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Art Forum Review on Dan Christensen

Jenn McMenemy

In Dan Christensen news, Art Forum's November 2009 issue has a great review on the Christensen show organized by the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Dan Christensen: Forty Years of Painting was on view at Kemper from May 15-Aug. 30, 2009 and is now on view at Sheldon Museum of Art from October 23, 2009 thru January 31, 2010.

Sheldon has a great podcast (about 5 minutes) with Sharon L. Kennedy, Sheldon's Curator of Cultural and Civic Engagement, talking about Christensen’s early years in Nebraska and Kansas City. You can download it here or visit their site to listen.

And if you're a Christensen plaid fan, there's a show on view thru Nov. 14th at Spanierman Modern featuring 14 of his plaid paintings. My personal favorite is Dark Tulip, 1970. Dan Christensen: The Plaid Paintings

Video: Peter Poskas on "Prelude to Spring, New Milford, Connecticut"

Jenn McMenemy

A few weeks ago we invited artist Peter Poskas in for a brief video interview with Ira. As part of the "video team" it was a pleasure meeting Peter and his wife, Jan, and a treat to hear him talk about one of his recent works, Prelude to Spring, New Milford, Connecticut.  It was nice hearing of his experiences painting the farms of Connecticut, especially the story of the only refusal he's gotten on a farm he wanted to paint.

Opening Photos! Peter Poskas: Capturing Light

Thanks to all those who helped make last night's opening reception for Peter Poskas: Capturing Light a success!

Photos from the event:

Ira Spanierman and Peter Poskas 
shown in front of

Orchardman’s House, (Washington Connecticut), 2008
Oil on panel, 24-1/2 x 33-3/4 inches

Opening-night crowd

the painting on the far wall is  
Prelude to Spring, New Milford, Connecticut, 2009
Oil on panel, 24-1/2 x 30-1/2 inches

Re-seeing John Twachtman’s Little Giant

Lisa N. Peters

On walking into Ira’s office the other day, I noticed John Twachtman’s Little Giant (ca. 1900) facing his desk. This made me wonder why Ira would choose this painting for this spot. We know that the work depicts Gloucester’s Rocky Neck dock, where the ferry “Little Giant” made an intermediary stop on its route between Gloucester and East Gloucester. However, aside from the fascinating history of the subject, and Ira’s longstanding admiration for Twachtman’s art, I think Ira may have chosen to have this painting meet his gaze because it captures a particular moment and mood.

Painted with dark strokes applied with the scraping force of an action painter, the dock in the foreground stands out from the soft Whistlerian atmosphere of the rest of the work. Out of a pleasant recreational landscape, we’ve zoned in on this dilapidated structure that seems out of the way, isolated from the highly developed far shore. Sloping too steeply for a comfortable descent to the water, the Rocky Neck dock seems a place left behind by progress. It evokes an image of something old and beginning to deteriorate while newness grows up around it. The ferry still stops here, with passengers aboard, but we don’t see any waiting or disembarking. A few empty rowboats rest in the dark green shadows beneath the dock’s ramp, huddling as if to fend off corrosion due to lack of use. The diagonal of the shadows draws our eye to the ferry, making us aware that it’s in the process of moving on.

The painting seems to ask: what is our relationship with things that time has passed by? There’s both vitality and some sadness to the sprightly yet seemingly wobbly dock. It’s still here, but we imagine that soon it won’t be. The painting puts us in touch with ourselves and the world around us, and that may be why it stands opposite Ira’s desk.

Read more for information on the John Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné.

Research in Progress: Helen Wessells

Carol Lowrey

With Veteran's Day approaching, I’d like to showcase a patriotic painting we have in the gallery. It’s entitled The Negro Troop, pictured here, and it depicts a group of African-American soldiers making their way along a street, the Stars and Stripes held aloft by one of the men. Some female admirers tag along, distracting several of the marchers. Where is the scene meant to take place? I’m at a loss to tell you because the ambiguous background makes it unclear as to whether the parade is in a rural town or a large city. The subject matter, however, is a reminder that during the first half of the twentieth century many African-American men proudly served their country, despite the discrimination that continued in American society and the armed forces; their involvement in both World War I and II led to future reforms within the U.S. military.

This striking genre piece (the medium is tempera on panel) was painted in 1936 by Helen Wessells, an artist whose career remains unstudied thus far. According to the archivist at the Art Students League of New York, she studied there from 1922 to 1927, working under influential painters such as George Bridgman, Allen Tucker, Kenneth Hayes Miller and Thomas Hart Benton. In The Negro Troop, she works in a painterly representational style that links her to the Fourteenth Street School in New York (of which Miller was the leader), who portrayed modern, everyday themes with techniques inspired by the Old Masters. What’s particularly impressive about The Negro Troop is the way in which Wessells employs a firm, almost caricaturist method in rendering the faces of several of the protagonists, her deft touch capturing the individual facial expressions and excited demeanor of several of the women.

Biographical accounts, exhibition records and newspaper reviews I’ve located thus far indicate that Wessells exhibited in New York City––at venues such as the G. R. D. Studio, the Midtown Galleries, Contemporary Arts and the Whitney Museum of American Art–– at various times during the late 1920s and 1930s. This elusive painter seems to have disappeared from the Manhattan art scene after about 1940, but it’s obvious, from The Negro Troop, that she was a figure specialist––skilled in translating the emotions, actions and energy of ordinary people into paint––and her work can be situated within the tradition of American Scene painting and Depression-era Realism. If anyone out there can enlighten me further on Wessells (her surname sometimes appears with one ‘l” or she’s referred to as “Helen E. Wessells”), please contact me at the gallery.