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Stephen Gregory

@archievisualintelligence

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The name came in to my head so compelled to open the account 🤔
also my paintings and drawings @sgregory.art
and my old photos @developingsituation

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I think I have realised that an understanding of the art of Grant Wood is deepened by awareness of the literature of Sinclair Lewis.
I hadn’t read anything by him before but have just finished his novel ‘Main Street’ which was published in 1920.

I learnt about it from another library book, ‘Grant Wood: American Gothic and Other Fables,’ a monograph/catalogue published in 2018 to accompany the exhibition of the same name at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
The curator was Barbara Haskell who was also the lead writer in the book, further essays being provided by five other people including that by Eric Banks entitled, ‘Like a Book: Grant Wood’s Literary Associations.’

Sinclair Lewis, as with Wood, grew up in a midwestern, prairie town, in his case in Minnesota, the state to the north of Wood’s Iowa.
‘Main Street’ was the first of a string of successful novels and in 1930 Sinclair Lewis was to become the first American recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Eric Banks quotes one of Wood’s many literary friends, William Shirer, recalling meeting the artist in Paris in the 1920s, with Wood declaring that he was going home to paint ‘those damn cows and barns and barnyards and cornfields and little red school houses and all those pinched faces and the women in their aprons and the men in their overalls….Damn it, isn’t that what Sinclair Lewis has done in his writing?’

Banks also mentions that in 1935 Wood ‘eagerly agreed’ to produce a set of nine character-portraits to be included in an elaborate limited edition of ‘Main Street.’

The storyline in ‘Main Street’ contains much satire but also humour, pathos and sudden tragedy. Sinclair Lewis covers all of hypocrisy, prejudice, intolerance, polarisation, aspiration, tedium, standardisation, gossip and inhibition. He can startlingly sound contemporary resonances.

I’m not thinking that an exactly matching list of bullet points pertains to Wood’s work but I do think, that beneath that sometimes down-homey veneer, there’s a similarly more complicated picture being painted.

#grantwood #sinclairlewis #mainstreet #americangothic by @archievisualintelligence

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5 days ago

Edward Wadsworth (1889-1949)

‘Top of the World’

tempera on canvas on wood, 38 x 53.5cm, c1942-1943

Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull, England
gift 1944
(*though in her book, ‘Edward Wadsworth, A Painter’s Life’ 1989, the artist’s daughter, Barbara Wadsworth elaborates,
‘The painting was sold by Tooth’s to the Contemporary Art Society and is now in Ferens Art Gallery, Hull’)

At the time this was painted Wadsworth and his wife, Fanny, were temporarily living in Buxton, Derbyshire. The scene relates to his visit to the large limestone quarry and processing plant (still active) at Hindlow to the south of the town.

I particularly made this post for the benefit of my brother and sister-in-law given their connections with both the present location of the painting and the location of its subject; graduates of Hull University and long-time residents of the ‘White Peak’, Derbyshire’s limestone country. Futile, of course, because neither of them use Instagram🤣
Someone better show them this.

#edwardwadsworth #hindlow #buxton #limestone #industrialart taken in Buxton, Peak District by @archievisualintelligence

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a month ago

Paul Signac (1863 - 1935)

‘Gasometers at Clichy’
(‘Les Gazomètres. Clichy’)

oil on canvas, 65.0 x 81.0cm, 1886.

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1948 taken in Paris, France by @archievisualintelligence

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a month ago

‘Before the Ball’

Jean-François de Troy (1679-1752)

oil on canvas, 82 x 65cm, 1735.

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

This painting is reproduced in a current borrowing from the library.
The book is titled, ‘The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting.
It was published by the Yale University Press in 2003 in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name which kicked off in Ottawa before appearances in Washington and Berlin.
Though not every painting featured at all three venues, the book has 113 catalogue entries which each get a double spread; a high quality reproduction faced by a detailed description / interpretation provided by one of 19 different writers.

The six paintings included by Jean-François de Troy, of whom I previously knew nothing, strike me as interesting. My preference was to post an image of a different picture, ‘The Reading from Molière’ c.1730 but it’s in a private collection and I don’t think a decent reproduction is available online.
That painting had gone through Christie’s in 1994 as part of a considerable sell-off from the collection at Houghton Hall in Norfolk, England.

The texts, in the book, about the paintings by Jean-François de Troy were all provided by Christophe Leribault who, at the time, was Curator of Paintings and Drawings at the Musée Carnavalet in Paris. Earlier this year he was appointed Director of The Louvre.

From him, in relation to ‘Before the Ball,’ I learn about the other meaning of dominoes……’Masks in hand, men and women are mostly wearing dominoes-these long and ample silk cloaks with a hood could cover the entire body and conceal the wearer’s identity at a masked ball (in lieu of a disguise).’

There is a pendant (learnt about that too) titled, of course, ‘After the Ball’ which wasn’t included in the exhibition.
The two pictures were commissioned as a pair by politician/minister Germain-Louis de Chauvelin but, as M. Leribault alludes, ‘his disgrace prevented them from reaching him.’ Comprehension of ‘the disgrace’ looks like degree-level French history would be helpful. Anyway, the paintings went their separate ways. by @archievisualintelligence

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a month ago

In November 1931 Paul Nash had an article published in ‘The Listener’ titled ‘Contemporary American Painting.’
He had recently returned to England after being a judge at that year’s Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh.

In the piece he named 26, then, contemporary American artists but he reserved particular praise for Preston Dickinson, mentioning him as, ‘one of America’s best artists,’ and, ‘a leader of the older modern school……a sensitive painter of deep research.’

I became curious as to why Nash, at this time, expressed this preference and wanted to try and find out more.
Both artists had been born in 1889, Nash the elder by 4 months, but Dickinson had died, aged 41, a year before Nash’s article.

Though there are mentions of Dickinson and his work in numerous anthologies and catalogues of group exhibitions, it seemed like the only monograph about him was a catalogue written by Ruth Cloudman and published by the Nebraska Art Association in 1979. Ruth Cloudman researched and curated the exhibition at The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery in Lincoln, Nebraska, the show subsequently touring to the Whitney and 3 other venues in 1979-80. This was the most recent Preston Dickinson one-person show.

I initially tried Inter-Library Loans, knowing that there was at least a copy of the catalogue at The British Library.
However, my local library reported that the only available copy was ‘for reference only’ and in the library at Manchester University.
( I expect it was obtained at the instigation of Andrew Causey who at the time was a lecturer in the university’s Art History Department and who was in possession of extensive knowledge about the so-called Precisionist painters and the whereabouts of their work.)

Anyway, I decided against a trip to either Manchester or Boston Spa, and opted instead for an embargo-breaking purchase.
A copy of the catalogue duly arrived. In it I learnt of a coincidental thesis (unpublished) about Dickinson then in preparation.
No response, so far, has been forthcoming to my enquiry of its author.

This story to be continued in further posts ….about Dickinson and about some of the other artists Nash did, and did not, mention. by @archievisualintelligence

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2 months ago

Exhibitions you wished you’d seen but only found out about decades later……

There are more books on my own shelves about painters and painting in the GDR (East Germany) than there are at Newcastle University library. ‘More fool me,’ those who share the verdict espoused by the late Georg Baselitz might say.

However, one volume, I found this week, that the uni has, and I don’t, is the catalogue of an exhibition held at the Oxford Museum of Modern Art in 1984.
I suspect the reason that there is a copy in Newcastle is because the show subsequently toured to the University’s Hatton Gallery as well as to Coventry, Sheffield and The Barbican. (I was in community art mode at the time, working in Cheshire and Nottingham.)

I’m hoping that whichever member of the library staff who, at a later time, applied the barcode sticker to the front of the book wasn’t a Baselitz disciple, using its positioning to deny the existence of contemporary art in the GDR!

Anyway, if of interest, these extracts from the catalogue include the story about how the exhibition was conceived and curated and also the full text of one of the two related essays.
This by David Elliot who, at the time, was the director of MOMA Oxford and who researched and chose the works included.
Not exactly scintillating Instagram, I know, to post several slides of text but I think, in retrospect, this essay made a pioneering, significant contribution to the balanced documentation of C20th German Art, particularly given the continuing paucity of coverage in English of production in the GDR.

Finally some samples of the coverage given in the catalogue to the participating artists; each had a two-page spread in the A4 book.

Wish I’d seen the show but then I eventually, more recently, caught up with the artists’ work in Leipzig, Dresden and Halle.
More to follow…

@modernartoxford @hatton_newcastle @newcastle_uni_fine_art @newcastlefineart @hgbleipzig @fv_museum_moritzburg_halle @mdbkleipzig @albertinum.skd by @archievisualintelligence

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2 months ago

There are 32 works by Paul Nash in the UK Government Art Collection @govartcol
3 pictures relate to the artist being aboard a ship.

The first is titled, ‘Liner’ and is watercolour on paper, 1932.
It’s currently in Downing Street, London.

Secondly, is a black and white photograph of a ship’s lifeboat simply entitled ‘Boat.’
The date given is 1931 and the current location is stated as ‘at framer.’
This due to wear and tear caused by the regularity of UK Prime Ministers abandoning ship in recent years?😀

I am doubtful if this work has been accurately dated. The image, to me, seems more in tune with the photographs taken in 1934 by Nash during the voyage he and his wife made from Gibraltar back to England. This was aboard a Dutch liner, the M.S. Dempo.
That ship’s name is apparent in another photo of details of a lifeboat and rigging, very similar to what can be seen here.
The 1931 date refers to the Transatlantic crossings made by the Nash’s, out on the R.M.S. Mauretania, returning on the R.M.S. Samaria.

The final piece is also a B&W photograph titled, ‘Atlantic Voyage,’ again dated 1931 which, in this case, I think is correct. This is likely to have been taken on the Samaria.

The current location here is stated as, ‘The Secret Intelligence Service, Vauxhall Cross, Albert Enbankment.’
This seems like an appropriate setting; Nash’s photograph, with its tall mast, cables and cowls, looks like it could easily be adapted to intercept coded messages being transmitted by nefarious no-gooders.
I expect the urbane George Smiley would be pleased that HQ has now got some art on the walls; it looked rather down at heel in his day.
Perhaps he would have been particularly diverted (from mole unearthing) by the portfolio of ten engraved illustrations for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ created by David Jones in 1929. More about this in a future post; one thing leads to another….

The Govt. Art Collection website is very good:
https://artcollection.dcms.gov.uk
It’s possible to search both by artist and by location….eg ministry, embassy, department.
Their only fault is keeping the one piece they own by me hidden away in some bunker.😀

#paulnash @paul_nash_in_dorset taken in London, England by @archievisualintelligence

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3 months ago

Amongst the photographs taken by Paul Nash when on board ships, this one particularly holds my attention.
Yes, those modernist structural dynamics appear in other of his maritime snaps but here they provide a setting for a theatrical cast and a narrative.
It’s like a stage design for a suspenseful scene in an opera or musical. Or, it’s like a still from a movie. Soon, the lead protagonists will appear on that higher deck….. for a love scene, an argument or a rallying cry.

A mysterious, heavy block of chained cargo has been derricked from below. Did its emerging out of the eerie glow of that open hatch resonate with Nash’s concern with archaeological digs, that curiosity about what might be hidden, dormant just below the surface?

A reaching hand wants to prevent out-of-control swaying, the winch man is braced ready to release just enough slack, the watching women…..maybe anxious? patient? or knowing?…..and I can’t help seeing an additional figure formed out of that bundled twine of greased hanging rope.
There’s some conflating here of both the raising of the cross and the opening of the tomb; spars and cables. This is a ship, after all, named, ‘Samaria.’ On occasion, it was chartered from Cunard to carry pilgrims towards Lourdes and Fátima. A relic left in the hold?

Nash lurks where, ‘passengers are not admitted’ …..not supposed to witness that with which they had unwittingly shared the crossing, that which had been secured with chains and sent up by other unseen chorus members from below the waterline.
French and English are shouted and sung at cross purposes, assorted uniforms do not distinguish any mariner or stevedore as being in charge; a joker is entering stage left.
The young American man in a newsboy cap, though, could probably explain everything.

If it is true that Nash had only, a few days previously, been gifted his camera in New York City, then I’m impressed with his proficiency by the time he reached Cherbourg.

#cherbourg #paulnash #cargohandling #1931 #photographer @paul_nash_in_dorset taken in Cherbourg, France by @archievisualintelligence

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3 months ago

At sea with Paul and Margaret Nash.

Hopefully, these three slides will add a little to the knowledge of the travels they made in France, Spain and Morocco in 1933/34.

There are 1267 photographs, said to be by Paul Nash, in the Tate Archives @Tate, though presumably he didn’t take the several which are of himself!
They are available to view online.

25, or so, were taken while on board ships; some, as mentioned in the previous post, on a voyage back to England from Gibraltar, some on a return crossing from New York to England in 1931 and some on various vessels in the Mediterranean in 1934. It’s possible, too, that some were taken on the cross-Channel ferry in 1933.

Primarily with the hope of reaching a climate more sympathetic to Paul Nash’s chronic asthma, the itinerary for their trip starting in November 1933 included Paris, Avignon, Nice, Marseilles, Gibraltar, Algeciras, Malaga, Tetouan and then back to Gibraltar for the ship home.

To be continued.

#paulnash #mediterranean #marinephotography #coastalvoyage #1934 @paul_nash_in_dorset by @archievisualintelligence

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3 months ago

This photograph by Paul Nash is printed from one of the 1267 negatives of his work held by the Tate Archives.
It is captioned, ‘Atlantic Voyage 1931’ with the reference number TGA 7050PH/444.
In the autumn of 1931 Paul and Margaret Nash travelled to and from the USA in connection with Paul Nash being one of the judges at that year’s annual Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh. They travelled by Cunard ship, on the RMS ‘Mauretania’ on the way out, returning on the RMS ‘Samaria.’ Margaret Nash had gifted her husband a camera in advance of this trip and it’s probable that he did take some shipboard photographs on the return voyage but I’m doubting that he took any on the westbound crossing. (More about this to follow in a later post.)

The photograph in question here, though, was taken on neither of these vessels. I think it one of only two of Nash’s shipboard photographs in which the identity of the vessel conveying him can be immediately ascertained. In this case the name MS ‘Dempo’ can be read on the lifeboats. The ‘Dempo’ belonged to the Royal Rotterdam Lloyd shipping company and journeyed back and forth from Rotterdam, via numerous ports along the way, to Jakarta.
One of the stops was Gibraltar from where the Nash’s embarked to return to Southampton in June 1934.
The fact that they were on a Dutch ship then makes sense of the mention, in the 1987 book, ‘Interior Landscapes, A Life of Paul Nash’ by James King, of Nash being treated for his asthma by a Dutch doctor.
So, yes, this photo does relate to an ‘Atlantic Voyage’ ……that across the Bay of Biscay in 1934……but not to the 1931 transatlantic trip.

Obviously, the photograph was a reference point for the watercolour (Christie’s stating ‘Executed circa 1933’) in the second image.

More posts to follow about Paul Nash’s trip to the USA, his nautical photos taken on that and other voyages, the particular comparisons with Charles Sheeler and Nash’s more general verdict on American art and artists.

#paulnash #tate #ondeck #maritimeart #oceanliner by @archievisualintelligence

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3 months ago

‘I am unpacking my library. Yes, I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order.
I cannot march up and down their ranks to pass them in review before a friendly audience. You need not fear any of that.
Instead, I must ask you to join me in the disorder of crates that have been wrenched open, the air saturated with the dust of wood, the floor covered
with torn paper, to join me among piles of volumes that are seeing daylight again after two years of darkness, so that you may be ready to share with me a bit of the mood - it is certainly not an elegiac mood but, rather, one of anticipation - which these books arouse in a genuine collector.’

Walter Benjamin (1892 - 1940)
From the essay, ‘Unpacking My Library, A talk about book collecting.’
Published in English in ‘Illuminations’ Jonathan Cape Ltd 1970, Pimlico edition 1999.
Originally published in German in ‘Literarische Welt,’ 1931.

Well, I’m ahead of Benjamin inasmuch as the books are all now out of the removal boxes and on these, and other shelves around the house.
But it will be a while yet before their arrangement bears any resemblance to the Dewey Classification System😀

Fortunate to have a roof over my head; fortunate to have a home in which to keep these books and other things.

#walterbenjamin #arthistory #artbooks #eclecticism #newhome taken in North Shields by @archievisualintelligence

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4 months ago

‘Stockport from Pendlebury Hill, Cheshire’

Peter Shaw (1926-1982)

oil on board, 89.5 x 112.5cm, 1966.

Stockport Heritage Services
Accession number STOPM: 2007.310, purchased 1968.

As of finding it online today, this is my favourite painting of Stockport, by an artist that I ought to have known about a long time ago.
Shameful if I encountered the painting for real in the past and didn’t pay attention. I see in an old catalogue that the artist and me both had work in the 1977 annual exhibition of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts ……but I was just a know-it-all postgrad student at the time.

Anyway, I think this painting is brilliant; it looks excellently and empathetically made ( note to self: arrange to go and see it) and the viewpoint decision, and the capture of so much of what Stockport was about, is astute.
This is not Stockport Edgeley Station, the one that still exists. Instead, this is the long-vanished Tiviot Dale Station, the site of which, with its approach tracks, is now subsumed beneath the M60 motorway.
The river coming in from the right is the Goyt which, out of view beneath the tracks, merges with the River Tame to jointly form the start of the River Mersey on its journey to the sea.
At the far upper right of the painting is the tower of Stockport Parish Church. When I was growing up in the town in the 1960s, the proximity of the single cooling tower and the MAN gasometer, to the church, viewed from this sort of distance, made them appear to be part of some hybrid ecclesiastical generating plant. The power station and the gasworks, like the railway station, are no more; the church remains.
That blue in the river, the blue outfall from the mill? Amongst Stockport’s industrial diversity were cotton finishing trades; dyeing and bleaching so I presume this is a similar phenomenon to the intense blue of the Seine in Manet’s 1874 painting ‘Argenteuil’ resulting from riverside indigo processing.

I am sure Oskar Kokoschka or John Sloan would have been happy to sign this painting but Peter Shaw, in his hometown, got there first.

@stockportcouncil #stockportartist #petershaw #stockport #tiviotdalestation #stockportcollege taken in Stockport by @archievisualintelligence

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8 months ago