Word: ashcan
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Heaving at the handle of an ashcan, his aide Gaylord, a Negro janitor, asks: "What do you know of the black man's burden?" Moonbloom responds sourly, as he picks up the other handle: "I share...
...anecdotal, and the academic. Though Stieglitz had exhibited such men as Matisse, Picasso and John Marin in his Manhattan gallery, the critics' verdict on his shows ranged from a patronizing "bewildering" to a savage "subterhuman hideousness." The most vital American painters were a group subsequently known as the Ashcan School, but their harshly realistic paintings were receiving almost no recognition. "Stop studying water pitchers and bananas and paint everyday life," cried Cincinnati-born Robert Henri. But the Academy and the public preferred the bananas...
...formed the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, which, they hoped, would put on an exhibition that would have the same notoriety and success as Paris' Salon des Refusées. As president, they chose Painter Arthur B. Davies. not so much because he had exhibited with the Ashcan School, but because he knew people of wealth and position. The choice had repercussions no one foresaw: while the Henri group wanted to put on a huge exhibition to call attention to "progressive" American art, Davies happened to have an instinctive appreciation of the experiments going on in Europe...
...show, in effect, plunged the U.S. realist tradition temporarily in the shadows. It was not until the 1950s, when the powerful wave of abstraction reached its peak, that the U.S. asserted itself strongly on the international stage. But if the show shattered Ashcan hopes of becoming the dominating force in U.S. art, those who called the U.S. provincial were obviously passing judgment too soon. From the older generation of Americans in the show, Albert Ryder's paintings live on to haunt posterity. Of those who were in their middle years, Walt Kuhn went on to do first-rate work...
Davies was an odd choice for commander in chief in the modernists' battle against the academics. Though Davies was friendly with the original members of the realist Ashcan School,*his own paintings pictured a vernal never-never land of cavorting nymphs and nice little girls, a tearless world where Purity and Joy joined in allegorical dances and virgins herded unicorns beside an unruffled sea. His work had become vastly popular with the public, and Davies' support for the Armory Show was proportionately influential. He rallied a group of wealthy, art-minded New Yorkers (including his own patronesses. Gertrude...