The Harvard Monthly and The Dial, Broom contributors were or would become recognized luminaries: Sherwood Anderson, Guillaume Apollinaire, Hans Arp, Conrad Aiken, Kenneth Burke, Robert M Coates, Jean Cocteau, Malcolm Cowley, Hart Crane, Adolph Dehn, Andre Derain, Raoul Dufy, Paul Eldridge, T S Eliot, Wanda Gag, Robert Graves, Juan Gris, William Gropper, George Grosz, Rockwell Kent, Paul Klee, Fernand Leger, Lipchitz, El Lissitzky, Amy Lowell, Louis Lozowick, Marianne Moore, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Mondigliani, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, ‘Charles Sheeler, Gertrude Stein, Joseph Stella, Wallace Stevens, Paul Strand, Max Weber, William Carlos Williams, and Virginia Woolf among other artists and writers.
It was a small world and circle. The Broom contributors likely read that ee cummings poem about Wilson, and several knew both men. Names carried over from the Harvard-Dial network (Amy Lowell, Marianne Moore).
EE Cummings published Part III in later editions by the title “as usual I did not find him in cafes” omitting Arthur Wilson’s name.
1924 e.e. cummings visits Gloucester
to see writer, friend and editor R. Stewart Mitchell (1892-1957) who had a home here. Stewart Mitchell was another Harvard alumni (1915) and former Harvard Monthly editor. His face inspired the nickname “The Great Auk”. How nice being friends with artist-writers.
After serving in WW1, Mitchell was a managing editor and regular contributor for The Dial from 1919-21, then published poet. From 1928-1937 he was Managing Editor of the New England Quarterly journal, and from 1929- 57 an editor and Director of the Massachusetts Historical Society. On the Ma Historical Society seal : “It would hardly have done to compare the members of the Society to oxen, sheep, or birds … but bees had always had a good reputation for the sweetness and light of their honey and their wax. “– 1949 Stewart Mitchell
Did Cummings and Arthur W. Wilson come to Gloucester while attending Harvard or at other times in the 1920s to see Stewart? Was Cummings in Gloucester other years, decades? Did Wilson and Mitchell re-connect in Gloucester? John Sloan’s etching Frankie and Johnnie illustrates EE Cummings’ play HIM. Did Wilson interact with Stuart Davis in Gloucester or New York?
(Aside: In 1984 the play ViVa Cummings! opened in Gloucester under the direction of William Finlay and the New Stillington Players. Did they know Cummings had been here…)
1935
Wilson fails to update his Harvard alumni association requests. Here’s the 1935 entry:
1951 ELEANOR ROOSEVELT VISITS EXHIBIT AT AAA, NYC
Artist Winslow Wilson guiding Eleanor Roosevelt through his solo exhibition at Associated American Artists, June 4, 1951. Photograph from http://www.winslowwilson.com
Wilson’s painting from the 1951 Contemporary American Artists exhibition at the Associated American Artists won the people’s choice award, and his solo exhibit in June was attended and written about by Eleanor Roosevelt in her nationally syndicated MY DAY column:
HYDE PARK, SundayโAt lunch last Friday I had a visit from Mr. Tatsukichiro Horikawa, who is over here from Japan on a trip studying the World Federation movement in different countries. He has visited Switzerland, Germany, France and England, as well as the United States, and he came to see me before in New York City; but he wishes particularly to come up to Hyde Park and place some flowers on my husband’s grave.
I was especially interested in talking to him because, like so many of the World Federalists, he felt that the United Nations was very inadequate. He felt one must bring about more unityโand particularly, if we were going to have any settlements in the Far East, there must be unity between Great Britain and the United States as well as the other nations in their policy.
I asked him if he did not think it was a good deal to expect to have a unified policy among 60 nations when the organization bringing them together had been in existence only six years. It seems to me it requires longer for people to understand how the other peoples think and feel. World federation might someday be possible, but not until people have had a greater length of time to find out about each other. One of the American World Federalist members had also written me saying that the federation must come first and then be followed by understanding. I think this begs the question of how you obtain the federation and how, having obtained it in name, you do anything practical with it.
In New York City on Thursday afternoon I went to see an exhibition of paintings of the sea done by Winslow Wilson, at the Associated American Artists Galleries on Fifth Avenue. This exhibition was arranged under the auspices of Greenwich House, toward whose support a portion of the proceeds of any sale will go.
Mr. Wilson told me he did not paint actually from a scene he was looking at, but from memory. He said he particularly liked to use the sea because it was to him a symbol of the stress and strife we were all going through at present; and still it had a kind of discipline and control which was what most human beings were striving for today and finding difficult of achievement. I found some of his paintings quite beautiful, and reminiscent of many seacoasts I have known. In certain ones the light made one think of tropical climates; in others the shores of Maine seemed to stand out. More often the sky and the sea were stormy, but the light was nearly always breaking through. Let us hope that out of this turbulent period of history the light will break through for all human beings.
The other day I was sent a little pamphlet written by Eloise R. Griffith on the national anthems and their origin. I think this will be of interest to a great many people who want to know a little more than the mere words of the songs which we hear sung so often.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
I am thunderstruck reading a portion of sales would benefit Greenwich House. Talk about an undercurrent.
1951 Post-Modern Manifesto in the same year as the AAA seascapes
“A complete study of Cummings should take penetrating account of his painting and drawing. And no estimate of his literary work can begin without noting the important fact that Cummings is a painter.”
That’s the opener for Syrinx., a critique of Cummings by Gorham B. Munson published in Secession July 1923.ย
“His first stimulus comes from the emotional and perceptive materials of his experience…Cummings has jabbed his pen into life, but he has also twisted it in the wound, and it is this twist of the pen that makes literature.”ย
Knowing ee cummings facility with visual arts transforms how his poems read. He identifies both pursuits. The press announcement for Cummings appointment at Harvard in 1952 affirmed that he resided in New York City, writing and painting since the year 1920. It wasn’t that he sculpted marks–‘scratchings’- that could be seen as pictures in print,–it’s this charge when visual art and writing advance toward or basically obliterate media boundaries.
After reading Wilson’s 1951 Manifesto For Post-Modern Art published under his pseudonym Pico Miran, I felt a similar tug. For Wilson, when it comes to ideas and individuality, words and paint –and as many names and identities to match– matter. Some of Wilson’s paintings could be shown alongside pages from ee cummings The Enormous Room.
There are takeaways and points one can make about this manifesto and painting series of Wilson. I can think of art I’d like to show together with this work.
Yikes, the thoughts about women! Here’s Wilson writing as Pico Miran in his Manifesto, emphasis on man apparently:
“But while he proposes to save the personal symbol, he must emphatically reject the conception of its privacy–a conception which he is compelled to regard as an effeminate misery: he cannot help thinking an almost unmanly exaggeration of the one bit of feminine make-up in every artist, here flouncing in absurd esthetic millinery, with coy desire for secretiveness, mysterious subjectivity, and vain feelings of cryptic superiority to the vulgar mass.”
1951 Hidden, not lost
Wilson evidently maintained some contacts; note the supportive reviews by friends (Moore, Burke, Wheelock) later reprinted for his 1957 solo exhibit at Vose Galleries in Boston. Edward Alden Jewel, the New York Times critic, described Wilson as “living a hidden life of pure dedication and drudgery” in his 1951 NYC AAA review.
Check out the museums’ twitter accounts @mfaboston vs @HighMuseumofArt. For more fine art and football see
Super Bowl weekend super fundraiser: Smocks &ย Jocks
The National Football League Player’s Association (NFLPA) held the 12th annual ‘Smocks and Jocks’ Fine Art Auction and Jazz Brunch featuring art created by active and former NFL players (and others). The benefit raises money for the Gene Upshaw Player Assistance Fund.
@NFLPA ย functional pottery by Chris Cooley @thecooleyzone
“Our players are so many different things…The original thought was to create an opportunity for former players to come to the Super Bowl in a more relaxed atmosphere and to show a different side of the professional athlete by them being able to display their art.”
video below caption: Super Bowl XLVII ย (2013) Washington Redskins Andre Collins interview- time stamp at 2:20 pans through 2013 auction items
“Carl Eller provides artwork for new Vikings Stadium” youtube clip below
And for Craig Kimberly –ย Baronย Batch (Bansky of the NFL) and fellow former Steeler teammate John Malecki foundedย Studio A.M.ย Gallery in Pittsburgh
Flashback: visiting Clark Museum to see Bierstadt’s Puget Soundย on loan from the Seattle Art Museum thanks to the Patriots Super Bowl XLIX win. (If Seattle Seahawks won, Homer’s West Point Prout’s Neckย in the Clark would haveย gone west.)
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THE FIREWORKS ARE A GO!!! Hold onto your hats, we’re going to be treated to an extra fantabulous spectacular display!
Barry Pett sharesย that the response for requests for assistance with theย Schooner Festival/Labor Day Weekend fireworks show has been tremendous. He gives a heartfelt thanks toย everyone for their contributions.ย He’d also like folks to be aware that the City contributes greatly, with support from Mayor Romeo Theken’s administration, the Police and Fire Departments, and the DPW.
Barry provided some history aboutย the fireworks, which have been annually displayedย from Stage Fort Park since at least 1880. This beautifully poeticย Winslow Homer watercolor titled Sailboat and Fourth of July Fireworks,ย datedย July 4th, 1880, was painted during the year that Homerย lived on Ten Pound Island. Unfortunately, the painting is currently hidden away in storage at the Fogg Art Museum.ย It is Barry’s hope that for Gloucester’s quadricentennial the painting will travel to Gloucester and be displayed at the Cape Ann Museum.
Barry Pett has been creating Gloucester’s fireworks shows for over twenty five years.
Winslow Homer: Poet of the Sea
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Winslow Homer, Sailing out of Gloucester Harbor, 1880, Yale
SAIL GHS
Sign up for $100 per week blocks of morning lessons.ย Sail GHS leaves from Maritime Gloucester, Monday – Friday, fromย 8AM-11-11:30ish AM.ย The program targets middle schoolers through high school age. Participants should be able to swim, wear closed toe footwear, sunscreen, and bring a water.
Rob Bent provided the distinctive t-shirts.ย They’re ‘foresail’ย $15 to help fund theย Sail GHS program.ย Does anyone have a photograph of the sail club from the Horribles parade for them to replace this one?
ART SAIL GHS
Artists interested in live sketching from these sail times can emailย ย me. Sail GHS is on Facebook.
Thanks to Sail GHS board member Hilary Frye and congratulations on her new book of poetry!
Deborah Cramer thanks Good Morning Gloucester for mentioning her bookย and asks for photographs and stories about horseshoe crabs, otherwise known as the nearly scene stealing co-stars fromย herย inspiring book on red knots (sandpiper shorebirds), The Narrow Edge.
“Iโm in the midst of a project right now trying to uncover the almost forgotten history of the whereabouts of horseshoe crabs in Gloucester.ย Iโve heard some fantastic stories, like one from a man who used to go down to Lobster Cove after school and find horseshoe crabs so plentiful he could fill a dory. Do you think thereโs a value to putting up a few pictures on GMG and asking people to send in their recollections of beaches, coves where they used to see them in abundance?”
We do. Please send in photos or stories if you have them about horseshoe crabs in Gloucester or the North Shore for Deborah Cramer’s project. Write in comments below and/or email cryan225@gmail.com
Here’s one data point.ย Look closely at this 1869 Winslow Homer painting. Can you spot the horseshoe crabs? Can you identifyย the rocks and beach?
Winslow Homer, Rocky Coast and Gulls, 1869, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, installed in room #234 with so many other Homers (Fog Warning, All’s Well, Driftwood, …)
(zoomed into horseshoe crabs)
While reading The Narrow Edge, and looking at Kim Smith’s Piping Plover photographs,ย I thought about Raid on a Sand Swallow Colony (How Many Eggs?)ย 1873 by Homerย and how some things change while much remains the same.When my sons were little, they were thrilled with the first 1/3 or so ofย Swiss Family Robinson.ย ย As taken as they were with the family’s ingenuity, adventure, and tree house–they recoiled as page after page described a gorgeous new bird, promptly shot. They wouldn’t go for disturbingย eggs in a wild habitat. The title ascribed to this Homer, perhaps theย eager query from the clambering youngest boy, feels timeless. Was the boys’ precarious gathering sport, study, or food? What was common practice with swallows’ eggs in the 1860s and 70s? Homer’s birds are diminutive and active, but imprecise. Homer sometimes combined place, figures, subject and themes. One thing is clear: the composition, line and shadow are primed and effective for anย engraving.
Harper’s Weekly published the imageย on June 13, 1875. Artists oftenย drew directly on the edge grain of boxwood and aย master engraver (Lagrade in this case) removed the wood from pencil and washย lines.
2016. Wingaersheek dunes and nests 140+ years later.
Good Morning Gloucester 