Word: dannemora
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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When Peter J. Curtis was sentenced to grey-walled Clinton Prison at Dannemora, N. Y. for robbery, he was a sign-painter. Instead of planning a jailbreak, Convict Curtis found his escape on canvas, painting in the barred funnel of light in his cell. Last year the warden gave him a studio to teach other convicts his idea of escape (TIME...
...Dannemora art school, no one paints his environment. All go as far away as possible from Dannemora's stone walls. Teacher Curtis paints pictures that look like calendars in village postoffices: an Indian, a landscape, a glossily highlighted Flemish Fisher. His star pupil, Convict R. Rehm, has faithfully copied Gainsborough's Blue Boy and painted an original picture of rearing, free Wild Horses from his own dreams. Even the wild horses shine with idealism. Another pupil, Convict H. Nelson, produces pictures like railroad travel posters advertising any place but Dannemora...
When patrons of the Dannemora art group sought to hang their pictures publicly, they thought naturally of one U. S. show. That was Manhattan's famed Independents', which lets any painter hang anything except himself for $9. What was good enough for Dannemora was good enough for the 17th show of the Society of Independent Artists, opening last week in Manhattan's Grand Central Palace. Manhattan critics went gleefully, spitting on their hands for their annual field day at the expense of art they could be sure...
...takes time. Convicts have lots of time. Last week in Clinton Prison at Dannemora, N. Y., and in the McAlester. Okla. Penitentiary, convicts had turned artist. At grey, feudal Clinton where in 1929 the inmates rioted (TIME, Aug. 5, 1929), Convict Peter J. Curtis, onetime Brooklyn sign painter, was holding art classes. From 9 to 10 a.m. he taught his colleagues lettering; from 10 to 11, figure composition; from 11 to 11:30, color mixing and color schemes; from 2 to 3 p.m., perspective, "style and individuality"; from 3 to 3:30, color harmony. In his free time he painted...
...hall and the warden's house. In 1898 Charles Matthew Conrad Maass suspected his wife of putting poison in his breakfast pork and sauerkraut. He fired three charges of buckshot into her. In his 33 years in jail he has painted hundreds of pictures, sold not one. Like Dannemora's artists, he too copies his pictures, sometimes from memory. Called the Mad Artist, he is irrational except for his ability to copy pictures. His subjects include a Resurrection of Christ, a portrait of President Harding and Gains-borough's Blue...