Smart Art (Chlorine Clarion Edition)

 

A Bigger Splash (1967)

I instinctively knew I was going to like it and as I flew over San Bernardino and saw the swimming pools and the houses and everything and the sun, I was more thrilled than I have ever been in arriving in any city.

--British expatriate artist David Hockney, on the many sun-drenched paintings, particularly those of swimming pools, that he produced while living on the West Coast.

1937-2026

 

 

Smart Art (Ringing In the New Year Edition)

 

New Year's Eve couldn't come sooner! After all, it's been 365 days of rising prices, heightened international tensions, increasing inequality, burgeoning racism, growing sexism, skyrocketing attacks on the LGBTQ community, and fascism in the ascendency. Any downward trends? Yeah, myself, because all of it has left me down in the dumps. Funny how that works. Not that I've entirely given up hope. I mean, 2026 just gotta be better! There's no place to go but up (assuming prices, international tensions, inequality, racism, sexism, attacks on the LGBTQ community, and fascism all go down.) So what's the best way to celebrate the deep-sixing of 2025 and the welcome arrival (and hopeful course correction) of 2026? To best answer that question I went to a seance and asked the medium to contact birthday boy Henri Matisse (above), who suggested that at the stroke of midnight, we all start...

...dancing!

Happy New Year

from Shadow of a Doubt

Smart Art (In Over Your Head Edition)

 

I've grown a goiter by dwelling in this den– As cats from stagnant streams in Lombardy, Or in what other land they hap to be– Which drives the belly close beneath the chin: My beard turns up to heaven; my nape falls in, Fixed on my spine: my breast-bone visibly Grows like a harp: a rich embroidery Bedews my face from brush-drops thick and thin. My loins into my paunch like levers grind: My buttock like a crupper bears my weight; My feet unguided wander to and fro; In front my skin grows loose and long; behind, By bending it becomes more taut and strait; Crosswise I strain me like a Syrian bow: Whence false and quaint, I know, Must be the fruit of squinting brain and eye; For ill can aim the gun that bends awry. Come then, Giovanni, try To succor my dead pictures and my fame; Since foul I fare and painting is my shame.   --Michelangelo, in a letter to a friend, poetically bitching about the physical discomfort he has to put up with while painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

If the Fates Allow

 

I'll write about the bounced commies and Luke Short's new western some other time. For now I want you to focus solely on Norman Rockwell's illustration. The people pictured seem realistically rendered, don't they? That's partly due to Rockwell's skill as a painter, especially his almost photographic attention to detail, and partly because, well, they're real people. The woman doing the hugging is Rockwell's second wife Mary. The young man she's embracing and who's back is turned to us is Jarvis Rockwell, her and Norman's oldest son. On the far-left edge of the painting, in glasses, is youngest son Peter. And the exuberant lad in the plaid shirt right behind Mary is middle son Thomas. The man with the pipe who seems to be looking on at the scene taking place with amused curiosity is none other than the family patriarch, Norman himself. The family that models together stays together.

Yet according to Deborah Solomon's 2013 biography, American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell, this was anything but a model family. Rockwell was insecure about just about everything but his chosen profession. And even then, he was more secure doing commercial art--which a Saturday Evening Post cover basically is--than the type of art found in galleries and museums, which in his case turned out to be the same thing but the latter not realized until very late in his life. This insecurity led to him maintaining a certain aloof distance from family and friends, and family at least paid a price for this aloofness, most notably wife Mary, who developed a serious drinking problem that repeatedly landed her in and out of the hospital. Eventually the whole family ended up in therapy. The illustration itself doesn't truly reflect on the Rockwell family's 1948 Christmas. Norman spent the holiday in Los Angeles--as a kind of personal getaway, while the rest of the family stayed behind in Vermont.

Does that make the above illustration a lie? Not necessarily. It could have taken place during a different Christmas. Or just as likely, Rockwell may have witnessed somebody else's family reunion, and just replaced that other person's family members with his own, achieving in art what his own insecurities prohibited him from doing in life. Whatever the reason or whatever happened, it's worth remembering that imperfect people and imperfect families, both of which there are a great deal many, have to find ways to make it through a holiday season in which the perfected art of happiness is practically a moral mandate. Enjoy the eggnog and brush strokes.

Enough of that. I don't want to ruin your holiday. So I'll turn my attention to the woman pictured above, who is also in the Rockwell illustration. Turns out she was an...

Christmas at Home (1946)

...artist herself.

That's right, it's Grandma Moses. Born in 1860, the farmer's widow didn't take up painting until age seventy-six. Completely self-taught (thus a "primitive" artist) she produced pictures of what she termed "old-timey" New England. One of these pictures ended up hung in a rural drug store, where a big city art collector out for a drive in the country saw it. Soon after a collection of her works hung in the gallery of an Austrian refugee who had run afoul of the Nazis for the twin crimes of being Jewish and advocating modern art. That was waaay different from anything that happened to Grandma Moses in old-timey New Hampshire, but no matter, soon she went from folk art to what might be called fine art, though the style remained basically the same, only now exhibited in different venues. As she became more well-known, Grandma Moses became a pop culture figure as well, thanks in large part to Hallmark cards, which reproduced her paintings on a series of popular greeting cards.

Norman Rockwell, himself a pop culture figure with a line of Hallmark greeting cards, helps Grandma Moses cut a cake celebrating her 88th birthday. The whole thing was a PR stunt dreamed up by a Hallmark exec. It certainly made sense to pair the two, who had just met. Though their artistic styles, and perhaps their artistic sensibilities, differed, what both of them offered the greeting card consumer was that much sought-after commodity: warmth. And wouldn't you know it that a genuine warmth did develop between the two? They became friends. Not best friends. The age difference (he was thirty-four years her junior) and Rockwell's own aforementioned aloofness, got in the way of that, but for a while Grandma Moses was part of his social circle, and as with anyone part of his social (and familial) circle, it eventually got her on The Saturday Evening Post. Not that Grandma Moses needed his help getting on the...

 

 

...cover of a magazine.

 

Take it away, Judy:

Smart Art (Industrial Impressionism Edition)

 

Pont Boieldieu in Rouen, Rainy Weather, 1896

The theme is the bridge near the Place de la Bourse with the effects of rain, crowds of people coming and going, smoke from the boats, quays with cranes, workers in the foreground, and all this in grey colors glistening in the rain...what particularly interests me is the motif off the iron bridge in wet weather with all the vehicles, pedestrians, workers on the embankment, boats, smoke, haze in the distance; it's so spirited, so alive.

--Camille Pissarro, born on this day in 1830

Vital Viewing (Comedy 2 Night Edition)

1943-2024

Comedian, actor, musician, and, having spent part of his childhood in the area, Cleveland booster Martin Mull died this past Thursday. Here he is sometime in the 1980s as a guest on David Letterman's NBC late night talk show. As it turns out, Mull was something else other than just a comedian, actor, musician, and Browns fan:

"Representational" doesn't quite describe Mull's retro-photorealistic collage-like paintings. Not that "retro-photorealistic collage-like" describes the artworks all that much better, but I like 'em:

The Ides of August

Sunday Morning

Carpe Diem

Self-Portrait

Band on the Run

Some noted celebrities have taken notice of Mull's artworks, and used them for their own endeavors:

So was painting just Mull's hobby? Actually, it was his main line of work. Or rather, it's what the Rhodes Island School of Design Bachelor of Fine Arts (1965) and Master of Fine Arts (1967) graduate would preferred to have been his main line of work, but fine art doesn't always pay the bills, thus the comedy, acting, music, and boosting. A closer look at how he paid those bills:

Martin Mull first came to public attention in 1977 playing wife-beater Garth Gimble on the late-night black comedy soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Doesn't sound too pleasant, I know, but if it's any consolation his character got his comeuppance when he was fatally impaled on an artificial Christmas tree. Mull's stint on MHMH didn't end, however, as he soon returned as Garth's identical twin show biz brother Barth. This led to the spinoff Fernwood 2 Night, the titled small town's local TV station's misguided attempt at a talk show that had host Barth spending as much time fending off announcer/sidekick/buttinski Jerry Hubbard (Fred Willard) as he did interviewing guests:

Fernwood 2 Night eventually morphed into America 2 Night, which had Barth and Jerry moving to California and interviewing real-life celebrities but with the same disastrous results. That show ended its run in 1978, but it wasn't the end for Mull or Willard, who nearly two decades later would make...

...sitcom history. Martin Mull had for some time been appearing on Roseanne where he played the title character's boss and later business partner Leon Carp, who was eventually revealed to be gay. Fred Willard played Scott, Leon's old flame, and the two eventually decided to get married (some 20 years before the Supreme Court ruled same-sex couples could do so.) Now, Mull and Willard were straight in real-life, but here at Shadow of a Doubt we hold no objection to heterosexuals playing homosexuals as long as it's done with some understanding of what that state of being must be like (or at least as much understanding as you're likely to get on a sitcom.). And they did. Unfortunately, all I could find on YouTube was the following clip in which someone very obviously pointed a video camera at a TV screen and started recording. It's still very watchable, but just not listenable. Turn up the volume all you want. All you'll hear is a mutter. Undaunted, I went to the website IMBd and found out just what  muttering went on between Mull and Willard. It's just below the video. Watch (that's Norm Crosby officiating) and then read:  

• 
  
• Scott: I love you in a way that is mystical and eternal and illegal in 20 states.
• Leon Carp: That's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.
• 
  
• 
  

• 
  
  
  

 Martin Mull did a lot of movies and TV guest shots in his lengthy career, but it was as a stand-up, or rather sit-down, comedian that I found him at his funniest:

That ended kind of abruptly, but who else but God always leaves them wanting more?

Finally, a hometown promo:

That was from the early 1990s. These days we have two downtown stadiums, one for the Browns and one for the Guardians, as well as a casino and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but even if we didn't, Mr. Mull still would have convinced me to stay, just as long as he made me laugh in return for doing so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smart Art (Surf's Down Edition)

 

There ain't no cure for the summertime blues.

Sea Watchers, 1952. Edward Hopper

Smart Art (Eat, Drink, and Be Quarry Edition)

 

French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born on this day in 1841 (he died in 1919.) Let's take a brief look at what's probably his most famous painting, along with a quote from someone who seems intent on combining his screen image with his passion for art:

For over thirty years I made periodic visits to Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party in a Washington museum, and stood before that magnificent masterpiece hour after hour, day after day, plotting ways to steal it.

--Edward G. Robinson

Robinson leaving the museum after a guard noticed him. 

Frosted Figurine

 

Such exquisite detail. What lifelike touches. A masterpiece of accumulation. The above photo first appeared in an 1892 edition of Strand Magazine (yes, Sherlock Holmes lovers, THAT Strand Magazine.) Folks back then understood and appreciated the aesthetic possibilities of snowfall.

 So why did those abstract artists have to come along and ruin everything?

Smart Art (Nonrepresentative Nick Edition)

 Pablo Picasso (seen here with son Claude and daughter Paloma) may have been a great artist, but he just couldn't decide what Santa Claus looked like!

Picasso drew this in 1959. I like the nose-eyes combination.

From the same year.  Kind of a shifty-eyed Santa, don' cha think? I'm not sure whether this should hang in a museum, or the post office.

 

From 1960. Unlike most celebrities, this Santa could go out in public without being mobbed, since I doubt anyone would recognize him.

In the end, I suppose it doesn't matter what Santa Claus looks like as long as he comes through on the presents. What kind of present might a Picasso Santa bring?

Give me enough time, and I bet I could turn it into Guernica.

Smart Art (Remains of the Day Edition)

 

Summer Days, 1936

I know we're well into autumn now, but artist Georgia O'Keeffe was born on this day in 1887, and that's as good excuse as any for me to show you the above painting, one of several she did featuring an animal's skull, in this case one that's floating above a New Mexico landscape. O'Keeffe was already a well-regarded painter living in Manhattan when she went to New Mexico on vacation in 1929. She must have liked what she saw of the state, because she kept returning again and again, on longer and longer vacations, eventually moving there permanently in 1949. By the time she died in 1986 at the age of 98, probably no prominent figure was more prominently associated with the southwestern United States, save Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. However, whereas the coyote can survive everything from falling off a cliff to getting run over with a semi to having a stick of dynamite blow up in his face, O'Keeffe's subjects are... 

Horse with Pink Rose, 1931

...much less permeable. Such as this unfortunate equine whose demise may have resulted from nothing more than natural non-ACME causes.

So just what was it with O'Keeffe and animal skulls anyway? Might as well ask what it was with Monet and water lilies, Hockney and swimming pools, Warhol and consumer products, or Lucien Freud and out-of-shape naked people. Some artists are just inspired, and if they do their jobs well, we buy into their inspirations, when we otherwise may not have given the matter much thought (or looked the other way.)  As for where O'Keeffe found her inspiration, i.e., all those skulls, well, I'm told they can be found here and there in the desert, though she didn't necessary paint them in the desert. As the below photograph by hubby Alfred Stieglitz will attest, O'Keeffe sometimes...

...brought her work home with her.

Smart Art (How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm After They've Seen Paree Edition)

 

I had to go to France to appreciate Iowa.

--Grant Wood, on his famous 1930 painting American Gothic, so-called because the window on the top floor of the farmhouse is in the Gothic style, much like you would see on a medieval cathedral in Europe.

The actual house, in Eldon, Iowa. Built in 1881-82, the top floor window is thought to have been purchased through a mail order catalog.

By way of comparison, the pointy arch-shaped windows of a medieval cathedral in Europe, one that very nearly burned to the ground a few years back.

These guys never made it to that Iowa farmhouse. 

Nan Goldin Graham, the artist's sister, and Dr. Byron McKeeby, the artist's dentist.

The artist himself in a 1932 self-portrait, a strapping Midwestern farm boy made good. Too strapping for some. A colleague named Lester Longman at The University of Iowa's School of Art tried to get Wood fired as a teacher, publicly citing the limitations of an artistic movement known as Regionalism, of which American Gothic was a prime example. Yawn. However, the complaints were much less esoteric behind closed doors. Longman complained to university officials about Wood's "personal persuasions", and that he had a "strange relationship" with a man helping him write his autobiography. It didn't help matters any that some of the rural workingmen in Wood's paintings occasionally felt the need to take off their shirts as they toiled under the hot sun. Remember, this was around 80 years ago, and a least a quarter of a century before Stonewall. What for some of us today is another welcome addition to the growing LGBTQ roster of historical figures, and what for the art historian adds another layer of meaning to Wood's work, would have been career-damning at the time, with a possible additional visit to a jail cell or mental ward. Fortunately for the artist, nothing was ever proven, and Wood kept his job. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1942, one day short of his 51st birthday. 

As for the supposed artistic limitations of the Regionalist Movement (which also counted Thomas Hart Benton as a member), the main complaint seems to be that it romanticized rubes, celebrated unsophistication, and in its pursuit of the parochial, ignored the richness of the wider world. But perhaps Grant Wood, an American expatriate in Europe throughout much of the 1920s, appreciated how that wider world could make its way to some Iowan rube's house via a mail order catalog. Multiculturalism on the prairie.

Besides, there are some sophisticates who DO seek out the simplicities of rural living:

Nice homage, but what about the windows?

Arched, but not nearly pointy enough to be Hooterville Gothic, I'm afraid.