Word: gropper
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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This is a very different era from the one in which William Gropper rose to prominence. It is no longer fashionable to say things in art. And it is dangerous to have a social conscience. Painting has escaped or been diverted from social concerns by concentrating on form. Wether or not prosperity is the mistress of aestheticism, both seem to have won the day. In America's greatest contemporary school of art, abstract expressionism, de Kooning looms as a demi-god to the disenchanted because some idea of pain and depth, some recognition of the essential difficulty of life, emerges...
...William Gropper never lost his social conscience or his conviction that "the artist's function is to be aware of life and conditions of the times." He still satirizes the blustering Senators and the martini-drinking set that crowds the chic exhibit halls. On the other hand, he retains compassion for the little east side tailor who emigrated to this country lie his own grandfather. Yet, both in moods of satire and compassion his color has become more strident. "I am having a ball with color," he says, and this above all seems to be his concession to the Formalistic...
...large dramatic canvasses, sprawling with jotted forms and gushing color, gayer than usual. There was still a message but Kokoschka was definitely concentrating less on ideology and more on painting. This week some of the earlier works of the great Austrian Expressionist are on exhibit at the Gropper Galleries...