1. American Figurative Art in the
1950s
Art 109A: Contemporary Art
Westchester Community College
Fall 2012
Dr. Melissa Hall

2. Modernist Orthodoxy
From its inception the Museum of
Modern Art favored abstraction
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. Philip L. Goodwin and Edward Durell
Stone, Architects, 1939. Robert Damora, Photographer, 1939
Image source: http://www.robertdamora.com/

3. Modernist Orthodoxy
Figurative art had no role to play in
the narrative of Modernist
“progress”
Alfred Barr, Cubism and Abstract Art, Museum of Modern Art, 1936

4. Modernist Orthodoxy
The Whitney Museum was more
inclusive in its programs
It continued to exhibit figurative
artists alongside abstractionists,
refusing to impose a normative
style
Whitney Museum of American Art at 10 West 8th Street, c. 1931
Image source: http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/BreakingGround/Works

5. Modernist Orthodoxy
But with the success of Abstract
Expressionism, figurative artists
found themselves increasingly
marginalized from the mainstream
Life Magazine, “Jackson Pollock: Is He the Greatest Living Painter in the United States?”
1949

6. Modernist Orthodoxy
In mainstream art criticism, only
abstract art was considered to be
“advanced”
Barnett Newman, Onement I, 1948 Jackson Pollock,
Cathedral, 1947

7. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
Many American artists who were
active in the 1930s and 1940s
continued to pursue a figurative
style
Gjon Mili, Ben Shahn, 1954
Image source:
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/
543c2fbc034fc083.html Ben Shahn, Scorn, 1952
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

8. Ben Shahn, Liberation, 1945
Museum of Modern Art

9. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
Some of Hopper’s best works were
done in the 1950’s-60s
Edward Hopper, Self Portrait, 1925-30
Whitney Museum of American Art

10. Edward Hopper, Morning Sun, 1952
Columbus Museum of Art

11. Edward Hopper, Office in a Small City, 1953
Metropolitan Museum

12. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
Norman Rockwell continued to
work well into the 1960s, and
addressed contemporary social
issues in several of his works
Norman Rockwell, Triple Self Portrait. Cover illustration for The Saturday
Evening Post, February 13, 1960. Norman Rockwell Museum

13. Norman Rockwell, The Problem we All Live With, 1964
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

14. Norman Rockwell, Southern Justice
(Murder in Mississippi). Unpublished
story illustration for Look, June 29,
1965. Norman Rockwell Estate.

15. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
Andrew Wyeth was another
figurative artist working at this time
Andrew Wyeth, Turkey Pond, 1944
Farnsworth Art Museum

16. Andrew Wyeth, Christina’s World, 1948
Museum of Modern Art

17. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
Fairfield Porter remained largely
unrecognized, in spite of his art
world connections as a critic
Fairfield Porter, Self Portrait, 1972
Parrish Art Museum

18. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
When Porter was given a
retrospective at the Boston
Museum of Fine Arts in 1983 it was
titled “Realist Painter in an Age of
Abstraction” -- a title that captures
the predicament of figurative artists
at this time
Fairfield Porter, Katie and Anne, 1955
Hirshhorn Museum

19. Fairfield Porter, The Mirror, 1960
Nelson Atkins Museum

20. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
Milton Avery was a close friend of
Mark Rothko and an important
influence on his work
Arnold Newman, Milton Avery, 1961
Image source:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/8649/Milton-Avery-photograph-by-Arnold-
Newman-1961

21. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
He continued to work abstractly,
while retaining recognizable subject
matter in his work
Milton Avery, White Rooster, 1947
Metropolitan Museum

22. Milton Avery, Sea Grasses and Blue Sea, 1958
Museum of Modern Art

23. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
Larry Rivers is often associated
with Beat poets such as Frank
O’Hara, and was a precursor of the
Pop movement of the 1960s
Larry Rivers, Self Portrait, 1953
Art Institute of Chicago

24. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
He rebelled against the Modernist
orthodoxy by challenging the taboo
against subject matter
Larry Rivers, Self Portrait, 1953
Art Institute of Chicago

25. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
His website proudly announces that
the influential art critic Clement
Greenberg though his work “stinks”
http://larryriversfoundation.org/home.html

26. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
One of Rivers’ seminal works was
Washington Crossing the Delaware
Larry Rivers, Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1953
Museum of Modern Art

27. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
It was a “history painting,” painted
in a loose brushy style, with
characters plagiarized from art
history
Larry Rivers, Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1953
Museum of Modern Art

28. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
The picture was a parody of the
overblown heroics of Emanuel
Leutze’s famous painting in the
Metropolitan Museum
Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, George Washington Crossing the
Delaware, 1851
Metropolitan Museum

29. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
Rivers had chosen the most
“backward” kind of painting he
could think of -- patriotic history
painting
Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, George Washington Crossing the
Delaware, 1851
Metropolitan Museum

30. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
He combined this old fashioned
“academic” subject matter with a
loose, brushy style considered to
be “advanced”
Larry Rivers, Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1953
Museum of Modern Art

31. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
By combining the overblown
heroics of history painting with the
mock-heroic style of Abstract
Expressionism, Rivers was making
fun of the grandiose claims of his
contemporaries
Larry Rivers, Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1953
Museum of Modern Art

32. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
The response, as Rivers explains,
was “the same reaction as when
the Dadaists introduced a toilet seat
as a piece of sculpture in a Dada
show in Zurich. Except that the
public wasn't upset - the painters
were.”
Larry Rivers, Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1953
Museum of Modern Art

33. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
“With the success of Washington
Crossing the Delaware Rivers was, as
he further describes in his
autobiography, “branded a rebel
against the rebellious abstract
expressionists, which made me a
reactionary.”
http://larryriversfoundation.org/seminal_works.html
Larry Rivers, Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1953
Museum of Modern Art

34. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
Rivers did a number of figurative
paintings that pushed boundaries
by combining drawing and painting,
realism and an abstract “gestural”
style.
The commonplace subject matter,
combined with the inexplicable
nudity of the figures, made his work
enigmatic
Larry Rivers, Bedroom, 1955
Museum of Fine Arts Boston

35. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
One of his most shocking (and
tender) paintings is his double
portrait of his aging mother-in-law in
the nude
Larry Rivers, Double Portrait of Berdie, 1955
Larry Rivers Foundation

36. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
Rivers also did a number of works
that anticipated Pop Art in their use
of popular imagery drawn from
advertising
Larry Rivers, Camel Quartet. Original color lithograph & screenprint, 1978-90
Image source: http://www.spaightwoodgalleries.com/Pages/POP_Art_2001.html

37. Larry Rivers, Little French Money II, 1962
Hirshhorn Museum

38. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
In his Dutch Masters series, he
copied the graphics on the lid of the
Dutch Masters cigar case which
featured a reproduction of
Rembrandts famous painting of the
Syndics of the Dutch Drapery Guild
Larry Rivers, Dutch Masters Cigars, 1982
Image source:
http://www.newpaltz.edu/museum/exhibitions/readingobjects/fi/0000000f.htm

39. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
Anticipating “appropriation art” in
the 1980s-1990s, Rivers did many
works that were copies of famous
old master works.
Larry Rivers, I Like Ingres, 1962
Hirshhorn Museum

40. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
One of his most controversial works
was I Like Olympia in Blackface,
which was a three dimensional
tableau that parodied the implicit
racism of Manet’s famous painting
Larry Rivers, I Like Olympia in Blackface, 1970
Centre Georges-Pompidou
Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ganimede1984/5748797416/

41. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
Alex Katz also anticipated Pop art
with his figurative works that
employ flat, cartoon-like drawing,
and seem devoid of emotional
affect
Alex Katz, Ada Ada, 1959
Grey Art Collection, NYU

42. Alex Katz, The Black Dress, 1960
Brandhorst Collection
Image source: https://trufflehunting.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/life-imitates-art/

43. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
In California a group of artists
working in an updated figural style
came to be known as the Bay Area
Figurative School
Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco
Image source: http://serc.carleton.edu/details/images/30962.html

44. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
David Parks painted in a highly
abstract mode that drew heavily on
German Expressionism
David Parks, Two Bathers, 1958
SFMOMA

45. David Parks, Four Men, 1958
Whitney Museum

46. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
Richard Diebenkorn also explored
the fine line between realism and
abstraction in figurative and
landscape works
Richard Diebenkorn, Woman in Profile, 1958
SFMOMA

47. Richard Diebenkorn, Cityscape I (Landscape No. 1), 1963
SFMOMA

48. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
In Chicago, Leon Golub belonged
to a group called the “Monster
Roster”
He drew on outsider art and the art
of the insane to produce tortured
images of men in a state of
psychological crisis
Leon Golub, Dying Gaul, 1955
Artnet.com

49. Leon Golub, Fallen Warrior (Burnt Man), 1960
Artnet.com

50. Leon Golub, Gigantomachy III, 1966
Image source: http://web.me.com/dianethodos/Site/Leon_Golub.html

51. Leon Golub, Vietnam II, 1973
Tate Gallery
Image source: http://robertopozuelo.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/leon-golub-mural.jpg

52. Figurative Artists in
the 1950s
In the 1980’s Golub was
“rediscovered” with his series of
large scale paintings depicting
mercenaries
Leon Golub, Mercenaries IV, 1984
Saatchi Collection
Artnet

53. Leon Golub, Interrogation II, 1981
Art Institute of Chicago

54. Leon Golub working on one his his mural-scaled mercenary paintings
Image source: http://roberttracyphdart477677artsince1945.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/leon-golub-and-his-mercenaries-series/