Provincetown's influence reflected in sweeping exhibit at Westmoreland Museum of American Art
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'Noon Hour' by Gerrit Beneker (1882-1934) -
'Young Girl' (Dahlov), by William Zorach. (1921) -
'Shell Series: Pearlmaker' by Tabitha Vevers. -
'Rigger's Shop,' by Childe Hassam (1859-1935). -
'The Fisher Boy' by Charles Webster Hawthorne. (1872-1930). -
'Fanfare' by Paul Resika. -
'The White Petuna' by Blanche Lazzell.
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Provincetown. The very name resonates with the romanticized image of a retreat where artists gather, frolic and create. But this long-lived art colony has also been an incubator for the kind of experimentation that changed the direction of American art in the past century.
"The Tides of Provincetown: Pivotal Years in America's Oldest Continuous Art Colony, 1899-2011" illustrates its rich history through a treasure-trove of 100 artworks by almost as many artists.
The exhibition, at Westmoreland Museum of American Art, was organized by the New Britain Museum of American Art in New Britain, Conn., which claims to be the world's first institution dedicated to the collection, preservation and exhibition of American art.
Nestled in the inland hook of Cape Cod, which juts into the Atlantic off Massachusetts, the allure of Provincetown included natural beauty, opportunity for quiet reflection and, in its early years, affordability. Those qualities are exemplified in Wolf Kahn's "My Shack on the Dunes." Noted for his vivid pastels, he here employs oil to portray a charmingly ragged dwelling perched between wave and stands of beach grass.
Artists were inspired by the landscape and its people, such as Charles Webster Hawthorne's iconic, representational "The Fisher Boy," which greets exhibition visitors. The somber young man wears oilskin fishing gear and carries a green glass demijohn as he returns to shore. The painting's tumultuous atmosphere is a reminder of the ever-present dangers waiting at sea.
But the artists were also cognizant of ideas, styles and techniques that were changing the face of art. The tension resultant from that dynamic only broadened Provincetown's prominence, and the art colony's emphasis on individualism and inclusiveness is key to its continuing survival beyond tourist destination.
The art colony dates to 1899, the year Hawthorne, already an established artist, founded the Cape Cod School of Art and began inviting friends, colleagues and students to summer there. His classes numbered 100 by 1916 when a Boston Globe critic dubbed Provincetown the biggest art colony in the world. Period photographs show women in full-length dresses and men in coats and ties standing in sand or sitting on wooden wharfs during plein-air painting days.
The Provincetown Art Association, founded in 1914, instituted an annual exhibition and established a permanent collection base in 1915. It continues as the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, open year-round and housing a collection of more than 3,000 objects by more than 650 local artists.
Artists fleeing war in Europe in 1916 brought their insights, as did growing numbers of writers, musicians and actors (the inventive Provincetown Players, for example, started there in 1915 before moving to Greenwich Village), and a dozen years after the association's birth, a split developed between traditional artists and those interested in exploring abstraction and other new forms. The Modernists, often overlooked by jurors, petitioned and were granted their own exhibition in 1927, encouraging residencies by such luminaries as Marsden Hartley, Charles Demuth, Stuart Davis, and Marguerite Thompson Zorach and William Zorach, among many couples represented.
Artists other than Hawthorne offered classes, but the biggest shake-up came with the arrival in 1930 of German-born visionary Hans Hofmann, who established his School of Fine Arts five years later, attracting students such as Helen Frankenthaler and Lee Krasner (a small landscape by husband Jackson Pollock gives no clue to the drip paintings that would bring him fame).
Hofmann knew the avant-garde and its artists well, including movements such as Fauvism, Surrealism, Cubism and Germany's Blue Rider and The Bridge. In Paris, he studied with Braque, Cezanne, Kandinsky, Matisse and Picasso.
"He brought all that firsthand to this country. I can imagine that his students were mesmerized," said Barbara Jones, Westmoreland chief curator.
His 1950 canvases "Composition No. 5" and "Push and Pull III" ( a reference to his theory of creating dynamic relationships between color and form) are show highlights.
Provincetown artists evolved with the times even as they kept room for traditionalists. One wall holds a still life and paintings that recall Pre-Raphaelite and mid-19th century styles, while just beyond hang a stunning 66-by-42-inch Mark Rothko (would that it could be experienced free of its frame and glass), and works by Milton Avery, Adolph Gottlieb and Theodoros Stamos, all artists brought to Provincetown by Tirca Karlis Cohen and her husband, Charles, who opened their gallery in 1958.
With success, population grew, property values rose and art began to lean toward commercial product to supply tourism. A concerned gathering of artists, writers and patrons established the Fine Arts Work Center in 1968 to provide support for young artists to continue to revitalize the community. The cooperative Long Point Gallery was opened in 1977 to provide a space for more provocative works, succeeded in 2005 by artSTRAND Gallery, which continues today.
The large exhibition jumps, after the Karlis Gallery section, to the museum's Atrium Gallery and Large Paneled Room (also note "Rocks and Water" by Michael Mazur, by the elevator, first floor). Sidney Simon's provocative male nude of black walnut, "Headstand," centers diverse works that include a sumptuous Robert Motherwell, "Elegy With Opening," Anne Packard's evocative lone "Dory," and Elspeth Halvorsen's heartfelt but unsophisticated "The Whole World Is Watching."
The final section, perhaps reflective of our times or of contemporary Provincetown or of both, is tepid compared to the show's beginning works.
Does Daniel Ranalli's photographic diptych "Snail Drawing: Double Line #2," a before and after of a lineup of positioned live snails, stand up to the humor and insight of Red Grooms' "To the Lighthouse," showing Mr. Grooms watching Edward Hopper painting one of the lighthouses for which he is famous? Maybe. But I don't see the humor, or point, of John Dowd's "Backstreet, Provincetown," which out-Hoppers Hopper.
Whitney Biennial exhibitor Jack Pierson's "pigment print," "Self-Portrait #6," has conceptual chops (it's not actually a picture of the artist, but of one of the men he's photographed whom he would like to look like), and yes, he's pretty. But compared in the mind's eye with Gerrit Beneker's haunting "Noon Hour," the laborer's sandwich half-eaten and bleeding finger bandaged, Mr. Pierson's image appears as slick, and as ephemeral, as a toothpaste ad.
Still, there's something captivating about Tabitha Vevers' gilded shells with their surreal subjects ("Shell Series: Pearlmaker" and "Shell Series: Safe Harbor"), sort of like finding a bottle with a note inside washed up upon the beach, perhaps containing the essence of Provincetown.
"Provincetown" continues through Jan. 22 at 221 N. Main St., Greensburg. Admission is $5 suggested donation, children under 12 and students free. An illustrated 176-page catalog contains period photographs -- including paintings by Ross Moffett as exhibited in the 29th Carnegie International of 1930 -- and essays that bring the artists and their environment to life, but, I regret, no index ($25 paper).
Also on view is "Carol Brode: One Time/One Place," a solo exhibition awarded the Seton Hill University faculty member at the 2009 Associated Artists of Pittsburgh Annual exhibition. Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays and until 9 p.m. Fridays. Information: 724-837-1500 or www.wmuseumaa.org .
First Published January 15, 2012 12:00 am
