Your Friday Afternoon Challenge: American life in art!

[CTyankee]

Below are works of American artists who, over the years, have created rich images depicting life in the U.S. of their time or in their vision. Can you identify

a) these artists?
b) the titles of these works?
c) the styles/eras they worked in?
(Remember the “no Goggles or other tricks rule”, please!).

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

[EFerrari]

1. K&R

[gratuitous]

2. 100% guaranteed correct answer

No.

[patrice]

3. Is 4. Thomas Hart Benton? nt

[CTyankee]

5. Hey...good for you!

Doyou know the title and the school/style?

[patrice]

7. Nope. Definitely an amateur at this sort of thing! I just know what I like. nt

[CTyankee]

14. Benton sure has his own style, for sure!

Upon reflection, I think his art is about as reflective of American life in art as we have from his era...

[MuseRider]

19. Ahhh, you beat me to it!

How could anyone living in this area not know THB? I love his art. Also the work of John Stewart Curry (I don't know if that is how he spells his middle name). :hi:

[patrice]

25. Hi MuseRider!

:hi:

[patrice]

4. Wild guess, 7. is Grandma Moses? nt

[CTyankee]

6. Not her but...you are thinking along the right lines...

[patrice]

8. I know they're called the Primitives & they are the most authentic of the folk artists.

[CTyankee]

10. I have been informed by Those Who Know these things that "primitives" is no longer

politically correct. American Folk or Regionalist Art is now the term preferred. I like that better anyway...

[patrice]

15. Thanks for the information. I won't use that anymore, though, to some of us anyway, there's

something unique and, perhaps, nearly extinct in primitive perceptions, so it's not a put-down, though I can understand how it might have that effect in a broader context.

[CTyankee]

17. Yeah, lots of this stuff gets locked in all that Orientalist and Oceanist stuff

19th century French artists were doing...Picasso and his African masks, etc....some farsighted people said "enough of this sh*t" and called them out. Good for them.

[marions ghost]

9. #1 = Romare Bearden -- "The Calabash" 1970

Bearden is generally grouped with the American Abstract Expressionists of mid-century, though his works hark back to early moderns such as the Cubists also.

[CTyankee]

12. Hello, mg! Nice to see you!

Are you a big fan of Bearden? Do you know about the poet who is promoting his works?

[librechik]

22. dang it was on the tip of my tongue

[CTyankee]

27. The poet?

She's pretty young...

[marions ghost]

24. Like Bearden yes,

but I don't know about this poet connected with him.

:hi:

[CTyankee]

37. I didn't either til I got a book of her poems and she was memorializing him.

The poet is Elizabeth Alexander, the poet who was tapped to write the Inaugural poem at Obama's Inauguration.

[marions ghost]

42. This is a powerful Bearden painting:

"Tomorrow I May Be Far Away" --1967

http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/news/ntm3/ntm9-1-15.asp

Bearden also read a lot and wrote poetry. Thanks for the info about the poet who wrote about Bearden--will look up...

[CTyankee]

46. I happen to love collages. I am enamoured of Picasso and Bracque's collage

era and this is so wonderful. Collage anticipates Minimalism to me in that it sees what is coming with the big Unknown entity that will put us on the Edge...I think that is telling...

[marions ghost]

53. good way to put it

"anticipates Minimalism..." insightful. Definitely a connection.

[patrice]

11. The only American bronze artist I know is Frederic Remington, but I'd be surprised if he did that

beautiful bas relief we see in #8.

[CTyankee]

13. You are right. It is not Remington...but I'm thinking it "may" be the same era...

[SidDithers]

16. #8. August Saint-Gaudens' Shaw Memorial?...nt

Sid

[CTyankee]

18. What gives you that impression?

[Hissyspit]

29. "Glory," maybe?

[CTyankee]

33. glory is the name of the movie...

[Hissyspit]

36. I know!

But if you've seen the movie...

[patrice]

40. Does look like a monument somewhere, probably not the South. nt

[marions ghost]

20. #6 = Clementine Hunter

"Panorama of Baptism on Cane River" 1945

I didn't know much about this African-American folk artist from Louisiana but I thought her story interesting enough to copy here:

Clementine Hunter was born on Hidden Hill Plantation (now called Little Eva Plantation) near Natchitoches, Louisiana, in December of 1886. When she was a young girl, her father moved the family away from the harsh environment at Hidden Hill (the plantation that was supposedly the basis for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin) to the more hospitable Melrose Plantation.
Clementine lived at Melrose for most of the rest of life, moving just right down the road a few years before she died on January 1, 1988, at the age of 101. Melrose was a cotton plantation founded in the 1790’s by the freed Congo woman, Marie Therese and her son Augustin Metoyer. The plantation and its family were a focal point of the African and Creole cultures along the Cane River. During Clementine’s days there, it had become a small artist colony, where Louisiana writers and artists like Alberta Kinsey, Caroline Dorman, and Harnett Kane spent time with others such as William Faulkner and John Steinbeck.

As the story goes, New Orleans artist Alberta Kinsey left some paints and brushes behind on one of her visits to Melrose in about 1940. Clementine, who had at this time turned from work in the cotton fields to work in the kitchen as the cook at Melrose, found the paints and brushes and asked permission to paint a picture of her own. She presented Melrose resident Francois Mignon with a painting of a Cane River baptism on a window shade, and her life changed forever.

Clementine Hunter is Louisiana’s most famous female artist, and she is one of the most important folk artists of all time. Her work can be seen in the Smithsonian Institute, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Museum of American Folk Art in New York, the High Museum of Atlanta, the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the New York Historical Association, the Oprah Winfrey Collection in Chicago and many other museums and private collections across the country, including the newest exhibition at the Roger Ogden Museum in New Orleans, where the Clementine Hunter Educational Wing is expected to open soon.

http://www.gilleysgallery.com/PAGES/FOLK_ART/clementine1.html

[CTyankee]

28. How did you stumble on this? I never saw it. My source originally was a NYT article

a few months ago...

[marions ghost]

43. "African American folk artists"

I had a vague memory of a woman who did these sort of epic (but personal & local) religious themes...

[librechik]

21. is 2 Whistler and 4 Bierstadt?

damn, the numbering confuses me

[CTyankee]

30. No, #2 is not Whistler. bierstadt is right...

sorry about the numbering...I thought putting the number above the work would be easier but evidently it is not...

Now, do you know the "school" or "style" involved?

[patrice]

31. No, you have the numbering right. And I think you're right about Whistler.

I was trying to think why that one looked kind of familiar.

Don't know Bierstadt.

[patrice]

32. Disregard. I'm out of my league here. nt

[patrice]

23. Ooops! I got the numbering off, but you figured me out anyway!

:applause:

[librechik]

26. Is 5 Homer? I'm better with Americans.

[CTyankee]

34. Much better! Whistler wouldn't have gone to the South during Reconstruction to do this.

He was busy as an expat in Europe, painting lovely works of beautiful rich ladies.

Homer really wanted to support the newly freed slaves in the South. This is such a touching memorial to his work and to the people he put on canvas. I am moved every time I see it...

[Hissyspit]

39. Whistler's aunt lived in Spring Lake, North Carolina

if I'm remembering correctly, but I don't know if Whistler was ever a visitor.

[CTyankee]

45. He kinda strikes me as a dandy, tho.

Do you ever read Peter Schejledahl's New Yorker pieces? I have his book of his reviews called "Let's See" and it is a wonder. He has some great insights...

[Hissyspit]

35. Bearden, Bellows, Benton, Church, Homer, Hunter, St. Gaudens

Harlem Renaissance
Ash Can School
Regionalism
American Romanticism
American 19th Century Realist
Naive
American Renaissance

Bearden, Benton, Hunter, St. Gaudens were previously identified, of course.

[CTyankee]

38. Hey, hissyspit. do you teach art history?

But who is Church?

[Hissyspit]

41. Frederic Church - Hudson River School, student of Thomas Cole

Yes, I teach art history. You've just forgotten because I haven't been in your threads lately!

If that is a Bierstadt, the native American figure is a giveaway, but it must be an early one because it sure looks like a Church or Cole.

[CTyankee]

44. Since I don't know that much about the Hudson River School, I take your point!

How lovely that you teach art history! I'm so glad that you participated in the challenge today!

More Challenges will be coming up and I hope you will participate...

[Hissyspit]

47. They are fun when they are not making one's brain hurt!

[CTyankee]

48. Oh, I don't want your brain to hurt!

These challenges aren't that bad...

[elleng]

49. LOVE Bierstadt! More More!

Family friend (framer/restorer in NYC) HAD one; don't know if the family still does, but family owns

http://lowyonline.com/

Did I ever tell you about this?

:hi:

[CTyankee]

50. Yes! And isn't that lovely!

What a great story! I love it...

[elleng]

52. If you get into it, Hillard Shar my Dad's best friend, growing up + forever.

[CTyankee]

51. Sounds good! I look forward to reading it....

[ananda]

54. I loved this challenge.

I didn't know a single one, so I learned a lot.

Thank you !!!

[Bluerthanblue]

55. I know #7 well!!

We live near St. Gaudens. It's a beautiful place to visit- wonderful sculptures, cameos and gardens. You can often see Maxfield Parrish sunsets.

:hi:

[CTyankee]

56. The Gilded Era was certainly an interesting one.

Fabulous art was bought by fabulously rich families.