the
Artist
In the words of the great storyteller
Eudora Welty, “a good snapshot stops a moment from running
away.” Capturing someone on film is a tricky business, particularly
when that someone is a famous author or artist. The skill and
agility of the photographer is elegantly evidenced in Composing
the Artist, an exhibition currently on display at Monroe Gallery.
This diverse survey offers an intimate glimpse into some of the
past century’s most iconic art personalities.
Abstract artists who emerged in the middle of the
twentieth century introduced not only new ways of making
art, but in fact encouraged us to look at the very concept
and convention of art with fresh eyes. In Helen Frankenthaler,
New York (1969) Frankenthaler is in a deep downward bend,
pouring a bucket of paint onto a canvas spread out across the
floor. She wears an expression of almost otherworldly serenity
on her face—an aspect that stands in sharp contrast to the
revolutionary physicality of her actions. This photograph of the
incongruously graceful Frankenthaler is placed near an image
of Jackson Pollock, who is crouched down in characteristic
paint-flinging insouciance with a cigarette dangling from his
mouth. Deeply personal portraits like these underscore the
intimate and sometimes sensual act involved in the process of
a painting’s creation and make us momentarily privy to the very
human activity of artistic expression.
Even a cursory familiarity with the creative luminaries of
the past century is helpful in appreciating this show. For example,
a 1967 shot of Truman Capote—dapperly dressed and jauntily
posing outside the Holcomb, Kansas post office—seems playful
at first glance; knowing that sleepy Holcomb is the town made
infamous by Capote in his crime novel In Cold Blood adds depth
and interest to this otherwise lighthearted composition. Fans
of Matisse will swoon over Robert Capa’s 1950 portrait of the
celebrated abstractionist. The stout eighty-one-year-old painter
is holding up a thin, long brush that’s roughly the length of his
body and gently applying paint to a large sheet of paper taped to
the wall. The image’s caption informs us that Matisse is making
sketches for the murals of the Chapelle des Dominicains, in
Paris. To hold a brush of this length would be an awkward feat
for even the most able-bodied young man. It’s clear, however,
that Matisse’s advanced age doesn’t hinder him from his creative
endeavors in the slightest. The artist’s calm agility creates a
composition of remarkable impact.
Pablo Picasso and Françoise Gilot pictures the couple
walking along a beach. A beaming Picasso is holding a parasol
above Gilot, his longtime muse and lover, and one recognizes
in their carefree smiles the sort of sun-soaked giddiness that
comes with spending a romantic day at the beach. The frayed
rim of the straw hat worn by the radiantly beautiful Gilot is offset
by the fringed tassels on the parasol carried by Picasso, adding
further visual intrigue to the happy scene.
A riveting 1958 portrait of Vladimir Nabokov taken by
Carl Mydans captures the author leaning out of a car window,
looking over his shoulder with his hair mussed and his eyeglasses
halfway down his nose. His eyes twinkle with mischief, and his
quiet smile is both disinterested and amused. The subject’s
disheveled appearance contrasts mysteriously with his cunning
countenance, making the simple act of looking at a photograph
a strangely private experience. A portrait of Ernest Hemingway
on a hunting trip with his son in Sun Valley, Idaho, in 1941, is
absolutely stunning. The ten- or eleven-year-old boy is lounging
| June 2011
Monroe Gallery of Photography
112 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe
nonchalantly against a bridge, his clean bare feet flexed, and
it’s clear that this comfortable pair is taking a break from the
day’s activities. The calm, casually postured Hemingway adds a
quality of mellow serenity to a scene that is at once unplanned
and composed. This quiet look at a moment of relaxation
between father and son stops just short of being sentimental,
and contains that rare quality that makes photography such a
singularly personal and moving art form.
The exhibition standouts are plenty, and Monroe
Gallery does a fine job of including a wide range of complex,
fascinating characters. Perhaps that clichéd concept of
“the good old days” is a largely exaggerated one, but these
photographs nevertheless leave one feeling an almost
intoxicating nostalgia for a bygone era marked by creative
vigor and intellectual ingenuity.
—Iris McLister
Steve Schapiro, Truman Capote, Holcomb, Kansas, gelatin silver print, 1967
I
Composing
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