Avocation to Vocation: Prints by F. Townsend Morgan

F. Townsend Morgan, Untitled (harbor scene), n.d., etching on paper

The exhibition “Avocation to Vocation: Prints by F. Townsend Morgan,” curated by independent scholar Stephen Goldfarb, begins this Saturday, June 17, and will be on view through Sunday, September 10. The exhibition highlights the work of F. Townsend Morgan, who created many prints of the places he lived in and the objects around him. Forty prints of sailboats, architecture and natural beauty will be on display.

Morgan F. Townsend and family in Key West, Florida. ca 1940.
Image: State Archives of Florida

F. Townsend Morgan grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and studied at the Pratt Institute and the Art Students League. The title of the exhibition comes from a writing of Morgan’s, who wrote that he pursued art as an avocation—or hobby— which eventually turned into employment. He developed his style while living in Pennsylvania with Joseph Pennell, a fellow artist and friend of famed artist James McNeill Whistler. After the Great Depression, Morgan focused on perfecting his craft and turning it into a career to support his family. He found work in New Deal art programs for several years; Morgan moved to Key West through a Federal Relief Agency and worked as director of the Key West Community Art Center in 1941. Morgan eventually moved to Annapolis, Maryland, and received the post of artist-in-residence at St. John’s College from 1948 through 1950.

Morgan’s prints focused on the architecture and nature of the many places he lived and visited including Maryland, Orlando, and Louisville. He especially enjoyed making prints of sailboats, which particularly caught the eye of Goldfarb, who said, “Morgan’s boats are in a tradition that, at least to my eye, goes back to Turner by way of Joseph Pennell and Whistler. I particularly like the dark ships against the water and atmosphere, which is rendered with very little ink, so the original color of the paper shows through. A sort of ‘less-is-more’ aesthetic.”

F. Townsend Morgan, "Covered Bridge," n.d., etching on cream paper

Morgan achieved many accomplishments in his life; he was chosen to make the stamp for the tercentenary celebration of Annapolis and he won several awards for his prints. His works can be seen today in collections at the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress and the Treasury Department of the United States. He had several exhibitions during his life, but “Avocation to Vocation: Prints by F. Townsend Morgan” is the first exhibition to focus entirely on his work since his death. Goldfarb hopes that this exhibition teaches visitors that many artists of the past deserve to be remembered and that they are a part of history. Goldfarb said, “Many of the artists that I am interested in did not join the movement to abstraction and other modernist movements after World War II and for that reason have been, like Morgan, all but forgotten by art historians, as well as the collecting public. Exhibitions like this one could reverse that trend.”

Programs related to the exhibition of Morgan’s work include a film series focusing on Key West (“Reap the Wild Wind,” “Key Largo” and “Matinee”), starting June 22; 90 Carlton: Summer, the museum’s quarterly reception (free for members of the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art, $5 for nonmembers) on July 28 at 5:30 p.m.; and public tours on August 23 at 2 p.m. and September 10 at 3 p.m. All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise indicated.

Stephanie Motter

Communications Intern

New Acquisitions: "Die Gänsemagd" (The Goose Girl) by Paula Modersohn-Becker

A pioneer of European modern art, Paula Modersohn-Becker was an influential participant in the artistic community in Worpswede, in northern Germany, at the start of the 20th century. Trained in Berlin, she became acquainted with the formal innovations of post-impressionists like Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin during a trip to Paris in 1900. Her paintings are often discussed in the scholarship on the period as important precursors to the German expressionist style.

Paula Modernsohn-Becker, Die Gänsemagd (The Goose Girl), ca. 1900

Artists of the Worpswede community sought escape from the industrialization of German cities, often romanticizing rural life in their images. Modersohn-Becker usually selected local children, old women or farmers’ wives as models for her portraits and figure studies, while emphasizing abstract patterns within the forms. Her subject for "Die Gänsemagd" is based on a German fairy tale of the same name from the Brothers Grimm. The exaggerated limbs and contours of her figures recall storybook illustrations and also point to the expressive distortion of forms found in later expressionistic styles. Modersohn-Becker’s career was cut short when she died of an embolism in 1907 at the age of 31. The poet Ranier Maria Rilke, also in Worpswede at this time, wrote “Requiem for a Friend” in her memory in 1908.

"Die Gänsemagd" is currently on display through October 9 in the exhibition "Recent: Acquisitions."

Lynn Boland
Pierre Daura Curator of European Art

MFA Candidate: Andrew Indelicato

                  

Andrew Indelicato creates digital paintings filled with 1980s nostalgia and visual reminiscences of video game images. He uses photoshop to create vibrant prints that reference early computer graphics, neon, glitching, and computer manipulation. He makes gifs and is interested in new media, net art, and cross-platforming.

Colliding color fields with overlapping patterns make his prints bright and compelling. To create these images he seeks inspiration from grids. The idea of the grid is prevalent as a visual component for his work as well as a structural guideline. Whether or not it is shown, he says that it still plays a role in guiding his process.

“When the grid is integrated, it becomes a protagonist, and in other other imagery it is used as a launchpoint. It gives me a set of rules and a structure that I can manipulate from,” he explains.

Music is another influential component of Indelicato’s work. He listens to electronic music and lets it guide him through the development. The music and the repetition of the beat help him determine where to lay certain colors. As a result, his work appears very rhythmic and filled with patterns. 

In order to achieve even more visual vibrancy, he suspends neon over his prints. In his upcoming show he will be installing a six foot tube of turquoise neon over two ten foot prints.  The display will integrate new technology while using two different types of media.

“I have a lot of neon.… It makes everything ‘sexy,’ changes the saturation of the colors, and with nice paper the neon bounces off of the paper,” he says.

Indelicato’s prints will be on display at the “Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates Exhibition” at the Georgia Museum of Art from April 11 to May 3, 2015.

http://www.andrewindelicato.com

Redon's Prints Show the Darkness in Art

Odilon Redon, Print from "The Temptation of St. Anthony" (series 3). 1896. 

Odilon Redon's noir lithographs are a testament to the hugely influential role psychology plays in art. Redon himself described his works as representations of "the ghosts of his own mind." The Georgia Museum of Art's upcoming exhibition "The Nightmare Transported to Art: Odilon Redon's 'St. Anthony'" provides a unique collection of these peeks into the artist's soul with the full set of Redilon's third series of prints depicting scenes from Gustave Flaubert's book The Temptation of St. Anthony.

The temptation of St. Anthony was often chronicled in medieval, renaissance, and even modern art. However, Redon's prints that will be on display from Nov. 1, 2014 to Jan. 25, 2015 stand out among the rest for their black-and-white palette (an extreme difference from the Impressionists, his contemporaries) and the focus on things outside the visible realm, from tiny microorganisms to the sublime supernatural.

This is the first time the Georgia Museum of Art has displayed the full set from 1896; in 1991, the museum hosted an exhibition that contained part of the prints, but this is the first time visitors can see them as  a complete series.

The exhibition is curated by Laura Valeri, associate curator of European art, and is part of UGA's 2014 Spotlight on the Arts festival. The festival takes place over nine days and is organized by the UGA Arts Council.

For those who want more information and the chance to hear from an expert about the exhibition, Valeri will give a tour on Nov. 6 at 2 p.m. and Dec. 17 at 2 p.m.

Gold Medals and Art

With the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympic Games due to air tonight, we were interested to see this article from Smithsonian.com on the history of arts medals given out at the Olympics. Although they were only given out from 1912 to 1952, and somewhat spottily at that, the idea that arts could stand alongside sport in international competition is one not often contemplated. Wikipedia has a listing of all the medals awarded, and many of the names are not familiar. One, though, is that of Mahonri Young, who received a gold medal in the "statues" category in 1932. The grandson of Mormon pioneer Brigham Young, he worked in engraving and watercolor as well as sculpture. The image pictured above is his etching "Hopi Snake Dance" (ca. 1924), which is on long-term loan to the Georgia Museum of Art from the collection of Jason Schoen. Some of Young's most well-known works are the painted sculpture dioramas he created for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. This etching most likely relates to that project and probably resulted from the many sketches he made on a research trip to the American Southwest.

Research Spotlight: Warhol's Mao

The following post comes from Amy Arnold, a curatorial intern in my department who will be graduating this summer with a BA in Art History and a BFA in painting.

                                  LIFE Magazine Cover, 3 March 1972

In preparation for an exciting exhibition opening at GMOA this August, some of my fellow interns and I have been researching the collection of prints known as the “New York Collection for Stockholm” portfolio. The portfolio was created as a fundraising initiative in 1973 to make it possible for the New York-based group Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) to donate a collection of American contemporary art to the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. The E.A.T. initiative focused on collaborations between artists and engineers in an effort to stimulate inventive technological growth and to explore creative applications of technology.

Of all the research we have done on the portfolio, perhaps our most exciting find concerns a print by Andy Warhol. Known for his fascination with fame, Warhol had begun using Mao imagery in his work after the Chinese dictator was referred to as the most famous person in the world in a Life magazine article from 1972. That same year, the artist began creating his Mao portraits, which were based on the leader’s official Chinese state portrait.

Before GMOA acquired its own copy of the portfolio, all that we knew about the Warhol came from the captions and labels produced by other museums that owned the print; almost no scholarship exists on it. What we generally understood was that it was an image created by Xerox copying. You can imagine our surprise when this is what we found upon opening the portfolio for the first time.

Andy Warhol, 
Mao, 1973, from the "New York Collection for Stockholm" portfolio, 
xerograph on paper,
 GMOA (accession number pending)

It resembles nothing of Mao—at least at first glance. Somewhat confused, we continued our research. As we delved deeper into the imprints in the collections of other museums, we discovered that, in fact, only a handful of the impressions actually resembled the Chinese dictator at all. The typical description of the work’s medium is “sequentially reproduced Xerox print,” meaning the prints were created by making a copy of Warhol’s original drawing of Mao, then using that copy to create another copy, and so on, degrading the clarity of the original image with each copy. We also discovered that the image was being distorted in two other ways: through enlargement and rotation. This distortion is evident in a side-by-side comparison of several editions of the Mao print.

Various editions of Andy Warhol’s Mao for the "New York Collection for Stockholm" portfolio


The edition numbers shown here are from the portfolios that were sold to the public in order to raise funds for the New York Collection at Moderna Museet. GMOA’s edition of the print is somewhat special. It comes from an edition numbered only to 31, which were reserved as publisher’s copies and were not initially for sale. For that reason, the GMOA Mao print, numbered 22/31, is even more distorted than edition 293/300, above. By collecting these images of other Mao editions, we were able to determine that GMOA’s print is a close-up and rotated view of Mao’s upper lip, just under his right nostril.  

The exhibition, The New York Collection for Stockholm, will be on view at GMOA from August 18–November 3, 2012. In addition to Andy Warhol, the show also features Walter de Maria, Jim Dine, Mark di Suvero, Dan Flavin, Red Grooms, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol Lewitt, Louise Nevelson, Claes Oldenburg, Nam June Paik, Robert Rauschenberg, and Cy Twombly, to name a few.

Yet Another Crazy Thursday

Polly Knipp Hill in her college years

This April has been full of jam-packed Thursdays at GMOA, and this one is no exception. We have three things going on this p.m.

From 5 to 8 p.m., we encourage you to come over for Drawing in the Galleries. Bring your sketchbooks and colored pencils and really get to know the art in depth.

At 5:30 p.m., in the George-Ann and Boone Knox II Gallery, guest curator and artist Enee Abelman will speak on her exhibition "Polly Knipp Hill: Marking a Life Through Etching." Hill began working as an artist in the 1920s and garnered increased recognition in the decades that followed. Although she initially focused on European architecture, in her mature period her broad body of work grew to encompass poignant, amusing and slightly satirical genre scenes that reflected American culture. This retrospective exhibition of Hill’s life and career is organized iconographically according to the categories into which the artist herself divided her print oeuvre: Paris; America with "street and countryside scenes"; Florida; Arcadia (or reminiscences of her childhood); children’s games; and mountain culture. The groupings also reflect the chronology of her etching career. Abelman has many tales to tell of her dumpster diving and struggles to reconstruct Hill's autobiography and chronology.

Finally, at 7 p.m., we're screening "The September Issue" as our closing film in the series "Dress the Part: Fashion in Movies and Magazines," which goes along with the exhibition "Pattern and Palette in Print: Gentry Magazine and a New Generation of Trendsetters." With unprecedented access, the documentary tells the story of legendary Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and her larger-than-life team of editors creating the issue and ruling the world of fashion. Watch the trailer below:

Affordable Art

Flavorwire had an interesting post yesterday about a new(ish) project, Edition One Hundred, designed to promote affordable art to the public. Artists create works on a theme for a virtual exhibition that are then produced in editions of, you guessed it, 100 and sold for $100 each, with 10% of the money going to a charity selected by the artist. It's a win-win-win situation that reminds us of the print-subscription services popular in the 1930s. Browse the stuff on display at their website.

FIFA 2010 World Cup Artwork

William Kentridge's Bicycle Kick

Anticipation grows with the advent of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which starts on June 11, 2010. Along with the excitement of the game, the marketing of limited-edition posters has drawn fans and collectors alike to the common ground of football, or soccer as Americans call it. Seventeen artists from around the world were commissioned to create official posters to advertise the sport and generate additional revenue. Selling for as little as $121, the posters offer a variety of soccer-related imagery and range of colors. Each artist kept within the theme and inspiration of the World Cup, and they are sure to make a unique souvenir for soccer enthusiasts.

The South African art community is also very excited about the influx of fans and tourists. Galleries such as David Krut Projects have prepared to showcase the talent of the locals, by focusing on contemporary art and design of South Africa. David Krut Projects has also been instrumental in marketing the posters. Gallery manager Taryn Hackett says,

“We are hoping for an increase in foot traffic through our gallery during the World Cup. We want to be able show an international audience the inherent creative talent in South Africa. We have chosen to exhibit works which reflect a wide range of subject matter, techniques and mediums, by both established and upcoming South African artists.”

By combining art with soccer, a broader audience was reached thus uniting the spirit of South Africa. While you may not be attending the games, be sure to check out the World Cup on June 11 as well as http://bit.ly/bro5LT for more information on the posters and where to buy them.

Art Around Athens

The VCC at the Lamar Dodd School of Art continues today, with lectures by Shannon Pritchard ("Caravaggio's 'Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and a Page': An image of the exemplary Christian knight") and Mike Kemling ("Il scultore fiorentino: Giuliano Bugiardini's portrait of Michelangelo") at 5 p.m. in Room 150 of the Dodd.

Edit: Looks like Mike Kemling is Oct. 15 instead. Just Shannon Pritchard today.

According to Flagpole, the Printmaking Student Association (which has a seemingly defunct blog) is having an open house and sale today from 5 to 7 p.m. that continues Friday, Oct. 2, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., we're guessing over at the Dodd as well.

Also from 5 to 7 p.m. today is an opening reception at the College of Environment and Design's Circle Gallery for We Are So Lightly Here: Putting Contemporary Musicians in Their Place, "a photographic exploration of musicians within their landscapes" by Michael Wilson. Columns had a nice article about the exhibition, with an image, but it's hard to find on their Web site. Here's the relevant stuff. The exhibition closes Oct. 30.

The exhibition features black-and-white photographs of musicians in their landscapes. The show will be a mix of musicians’ portraits including Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris, John Hiatt, Randy Newman, Dawn Upshaw and more. Nearly 40 original print portraits will be on display.

Over the past 25 years, Wilson has built his career capturing in his photographs the art of music and the people who make it. He has worked with musical legends such as B.B. King and Waylon Jennings.

In this collection, Wilson explores musicians within their own landscapes, pondering the relationship between place and creative endeavor, creating an exhibition that transcends disciplines, meeting at the intersection of art, music, design and cultural geography.

Wilson will be in attendance for a gallery talk and the exhibition reception on Oct. 1 from 5–7 p.m. Located in G14 Caldwell Hall, the Circle Gallery is open weekdays from 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m.

James E. Routh at the Paper Museum in Atlanta

The James E. Routh Jr. reception is coming up! Mark your calendars for Thursday, September 17, 2009. The exhibition will take place in Atlanta at the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum with Routh and his family. The Atlanta Journal Constitution published a piece about the upcoming reception and added more exciting information from an recent interview with Routh. Routh elaborates on his feelings towards the long gone print-making days and addresses his present situation.

Who’s Routh? Click here to be redirected to one of our posts about the artist himself.

Exhibition Catalogues

Here's the cover design for this upcoming publication, which will accompany the exhibition. The designer, Gina Binkley, chose a simple, text-based look, which will be embossed on thick, uncoated paper so that the text is raised, to complement the title of the show and the work of Jim Routh. The embossing suggests the process of printmaking, the tall and thin letters mirror Routh's frequent skinny verticals, the absence of a color palette reflects Routh's black-and-white work and the overall extreme simplicity matches nicely with the look of the artist's images and the aesthetic sensibility of his era. We love it when a look is so carefully thought out, and we look forward to the rest of the book, which we'll update you on as it gets closer to reality.

The South in Black and White: The Graphic Works of James E. Routh Jr., 1939-1946

We're working on checking measurements for this exhibition that will be at the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum soon, and we wanted to show you an example of one thing that makes it really interesting. Jim Routh traveled throughout the South, sketching, and later turned his quick drawings into lithographs, including this one, of the Dixie Steel plant in Atlanta. The plant no longer exists, but the area where it once was is now Atlantic Station, home to stores, restaurants, a movie theater and more. So the next time you're heading to Ikea in Atlanta, think about the fact that this big manufacturing site used to occupy the same ground.

Traveling Exhibitions

Scripture for the Eyes: Bible Illustration in Netherlandish Prints of the Sixteenth Century, an exhibition that features two prints from the collection of the Georgia Museum of Art, Nailing to the Cross (above) and Crucifixion, both by Herman Janz. Muller, opens tomorrow at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York.

Scripture for the Eyes will be the first major exhibition to explore the central role played by printed illustrations of subjects from both the Old and New Testaments in the sixteenth century. Through approximately 80 engravings, woodcuts and illustrated Bibles and books by masters such as Lucas van Leyden, Maarten van Heemskerck, Philips Galle, Hendrick Goltzius, Hieronymus Wierix and others, biblical prints will be shown to have been a dynamic force both in the transformation of Northern European art between Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt van Rijn and in the intensified attention to scripture in the religious turmoil of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.

So if you're going to be in New York, please visit our prints!