Henry Moore: “Truth to Materials”

Henry Moore - Reclining Figure - 1935-36 - Elmwood - h. 19; l. 35; d. 15 in. - Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo (click photo for larger image)Henry Moore (1898-1986) is widely regarded as the most important British sculptor of the 20th century, and the most popular and internationally celebrated sculptor of the post-war period. He is best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures, which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore also produced many drawings, including a series depicting Londoners sheltering from the Blitz during the Second World War, along with other graphic works on paper.

Non-Western art was crucial in shaping his early work. He often used abstract form to draw analogies between the human body and the landscape. 

The foundation of Moore's approach was direct carving, something he derived not only from European modernism, but also from non-Western art. At one point in his career, he abandoned the process of modeling (often in clay or plaster) and casting (often in bronze) that had been the basis of his art education, and instead worked on materials directly. He believed in the ethic of “truth to materials”—the idea that the sculptor should respect the intrinsic properties of media, letting them show through in the finished piece.

His forms are usually abstractions of the human figure, typically depicting mother-and-child or reclining figures. Moore's works are usually suggestive of the female body, apart from a phase in the 1950s when he sculpted family groups. His forms are generally pierced or contain hollow spaces. Many interpreters liken the undulating form of his reclining figures to the landscape and hills of his birthplace, Yorkshire.

The Cone Sisters: Matisse’s “Two Baltimore Ladies”

Photograph of Claribel Cone, Gertrude Stein, Etta Cone - 1903 - Cone family pictures, The Baltimore Museum of Art (click photo for larger image)Claribel Cone (1864-1929) and Etta Cone (1870-1949), bolstered by their wealthy brothers (founders of Cone Mills), became ardent supporters of Henri Matisse in the 1910s. (You can read more about Matisse here on What About Art?) While the nature of the artist’s relationship with the sisters is unclear, the truth of their inspiration is undeniable.

Five-hundred works by Matisse in the Cone Collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art form the largest and most representative group of his works of art in the world. The Cone sisters also purchased and acquired many of Picasso's works (whom they’d met through Gertrude Stein). In addition, they purchased fine arts by American artists, more than 1,000 prints, illustrated books, and drawings. Prior to the museum’s receipt of the collection, it became so large that it overtook their homes. Claribel (who was also a physician and researcher) rented a second apartment to hold what she called her “museum”.

The sisters developed relationships with some of the most famous artists of their day. Etta Cone even played an active role in Matisse’s Large Reclining Nude of 1935. ­­While he was painting the work, Matisse had it photographed and sent 22 photographs to Etta in Baltimore. 

After Claribel’s death, Etta commissioned Matisse to paint her sister’s portrait. Instead, she received four drawings of Claribel and six of Etta, which Matisse gave Etta as a gift, to express his gratitude to the sisters who had been such strong supporters of his work.

While the collection remained private until Etta's death, she occasionally loaned pieces to museums to exhibit. Claribel had willed her paintings to Etta, stipulating that these pieces should eventually be given to the Baltimore Museum of Art "if the spirit of appreciation of modern art in Baltimore should improve.” It is to that museum that the bulk of the collection eventually was given.

Marcel Janco: An Eclectic Style

Marcel Janco - Untitled (Mask, Portrait of Tzara) - 1919 - Private CollectionRomanian-Israeli artist Marcel Janco (1895-1984) had joined a group of artists at the Cafe Voltaire in Zurich, Switzerland in 1916 and was among the  principal founders of  the Dada Movement. Dada was a unique artistic movement which had a major impact on 20th century art. It was established in Cabaret Voltaire by a group of exiled poets, painters and philosophers who were opposed to war, aggression and the changing world culture.  

Dada soirées featured spontaneous poetry, avant-garde music, and mask wearing dancers in elaborate shows. The Dadaists teased and enraged the audience through their bold  defiance of Western culture and art, which they considered obsolete in view of the destruction and carnage of World War I. The Dadaists objected to the aesthetics of Western contemporary painting, sculpture, language, literature and music. The group published articles and periodicals, and mounted exhibitions. The seeds sown in Zurich spread throughout the world, resulting in  new Dada organizations in Paris, New York, Berlin, Hannover, and more. 

Janco designed masks and costumes for the famous Dada balls, and created abstract reliefs in cardboard and plaster. He had an eclectic style in which he brilliantly combined abstract and figurative elements, expressionistic in nature. His masks were to play a large role in the anarchic dances at the Cabaret Voltaire. They were created from scraps of cardboard, paint, glue, and sack-cloth, all crumpled and torn, with ragged edges and patchy paint.

Kurt Schwitters: Master of Collage

Kurt Schwitters - Merz 163, with Woman Sweating, 1920. Tempera, pencil, paper, and fabric collage mounted on paper, 6 1/8 x 4 7/8 inches. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New YorkKurt Schwitters (1887-1948) is generally acknowledged as the twentieth century's greatest master of collage. Just as collage is essentially the medium of irony, so Schwitters' life is characterized by paradox and enigma. Born in Hanover, the only child of affluent parents, he was a loner in his youth, plagued by epileptic attacks, introverted and insecure. As a student at the Dresden Academy of Art he proved as apt as he was unimaginative. But his contact with Expressionist artists in Hannover in 1916 gave him more confidence to develop his own style, He found something of a following as part of the Dada movement.

Schwitters invented his own unique aesthetic style, which he dubbed Merz in 1919. Premised on the practice of assemblage—the union of sundry quotidian items with formal artistic elements—Merz exemplified Schwitters’s quest for “freedom from all fetters,” cultural, political, or social. The artist’s collages, of which he produced more than 2,000, and his large-scale reliefs known as Merzbilder are kaleidoscopic, sometimes whimsical accretions of humble found material—tram tickets, ration coupons, postage stamps, beer labels, candy wrappers, newspaper clippings, fabric swatches, rusty nails, and the like—that bespeak the flux of contemporary society. In his early collages, Schwitters subjected his bits of wreckage to an organizing principle resembling the vertical scaffolding of Analytic Cubism, thus transforming the diverse components into formal elements. Embedded in each collage, however, are hints of narrative.

Kokoschka: Intense Expressionism

Oskar Kokoschka - Bride of the Wind (also known as The Tempest) - 1913-14 - Oil on canvas - 181 cm × 220 cm (71 in × 87 in) - Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland (click photo for larger image)Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) was an Austrian artist, poet and playwright, but he is best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes.

Kokoschka moved daringly from a more decorative style into a bold, racy Expressionism. He came of age during turn-of-the-century Vienna, exploring Sigmund Freud's analysis of dreams and the unconscious as well as giving voice to the growing anxiety felt among the bourgeois class about the modern age. His disorienting compositions used bold brushstrokes and strong colors to confront the viewer. His freedom from stylistic constraint as well as his belief in the power of art to raise awareness of contemporary problems set an example for artists from the Abstract Expressionists in the mid-20th century to the Neo-Expressionists of the late-20th century. 

The work featured here is a self-portrait expressing his (Kokoschka’s) unrequited love for Alma Mahler (widow of composer Gustav Mahler). You can read more about that right HERE on What About Art?