Landscape painting featuring a row of trees in the middle distance, separating a glowing sky above and a meadow in the foreground.
Subject Matter
Best known for his landscapes and seascapes painted in a Tonalist manner, Tryon’s paintings typically feature a broken row or group of trees in front of a lustrous sky at sunset or sunrise with a marsh or pasture in the foreground, painted in muted autumnal hues.
In “Twilight” Tryon depicts a wooded meadow veiled in the misty atmosphere of deepening twilight, dominated by muted grays, browns, and blues. Tryon studied in Paris and this work illustrates the influence the French Barbizon style of painting had on his work, with its emphasis on rural scenes drawn directly from nature accentuated by a sense of mood and shadow.
Label Copy
March 28 2009
The Tonalist painters were a loose group active between 1890 and 1920 that included Tryon, George Inness, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Charles Warren Eaton, and James McNeill Whistler, all on view in this gallery. They shared a style characterized by soft, diffused light, muted tones, indistinctly outlined objects, and a desire to convey a strong sense of mood. Landscapes were their preferred subject, and these are usually quiet and contemplative rather than dramatic. Their goal was not so much to record the appearance of what was seen as to convey the artist’s subjective impression of it and to create an aesthetic experience that could provide an escape from the vulgarities of the world. For Tryon, capturing the effects of atmosphere in a landscape was especially important; at a time of urban overcrowding and rampant poverty, his hazy and idyllic landscapes censor out any reference to hectic city life. In Twilight he depicts a wooded meadow veiled in a filmy atmosphere that imparts a mystical quality, a glowing, otherworldly scene that offers an oasis of serenity far from the harsh reality of turn-of-the-century life.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
Landscape painting featuring a row of trees in the middle distance, separating a glowing sky above and a meadow in the foreground.
Subject Matter
Best known for his landscapes and seascapes painted in a Tonalist manner, Tryon’s paintings typically feature a broken row or group of trees in front of a lustrous sky at sunset or sunrise with a marsh or pasture in the foreground, painted in muted autumnal hues.
In “Twilight” Tryon depicts a wooded meadow veiled in the misty atmosphere of deepening twilight, dominated by muted grays, browns, and blues. Tryon studied in Paris and this work illustrates the influence the French Barbizon style of painting had on his work, with its emphasis on rural scenes drawn directly from nature accentuated by a sense of mood and shadow.
Label Copy
March 28 2009
The Tonalist painters were a loose group active between 1890 and 1920 that included Tryon, George Inness, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Charles Warren Eaton, and James McNeill Whistler, all on view in this gallery. They shared a style characterized by soft, diffused light, muted tones, indistinctly outlined objects, and a desire to convey a strong sense of mood. Landscapes were their preferred subject, and these are usually quiet and contemplative rather than dramatic. Their goal was not so much to record the appearance of what was seen as to convey the artist’s subjective impression of it and to create an aesthetic experience that could provide an escape from the vulgarities of the world. For Tryon, capturing the effects of atmosphere in a landscape was especially important; at a time of urban overcrowding and rampant poverty, his hazy and idyllic landscapes censor out any reference to hectic city life. In Twilight he depicts a wooded meadow veiled in a filmy atmosphere that imparts a mystical quality, a glowing, otherworldly scene that offers an oasis of serenity far from the harsh reality of turn-of-the-century life.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
An explosion of colorful forms suggests the human form in dynamic movement. Yellows and reds predominate in shapes that draw the eye toward the viewer's upper right where three roughy triangular yellow shapes suggest a head and upraised arms.
Subject Matter
Severini's treatment of a dancer in motion conveys the harmony and dynamism of the figure's movements rendered in a highly abstracted form.
Label Copy
The Italian artist Gino Severini moved from Milan to Paris in 1906. After visiting a large Cubist exhibition in 1912, the artist abandoned his early enthusiasm for the Italian Futurist movement with its emphasis on dynamic, sometimes violent, change and evolved his own brightly colored and appealingly decorative version of Cubism.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
Inscribed in red paint, on second level of five of increasing diameter: 80.81; in black ink on white sticker, on side of widest (fifth) level: TLF/Entrance/G-8
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
Abstract painting dominated by brushstrokes in vivid yellows on white background with light blues in center and left side of canvas, large area of light brown in upper right and lower left, and brushstrokes in dark red in left center of canvas. Signed “hans hofmann” in lower right.
Subject Matter
In “Untitled,” Hofmann’s use of shapes, colors, lines, and space echoes nature, producing a new type of landscape; one that is composed, not of trees and land, but of the balance and tension between form, vibrating colors and energetic brushwork.
Label Copy
Both an educator and artist, Hans Hofmann was always an innovator. He established an important school in Munich in 1915 and, after teaching at universities in Berkeley and Los Angeles, Hofmann relocated to New York and opened a school there in 1933. He is perhaps best known for employing the phrase "push and pull" to signify the simultaneous operation of flatness and depth in paintings. His recognizable imagery of landscapes and still lifes of the 1930s gave way in the 40s to abstractions based on the rhythm of nature. It was in 1940 that he became the first artist known to drip paint on his canvases, a technique exploited in 1947 by Jackson Pollock. Hoffmann closed his school in 1958 to devote himself entirely to art making but not before influencing several generations of artists, including such major figures as Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Nevelson, Lee Krasner, and Lester Johnson.
Hofmann felt that his abstracted compositions expressed the spiritual dimensions of nature and the landscapes he often used as a point of departure.
Sean M. Ulmer, University Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, on the occasion of the exhibition The New York School: Abstract Expressionism and Beyond, July 20, 2002 – January 19, 2003
Both an important educator and artist, Hans Hofmann was always an innovator. He established an important school in Munich in 1915 and after teaching at both Berkeley and Los Angeles, Hofmann relocated to New York and opened a school there in 1933. He is perhaps best known for employing the phrase "push and pull" to signify the simultaneous operation of flatness and depth in paintings. His recognizable imagery of landscapes and still lifes of the 1930s gave way in the 1940s to abstractions based on the rhythm of nature. It was in 1940 that he became the first artist known to drip paint on his canvases, a technique exploited in 1947 by Jackson Pollock. He closed his school in 1958 to devote himself entirely to his art but not before influencing several generations of artists including such major figures as Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Nevelson, Lee Krasner, and Lester Johnson.
Hofmann felt that his abstracted compositions were still very much related to the nature and landscapes he often used as a point of departure. In a work such as Untitled, Hofmann represented the soft winds or crash of storms experienced in the landscape. Seeking to represent the spiritual side of nature, Hofmann never departed far from nature as his source.
Sean M. Ulmer, University Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, for "A Matter of Degree: Abstraction in Twentieth-Century Art," November 10, 2001-January 27, 2002
Inscription
Inscribed in oil, l.r.: Hans Hofmann; above, in graphite (or ink?), indecipherable marks; verso, in red paint, l.r.: 62.18
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"Reclining Bird" uses the forceful image of a bird vigorously resisting being on its back in order to represent the struggle of life and flight. Moore is famous for his interpretation of human bodies, but in this piece, he turns to the form of a bird. "The human figure is what interests me most deeply, but I have found principles of form and rhythm from the study of natural objects," he said. A crucial aspect of that rhythm for Moore is the capturing of an organism’s life-energy; he explained his work by saying that "Force, Power, is made by forms straining or pressing from inside." Through abrupt shifts in planes and boldly abstracted forms, Moore succeeded in imbuing his sculpture with the urgency of life even in the medium of cold, heavy metal.
As part of the so-called St. Ives School, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth developed unique visual metaphors that combined human and nonhuman associations in their search for an expressive sculptural language.
(A. Dixon, 20th Century Gallery installation, June 1999)
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
Two abstracted bust-length figures, one male and one female, look directly at the viewer with large smiles against a tan background filled with swirling lines and scribbles. The face and eyes of each figure are outlined in thick green, the mouths in thick yellow. The “whites” of the eyes are red, while the pupils are circles of pale purple. From the eyes of the male figure, purple paint drips down his checks; in the female figure, the paint drips upwards.
Subject Matter
In “Ups and Downs” two figures, one male and one female, confront the viewer with large smiles. The work gets its title from the purple “tears” that drip down the face of the male figure and upwards on the female figure.
Label Copy
March 28, 2009
Grandpa was a housepainter. When I was eight years old, he stuck
a paintbrush in my hand. I felt as if I was holding a magic wand.
—Tyree Guyton
In Ups and Downs, Tyree Guyton forges a simple but memorable image of a male and female figure that addresses a universal issue—the ups and downs of life. Guyton’s work is animated by his faith in art’s ability to connect people and motivate social change. He is most well known for the Heidelberg Project, a multi-media installation begun in 1986 that transformed the streets, buildings and grounds of a neighborhood in one of the most economically and socially challenged areas of his native Detroit. The motif of faces is a recurring one in the Heidelberg Project and Guyton’s other work. Combining bold abstract painting—in the style represented by the work on view—with recycled materials of all kinds from car hoods to children’s toys, the Heidelberg Project brought national and international attention to Guyton as well as positive change to this depressed neighborhood.
Trained as a painter at Detroit’s Center for Creative Studies, Guyton was particularly influenced by the work of Pablo Picasso and Lester Johnson—both represented in UMMA’s Modern and Contemporary Galleries—as well as that of his teacher, Charles McGee, and Andy Warhol.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
Print featuring a image of a small boy and a bearded man standing at right near a body of water on left. Small bush at left and trees in the distance.
Subject Matter
Already a prolific etcher, Emil Nolde learned the art of woodcut during his brief association with Die Brücke in the years 1906 and 1907. This work from 1906 is part of the artist’s series Märchen (Fairy Tales), made up of ten woodcuts illustrating individual scenes loosely adapted from folk legends, proverbs, and Bavarian glass painting.
In Despair we see an excellent example of Nolde’s early mastery of this print technique. He often incorporated the knots, grains, and inherent imperfections of the wood into his printed works. In this early print we see this impulse not only to make the grain visible but to incorporate it as the basis for the flowing waves of the water, the windblown clouds overhead, and the bent posture of the man at the water’s edge. Further example of his early skill is seen in the bush at the left of the composition, which the artist added using either wood plugs or putty to fill in a previously carved area. The addition creates a formal delineation between foreground and background, giving the entire work a depth it would not otherwise possess.
Label Copy
March 28, 2009
Already a prolific etcher, Emil Nolde learned the art of woodcut during his brief association with Die Brücke (The Bridge) in the years 1906 and 1907. This work from 1906 is part of the artist’s series Märchen (Fairy Tales), made up of ten woodcuts illustrating individual scenes loosely adapted from folk legends, proverbs, and Bavarian glass painting.
Despair is an excellent example of Nolde’s early mastery of this print technique. He often incorporated the knots, grains, and inherent imperfections of the wood into his printed works. In Despair we see the impulse not only to make the grain visible but to incorporate it as the basis for the flowing waves of the water, the windblown clouds overhead, and the bent posture of the man at the water’s edge. A further example of Nolde’s skill is seen in the bush at the left of the composition, which the artist added using either wood plugs or putty to fill in a previously carved area. The addition creates a formal delineation between foreground and background, giving the entire work a depth it would not otherwise possess.
Inscription
Inscriptions, l.r. (in pencil): Emil Nolde 06 Variant title, l.l., possibly in Nolde's hand (in pencil): Elendiglied
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
Landscape scene depicting trees silhouetted against a reddening sky with a dead fallen tree trunk lying diagonally across the foreground
Subject Matter
Influenced by the Barbizon school of painting in France, Inness worked to interpret rather than simply record nature; his loose brushwork, rich palette and use of light evoke palpable atmospheric effects and a strong sense of mood.
This work exhibits many of the trademarks of Inness’ late style: diaphanous paint surfaces, soft vibrating colors, softened edges, and a less panoramic landscape creating a more intimate, personal experience for the viewer; which along with a dramatic juxtaposition of sky and earth and saturated color adds a sense of immediacy and intensity to the work.
Label Copy
March 28 2009
Although Inness began his career creating landscapes in the style of the Hudson River school, his paintings became increasingly less representational after his discovery of the teachings of the Swedish scientist and philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), whose belief in the “correspondences” between the material and spiritual worlds had a profound impact on his thought. Inness was a deeply religious person, and in Sunset, one of the mature works for which he is best known, he sought to elicit in the viewer a sense of spiritual transcendence. He evokes a strong sense of mood through the use of saturated colors and loose brushwork, and the scene is suffused with a sense of reverie and of spiritual longing that is heightened by the chromatic highlights of the fading light. Although it has been suggested that Cragmoor, New York, is the site depicted in Sunset, many of Inness’s mature works were produced in the studio, where he drew on visual memory to create scenes inspired by specific places. Inness’s goal was not for his paintings to replicate nature or describe a particular place, but to convey the profound spiritual meaning he felt the landscape around him possessed.
By the time of his death, he was a leading figure of American landscape painting.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
Print depicting two nude males crouching with their back to the viewer while looking out over a body of water
Subject Matter
The Expressionist artist Max Pechstein made this woodcut during his years in Dresdan while he was a member of the Brücke group in 1907 (the date 1906 on certain impressions has been thought incorrect). Pechstein's long, curving cuts on the wood block smooth out the anatomy of these crouching male bathers and throw their physiques, sharply illuminated from the left, into stark relief.
Label Copy
March 28, 2009
The Expressionist artist Max Pechstein made this woodcut during his years in Dresdan while he was a member of Die Brücke (The Bridge) in 1907 (the date 1906 on certain impressions has been thought incorrect). Pechstein's long, curving cuts on the wood block smooth out the anatomy of these crouching male bathers and throw their physiques, sharply illuminated from the left, into stark relief.
Inscription
Signed and dated in graphite, l.r.: M. Pechstein 06. Inscribed in graphite, l.l.: Am Wasser Inscribed in graphite, l.l., above collector's mark, "1102"?; LC: "C2 084"; LR corner: "2". Verso, inscribed in graphite, LC: "APG 10417"; LR: "LS". Blind stamp, l.l.: (coat of arms with castle flanked HN, surmounted by a tobacco bush (colletor's mark of Heinrich Neuerburg; Lugt 1344a)
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
Bust-length portrait of figure in black on green background using thickly applied paint.
Subject Matter
One of a number of figurative pieces produced by Johnson, who while using expressionist techniques, was one of few artists depicting figurative subjects during a pro-Abstract Expressionist period. Gestural but representational, this work nonetheless contains many of the characteristics of Abstract Expressionism, especially the thick application of paint and the sense of the artist’s hand in the creation of the work.
Label Copy
March 28, 2009
Lester Johnson arrived in New York in 1947, during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism. After early experiments with purely abstract “action painting,” however, Johnson became one of the few members of the Eighth Street Club—which also included Franz Kline, Adolph Gottlieb, and Joan Mitchell, all of whose work is on view nearby—to actively pursue figurative painting. Johnson’s goal was to bring the gestural energy of Abstract Expressionism to his explorations of the human figure. One story traces Johnson’s turn to figurative painting to a 1948 encounter with the work of Alberto Giacometti; others suggest it was born out of the human suffering visible from the artist’s second floor studio in the Bowery, New York’s infamous “skid row.” Whatever the origin of this shift, Johnson’s paintings of the late 1950s and early 1960s—with their often solitary figures, heavily worked surfaces, and brooding palettes—reflect not only a dynamic engagement with the act of painting but an abiding concern for the human condition.
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Signed, in pencil, l.r.: G. Antreasian '61; l.c.: Artist's Proof Edition, in pencil, on verso: Ed. 21 Two blind stamps l.r. (artist's chopmark, as printer and Tamarind)
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Print featuring the head of a Caucasian man with short dark hair. Text written along a diagonal in lower right.
Subject Matter
Nikolai Zeretelli (also Tseretelli) was a Georgian actor who toured Europe with numerous modernist theatre productions in the twenties. Judging from the sly, sideways glance and the warm, wry smile that Max Beckmann gives the actor in this portrait, the artist must have found Zeretelli an intriguing character.
This lithograph shows Beckmann at the peak of his printmaking skills. Of the 374 prints that he created throughout his life, one third come from the brief period between 1922 and 1923. Always concerned with the representation of volume and mass in space, he achieves the desired effect here with delicate shading and a few fine lines that reveal his mastery of lithography.
Label Copy
March 28, 2009
This lithograph shows Beckmann at the peak of his printmaking skills. Always concerned with the representation of volume and mass in space, he achieves the desired effect here with delicate shading and a few fine lines, revealing his mastery of lithography. Nikolai Zeretelli (also Tseretelli) was a Georgian actor who toured Europe with numerous modernist theatre productions in the twenties. Judging from the sly, sideways glance and the warm, wry smile that Max Beckmann gives the actor in this portrait, the artist must have found Zeretelli an intriguing character. Of the 374 prints that he created throughout his life, one third come from the brief period between 1922 and 1923.
Inscription
Signed, with Inscription (in German script): Beckmann/Zeretelli(Probedruck)/für Frau Prof Glaser/mit herzlichen Dank und Grusz
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Eight abstracted figures (three kneeling in front and five standing in back) wearing orange tank tops and white shorts face the viewer; two basketballs and five trophies between figures in the foreground. Figures stand in front of a background of fragmented, arched and circular areas of color in blues and golds.
Subject Matter
Jacob Lawrence drew upon his surroundings in Harlem, NY for influence and inspiration. His work often contains people in the African American community and their struggles, dreams and triumphs. “Champions” depicts a portrait of an African American basketball team resplendent with their five trophies. The schematic designs, flat space, angular figures, and fragmented, highly patterned surfaces of this piece are typical of his style.
Inscription
Signature: incised in the image l.r.: Jacob Lawrence 53
Inscriptions and Marks: on removable backing board, l.l., written sideways with a blue colored pencil “#15”; u.c., with a blue colored pencil surrounded by an oval “112”; on liner, l.l., written sideways with a blue colored pencil “#15”; on tape covering upper member of the inner frame; u.r., written with a red colored pencil “44”
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please fax a request to the attention of Orian Neumann, Assistant Registrar, at 734-474-7643. For other queries, email orian@umich.edu.edu.
