Word: artistes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...touch with any real warmth. Their three daughters are a successful poet (Diane Keaton) married to a novelist who boozes because her reviews are better than his; an actress (Kristin Griffith) who can only get parts on TV; and a young woman (Marybeth Hurt) with the spirit of an artist, but no gift for any particular art. Late in life father has divorced mother, who grows more visibly dotty as the knowledge sinks in that he will never return; indeed, he has taken up with a sensible widow (Maureen Stapleton) whom the kids hate despite (really because of) her warmth...
ATTENDING A RETROSPECTIVE of an artist's work has a similar appeal as seeing old movies over and over again. You go to quell your nostalgic urges, to see your time - honored favorites, whether it be the joy of watching Dorothy prance down the Yellow Brick Road for the umpteenth time or the sight of a particular Monet haystack. For the most part, however, new ideas are rarely perceived; you end up looking for your special favorites and tend to ignore the rest. Whatever insights are made usually concern the philosophy of nostalgia rather than revelations about the subject concerned...
Although each artist has been individually acclaimed on the merit of his or her own work, the Evans influence is unmistakable, especially when there is such close available comparison. This is not to say, however, that while influenced by the same man, the photographers appear in any way related to one another. Arbus's portraits of human oddities bear little resemblance to Alston Purvis' color details of plain doorways and windows other than the similar oblong shape of their frames. As the catalogue to the exhibit states, "Each one saw a slightly different side to the man, and Evans...
...diversity of his work. His many projects include studies of the New York subways, tenant farmers during the Depression (Let us Now Praise Famous Men], Chicago streets. Coney Island, Victorian architecture, Cuban scenes and hundreds of photographs documenting roadside stands, interiors and corners of rooms. In his essay "The Artist of the Real," Alan Trachtenberg suggests Evans' work was inspired not by painters or by other artists, but by literature, the writings of Flaubert, Proust, Joyce, Whitman and Henry James. "He arrived at his proper point of view through the spirit of objective realism, aesthetic autonomy, respect for feeling...
Although Evans disliked the role of the almighty teacher and prophet, he understood the young artist's need for contact with an accomplished artist; he hoped their interaction with him might eventually lead them to some kind of independent vision. His influence on Alston Purvis (a former student of his at Yale) John Szarkowski and William Christenberry is obvious. There exists a common interest toward the inanimate, the objects and architecture of our environment. Purvis' color photographs mostly detail windows and doorways and explore the play of light in them. He exhibits the same fascination Evans does for the seemingly...