When modern art "arrived" in Florida galleries, a hurricane of inspiration swept away old expectations, carved new paths of expression and generally left art lovers all shook up.
By LENNIE BENNETT
Published June 8, 2003
[Courtesy of Tampa Museum of Art]
Syd Solomon, Silent World, 1961, Liquitex on gesso panel.
TAMPA - So much movement in such a still place. The paintings, works on paper and sculpture in "Modern Art in Florida, 1948-1970" still shimmer with some of the stir they must have caused when they were first seen in this area: Pablo Picasso'sVisage rieur, Yves Tanguy's The New Nomads, Georgia O'Keeffe's White Abstraction (Madison Avenue).
They and almost 100 other works on view at the Tampa Museum of Art reference the nascent art scene that began in Sarasota and spread through St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Tampa, a scene that brought new art and artists and increased cultural awareness. As the inclusion of the three artists mentioned above indicates, this is not just an inventory of art created in Florida, and thank goodness for that.
Guest curator Mark Ormond gives viewers a gracious plenty of famous modern artists who have lived here, such as James Rosenquist, Jimmy Ernst and Richard Anuszkiewicz, and especially focuses on the impact Graphicstudio has had in bringing moreuber-artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Philip Pearlstein to the area. But he includes art that was simply shown here, too, even if the artist had no personal connection to the place - the Picasso, for instance, borrowed from the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach by the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in the 1960s - for these works influenced the viewing public.
Because of the size of the show and the variety of art and artists - just about every movement of the 20th century is represented - viewers might be overwhelmed. And the arrangement, though visually interesting, won't help because it's generally built around the development of specific communities or institutions rather than chronology, movement or artist. The result may sometimes feel as if you're in a private club and don't know any of its members.
My advice is to relax and enjoy it, helped by Ormond's catalog essay. Take a slow meander through the riot of colors and mostly abstract forms and be reminded of the rapid-fire changes in the art world over the past 100 years.
And also appreciate how far west central Florida has come culturally. The two greatest agents of change lie at the north and south ends of the area: the University of South Florida in Tampa and the Ringling Museum in Sarasota.
Beginning in the 1950s, when the museum signaled the end of a 30-year doze with the arrival of Chick Austin as its first director, the Ringling displayed modern art along with its Baroque masterpieces. The museum, the spinoff Ringling School of Art and the presence of a growing band of artists attracted by Sarasota's ambiance made the city for a time the cultural heart of Florida. That explains why the Picasso and a painting by the great modernist Marsden Hartley are hung near one by Jon Corbino, who had settled in Sarasota, a very fine artist but not in the same league. (Okay, Shell isn't one of Hartley's greatest works.)
The University of South Florida's Art Department, established in the early 1960s, was packed with talented artists whose influence percolated through the area. Many are represented here by early work some of us have never seen - Jeffrey Kronsnoble'sRed Landscape, for example. But another Kronsnoble painting, Nude, so finely rendered it looks from a distance like a photograph, is located over yonder next to a Syd Solomon abstract, Cascade. Go figure.
Often this quixotic arrangement works. Placing Frank Rampolla's Seated Man next to Eugene Massin's Court Recess takes us down a dark psychological cellar by two very different sets of stairs. The life-sized bronze Elevation (Standing Woman) by Gaston Lachaise is positioned so you can view beyond it Harrison Covington's oil and wood collage, The Sentry, an effective juxtaposition. From a certain angle, you can study one Robert Gelinas painting up close while seeing another one with greater perspective hung on a long wall among other abstract painters. (I'd be thoroughly intimidated hanging out next to a Hans Hoffman.)
And no one can understate the importance of Graphicstudio at USF, which became, under the direction of founder Donald Saff, one of the most prestigious printmaking studios in the United States. Some of the biggest names in mid-century modern art worked at the studio and often interacted with teachers and students. And through the studio, USF was able to assemble a remarkable collection of prints made by these men and women. It also brought in artist-employees such as Theo Wujcik, a master printer before he became a well-known painter. Examples of his meticulous, pure work stand up well against more supercharged Rauschenbergs and Rosenquists.
Pinellas County gets it due, sort of. The Museum of Fine Arts opened in St. Petersburg in 1965 and, with its focus on building a comprehensive collection, has never been a great champion of contemporary art. But it has amassed a considerable collection of photography, some of which was borrowed for this show, along with some gems of modern art: The O'Keeffe is from the museum, for example.
And what is now the Gulf Coast Museum of Art in Largo began as an art center in Clearwater, with William Pachner as curator. He arranged for the area's first show of Picasso in the 1950s. What a pleasure it is to see Pachner's Great Sunday Beach, a bustling celebration of flesh as landscape, along with so many other artists who can't be noted in this short space.
This is one of the most interesting exhibitions of the year, a valuable record of the unforgettable decades when the influential and the influenced rubbed shoulders and gained from the interaction. Now they're all back together again, and it's our gain.
