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Ewing Krainin (1912 – 2004) was a popular photographer in his day, and the darling of many a magazine editor. His most revered image was the Life picture of the scantily clad fashion model Chili Williams (1921 – 2003) – an image that is recalled and explained in the opening paragraphs of this article.
“Upon his first arrival in Paris, Picasso met with success. It was ’99… At that time he had a face of ivory, and was as beautiful as a Greek boy; irony, thought and effort have brought slight lines to the waxen countenance of this little Napoleonic man… At that time, Picasso was living the life of the provincial in Paris… He had won fame there by his portraits of actresses in the public eye. Jeanne Bloch, Otero – all the stars of the Exposition. Those paintings are priceless today; the intelligent museums have bought them.”
“When Kaethe Schmidt was born in Koenigsberg in 1867, the twin fairies Pity and Indignation claimed her as their own.” As a result of marriage she became Kaethe Kollwitz, and it was under this name she produced her finest works of art:
“She has been the artist of the common people, in that she has made art out of their weal and their woe and she has been content to receive understanding and approbation from them alone.”
“When most of Manhattan is sound asleep, the free-lance photographer Arthur Fellig (1899 – 1968) – better known as Weegee – begins his wide-awake work of catching the city’s nocturnal drama. Weegee sleeps by day and at midnight sets out to cruse the city in his car, equipped with [a] police radio and bought with the proceeds from crime photos. He earned his nickname through his uncanny Ouija Board ability to know about distant happenings and beat others to the scene.”
Click here to read more about New York City.
Ernest Boyd (1887 – 1946), all-around swell guy and significant literary figure in 1920s New York, took a hard look at German Expressionism and its wide influence on other Teutonic arts in the early Twenties. He paid particular attention to the German critic Hermann Bahr (1863 – 1934), who coined the term, Expressionism, and had much to say about the movement.
Artist Tristan Tzara (1896 – 1963) reported from Berlin for the editors at Vanity Fair on what’s new in German art. With tremendous enthusiasm he explained everything that was going on throughout all the German studios – he did not hold back – every name brand is included: Schwitters, Klee, Kandinsky, Lehmbruck, Gropius and the Bauhaus.
Once upon a time there was a short-lived organization in New York City created to lampoon works of art hailed by the critics as worthy creations. They called themselves The Academy of Misapplied Art and they held their exhibits in the lobby of the Light House for the Blind. Attached herein is the N.Y. Times review of their 1913 exhibit intended to make light of the European Cubists.
Numerous deep thoughts on the subject of Cubism by a prominent art critic of the time, Clive Bell (1881 – 1964):
“But, though in two or three years’ time Cubism may have disappeared, its influence should endure for a generation at least. The service it has rendered art is inestimable. Without it the liberating impulse given by Cezanne had been incomplete. Cezanne freed artistic sensibility from a hampering and outworn convention; Cubism imposed on it an intelligent and reasonable discipline. If a generation of free artists is now turning spontaneously towards the great tradition, it was through Cubism that it came at Ingres and Poussin.”
This is a profile of the American photographer Margaret Bourke-White (1904 – 1971). At the time these pages appeared on the newsstand, the photographer’s stock was truly on the rise as a result of her remarkable documentary images depicting the Great Depression as it played out across the land.
