Currents

A World Observed

Much like many American artists coming to adulthood at the turn of the century, Everett Longley Warner (1877-1963) was trained in the realist tradi­tion. Most painters of his gen­eration spent the early part of their careers studying the effects of outdoor light on the observable world and transfer­ring them to their canvases in variations of the impressionist style. After World War I, a significantly smaller segment of this group was able to move on and turn their attention to unromanticized views of their own communities, which revealed the everyday charac­ter of a particular region of the country. Their work was painted in broader, flatter terms and depended for its impact on the ability of the artist to make the scene seem authentic. A keen understand­ing of the observable world lay at the heart of this distinctive American Scene movement.

Everett Longley Warner excelled in both the impres­sionist and regionalist styles through an unusual talent for observation. He had a patient and scientific bent of mind and was willing to study visual phenomena with the single­minded dedication required to master his subject and to pre­cisely record what he saw. Warner’s expertise in the sci­ence of seeing led him to write manuals and articles on per­spective, reflections, highway markings, and gallery lighting. During both world wars this knowledge of how things appear led to his appointment as head of design for the de­partment of camouflage of the United States Navy.

Born in Vinton, Iowa, he spent his childhood in Wa­shington, D.C., where his fa­ther served as an examiner for the Bureau of Pensions. In 1900, he moved to New York and three years later embarked on an extended trip to Europe for study and and travel. In late 1905, he returned to Wash­ington but moved again to New York. Ever restless, he traveled to Europe in April 1907, where he stayed for fifteen months. The following year he was again living in New York and eventually par­ticipating in the activities of the art colony at Old Lyme.

Even though his work had garnered awards from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Warner’s real associ­ation with Pennsylvania began in 1924 when he assumed a new life as an art professor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. He was soon regarded as an excellent teacher, one who was meticu­lous and exacting. He loathed careless rendering and poor perspective. This astringent professionalism was balanced by his genuine Liking for his students, the pains he took to point out how to correct the weaknesses he criticized, and by his gentle humor.

Because his teaching sched­ule was relatively light during his first years in Pittsburgh, Warner had time to make sketches and drawings, as well as to familiarize himself with the city. As always, he felt it necessary to become inti­mately familiar with his sub­ject matter as a prerequisite to producing a significant body of work. Pittsburgh was a sprawl­ing industrial city built in the fork of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers where they joined to become the Ohio River. Center-city was laced to the suburbs in the surround­ing hills by a network of bridges. This beautiful setting was denigrated by the very industry it harbored. Its air was foul with billowing orange smoke spewing forth from from the steel industry’s con­verters, blast furnaces, and mills Lining the river banks. Freight trains and tug boats with barges in tow belched black smoke. Steep hills were crowded with rundown, un­painted tenement houses. In other sections stood the gilded palaces of the city’s crown princes of industry and com­merce. Not far from down­town Pittsburgh was the Carnegie Institute of Technology, generously laid out with its large, monumental build­ings housing colleges of indus­try, machinery, engineering, and fine arts.

Although an industrial city, Pittsburgh boasted an active cultural life. The local art group, the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, held annual shows, and the Carnegie Institute – given to the city by Andrew Carnegie in 1895 – collected contemporary art and conducted an important exhi­bition each year, The Carnegie International, which featured current work from throughout the world. As he became fa­miliar with the city, Everett Longley Warner joined the Associated Artists of Pitts­burgh and exhibited with its members. He also submitted paintings to the Internationals. In 1928, the Carnegie Institute gave him a one man show, recognizing him as an impor­tant new talent in Pittsburgh. Three years after his arrival, Warner showed his first impor­tant group of Pittsburgh paint­ings at the Carnegie Institute.

The campus of the Carnegie Institute of Technology was one of Warner’s earliest sub­jects, depicted in early 1928 in a work entitled Snowfall. The following year he painted one of his most significant early Pittsburgh paintings, The Monongahela River, a bird’s eye view of the river glittering in the late afternoon sun. In 1929, he also painted The Viaduct, reflecting his fascination with railroads.

Hampered by the Great Depression, Warner was un­able to paint much during the first half of the 1930s; he de­voted most of his time to teaching to support his family. As much as he advocated regionalism, he was deeply attracted to the modern move­ment. In 1933, he painted Country Life, which was in­cluded in the Museum of Mod­ern Art’s exhibition entitled “Paintings of Sixteen American Cities.” But by 1937, he was no longer able to continue as a full-time teacher; he had made the decision to pursue painting and regain the level of recognition as a professional artist he had once enjoyed.

Steel, Steam and Smoke (1936- 1937) marked the beginning of a series of Pittsburgh paintings that would represent one of his most noteworthy achieve­ments. It combined a sophisti­cated abstract composition with an authentic, closely observed Pittsburgh vista. His 1937 canvas Progress and Poverty – one of his most frequently illustrated and dis­cussed works – served as an important example of social realism. It was not long before Warner’s work was given seri­ous consideration at important national art exhibitions and the artist was well known in pro­fessional art circles. He was invited to give lectures on his work and to sit on juries. This happy period came to a pre­mature halt when Warner, at the age of sixty-five, was called back to active duty as Chief Civilian Aide in charge of design in the camouflage unit of the U.S. Navy during World War II. He requested leave from the school, cleared his studio, and reported to Wash­ington. Upon discharge from the service, he did not return to the Carnegie Institute of Technology, but moved to his summer studio in Westmore­land, New Hampshire. His Pennsylvania connection had been forever severed.

A landmark exhibition, “A World Observed: The Art of Everett Longley Warner,” orga­nized by the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut, is on view at the Center Gallery of Bucknell University, Lewisburg, through January 26, 1993. Paintings of Pittsburgh in­cluded in the retrospective exhibit include Winter Morning, Panther Hollow, Isabella Steel Mills, As Sparks Fly Upward, and Smokestacks, Pittsburgh.

For additional information regarding “A World Observed: The Art of Everett Longley Warner,” write: Center Gallery, Bucknell University, Seventh St. and Moore Ave., Lewis­burg, PA 17837; or telephone (717)524-3792.

Illustrating an Era

The Pennsylvania Anthra­cite Heritage Museum in Scranton has mounted a major exhibition devoted to the work of photographer John Horgan, Jr., (1859-1926) showcasing more than fifty early twentieth century original prints. In addition to these striking pho­tographs, “Illustrating An Era: The Life and Work of Photog­rapher John Horgan, Jr., 1859-1926,” features period artifacts and equipment.

Son of an immigrant Irish farm laborer, Horgan was born in Leroy, New York. As a young photographer, he trav­eled extensively and worked throughout the United States, Europe, South America, and Mexico. He settled in Scran­ton, Lackawanna County, in 1902.

Horgan worked as an inde­pendent photographer and his images were used for advertis­ing, documentary, and legal purposes by companies throughout the anthracite region, including the Glen Alden Coal Company and the Hudson Coal Company.

A pioneer in mining pho­tography in the Lackawanna and Wyoming valleys, John Horgan, Jr., documented both surface operations, such as collieries, and underground scenes, including deep mine tunnels and shafts. Upon his death, Horgan’s files con­tained more than twenty thou­sand photographic negatives. He died of blood poisoning on July 8, 1926.

“Illustrating An Era: The Life and Work of Photographer John Horgan, Jr., 1859-1926,” offers visitors an opportunity to see the landscape of Penn­sylvania’s hard coal fields through the lens of a talented and insightful photographer who imbued his industrial photography with artistry. The exhibition will remain on view at the Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum through March 1993.

Administered by the Penn­sylvania Historical and Mu­seum Commission (PHMC), the Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum is located in McDade Park in the Taylor section of Scranton. Visiting hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 9 A. M. to 5 P. M.; and Sunday, Noon to 5 P. M. There is a charge for admis­sion.

Additional information is available by writing: Pennsyl­vania Anthracite Heritage Museum, Bald Mountain Rd., R. R. 1, Scranton, PA 18504; or by telephoning (717) 963-4804 or 963-4845.

Masterworks

Throughout its history, the internationally acclaimed Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts – the country’s oldest art museum and art school – ­has regularly acquired works of art by faculty, students, and alumni, including instructors Thomas Eakins and Cecilia Beaux; students Robert Henri, John Sloan, George Luks, and William Glackens, all members of the ashcan school; and students and teachers Alexan­der Stirling Calder and Walter Hancock.

Founded in 1805, the Penn­sylvania Academy’s important annual exhibitions, held from 1811 through 1969, were an important source of museum acquisitions. The intention of these shows was to reflect the art being created throughout the United States, not just by the East Coast avant-garde. A number of the Pennsylvania Academy’s most prized paint­ings entered its collection during the tenure of managing director Harrison S. Morris, who served from 1893 to 1905. An administrator known for his progressive vision and impeccable taste, Morris ac­quired works of American impressionism long before the style took hold in this country, and he regularly purchased pieces by living artists, keep­ing the Academy abreast of developing artistic move­ments. For the institution, Morris acquired Frank Duveneck’s The Turkish Page (1876), Winslow Homer’s Fox Hunt (1893), and Henry Os­sawa Tanner’s Nicodemus (1899), all of which are on exhibit in a landmark show, “American Masterworks, 1750-1950,” at the Academy through spring 1993.

More than eighty works of art – cherished by museum­goers as the best-loved paint­ings and sculptures of the Pennsylvania Academy’s collection – offer visitors a rare opportunity to see a unique grouping which traces the development of American art from the colonial period to the modern era. On view are paintings among the first to form the museum’s collection, including George Washington (The Lansdowne Portrait) (1796) by Gilbert Stuart and The Dead Man Restored to Life by Touching the Bones of the Prophet Elisha (1811-1813) by Washington Allston. To purchase Allston’s The Dead Man Restored to Life in 1816, the board of the Pennsyl­vania Academy of the Fine Arts raised more than nine hundred dollars by subscrip­tion, and mortgaged the mu­seum building to borrow the balance of the artist’s asking price. Twenty years later, the Academy again mortgaged its building to purchase Benjamin West’s monumental depiction of the apocalypse, Death on the Pale Horse (1814).

The twentieth century is represented by Coxcomb (1931) by Georgia O’Keefe, White Callas (1925-1927) by Arthur B. Carles, and Lowry’s Hill (1922) by Daniel Garber, all private gifts. Donations have always been a significant source of new acquisitions, especially during this century.

Painters represented in “American Masterworks, 1750-1950,” include Charles C. Cur­ran (Breezy Day), Stuart Davis (Ultra-Marine), Thomas Doughty (Moming among the Hills), Asher B. Durand (Land­scape: Creek and Rocks), Martin Johnson Heade (Sunset Harbor at Rio), Edward Hopper (East Wind over Weehawken), John Frederick Kensett (At Newport, Rhode Island), Edmund Darch Lewis (Lake Willougby), Thomas Moran (Venice), Horace Pippin (John Brawn Going to His Hang­ing), Charles Sheeler (Clap­boards), and Thomas Sully (Eliza Leslie), among others. Sculptors include Joseph Alexis Bailly (Paradise Lost and First Prayer), Charles Grafly (Aeneas and Anchises), Jean Antoine Houdon (John Paul Jones, 1747-1792), Albert Laes­sle (Turtle and Lizards), Charles Rudy (Pekin Drake), and Bessie Potter Vonnoh (Young Mother).

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Pennsylvania Academy will conduct a film series, art history lectures, gallery talks, and related fam­ily programs.

“American Masterworks, 1750-1950,” continues through Sunday, April 11, 1993.

Visiting hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 A. M. to 5 P. M.; and Sunday, 11 A. M. to 5 P. M. Admission is charged.

For additional information, write: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 118 North Broad St., Philadelphia, PA 19102; or telephone (215) 972-7600 or 972-7642.

Street Smart

Philadelphia. For many years it has been characterized as “the city of Neighbor­hoods.” But how did these neighborhoods begin? What made them grow and change? What is happening to them today?

“Common Ground: Phila­delphia’s Neighborhoods,” an exhibit organized by the His­torical Society of Pennsylva­nia, examines the development, diversity, and dynamics of neighborhoods throughout the city. The exhi­bition focuses on these neigh­borhoods as they have evolved within living memory in this century. Through photo­graphs, maps, documents, artifacts, and memorabilia, “Common Ground” traces the development of the city’s neighborhoods, the dynamics of community life, and the ways in which individuals and ethnic groups work together to maintain and renew their neighborhoods. In addition to objects and artifacts drawn from the extensive holdings of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the exhibition fea­tures material that has been donated or loaned by individ­uals, neighborhood groups, social associations, fraternal organizations, and cultural institutions.

Several components of the exhibition have been produced with the assistance of commu­nity organizations, such as neighborhood and civic associ­ations, cultural centers, and local historical societies. A special segment, “Community Bulletin Board,” consists of a changing display featuring a different section of Philadel­phia each month. Throughout the course of “Common Ground: Philadelphia’s Neigh­borhoods,” a series entitled “Welcome Days” will highlight participating neighborhoods by conducting special events and offering reduced admis­sion fees.

“Common Ground: Phila­delphia’s Neighborhoods” will remain on view through Satur­day, May 1, 1993.

Visiting hours are Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Satur­day, 10 A. M. to 5 P. M.; and Wednesday, 1 to 5 P. M. There is a charge for admission.

For additional information, write: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1300 Locust St., Philadelphia, PA 19107; or telephone (215) 732-6200 or 732-6201.

Covering Coverlets

A landmark exhibition combining “Woven for Warmth: Coverlets from the Collection of the Museum of American Folk Art,” a traveling exhibit organized by the presti­gious New York museum, and “Pennsylvania Fancy Weaves: Coverlets from the Collection of the Allentown Art Mu­seum” is currently on view at the Allentown Art Museum in center-city Allentown.

“Woven for Warmth: Cover­lets from the Collection of the Museum of American Folk Art” explores American cover­let weaving, which enjoyed its heyday during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Like so many Amer­ican folk arts, weaving is rooted in European traditions which weavers adapted, add­ing innovations of their own to develop a woven product unique in both originality and beauty.

Myths proliferate about early life in America – and the area of coverlet weaving is no exception. One of the most common myths about woven coverlets contends that they were made by housewives who grew and processed the flax for the base, sheared the sheep, dyed and spun the wool, and then wove an array of floral textiles for bedding for their families. In fact, while many rural homemakers were responsible for the production of household textiles, the com­plex weaves found in most American woven coverlets were usually beyond their talent and loom capability. Prior to about 1810, women created most of the clothing textiles for their rural families.

The itinerant weaver travel­ing throughout the country­side with his loom creates a picturesque image, but it is more probable – and practical – that he traveled to isolated farmsteads and vil­lages to deliver finished pieces, collect new weaving commissions, and purchase dyed and spun wool. Families would select their choice of designs from the weaver’s book of patterns, and the weaver would then return to his shop to complete these commissions.

The early weaver’s design repertory is greatly misunder­stood as well. Most individ­uals, even the most knowledgeable of collectors, tend to think of the blue and white “Jacquard” coverlets as the sole output of American weavers. Most recent research has concentrated on docu­menting the weavers whose names, dates, customers’ names, and locations adorn these textiles’ corner blocks. However, the range of existing American coverlets is far more complex, diverse, and beauti­ful than this one particular facet would indicate. “Woven for Warmth: Coverlets from the Collection of the Museum of American Folk Art” surveys the broad spectrum of Ameri­can woven products, examin­ing not only their variety but their technical excellence.

“Woven for Warmth” sets the context for the more spe­cific focus of “Pennsylvania Fancy Weaves: Coverlets from the Collection of the Allentown Art Museum;’ which features a dozen nineteenth century fancy weave coverlets created by weavers who worked in the Lehigh Valley. Weavers represented in this exhibition include Solomon Kuder (1806-1866), who worked in Trexlertown and published a dyeing catalogue in Allentown; Charles Wiand (born 1818), a prolific Allen­town weaver; Thomas Marstel­ler (born 1812), who worked in Lower Saucon Township, Northampton County; John Seidenspinner (born 1831), a Lehigh County weaver; and Philip Maus (died 1880), who is described by the U.S. Cen­sus as a weaver in 1850 and 1860. The exhibit will explore the similarities and the differ­ences in the styles of these weavers, who were working during the same period and in the same geographical area. Biographical information will augment the exhibit.

Fancy weave coverlets are commonly called Jacquard coverlets, but textile historians prefer the term “fancy weave” because it has been docu­mented that many coverlets of this type preceded the intro­duction of the Jacquard loom head to the United States in the late 1820s. Fancy weave coverlets are characterized by curvilinear patterns rather than the geometric block pat­terns found on overshot and block double-cloth coverlets. Many historians believe that fancy weave coverlets devel­oped from French silk weaving traditions, although weavers of diverse backgrounds began weaving fancy coverlets in the United States because of their popularity.

The advent of the Jacquard head for looms revolutionized the weaving industry. With a set of cards much like com­puter keypunch cards control­ling the movement of the warp threads, a complete coverlet could be woven quickly and without an assistant. Less weaving skill was needed, and pattern changes could be made by attaching a new set of punched cards to the head mechanism. Personalized coverlets-complete with the owner’s name, the date, the village or county, the weaver’s name and, in some cases, patriotic or moralistic epithets – could be created in several days.

“Woven for Warmth,” aug­mented by “Pennsylvania Fancy Weaves,” will remain on view through January 3, 1993.

The Allentown Art Mu­seum is located at Fifth and Court streets in center-city Allentown. Visiting hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.; Sunday, 1 to 5 P.M. There is an admission charge.

Additional information may be obtained by writing: Allen­town Art Museum, P.O. Box 388, Allentown, PA 18105-0388; or by telephoning (215) 432- 4333.

The Inimitable Cruikshank

To his contemporaries, caricaturist and illustrator George Cruikshank (1792-1878) was “the Inimitable Cruikshank,” his talent unique and unrivaled. With a keen eye and pointed pen, he observed and recorded fashions and recreations; scandals and deaths; the sights and sounds of London, from solemn civic processions to seedy taverns; the follies, frolics, and frenzied politics of the portly and de­bauched Prince of Wales; and the movements of the lithe and menacing Napoleon.

To celebrate the bicenten­nial of his birth, the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Phila­delphia has mounted an exhi­bition entitled “George Cruikshank (1792-1878): A Bicentennial Exhibition;’ which will remain on view through Sunday, January 10, 1993.

“George Cruikshank (1792-1878): A Bicentennial Exhibi­tion” surveys the whole of the artist’s sixty-seven year career through a selection of one hundred and seventy draw­ings and prints. The last of a long line of Georgian graphic satirists, which included Wil­liam Hogarth, James Gillray, and Thomas Rowlandson, George Cruikshank became a full-time caricaturist at the age of nineteen. For the following dozen years he was the most productive and influential satirist of the day. The Hano­verian Royal Family – with its numerous amorous escapades and dizzying indulgences­ – provided rich material: in­cluded in the exhibition are Cruikshank’s visual comments on the Prince Regent, Princess Charlotte, Princess Caroline, and more.

In his early thirties, Cruik­shank eased his biting satire, working on a smaller scale and concentrating on more genial humor of family amusement. He began to work as an illus­trator, his commissions includ­ing the first English translation of Grimm’s fairy tales, and invented a new comic format, the volume of humorous plates unaccompanied by any text. From 1835 to 1854, he illus­trated the Comic Almanack, an annual publication in which he used the days and months of the year as occasions for comic visual commentary on early Victorian era London.

Cruikshank’s skill attracted publishers eager to popularize the works of their authors. From being the last of the Georgian caricaturists, he became the first of the Victo­rian period novel illustrators. His illustrations for William Makepeace Thackeray, Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, and others added to the books’ saleability. His image of Oliver Twist “asking for more” is, perhaps, his most famous; it caught the fancy of all classes of the British and has been widely copied ever since. (In fact, it was used by a cartoon­ist during Watergate to depict Congress “asking for more” tape recordings.) His brilliant, dense, and virtuosic graphic work gives the texts an added dimension, and a generous selection of his best work is being shown by the Rosenbach Museum and Library.

In 1847, George Cruikshank produced The Bottle, a work that was to be pivotal in both his life and career. A melodra­matic temperance tale in eight plates, the series chronicles the decline and death of a respect­able working man caused by excessive drinking. The publi­cation was a sensation, and its message was not lost on the artist: he became a teetotaler himself. Beginning with The Bottle, the temperance mes­sage flowed into much of his work. The single most ambi­tious result of his convictions was the huge painting The Worship of Bacchus, or the Drink­ing Customs of Society. First exhibited in 1863, it toured the country, was viewed by an approving Queen Victoria, and was presented to the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum), where it remains. “George Cruikshank (1792-1878): A Bicentennial Exhibition” in­cludes a print after this paint­ing, signed by the artist, on loan from a private London collection. The exhibition also features The Bottle in its en­tirety and selections from its sequel, The Drunkard’s Children.

George Cruikshank’s prodi­gious artistic output was matched by his private life. Married twice, by neither marriage did he have any children, but between 1854 and 1875 he had eleven chil­dren by Adelaide Attree, a former maid in his home. She and their children were kept by him in a house a few hun­dred yards from where he lived with his wife, and the existence of this secret family was known to very few. To the general public the artist was known as humorist, moralist, patriot, and national celebrity, one who lived so long that his later work was sometimes taken to be that of a grandson with the same name.

“George Cruikshank (1792-1878): A Bicentennial Exhibi­tion” was drawn from the Rosenbach Museum and Li­brary’s collection of more than three thousand prints and drawings by the artist. It has been supplemented by the loan of several important pieces from prestigious institu­tions, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, New York Public Library, Princeton University, and the Lewis Walpole Library.

Visiting hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 11 A. M. to 4 P. M. (The last tour begins at 2:45 P. M.) Admission is charged.

For additional information, write: Rosenbach Museum and Library, 2010 DeLancey Pl., Philadelphia, PA 19103; or telephone (215) 732-1600.