Outsider in New York: Ralph Fasanella Stephen Blank
Judy introduced Ralph Fasanella in an earlier article. This delves a bit deeper into an artist whose subject was our city.
First, what is “Outsider Art”? Outsider Art is one of many clusters living under the unruly umbrella of Folk Art. The term refers to artists who had no formal training in the arts. Many Outsider Artists began working later in life, after an earlier career. Some, and this is a specific group within the Outsiders, suffered from some form of disability, and some began artistic work in institutions – mental institutions or even prisons. Some were completely cut off not only from the arts world but from society at large, their work discovered only after their death.
MC CARTHY PRESS, 1958
Several very well-known artists had no formal training – for example, Frida Kahlo and Henri Rousseau. (Vincent van Gogh doesn’t quite squeeze into this box because he did attend various classes.) But the term Outsider typically refers to more recent artists. One might think of Grandma Moses as a starting point, but the contemporary story really begins with the effort by the French artist Jean Dubuffet to identify and publicize art he discovered in mental institutions and hospitals after World War II. He called this Art brut, French for “raw art”, works he said that were “created by people outside the professional art world… from their own depths and not from the stereotypes of Classical or fashionable art.”
THE MC CARTHY’S GREY DAY, 1963
Ralph Fscanella fit awkwardly into all of this. He began painting later in life, initially to exercise his arthritic fingers. He was completely untrained and developed his own very personal style over years of painting. But he was no outsider when it comes to his purpose. Fasanella’s work is very focused on major social issues of his time.
Ralph Fasanella was born to Italian immigrants, in the Bronx in 1914. His father delivered ice from a horse-driven wagon. He saw his father as representative of all working men, beaten down day after day and struggling for survival (though he abandoned the family and returned to Italy in the 1920s.) His mother worked in a neighborhood dress shop, and spent her spare time as an anti-fascist activist. She seems to have instilled in him a strong sense of social justice and political awareness.
FAREWELL COMRADE , END OF COLD WAR 1939-99
Fasanella spent time in reform schools run by the Catholic Church, an experience that instilled a deep dislike for authority and reinforced Fasanella’s hatred for anything which broke people’s spirits. (I suggest Lineup at the Protectory 2 here) He quit school after the sixth grade.
During the Great Depression, Fasanella, then a member of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1227, became strongly aware of the growing economic and social injustice in the U.S., as well as the plight and powerlessness of the working class. During the Spanish Civil War, Fasanella volunteered for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and, after the War, returned to the United States and became a union organizer.
In the mid-1940s, Fasanella began to suffer from intense finger pain caused by arthritis. A union co-worker suggested that he take up painting as a way to exercise his fingers and ease the pain. Soon he began to paint full-time. To pay the bills, he bought a service station and worked there. As early as 1947, his work was exhibited alongside the most important social realist painters of the day, including Philip Evergood and Ben Shahn. By the 1970s he had gained national recognition and soon devoted all of his energies to making art. He appeared on the October 30, 1972 cover of New York magazine. The cover depicted him wearing a work shirt and standing in his tiny studio. Accompanying the photo was the headline: “This man pumps gas in the Bronx for a living. He may also be the best primitive painter since Grandma Moses.”
1972 photo courtesy of American Folk Art Museum (c)
MC CARTHY ERA GARDEN PARTY, 1954
Fasanella developed a reputation for large-scale depictions of New York City’s streets, portraying baseball games, political campaigns, strikes, factories, union halls, and, occasionally, scenes of leisure. In addition to drawing and painting, the artist began his lifelong practice of carrying a sketchbook with him. A tireless advocate for workers’ rights, he created artworks as teaching tools, rallying cries, and memorial documents. He felt so strongly about the need to remember the sacrifices of previous generations that he inscribed the phrase “Lest We Forget” on several of his paintings.
He spent three years in Massachusetts in the mid-1970s living in an $18-a-week room at the YMCA while completing 18 canvases. He produced several very large paintings of New England mill towns, three of which depicted the Lawrence textile strike of 1912. He also produced a painting of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and violent, blood-red image of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
AMERICAN HERITAGE, 1974
By the end of his life, many of the social and economic causes Fasanella fought for were no longer relevant. “It’s over”, he said. “What I wanted to do was to paint great big canvases about the spirit we used to have in the movement and then go around the country showing them in union halls. When I started these paintings I had no idea that when they were all finished there wouldn’t be any union halls in which to show them.”
Over the course of Fasanella’s fifty-two years as a practicing artist,his work evolved from the anger and radical politics of his youth, through the social and political engagement of the 1960s and ’70s, and into more personal and nostalgic reflections on his childhood. In all of this, his paintings were bound to memory. Fasanella’s imagery is, in a sense, documentation. His paintings are documents of a certain time and place that the artist wanted to keep as part of the cultural consciousness; to tell stories and instruct the masses. The stories he told were ones of political upheaval, as in McCarthy Press; the monotony of a work-a-day life, as in Subway Riders; or relished moments of leisure and play, as in Coney Island. The elaborate geometries within his compositions helped to make sense of his densely arranged canvases and hold together their narrative structure. In creating these artworks, Fasanella was able to remind himself, and others, where they came from—and where they are going.
Stephen Blank has contributed today’s report. Stephen and his wife Lenore were avid collectors of Outsider Art. Lenore, who passed away was a docent at the American Folk Art Museum. The museum is open and located across the street from Lincoln Center. (https://folkartmuseum.org/) Try a visit and see the fun works of creative persons who expressed their art with many materials.
Judith Berdy
Funding Provided by: Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation Public Purpose Funds Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD Text by Judith Berdy CREDITS
Until 1869, amid the huge farms and estates that occupied today’s Upper East Side, a little neighborhood called Hamilton Square existed.
“On the old map of the city streets as laid out by the commission in 1807, from which came the present system of rectangular streets, an Alexander Hamilton Square was laid out on an extensive tract of city lands comprising the area bounded by Third and Fifth Avenues, 66th and 69th Streets,” a 1921 New York Times article explains.
There’s not a lot out there about Hamilton Square, so it’s hard to get a sense of what kind of neighborhood it was. An illustration of a church (below) exists, as do newspaper accounts of a proposed monument to George Washington in 1849.
Then, soon after Central Park opened in the 1859, it was wiped off the map, according to the Times piece:
“The western half, including the blocks west of Park Avenue with the Fifth Avenue frontage, was sold and the eastern portion was alloted by the city to various charitable and philanthropic institutions.”
These included Normal College (now Hunter College), the Seventh Regiment Armory, and Mt. Sinai Hospital.
Uptown, the city hosts another, newer Hamilton Square, at the junction of Hamilton Place, 143rd Street, and Amsterdam Avenue.
Until the 1860s the City did little to improve Hamilton Square in what was then the outskirts of the City though it did allow a church to be constructed at the north end of the square. In 1847, a ceremony was held in Hamilton Square to place the cornerstone for a planned 425-foot tall monument to George Washington. However, that project never advanced further. In the 1850s Hamilton Square was used as the site for special events such as Cattle Shows.
With the decision in 1853 to create Central Park, a large public square nearby was seen as redundant and the City provided the land to public institutions instead. This included a home for the Normal College, a new institution for the training of women teachers, which was established in 1870 under its first president, Thomas Hunter. (In 1914 Normal College was renamed for Hunter.)
As Hamilton Square was being developed in the 1870s,Thomas Hunter and other local leaders attempted to preserve the last remaining undeveloped block. They signed a petition in 1879 stating that the empty block “is now a public nuisance covered with shanties and occupied by the lowest class of people, their dogs, goats and swine” and they urged the state legislature to “pass an act converting the aforesaid square into a public park to be named Hamilton square.”
JONE’S WOOD
Jones’s Wood
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jones’s Wood was a block of farmland on the island of Manhattan overlooking the East River. The site was formerly occupied by the wealthy Schermerhorn and Jones families. Today, the site of Jones’s Wood is part of Lenox Hill, in the present-day Upper East Side of New York City.
History
Tomb of David Provoost (1857)
The farm of 132 acres (53 ha), known by its 19th-century owners as the “Louvre Farm”, extended from the Old Boston Post Road (approximating the course of Third Avenue) to the river and from present-day 66th Street to 75th Street. It was purchased from the heirs of David Provoost (died 1781) by the successful innkeeper and merchant John Jones, to provide himself a country seat near New York. The Provoost house, which Jones made his seat, stood near the foot of today’s 67th Street.After his death the farm was divided into lots among his children. His son James retained the house and its lot. His daughter Sarah, who had married the shipowner and merchant Peter Schermerhorn on April 5, 1804, received Division 1, nearest to the city. On that southeast portion of his father-in-law’s property, Peter Schermerhorn, soon after his marriage, had first inhabited the modest villa overlooking the river at the foot of today’s 67th Street.
19th century
In 1818, Peter Schermerhorn purchased the adjoining property to the south from the heirs of John Hardenbrook’s widow Ann, and adding it to his wife’s share of the Jones property—from which it was separated by Schermerhorn Lane leading to the Hardenbrook burial vault overlooking the river at 66th Street—named his place Belmont Farm. They at once moved into the handsomer Hardenbrook house looking onto the river at the foot of East 64th Street; there he remained, his wife having died on April 28, 1845. The frame house survived into the age of photography, as late as 1911. It survived an 1894 fire that swept Jones’s Wood almost clear and remained while the first building of The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, now Rockefeller University, was erected to its south. The block of riverfront property now occupied by Rockefeller University is the largest remaining piece of Jones’s Wood. The house was razed after 1903.
Behind the Facades
Tucked behind 65th and 66th Streets, just west of Third Avenue are a dozen townhouses that share a communal yard. Instead of each house fencing off their yard, there is one community garden area with a small fountain in the center of the area. There is no way to see the splendid oasis from the street.*
You can read more on Ephemeral New York about the garden.
the Squibb Bridge to Brooklyn Bridge Park, a pedestrian shortcut to the waterfront. Bill Schimoler was the winner!
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EDITORIAL
For years my parents apartment looked out over part of the Jone’s Wood houses and the garden. It is a secret joy of living in the City.
My favorite part of being (working in one for years) in a Manhattan high rise was looking into the secret gardens and backyards. We were in luck that no high-rise obstructed views of the world below.
We should be so appreciative of our openness and views from our Island homes.
Judith Berdy
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff Roosevelt Island Historical Society MATERIALS USED FROM: EPHEMERAL NEW YORK NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY WIKIPEDIA
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Until recently we knew little of this architect’s work. I have passed by it many times and admired it from afar. For decades this campus was Bethesda Naval Hospital, it was re-named when the famed Walter Reed campus was closed. Cret’s works are wonderful and there is much written about designs. Unfortunately, due to the coming of World War II, and adaptation of some designs by Albert Speer for the Nazi grand plan, Cret’s ideas were cast aside.
I am happy to recognize his work publicly and we can study his career more at a later time.
Judith Berdy
NATIONAL NAVAL MEDICAL CENTER
NOW WALTER REED NATIONAL MILITARY MEDICAL CENTER BETHESDA, MARYLAND
Born in Lyon, France, Cret was educated at that city’s École des Beaux-Arts, then in Paris, where he studied at the atelier of Jean-Louis Pascal. He came to the United States in 1903 to teach at the University of Pennsylvania.[1] Although settled in America, he happened to be in France at the outbreak of World War I. He enlisted and remained in the French army for the duration, for which he was awarded the Croix de Guerre and made an officer in the Legion of Honor.
Cret’s practice in America began in 1907. His first major commission, designed with Albert Kelsey, was the Pan American Union Building (the headquarters of what is now the Organization of American States) in Washington DC (1908–10),] a breakthrough that led to many war memorials, civic buildings, court houses, and other solid, official structures.
His work through the 1920s was firmly in the Beaux-Arts tradition, but with the radically simplified classical form of the Folger Shakespeare Library (1929–32), he flexibly adopted and applied monumental classical traditions to modernist innovations. Some of Cret’s work is remarkably streamlined and forward-thinking, and includes collaborations with sculptors such as Alfred Bottiau and Leon Hermant.
In the late 1920s the architect was brought in as design consultant on Fellheimer and Wagner’s Cincinnati Union Terminal (1929–33), the high-water mark of Art Deco style in the United States. He became an American citizen in 1927. In 1931, the regents of The University of Texas at Austin commissioned Cret to design a master plan for the campus, and build the Beaux-Art Main Building (1934–37), the university’s signature tower. Cret would go on to collaborate on about twenty buildings on the campus. In 1935, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1938.
FOLGER SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY
CINCINNATI UNION TERMINAL
CINCINNATI UNION TERMINAL
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, AUSTIN
Various elevations of Paul Cret’s Union group of buildings, including the Union, the Auditorium (now Hogg Memorial Auditorium), the Architecture Building (now Goldsmith Hall), the Education Building (now Sutton Hall), and the to-be-demolished Women’s Building, 1931. Paul Philippe Cret Collection, Comm. 261-C, sk. 5, Alexander Architectural Archive, University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.
PIONEER ZEPHER TRAIN
The Pioneer Zephyr is a diesel-powered trainset built by the Budd Company in 1934 for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q), commonly known as the Burlington Route.
The trainset was the second internal combustion powered streamliner built for mainline service in the United States, the first such train powered by a diesel engine, and the first to enter revenue service. The trainset consists of one power/RPO car, one baggage/buffet/coach car, and one coach/observation car.
The cars are made of stainless steel, permanently articulated together with Jacobs bogies. The construction incorporated recent advances such as shotwelding (a specialized type of spot welding) to join the stainless steel, and unibody construction and articulation to reduce weight. It was the first of nine similarly built trainsets made for Burlington and its technologies were pivotal in the subsequent dieselization of passenger rail service.
Its operating economy, speed, and public appeal demonstrated the potential for diesel-electric powered trains to revitalize and restore profitability to passenger rail service that had suffered a catastrophic loss of business with the Great Depression. Originally named the Burlington Zephyr during its demonstration period, it became the Pioneer Zephyr as Burlington expanded its fleet of Zephyr trainsets.
FLANDERS FIELD AMERICAN CEMETERY
The memorial was designed by architect Paul Cret. This is the only American World War I cemetery in Belgium and 411 American servicemen are buried or commemorated there.
CHATEAU-THIERRY AMERICAN WAR MONUMENT
The World War I Chateau-Thierry American Monument, designed by Paul Cret, is located on a hill two miles west of Chateau-Thierry, France, and commands a wide view of the valley of the Marne River. It commemorates the sacrifices and achievements of the Americans and French before and during the Aisne-Marne and Oise-Aisne offensives.
The monument, also known as the American Aisne-Marne Memorial or Le Monument américain à cote 204, consists of an impressive double colonnade rising above a long terrace. On its west facade are heroic sculptured figures representing the United States and France. On its east facade is a map showing American military operations in this region and an orientation table pointing out the significant battle sites.
German advances in late May 1918 led to the 3rd Division joining the fight. Its units assisted French troops in preventing the Germans from crossing the Marne River. The 3rd Division held the south bank of the Marne until the French American counteroffensive forced German withdrawal. It earned the nickname “Rock of the Marne.” At the nearby cemeteries rest those Americans who gave their lives in the service of their country.
Former Domino Sugar Plant Brooklyn Clara Bella was the only winner!
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COMMENT
4 years old my mom piles us all in our Olsdsmobile wooden station wagon and drives down the Hudson so we can all see the Normandie on her side. The memory is clear as can be in my mind. I have this postcard on my wall. Ron Crawford
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) WIKIPEDIA UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS ARCHIVES U.S. GOVERNMENT ARCHIVES FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
1939 Ocean Liners in New York City Harbor New York City photo of various international ocean liners in New York Harbor during the tension filled early days of WWII in Europe. The following ships are shown: Bremen (German), Normandie (French), Aquitania (British) and Roma (Italian). PHOTOGRAPHER / CREDIT: United States Information Agency
Ocean Liners At NYC Dock
New York, New York c. 1932A lineup of ships in the harbor. Near the center are the passenger liners, SS Normandie and SS Bremen.
ITALIAN LINE
THE Queens of the 1960’s ITALIAN Line :
SS Andrea Doria 29083 GRT Ansaldo Shipyards, Italy 1953–1956 capsized and sank on 25 July 1956 after colliding with MS Stockholm SS Cristoforo Colombo 29191 , SS Leonardo da Vinci , T/S Michelangelo, T/S Raffaello
CUNARD WHITE STAR LINE
The grand pier where you waited to greet the arrivals.
Ready for as many as 4 ships to arrive at once
A view of the North River
RMS QUEEN MARY
Located to the west of the West Side Highway (Eleventh Avenue) and Hudson River Park and to the east of the Hudson River, they were originally a passenger ship terminal in the early 1900s that was used by the RMS Lusitania and was the destination of the RMS Carpathia after rescuing the survivors of the RMS Titanic. The piers replaced a variety of run-down waterfront structures with a row of grand buildings embellished with pink granite facades.
The Carpathia is pictured below
RMS QUEEN ELIZABETH 1939
RMS MAURITANIA 1939
RED STAR LINE
The Red Star Line was a shipping line founded in 1871 as a joint venture between the International Navigation Company of Philadelphia, which also ran the American Line, and the Société Anonyme de Navigation Belgo-Américaine of Antwerp, Belgium. The company’s main ports of call were Antwerp[1][2] in Belgium, Liverpool and Southampton[1] in the United Kingdom and New York City[1] and Philadelphia[3] in the United States.
UNITED STATES LINE
S.S. UNITED STATES 1950’S, The fastest ship to cross the Atlantic in just over 3 years. It is sitting in Philadelphia awaiting funding for restoration.
GRACE LINE
S.S. SANTA PAULA 1932
FRENCH LINE
The most grand way to travel. The Normandie caught fire in NY and was destroyed.
Ile de France arriving in New York
S.S.France, the last of the grand dames. She was too late for the grand days of sailing.
WATERSIDE PLAZA APARTMENTS WINNERS WILL BE LISTED SOON!
EDITORIAL
I have been working at the Javits Center and wondering about the next edition of FROM THE ARCHIVES.
Just beyond was the Hudson River and the tales of the great shops who sailed to our city. Enjoy the images and picture grand Bon Voyage parties before the ship sailed.
I have sailed on a few of the ships pictured. Which ones?
JUDITH BERDY
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Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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WIKIPEDIA Lee Oscar Lawrie (October 16, 1877 – January 23, 1963
Was one of the United States’ foremost architectural sculptors and a key figure in the American art scene preceding World War II. Over his long career of more than 300 commissions Lawrie’s style evolved through Modern Gothic, to Beaux-Arts, Classicism, and, finally, into Moderne or Art Deco.
He created a frieze on the Nebraska State Capitol building in Lincoln, Nebraska, including a portrayal of the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation. He also created some of the architectural sculpture and his most prominent work, the free-standing bronze Atlas (installed 1937) at New York City’s Rockefeller Center.
Lawrie’s work is associated with some of the United States’ most noted buildings of the first half of the twentieth century. His stylistic approach evolved with building styles that ranged from Beaux-Arts to neo-Gothic to Art Deco. Many of his architectural sculptures were completed for buildings by Bertram Goodhue of Cram & Goodhue, including the chapel at West Point; the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.; the Nebraska State Capitol; the Los Angeles Public Library; St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in New York; Cornell Law School in Ithaca, New York; and Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago. He completed numerous pieces in Washington, D.C., including the bronze doors of the John Adams Building of the Library of Congress, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception south entrance portal, and the interior sculpture of George Washington at the National Cathedral.
Lawrie produced important and highly visible work under Raymond Hood at Rockefeller Center in New York City, which included the Atlas in collaboration with Rene Paul Chambellan. By November 1931 Hood said, “There has been entirely too much talk about the collaboration of architect, painter and sculptor.” He relegated Lawrie to the role of a decorator.
ROCKEFELLER CENTER
Lawrie produced important and highly visible work under Raymond Hood at Rockefeller Center in New York City, which included the Atlas in collaboration with Rene Paul Chambellan. By November 1931 Hood said, “There has been entirely too much talk about the collaboration of architect, painter and sculptor.” He relegated Lawrie to the role of a decorator.[9]
Lawrie’s most noted work is not architectural: it is the freestanding statue of Atlas, on Fifth Avenue at Rockefeller Center, standing a total 45 feet tall, with a 15-foot human figure supporting an armillary sphere.[10] At its unveiling, some critics were reminded of Benito Mussolini, while James Montgomery Flagg suggested that it looked as Mussolini thought he looked.[11] The international character of Streamline Moderne, embraced by Fascism as well as corporate democracy, lost favor during the Second World War.
Featured above the entrance to 30 Rockefeller Plaza and axially behind the golden Prometheus, Lawrie’s Wisdom is one of the most visible works of art in the complex. An Art Deco piece, it echoes the statements of power shown in Atlas and Paul Manship’s Prometheus.
PROGRESS
LEE LAURIE A true icon of the Art Deco style, this bas-relief is allegorical, has bold and flat geometric shapes, strong colors and stylized forms, and, above all, is decorative. The main character is Columbia, the traditional female symbol of America. Here, she is a large athletic figure wearing a simple peasant dress, her face composed and devoid of emotion. She holds the flame of divine fire in one hand, an olive branch, the symbol of peace, in another. The mythological horse Pegasus, the symbol of inspiration, is placed behind her, while an eagle in the foreground symbolizes power. Above 49th Street entrance.
CORNUCOPIA OF PLENTY
This polychrome-painted stone carving depicts a messenger soaring from the clouds, emptying an overflowing horn onto the earth. Lee Lawrie wrote that it symbolizes “the plentitude that would result from well-organized international trade”, a theme compatible to the activities of the building. The figure’s downward angle, her flowing golden hair and the dramatic spilling of contents from her cornucopia all skillfully convey a feeling of motion and energy.
10 West 51st Street
ATLAS
Atlas is a successful collaboration between two talented artists, Lee Lawrie, who conceived the idea and designed the figure, and Rene Chambellan, who modeled the heroic-sized statue from his sketch. A famous figure from Greek mythology, Atlas was a half-man, half-god giant known as a Titan, who helped lead a war against the Olympic gods. After the Titans’ defeat, Atlas was condemned to carry the world on his shoulders as punishment. Atlas is one of Rockefeller Center’s greatest Art Deco icons and has even been used on U.S. postage stamps.
630 Fifth Avenue, main entrance forecourt
WINGED MERCURY
The Roman god Mercury has been used to symbolize Britain’s worldwide strength in the 1930s, and here the gilded figure is depicted on a mission, rapidly flying over blue-green waves. His helmet signifies power and protection, while the small wings on his heels symbolize swiftness. This panel stands for the wealth and vitality of the British merchant fleets that built the empire and sailed the seas. The intaglio relief, meaning carved or engraved into the stone without any areas being higher than the surrounding stone, is a classic Art Deco architectural embellishment.
Above Channel Gardens Entrance of 620 Fifth Avenue
ARMS OF ENGLAND
Three gilded passant-gardant lions (passant means walking; gardant means looking out of the shield) reinforce the presence of the building’s primary tenant, the British monarchy. Lions were first used to decorate the shield of Richard I, who became King of England at age thirty-two and ruled from 1189 – 1199. He had spent most of his lifer in France, his mother’s country, where he received the nickname Coeur de Lion (“lionhearted”), signifying his military prowess. Gilded Tudor roses, carved below the lions, are also important symbols of royalty in Britain.
Above 50th Street entrance of 620 Fifth Avenue
SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI WITH BIRDS
The figure of Saint Francis symbolizes love of self and neighbor. In 1212, he founded the Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans), who rejected materialism and, in those days, lived in the streets. In this carving, he wears an austere brown friar’s robe and bare feet. Behind his head is the halo of sainthood with flying gilded doves, the sign of the Holy Spirit. He shares his meager meal with a bird while gazing upward, seemingly thankful. Above 9 West 50th Street entrance of 630 Fifth Avenue
An Art Deco icon, Wisdom famously looms over the entrance to the main building of Rockefeller Center and can be seen from Fifth Avenue. Created by Lee Lawrie, one of America’s foremost architectural sculptors, it is an impressive and imposing focal point. Wisdom is considered the creative power of the universe, and the figure’s commanding slant, intimidating expression and biblical quote help convey his strength, impact and control over man. It is flanked by two other important works by Lawrie: Sound and Light.
Above the main entrance to 30 Rockefeller Plaza
“Story of Mankind” Clock, Bas Relief Sculpture by Lee Lawrie. Art Deco Clock Located At The Entrance of 30 Rockefeller Plaza Manhattan NYC. Built in 1930-1939.
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EDITORIAL
For years I had jobs that were in the neighborhood of Rockefeller Center. There is something about working in a “city” where your can walk underground from 52nd Street to 47th Street. I always liked taking the passageway to lunch or to the bank at the other end of the plaza. I worked in years when the holidays were for a month not 4 months as it was recently.
Thee pre-pandemic days it was more of an obstacle course to traverse the underground passages.
I am looking forward to returning to Rock Center.
Judith Berdy
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Wikipedia for both
THIS ISSUE COMPILED FROM THE WONDERFUL ARCHIVES OF THE ROCKEFELLER CENTER WIKIPEDIA
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Biography Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) was one of the twentieth century’s most important and critically acclaimed sculptors. Through a lifetime of artistic experimentation, he created sculptures, gardens, furniture and lighting designs, ceramics, architecture, and set designs. His work, at once subtle and bold, traditional and modern, set a new standard for the reintegration of the arts.
Noguchi, an internationalist, traveled extensively throughout his life. (In his later years he maintained studios both in Japan and New York.) He discovered the impact of large-scale public works in Mexico, earthy ceramics and tranquil gardens in Japan, subtle ink-brush techniques in China, and the purity of marble in Italy. He incorporated all of these impressions into his work, which utilized a wide range of materials, including stainless steel, marble, cast iron, balsa wood, bronze, sheet aluminum, basalt, granite, and water.
Born in Los Angeles, California, to an American mother and a Japanese father, Noguchi lived in Japan until the age of thirteen, when he moved to Indiana. While studying pre-medicine at Columbia University, he took evening sculpture classes on New York’s Lower East Side, mentoring with the sculptor Onorio Ruotolo. He soon left the university to become an academic sculptor.
In 1926, Noguchi saw an exhibition in New York of the work of Constantin Brancusi that profoundly changed his artistic direction. With a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Noguchi went to Paris, and in 1927 worked in Brancusi’s studio. Inspired by the older artist’s forms and philosophy, Noguchi turned to modernism and abstraction, infusing his highly finished pieces with a lyrical and emotional expressiveness, and with an aura of mystery.
Returning to New York City as well as traveling extensively in Asia, Mexico, and Europe in the late 1920s through the 1930s, Noguchi survived on portrait sculpture and design commissions, proposed landscape works and playgrounds, and intersected and engaged in collaborations with a wide range of luminaries. Noguchi’s work was not well-known in the United States until 1940, when he completed a large-scale sculpture symbolizing the freedom of the press, which was commissioned in 1938 for the Associated Press Building in Rockefeller Center, New York City. This was the first of what would eventually become numerous celebrated public works worldwide, ranging from playgrounds to plazas, gardens to fountains, all reflecting his belief in the social significance of sculpture.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the backlash against Japanese Americans in the United States had a dramatic personal effect on Noguchi, motivating him to become a political activist. In 1942, he cofounded Nisei Writers and Artists Mobilization for Democracy, a group dedicated to raising awareness of the patriotism of Japanese Americans; and voluntarily entered the Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston) incarceration camp in Arizona where he remained for six months.
Following his release, Noguchi set up a studio at 33 MacDougal Alley in Greenwich Village, New York City, where he returned to stone sculpture as well as prolific explorations of new materials and methods. His ideas and feelings are reflected in his works of that period, particularly the delicate slab sculptures included in the 1946 exhibition Fourteen Americans at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Noguchi did not belong to any particular movement, but collaborated with artists working in a range of disciplines and schools. He created stage sets as early as 1935 for Martha Graham, beginning a lifelong collaboration; as well as for Merce Cunningham, Erick Hawkins, and George Balanchine and composer John Cage. In the 1960s, Noguchi began working with stone carver Masatoshi Izumi on the island of Shikoku, Japan; a collaboration that would also continue for the rest of his life. From 1961 to 1966, he worked on a playground design with the architect Louis Kahn.
Whenever given the opportunity to venture into the mass-production of his designs, Noguchi seized it. In 1937, he designed a Bakelite intercom for the Zenith Radio Corporation, and in 1947, his glass-topped table was produced by Herman Miller. This design and others—such as his designs for Akari light sculptures which were initially developed in 1951 using traditional Japanese materials—are still being produced today. In 1985, Noguchi opened The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum (now known as The Noguchi Museum), in Long Island City, New York.
The Museum, established and designed by the artist, marked the culmination of his commitment to public spaces. Located in a 1920s industrial building across the street from where the artist had established a studio in 1960, it has a serene outdoor sculpture garden, and many galleries that display Noguchi’s work, along with photographs, drawings, and models from his career. He also indicated that his studio in Mure, Japan, be preserved to inspire artists and scholars; a wish that was fulfilled with the opening of the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum Japan in 1999.
Noguchi’s first retrospective in the United States was in 1968, at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. In 1986, he represented the United States at the Venice Biennale. Noguchi received the Edward MacDowell Medal for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to the Arts in 1982; the Kyoto Prize in Arts in 1986; the National Medal of Arts in 1987; and the Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Japanese government in 1988. He died in New York City in 1988.
IN THE GARDEN
LEFT ABOVE
Behind Inner Seeking Shiva Dancing 1975 – 1981 Basalt The large section removed from the back of the 1974 sculpture called The Great Rock of Inner Seeking, now in the East Wing of the National Gallery in Washington, remained waiting. Two years later I was able to start and eight more to finally conclude what was for me an intense dialogue with the possibilities of stone. Rising out of destruction came the dance of Shiva.
RIGHT ABOVE
The Well 1982 Basalt, Water I have made many experimental versions of “tsukubai,” including this one for this garden. The water is introduced from within and recirculated. What is created is a fountain, contrary to the traditional “tsukubai.”
THE ABOVE ART IS ALL ON VIEW AT:
The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum 9-01 33rd Road (at Vernon Boulevard) Long Island City, New York 11106 718.204.7088 info@noguchi.org
NOGUCHI’S OTHER WORKS
This piece depicts five journalists going for a news story. This is located at the former Associated Press Building in Rockefeller Center, NYC,
“Radio Nurse”1937
Noguchi worked in a variety of media and Radio Nurse was his first major industrial commission. Together with a separate enameled metal receiver called the Guardian Ear, this piece functions as a baby monitor, transmitting sounds from the baby’s room to the receiver. The highly sculptural form evokes an abstracted human head: the eponymous surrogate nurse. Made of Bakelite, a plasticlike, malleable material that could be dyed almost any color, Radio Nurse is an excellent example of the new, industrial material’s sculptural qualities.
PLAYSCAPE Designed with Louis Kahn is preserved in Atlanta, GA.
Red Cube Sculpture, 1968, 140 Broadway Between Cedar and Liberty Streets, Financial District in Lower Manhattan, New York, USA, photo: CC BY 2.0) by Yiie
THE FORMER SOHMER PIANO FACTORY ON VERNON BLVD Jay Jacobson, Nina Lublin, Clara Bella, Ed Litcher ( WE OMITTED OUR WINNERS ON FRIDAY, SORRY FOR THE GOOF)
CLARIFICATION
WE ARE HAPPY TO GIVE WINNERS OF OUR DAILY PHOTO IDENTIFICATION A TRINKET FROM THE VISITOR CENTER. ONLY THE PERSON IDENTIFYING THE PHOTO FIRST WILL GET A PRIZE. WE HAVE A SPECIAL GROUP OF ITEMS TO CHOOSE FROM. WE CANNOT GIVE AWAY ALL OUR ITEMS,. PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMES, WE MUST LIMIT GIVE-AWAYS. THANK YOU
October is the beginning of our annual membership drive. The RIHS has served the community since 1976. In ordinary times, we sponsor programs, lectures, tours, classes and many community events that the RIHS participates in. Our dues are very reasonable and we need your support to keep our activities coming as soon as we are able. To join the RIHS go to our membership link at: https://rihs.us/join-us/ Thanking you in advance for your support Judith Berdy
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All materials in this publication are copyrighted (c)
PHOTOS FROM JUDITH BERDY COPYRIGHT RIHS/2020 (C) TEXT FROM THE ISAMU NOGUCHI FOUNDATION AND MUSEUM GARDEN
MATERIAL COPYRIGHT WIKIPEDIA, GOOGLE RIHS ARCHIVES AND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION (C)
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Doggy Bags sculptures on Broadway“Doggy Bags” giant dog sculptures take over Garment District. Photo: Alexandre Ayer/Diversity Pictures
October is a great time to visit some of the newest public art installations throughout New York City — while abiding by the health and safety guideline with social distancing and mask wearing. With the Photoville festival taking place over different boroughs for the ninth year and Union Square’s climate clock making a buzz on the headlines for marking the end of civilization on Earth, October offers some new additions to the already expansive art installation checklist from September. During these challenging times, perhaps we can experience a little rest from Optical Animal’s Projection Napping at Time Square and browse through the graffiti wall in Bowery. Here are the public art installations on display in New York City this October:
Doors for Doris at Doris C. Freedman Plaza
Photo by Nicholas Knight, Courtesy Public Art Fund
Artist Sam Moyer created a massive three-part hybrid sculpture using imported stones and rock indigenous to New York in order to pay homage to Public Art Fund founder Doris C. Freedman at the plaza named for her outside Central Park.
According to Public Art Fund’s website, “these polished stones bear the markings and shapes of their original uses. They also display the unique colors, patterns, and geological history of their sources — quarries in Brazil, China, India, Italy, and beyond. Each stone in Moyer’s mosaic compositions takes on an even more striking hue against the others and the locally-quarried rock, an apt metaphor that encourages us to consider the diverse character of our city and our interconnected lives within it.” The installation will run from September 16, 2020 to September 12, 2021.
“Doggy Bags,”, the latest art installation on Broadway in the Garment District is up and is positively pooch-tastic. The works by New York-based artist Will Kurtz entitled “Doggy Bags” are all made of recycled materials. On display are multiple breeds including an English bulldog named Harriet, chihuahua called Harriet, a pug named Maisy, a bassett hound called Stanley, and a bull mastif known as Daphne. The works are part of a year-round program from the Garment District Alliance and this fall there is an additional impetus: to welcome New Yorkers back to Midtown Manhattan amidst the ongoing city reopening.
MATZU
On the Bowery graffiti wall, Groundswell has completed the newest mural to be seen at the street art site in a year. The work was designed by artist Raul Ayala and painted by a team of ten youth artists The last piece, by Japanese artist Tomokazu Matsuyama “Matzu” was completed in September of last year. The mural for 2020 coincides with the 25th anniversary of Groundswell, an organization that uses art for change. The new mural at the Bowery graffiti wall, located on Houston Street between Bowery and Elizabeth streets, incorporates numerous portraits of Black figures and also has a seafaring folklore theme with mythical creatures pulling down statues. On the left side, the skyline of Manhattan appears.
Experience New York City’s only corn maze at the Queens County Farm Museum, this year designed in the shape of Van Gogh’s sunflowers! The Amazing Maize Maze three acres large and the adventure begins with a “Stalk Talk” to prepare visitors for the challenge ahead, who must find their way to Victory Bridge “where the full vista of Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ is revealed.”
Courtesy of Jessica Bal for United Photo Industries
The Photoville festival returns for a ninth year this fall with over 60 outdoor exhibitions from September 17 to November 29, 2020. Organized by Photoville, a New York based non-profit organization, the festival takes place across five boroughs with different photo exhibitions featuring different forms of photojournalism and conceptual narrative projects. This year, due to the pandemic, Photoville features both physical public exhibitions and over 30 free online programs, including online storytelling events, artist talks, workshops, demonstrations, educational programs, and community programming.
Reverberation, a new piece by sculptor Davina Semo is now on display along the waterfront in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The large-scale installation is made up of interactive bells and is meant to evoke public modes of communication that harken back to New York City’s maritime history. Located adjacent to the Brooklyn Bridge, the piece explores our relationship to industrial material and the built environment. And yes, park visitors can ring the bells!
The installation is supported by the Public Art Fund and was curated by Daniel S. Palmer. The Public Art Fund uses contributions from individuals, corporations, and private foundations to support works of art throughout the five boroughs, including the artwork at LaGuardia Airport’s new Terminal B.
October is the beginning of our annual membership drive.
The RIHS has served the community since 1976. In ordinary times, we sponsor programs, lectures, tours, classes and many community events that the RIHS participates in.
Our dues are very reasonable and we need your support to keep our activities coming as soon as we are able.
To join the RIHS go to our membership link at: https://rihs.us/join-us/
Thanking you in advance for your support Judith Berdy
Funding Provided by: Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation Public Purpose Funds Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD Text by Judith Berdy
CREDITS
UNTAPPED CITIES (C)
Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
Join us online for a lively discussion of the enduring legacy ofthe 40-year Dutch rule of New York City, 1624-1664.
Shorto and Lewis will trade observations about how our democratic institutions, rule of law, hyphenated nationality, entrepreneurial spirit, multiculturalism, and vocabulary are indebted to our Dutch origins.
Conversation will be pre-recorded, with a Live Q+A to follow
Reservations Are Required a Zoom link and password will be emailed to registered participants the day before the event.
ADMISSION: $15 Free for Patrons, Students and New York City Tour Guides
LEN TANTILLO, ARTIST
Len Tantillo (b. 1946 – ) is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. Tantillo is a licensed architect who left the field of architecture in 1986, to pursue a career in the fine art of historical and marine painting. Since that time, his work has appeared internationally in exhibitions, publications and film documentaries. He is the author of four books, and the recipient of two honorary degrees. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Marine Artists. His work is included in the collections of the Fenimore Art Museum, the Minnesota Museum of Marine Art, numerous historical societies, and corporate and private collections in the USA and abroad. In 2004 he was commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to create a painting depicting the Daniel Winne house as it may have appeared in 1755. He has produced over 300 paintings and drawings of New York State history. In 2016 he was elected a Fellow of the New York Academy of History.
17TH CENTURY
Fort Amsterdam
Arent Van Curler’s bark passes Fort Amsterdam, Manhattan, 1650
Fort Amsterdam had a long and peculiar history. In 1626, the Dutch West India Company directed Kryn Fredericksen to construct a fort at the tip of Manhattan Island. Fredericksen was instructed to build a substantial stone fortification following the specifications of the prototypical 17th century Dutch design. This design took many years to complete. Along the way the fort underwent numerous alterations. The painting depicts this fort as it may have appeared in its final iteration under English control as a stone structure.
Curiosity of the Magua
Mohawk warriors approach the ship of Arent Van Curler, 1650
This is the second in a series of paintings which depicts the bark of Arent Van Curler. The setting is the summer of 1650, looking southeast between Curler Island and Hill House Island, about 6 miles north of Fort Orange (Albany , New York). The Hudson River is in the background. Van Curler is approaching his farm, located on what today is referred to as Schuyler Flatts in the Town of Colonie (Menands , New York). At that time Van Curler was living on the eastern edge of Iroquois territory. There are two horses on deck that Van Curler purchased to add to his livestock. Mohawk warriors in elm bark canoes are making their way out to Van Curler’s ship to investigate his unusual cargo. “Magua” was the seventeenth century term used by the Dutch for the Mohawk people. Although the Mohawk were curious about horses neither they or any other tribe of the Iroquois nation were ever interested enough to actually trade for them
Manhattan, 1660
A view of Dutch Manhattan from Governor’s Island, circa 1660 Sometime around 1670, a surveyor from Belgium named Jacques Cortelyou created a birdseye view of Manhattan. His map provides us with the only detailed contemporary image of New York City as the Dutch community of New Amsterdam. Cortelyou’s drawing, commonly referred to as the “Costello Plan,” survives to this day in a museum in Florence, Italy. The first challenge Tantillo faced was how to correct the Costello Plan to get it to dimensionally agree with the actual scale and street layout of modern Manhattan. He accomplished this by locating an early survey of the city made with precision instruments. Tantillo used a detailed survey of lower Manhattan produced in the late 1890s. This scaled site map was very well drawn and contained numerous property line measurements. His hope was that some of the street patterns of Dutch Manhattan had survived and would be visible in the latter map. Tantillo was pleased to discover that most of what he was looking for was there. Once the Costello Plan was redrawn to scale, Tantillo had a realistic base on which to set adjusted property lines and buildings. It’s important to note that a plan is just a footprint of an object. No matter how carefully crafted and researched this two-dimensional representation may be, problems instantly present themselves when speculative buildings emerge from the ground plane. Relying on many years of architectural experience, Tantillo tried to imagine what influences the environment and the individual resident would have on the overall look of a period structure. Although much of the visualizing process is conjectural, his decisions are based on closely examined factual data, no matter how fragmentary.
A View of Fort Orange, 1652
The Dutch merchant ship “Flower of Gelderland” at anchor,1652
By the 1650’s the Dutch settlement of Fort Orange and Rensselaerswyck had evolved into a thriving community of great diversity. What began as a simple fur trading outpost in 1614, now included agricultural development, lumber production, brick-making, brewing, and shipbuilding. New immigrant colonists mostly from the Netherlands were arriving on a regular basis. This painting features the arrival of the ship, Flower of Gelderland. Fort Orange and the houses of Beverwyck are seen in the right background. The arrival of large merchant ships in 17th century Albany was a rare occasion and always a cause for celebration and anticipation of news from home.
The Ferry
Dutch settlers cross the Hudson River near Fort Orange, 1643
TROLLEY AT QUEENS PLAZA 1950’S CLARA BELLA WAS THE FIRST TO GET IT RIGHT!
CLARIFICATION WE ARE HAPPY TO GIVE WINNERS OF OUR DAILY PHOTO IDENTIFICATION A TRINKET FROM THE VISITOR CENTER. ONLY THE PERSON IDENTIFYING THE PHOTO FIRST WILL GET A PRIZE. WE HAVE A SPECIAL GROUP OF ITEMS TO CHOOSE FROM. WE CANNOT GIVE AWAY ALL OUR ITEMS,.PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMES, WE MUST LIMIT GIVE-AWAYS. THANK YOU
EDITORIAL
Our friends at the New Amsterdam History Center have sent us information on the upcoming program on October 6th. Russell Shorto and Barry Lewis are wonderful speakers and it will be a great presentation. To register, see the link above.
Enjoy the art of Len Tantillo. There are many more images on his website for you to study.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff Roosevelt Island Historical SocietyIMAGES ARE COPYRIGHT
LEN TANTILLO ART (C)
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The Municipal Archives collects all sorts of photos taken for research, special events or just for the record. You never know what you will fine. Enjoy the results.
ELEVATOR STOREHOUSE BUILDING
TO REACH THE ISLAND YOU WENT THRU THE ELEVATOR STOREHOUSE BUILDING. YOU DRIVE TO A MIDPOINT OF THE LOWER LEVEL OF THE QUEENSBORO BRIDGE AND CROSSED OVER A SHORT BRIDGE.
YOU DROVE ONTO TOP LEVEL OF THE BUILDING AND TOOK ELEVATOR TO STREET. ON THE FLOORS OF THE STOREHOUSE, WERE THE WAREHOUSES FOR THE ISLAND INSTITUTIONS. TRUCKS COULD BE TAKEN DIRECTLY TO EACH FLOOR FOR UNLOADING.
VIEW OF ELEVATOR STOREHOUSE FROM LOWER LEVEL OF QUEENSBORO BRIDGE.
IMAGE OF SUPER HELIX TO THE ISLAND… NEVER BUILT
CHAPELS
ABOVE IS GOOD SHEPHERD COVERED IN IVY
BELOW IS HOLY SPIRIT CHAPEL, WITH PERGOLA NEXT TO IT.
WELFARE ISLAND BRIDGE GRAND OPENING
THE PENITENTIARY
ABOVE: THE PENITENTIARY BEING DEMOLISHED IN 1936.
BELOW: STAIRCASES TO PRISON CELLS IN THE PENITENTIARY
NEW YORK MAGAZINE EXTOLLING TH VIRTUES OF THE NEW TOWN
FROM JAY JACOBSON:
Yes. We made it here on January 15, 1977! Our 14 year old daughter was complaining about being hassled on the street in the West Side Urban Renewal Area. Our 10 year old son hated leaving his pals from 94th and Amsterdam. And I can’t imagine how Pat did it as exams were looming at the of her first year at law school. But that first evening — after an exhausting day — we walked north towards the helix and saw people flooding the area across the street from the helix to make an ice skating rink. It was then that our youngsters thought we could give living here a chance.
JOAN BROOKS AND CLARA BELLA GOT IT RIGHT ALSO!!!
CLARIFICATION WE ARE HAPPY TO GIVE WINNERS OF OUR DAILY PHOTO IDENTIFICATION A TRINKET FROM THE VISITOR CENTER. ONLY THE PERSON IDENTIFYING THE PHOTO FIRST WILL GET A PRIZE. WE HAVE A SPECIAL GROUP OF ITEMS TO CHOOSE FROM. WE CANNOT GIVE AWAY ALL OUR ITEMS,. PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMES, WE MUST LIMIT GIVE-AWAYS. THANK YOU
DAMNATION ISLAND $18- TEN DAYS IN A MAD HOUSE $12-
We were walking south from Octagon and noticed that THE PROW may soon capsize. There is a giant hole in the bow and the ship may be taking on water!! Hope the SS RIOC will soon come to the rescue.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society ALL PHOTOS ARE FROM THE MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Howard Hack, Window Number 22, Parenti’s Market, 1967, oil on canvas, Smithsonian
This painting is part of Howard Hack’s Window series of the 1960s, which show “landscapes” of objects seen through glass storefronts. The reversed numbers and small orange pump identify this as a view of a Union 76 gas station, seen perhaps from the inside of an abandoned market where only a weighing scale and empty ceiling hooks remain.
Shadowed corners underscore the emptiness and silence, and the texture of the painted window evokes layers of undisturbed dust. Hack painted some objects to appear both inside and outside the glass, creating a confusing sense of depth and making it difficult to distinguish between the real objects and their reflections.
Howard Edwin Hack (July 6, 1932 – June 11, 2015) was a San Francisco Bay Area representational painter and graphic artist with works in numerous museum collections. Known for an innovative approach to a variety of media, as well as use of traditional oil paints, Hack began working in the late 1940s.
GHANDI
Howard Hack, (From Blue Print series) #6, Gandhi, 1972, blue print on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Larry Epping Building Co., 1981.29.7
Howard Hack, (From Blue Print series) #10, Curtain, 1973, blue print on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Larry Epping Building Co., 1981.29.11
SEWING MACHINE
Howard Hack, (From Blue Print series) #18, The Sewing Machine, 1975, blue print on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Larry Epping Building Co., 1981.29.17
BI-CENTENNIAL EAGLE
Howard Hack, (From Blue Print series) #24, Bi-Centennial Eagle, 1976, blue print on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Larry Epping Building Co., 1981.29.2
THE WHISK BROOM
Howard Hack, Silverpoint #35, The Whisk Broom, 1967, blue print on paper,
BI-CENTENNIAL LIGHT BULB
Howard Hack, (From Blue Print series) #25, Bi-Centennial Light Bulb, 1976, blue print on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Larry Epping Building Co., 1981.29.24
CAREER
Upon returning to the U.S., Hack resumed painting, using images from his stay in Korea, and scenes from Oakland. Hack occupied studio space and lived in the Spreckels Mansion, also known as the Ghost House (1150 Franklin Street, San Francisco), along with other artists, including Wally Hedrick, Jay DeFeo, and Hayward King.
From the Ghost House Hack attended the gathering at the nearby Six Gallery (the Six Gallery Reading at 3119 Fillmore Street, San Francisco), where poet Alan Ginsberg debuted his poem Howl on October 7, 1955.
Between 1957 and 1959, Hack lived primarily in San Miguel de Allende, in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, a haven adopted by American artists and bohemians after WWII. In 1959,
Hack returned to the United States, enrolling as a philosophy undergraduate at the University of San Francisco. At USF Hack studied the theories of the neo-Kantian idealist philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), in particular his concepts of symbolism.
Howard Hack, (From Blue Print series) #14, Cushion and Stool, 1973, blue print on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Larry Epping Building Co., 1981.29.14
EXHIBITIONS
In 1967, the M.H. De Young Museum, San Francisco, exhibited Hack’s “Window Series,” oil paintings depicting scenes from San Francisco’s South of Market area designated for demolition. In his review of the show San Francisco Chronicle art critic Alfred Frankenstein referred to the works as “magic realism,” a phrase coined in 1943 by Alfred H. Barr Jr., founding director of the New York Museum of Modern Art. (In her “Foreword and Acknowledgment” to the MoMA catalog for the exhibition Realists and Magic Realism, Dorothy Canning Miller referred to Barr’s definition of magic realism as “a term sometimes applied to painters who by means of an exact realistic technique try to make plausible and convincing their improbable dreamlike or fantastic visions.”)
Frankenstein noted: “Hack has lived for a long time with the moods of windows…. (T)hey display for him the humble machinery of everyday living – shoemaker’s equipment, the chairs and cabinets of a barber shop, a tailor’s padded pressing iron – always silent, always at rest, intensified to the highest degree by isolation and close scrutiny.
But his collection of Sunday morning glimpses into little offbeat shops is neither a social document, in the manner of Edward Hopper, nor a celebration of the mechanized, in the style of Charles Sheeler. It is a document of Howard Hack’s perceptions, reactions, and experiments.”In 1981, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor presented a collection of works in silverpoint by Howard Hack. The show’s catalog curator Robert Flynn Johnson wrote: “What will people think of Howard Hack’s art one hundred years from now? What will they think of the time, patience and concentration necessary to create these works? What will they think of his seductive style and idiosyncratic subject matter? I believe that Howard Hack’s art will age far more gracefully than the strained and artistic fashions that currently strut upon the stage of history.
Time will tell.” In San Francisco, Howard Hack was represented by several galleries, including Richard Gump’s and John Bolles. In New York, Hack’s works were sold through Lee Nordness Gallery.
His studio was left abandoned for more than 15 years, but sold in 2016 for 1.5 million dollars despite decrepit conditions.
WARDEN’S HOUSE NORTH OF THE PENITENTIARY WITH IN-GROUND SWIMMING POOL
EDITORIAL
Hack, an artist of San Francisco and its unique position in 1960’s and 1970’s art!!
JUDITH BERDY
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Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
ALL IMAGES ARE SUBJECT TO COPYRIGHT (C)
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