Abstract Art on the Pacific Coast
|
Centers of art activity in Washington, Oregon, and California have in common the problems of distance from large art collections, from exhibiting opportunities, and from art markets elsewhere in the country. Otherwise, they present a considerable diversity in the styles the artists practise and in the settings in which they work. However, everywhere in the far west the type of expression usually termed abstract holds now an important place among local art movements.
Abstract art on the west coast ranges from complete abstraction, in which objective reality has no part, to semi-abstraction in a wide variety of personal styles. Much of it can be fairly accurately described as abstract expressionism, for subjective, emotional and symbolic emphasis is important in the work of most of the artists. The more intellectual type of abstraction based on geometrical pattern and calculated relationships is less practised than freer use of the medium to create relationships in space, movement, and color, with strong emotional overtones.
Abstract art has gained ground steadily as artists long established in the west have found their congenial way of expression in it, while most artists who have won recognition during the past fifteen years have practised an abstract style from their first appearance. In some places it is difficult at present to find any amount of work of creative quality that is not abstract, and the favor of artists, critics, and public certainly is directed to abstract art fairly generally.
The exploration of abstract painting and sculpture and the development of personal styles of abstraction are not new in the region. Indeed, at least one leading figure in the abstract movement developed in the north-west and still works there. This is, of course, Mark Tobey; he is certainly a pioneer and his contributions to abstract art are important and deeply personal, the result of long individual searching for his own manner of expression. His leadership has been important in the region. Some artists have brought experience in abstract art to the area. For example, S. MacDonald Wright, who now lives near Los Angeles, belongs to contemporary art-history and found his form of expression and contributed to orphism long before he settled in Southern California where his teaching has had influence. Of those native to the west or reaching maturity as artists there, a certain proportion were making tentative trials of abstract expression by the mid or late 'thirties. After the interruption of the war years the trend toward abstract styles was definitely fixed, and in the late 'forties had become dominant in the San Francisco bay region and important in all the other centers.
It cannot be repeated too often that abstract art in its great variety of forms in the Pacific Coast centers has been a slow growth among thoughtful artists, a result of their own evolution as well as of their intense study of abstract art in its historical and contemporary forms in Europe and elsewhere in the United States. Fortunately, the distance that has prevented general notice of their work throughout the country has not interfered too greatly with their knowledge of art elsewhere, drawn from the exhibitions of modern art shown in their communities and from what travel they could manage. These local leaders have been influential as teachers. But imported influences have likewise played a part in art development. In some cases, artists who came to teach or to work for a time in the west contributed to the growth of abstract art by the stimulus of their new personalities, by the confirmation of directions that mature artists there were already taking, and by a positive example and leadership for younger artists. In each of the centers the circumstances of the development of abstract art have differed, and everywhere its growth has corresponded to local conditions of environment as well as of leadership and of creative personalities.
North-west art of the Seattle region, at least in the work of a few of its leaders, is probably more generally known than that of any other Pacific Coast center. Despite the example and influence of Mark Tobey, abstraction has evolved as a personal expression strongly marked in the work of a few individuals. Tobey himself has developed a personal style, based on his sensitive reaction to the world about him, that continuously renews itself to bring fresh reflections in color and intricate patterns of what he sees and feels in abstract form. Morris Graves, whose painting is always marked deeply by emotion and symbolism, can be placed in general among abstract expressionists in spite of his varying use of objective reality. Kenneth Callahan likewise belongs in this company. Less well-known artists, of the Seattle region, among whom can be cited Kenjiro Nomura, George Tsutakawa, and Ernest C. Schwidder, all use abstract styles. Portland shares this north-west climate and landscape, which appear to have had some part in shaping the art of colleagues to the north. In Carl Morris and Louis Bunce it has two painters who have arrived at completely personal abstract styles. They both draw on the world of mountains, sea, and river, of mist and rain-effects about them as a point of departure for what become sensitive statements of relationships, deriving much of their richness from a masterly handling of the resources of their medium. Frederich Heidel in semi-abstraction, some younger artists in a wide range of abstract and semi-abstract styles, and two sculptors -- Hilda Morris and Tom Hardy, exploring degrees of abstract expression in modeling and metal -- give abstract art an important place in Oregon.
The two principal California centers, Los Angeles and San Francisco, both provide much art activity with a large number of able artists. In the Los Angeles area there are a good many who are making personal contributions to abstract art, ranging from completely non-objective work to less thoroughgoing abstractions. However, abstract art there seems less a general movement than an individual development on the part of a limited number of artists carrying on their personal research. In the San Francisco bay region, on the other hand, though the artists show as much diversity and individuality, abstract painting and sculpture represent the dominant trend to the point where only a very limited number of artists doing work of creative quality remain outside the general movement. Among the Los Angeles group one artist, John McLaughlin, works consistently in simplified relationships of a geometric type of complete abstraction. Hans Burkhardt, Lee Mullican, Orrel Reed, Richards Ruben generally paint abstractions, of a non-objective type expressing one or another series of relationships, while a dozen other outstanding painters of the area use abstract styles in handling more or less representational material. Sculptors such as Bernard Rosenthal and Pegot Waring treat easily identifiable subjects in abstract fashion.
The San Francisco bay area presents a much more homogeneous activity in abstraction. It assumes the form of a pervasive movement, strongly marked by individuals. Historically, the influence of Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still, teaching there in the late 'forties, cannot be overlooked in the present vigorous and extensive art activity of the bay region, but artist leaders and teachers long resident there contributed to its beginnings and development. Indeed, the examples and stimulation of these visiting teachers could not have been as fruitful as they have proved to be, if the ground had not been well prepared by the local artists' knowledge of the range of abstract art, and by the presence among them at this time of many who had already pushed far their own exploration of abstract expression and were continuing their growth in personal abstract styles without any sense of strangeness. There is now a larger proportion of artists working in abstraction of a non-representational type in the San Francisco area than in any other west coast center. There is a great range of styles and points of view to be sure. The dominant types can be grouped under the inclusive heading of abstract expressionism, for emotion and the representation of feeling by relationships translated in terms of the medium prevail. Sculpture is particularly important in the area, and the greater part of the work of quality produced -- whether in stone, wood, or metal -- is abstract. Among the painters should be named Ruth Armer, Richard Diebenkorn, Ralph Du Casse, Peter Shoemaker, Richard White, Paul Wonner, all of whose work is usually non-objective. Ruth Asawa, David Tolerton, and Gurdon Woods represent the range of abstract styles in sculpture.
No review of abstract art in the San Francisco bay area can be complete without recalling some of the artists who have gone on from there to win recognition abroad or elsewhere in this country. The painters John Hultberg, Sam Francis, and Louis Calcagno and the sculptor Claire Falkenstein come immediately to mind.
Has abstract art on the Pacific coast characteristics that distinguish it? They are hard to describe simply, but there are some attitudes at least shared by many artists there. First of all, it is obvious that western artists maintain great individuality. At most one might hazard the generalizations that distance and a certain degree of isolation account for this independence and the individuality of development of the artists of the region in general; that some artists have found their abstract expressions in harmony with a keen sensibility to environment of climate and landscapes; that space and views out to distant sea, mountains, or valleys have possibly something to do with the attraction that creating space on canvas holds for a good many of the artists there. To a westerner it seems that in the west space and distance have special meaning -when compared to older, more closely settled regions -- and it is not surprising if their reflection can be recognized in artists' works.
Does the experience of facing out across a vast space toward Asia from the farthest edge of expansion of the patterns of the western world, have some effect on artists of the Pacific coast? Some, like Tobey, have profited consciously from knowledge of Oriental thought and art. But representing the culture from lands behind them in a new country aware of the ancient and very different traditions beyond the sea undoubtedly has in the case of some artists a certain influence.
The number of artists on the Pacific coast working in abstract styles, their maturity and individuality as artists and the quality of their work, as well as its variety in abstract expression, make the region notable at the present time in any general review of abstract art in the United States. Fresh developments, points of view and styles as well as artists emerge from year to year but the resources of abstraction have certainly not run dry there. It is a movement continuing its evolution and with its own roots as well as its relationship with abstract art elsewhere. Artists of the Pacific coast, in making their contribution to the present great variety of abstract expression by no means can be regarded as only echoing styles elsewhere though they obviously fit into the general international as well as national movements of abstract art. Their work has its own accents, deriving not only from the personalities of individuals but from their environment and so adds not inconsiderably to the rich diversity of abstract art today.
|
||
