Out of the Box

Intelligent advertising may seem like an oxymoron these days, but a remarkable print campaign from a long time ago still impresses with its creative uniqueness as well as longevity.

With the unlikely sponsor of Container Corporation of America, which was clearly thinking outside the box (couldn’t resist), the series, called “Great Ideas of Western Man” ran over a period of almost three decades (1950-1975) and matched artwork from a number of illustrators and designers with thought-provoking quotes from an array of philosophers, writers, scientists, and other cultural icons. The goal, apart from the simply inspirational aspects, was to introduce the American public to the work of artists — such as Milton Glaser, top, and Saul Bass, below — with which it would otherwise have remained unfamiliar.

Ahead of their time in not underestimating the discernment of consumers, the ads are considered a watershed moment in marketing history, as they bore no corporate message beyond the inconspicuously placed CCA name in small type at the bottom.

It was a rare and enlightening blend of commerce and art that would be refreshing to see more of now…

More Than Words

Paul Klee, “Alphabet II” (1938)

As both medium and subject matter, the newspaper has had a long history of serving as inspiration for some of our greatest artists, and with print journalism seemingly going the way of the dinosaur as we continue our inexorable transition to digitally-based means of communication (bye-bye Newsweek, as seen last week), an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. is an intriguing retrospective look at a richly creative relationship that has spanned more than 100 years.

Shock of the News (the name is a bow to the late and famed art critic Robert Hughes, whose TV series and book Shock of the New educated millions as to modern art), brings together pieces ranging from Picasso to Rauschenberg (Warhol had his own similarly themed show, Headlines, at NGA last year) as examples of the influence that the newspaper has exerted on some of the most imaginative minds of their time.

It’s not a “shock” that Picasso would be among the first to connect the cross-disciplinary dots, with a snippet from France’s Le Journal appearing at the corner of his 1912 Guitar, Sheet Music, Glass (above left), followed by such noteworthies as Max Weber (The Sunday Tribune from 1913, left), and Paul Klee, whose 1938 Alphabet II is seen at top. Ellsworth Kelly contributed his own playful self-portrait in cut-out newsprint. One of my favorites is the piece shown at bottom, Untitled (Diver) by Paul Thek, a 1970 watercolor-like acrylic drawn on newspaper, where the waves in the water were created by creases borne down by the weight of the paint.

Though the curator of the current exhibition maintains that 21st-Century artists have been incorporating newspapers in their work as much as their predecessors did, it’s safe to assume that this venerable interplay has pretty much seen its zenith. Which makes Shocking News (running through January 27) an even timelier tribute to all the news that was fit…to paint.

The Pencil and the Brush

This year’s bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens, who defined the era he lived in much as William Shakespeare did in his time, is being universally celebrated with a host of special events, exhibitions, performances, and festivals that highlight the novelist’s deep influence on the society and culture of the Victorian age. His impact on the visual arts was also significant, and is examined in a UK exhibition titled Dickens and the Artists, which runs through October at the Watts Gallery in Guildford, Surrey.

No less than Vincent van Gogh is credited with having said, in 1883, “There is no writer, in my opinion, who is so much a painter and a black-and-white artist as Dickens.” And his own daughter, herself an artist, commented that her father’s novels could only have been produced by “a writer with an innate feeling for artistic effect.”

Though not household names to us now, painters like William Powell Frith uniquely interpreted the richly textured world of Dickens’ imagination in tableaus inspired by the writer’s depictions of life on the streets of London. Frith’s Crossing Sweeper (1893), below right, is at immediate glance a microcosm of the Dickensian scenes we are all familiar with; other Frith works, like Night Haymarket (1862) are likewise awash in the moods, colors, and subtle pandemonium that so memorably permeate the Dickens oeuvre.

Dickens himself had a reputation as a savvy art critic, often outlining his thoughts in the magazine he edited, Household Words, and commenting on his interest in both contemporary artists, as well as the Old Masters, on his many tours of Europe. His passion for the theatre is often overlooked in light of his literary success.

In reality, Dickens was perhaps the quintessential Renaissance man, reborn in 19th-Century England. A newspaper article from 1892 noted:

“It has been confidently asserted that when Charles Dickens adopted literature as a profession, the stage lost one whose dramatic instinct would have made him a brilliant luminary in the theatrical world; and physiologists might assuredly contend that had his natural gift for art been specially cultivated and duly developed, he would probably have made an equally prominent name for himself as a wielder of the pencil and the brush.”

Little wonder his genius continues to resonate –  200 years on.

(Illustration/ top: Red Nose Studio)

March On

Program cover for the landmark suffrage parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.,1913

With its designation as Women’s History Month, March is awash in celebration of women’s innumerable contributions to society. Today marks International Women’s Day, an observance that saw its inception in the early 1900s and which is now an official holiday in many countries, with over 1,000 events scheduled to take place in some form or another around the world.

In Washington, D.C., plans are currently underway for a physical location for the National Women’s History Museum (NWHM), presently online in cyberspace, waiting for a legislative march through Congress to provide the site with a permanent venue in the nation’s capital.

A high-profile supporter should help in making that a reality. Freshly re-minted Oscar-winner Meryl Streep, left, who’s already donated $1 million to the project – as well as her salary from The Iron Lady – is something of the fairy godmother for a dream that is close to her heart. “There are museums in Washington, D.C. for everything from postage stamps to poetry to spies,” Streep ironically notes, while also stating that the project is vitally important “because our history was written by the other team.“ The facility would be located on the Washington Mall, alongside the National Air & Space Museum and the Grant Memorial, with plans for a design by a female architect, making it the first repository on the Mall to be fashioned by a woman. It’s expected to be funded with private donations.

Already in place and marking 25 years since its opening in D.C. in 1987 is the National Museum of Women in the Arts, an assemblage of women’s creative legacies through the centuries. Among the artists in the collection, Georgia O’Keeffe, below, who summed up the frustrations of many pioneers when she mused in 1923:

“One day seven years ago, I found myself saying to myself: I can’t live where I want to, I can’t go where I want to go, I can’t do what I want to, I can’t even say what I want to … I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.”

It’s that very same spirit that we celebrate today.

The Tudors Revisited

Both serious students of 16th-Century England and those with a passing interest in the period will find The Tudors: The Complete Story of England’s Most Notorious Dynasty by G.J. Meyer a comprehensive look at that momentous span of history, along with essays that provide supplementary context to the saga of this most examined of British royal families.

Now released in paperback, the book is also a refreshing reality-check grounded in fact after the entertaining fictions of the recent past that have figured in the public imagination, most notably The Tudors, the TV series on Showtime, which took the term “historical license” to a new – and outrageous – level.

The background entries lend flavor and perspective to the times, such as “Bestsellers,” which explores the advent of printing and its impact on the scholars of the day. “They Were What They Ate” is a taste of typical Tudorian fare and recipes (“Take a necke of mutton and a brest to make the broth stronge and then scum it cleane”), along with speculation as to why many of the Tudor lineage deteriorated at young ages (with the exception of Elizabeth I, who apparently ate sparingly).

The book is the first in a while to tackle the Tudors in such an ambitious fashion, and the critical analysis is for the most part (with one notable exception) on the mark. The focus on Henry VIII, for example, is as “Monster,” an apt description, and not just due to his reputation as Bluebeard-ish barbarian and decapitator of two wives. Henry’s reign of terror actually began prior to his marriage to doomed second wife Anne Boleyn, and in the chapter “First Blood,” Meyer describes his initial victim, a 27-year-old nun named Elizabeth Barton (the “Nun of Kent”), put to death due to her opposition to the King’s intentions of divorcing his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Morality Tale

With President’s Day as a backdrop, an anecdote about Abraham Lincoln, and deep meaning in a simple story.

In a conversation with another passenger while riding in a horse-drawn coach, Abraham Lincoln was discussing a philosophical issue, arguing that selfishness prompts all good deeds. Along the way, he noticed a sow making a terrible noise. Her piglets had gotten into a pond and were in danger of drowning. Lincoln called the coach to a halt, jumped out, ran back, and lifted the little pigs to safety. Upon his return, his companion remarked, “Now, Abe, where does selfishness come in on this little episode?” “Why, bless your soul, Ed,” Lincoln answered, “that was the very essence of selfishness. I should have no peace of mind all day had I gone and left that suffering old sow worrying over those pigs.”

[Cited from the textbook Social Psychology by David Myers; thanks to JCV for the telling.]

Havana Dreams

Since I was a child, I’ve been regaled by tales (apocryphal or not) of the colorful life of a great-great aunt, Catalina Lasa, and a memorable love story that leaves what passes as high romance in the entertainment headlines these days in the dust.

Renowned for her beauty (a rose is named in her honor), Catalina’s romantic trajectory culminated in the official recognition of divorce in the island nation of Cuba, in 1917. Her great passion for a wealthy widowed landowner, Juan Pedro Baró (pictured with her above), and abandonment of her then-husband (a Latin “Le Scandale“), traversed the seas, as, shunned by Havana society, she and Baró escaped to Paris, where they were allowed to marry. (Lasa was subsequently awarded the first divorce decree under Cuban law.)

By most accounts a fascinating woman of many interests (including helping to save the dog breed, Havanese bichon, from extinction), she had a magnificent mansion built for her by Baró — who knew no bounds in pleasing his adored wife —  in Havana’s Vedado section (above left), after their eventual return to Cuba. She died in 1930, aged circa 55, after seeking medical attention in Paris, her embalmed remains eventually entombed in a striking mausoleum (at Havana’s Colón Cemetery, right) commissioned by her husband and designed by Art Nouveau/Deco master Rene Lalique. (Supposedly situated so the sun would be shining upon her when Baró visited every morning.)

It’s said that before he died ten years later, Baró requested to be interred standing up, so as to oversee his beloved for eternity.

They just don’t write ‘em like that anymore…