Clik here to view.
Carl Eric Lindin, Early Spring Woodstock, ca. 1930, oil on canvas
Since assuming the Executive Directorship of the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum in September, Neil Trager has heard a distant drum roll heralding an event others are hardly aware of but, as an old hand at the game, he knows is just around the corner. In only four years it will be a century since five painters representing a cross section of popular, if ‘oft opposing, styles became the founding fathers of a fighting ground first called The Woodstock Artists Association. As the town’s dim memory of that early harvest struggles to regain clarity, Trager has taken a somewhat radical route in stripping away his responsibilities until he is now — first and foremost — the steward of the legacy that is WAAM.
The most conservative of those original founders, John Carlson (who would inherit directorship of The Art Student League’s Summer Program here), upheld the virtues of plein aire oil painting with canvasses which hold up remarkably to this day. A second founder and one-time student of Carlson’s, Frank Swift Chase, would take a small step towards modernism with Impressionistic brushstrokes. Leading the radicals, founder number three Andrew Dasburg, was considered Woodstock’s eloquent firebrand. Upon his returning to town from Paris in 1911 (where he’d met both Cezanne and Matisse) Dasburg preached the revolutionary gospel of Cubism and fourth founder Henry McFee fell under its spell. Final and eldest founder, Carl Eric Lindin, from Byrdcliffe’s early days, fell stylistically somewhere between such extremes. It was these men who literally sold shares at $50 apiece, creating the company which built the gallery wherein each agreed to disagree. Yet they tolerated one another to begin with…most of the time — partly because each believed the verdict of art history would rule in his favor, and partly to “give free and equal expression to the ‘conservative’ and ‘radical’ elements because [we] believe a strong difference of opinions is a sign of health and an omen of long life for the colony.” This, from the original preamble of bi-laws of the WAA. Needless to say that same friction exists at what is today known as WAAM, though the struggle is as much between living artists and dead ones as between representational and abstract work.
Just outside the Towbin Wing at the 28 Tinker Street facility, works by these original founders (together with the essential 1926 map by Marg and Rudolf Wetterau establishing exactly which artists lived where) set the tone of rediscovery Trager seeks in WAAM: Creating Spirit Of Place, the show currently on display (it opened February 7) that will remain up until June 8.
To help accomplish this goal he resorts to a logical if not altogether common strategy: inviting those who’ve run WAAM for years to step from the shadows to introduce a few personal favorites from the permanent collection. The result is a quiet riot — and a most welcome one. This is the first time in a while, however, that a new exhibition hasn’t relied heavily upon work borrowed from other institutions, and one unfortunate reality emerging from this investigation of the core collection makes obvious the fact that the Artists Association doesn’t own many works by the town’s best artists. For instance the founders, themselves, are somewhat scantily collected. In the case of a Bellows or a Guston this makes sense because such works are expensive (even if WAAM could hope to have been gifted a bit more generously.) The especially hurtful part is that this incredibly important institution doesn’t own enough of Woodstock’s many “better than good” artists, either. Nevertheless, numerous marvelous surprises released from safekeeping for the first time in a long time, take proud position beside several long-familiar friends.
The most obvious success in the show is the “modern wall” curated by Carl Van Brunt who is WAAM’s Gallery Director, usually responsible for showing the work of Woodstock’s living artists. His selection consists of four sparely arranged geometric, abstract and semi-abstract paintings on a dark gray background. Specifically, Abstract (c.1950) by the too often-over-looked Reginald Wilson, a dazzling Geometric Abstraction (1950) by Rolph Scarlett, another colorful, highly-designed August Evening (c.’80) by Anne Helioff, and commanding the center, a grand Sentinel (1969) by Grace Greenwood (the older, often over-shadowed sister of Marion). Collectively the four works positively pop and sing, the wall comes alive, and a collaborative fifth work is achieved.
Long-time wizard of the darkroom, Ben Caswell, has dipped into WAAM’s photography collection and culled some remarkable images — for instance a classic portrait by an unknown photographer of the extraordinary painter Arnold Wiltz at work. Also, a photo montage of three images in two mediums (which just so happen to include his own monumental profile) by our ever-adventurous Konrad Cramer. Unfortunately, this image leaves us enviously recalling the vast majority of such pioneer works bequeathed by his daughter Aileen to the George Eastman House in Rochester. Ouch!