Gerald Murphy, Razor, 1924, copyright, Honoria Murphy Donnelly/licensed by VAGA and at the Dallas Museum of Art
Of the 12 modern works of art that are reproduced as commemorative stamps released this month by the U.S.
Postal Service, none are found in Washington's galleries, although ten of the
artists are well represented here, and in some cases, by several hundred
pieces.
Five of the twelve works come from New York institutions, and copyright for five others belong to New York firms,
making New York the site or copyright owner of almost 90 percent of the compositions.
The stamps
were issued in conjunction with the centennial celebration of America's first
large display of modern art, known as the “Armory Show,” the 1913 International
Exhibition of Modern Art in New York organized by the Association of American
Painters and Sculptors.
Besides New York, other locations where the 2013 featured works hang are Texas (2), Yale University
(1), Colorado (1), Ohio (1), New Mexico (1), and Philadelphia (1).
Three of Washington’s galleries with works by the ten have free admission where
thousands may view art: The National
Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and
the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The
Phillips Collection charges $12.
New York
admission prices reach $25 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of
Modern Art. Try getting in the Met without paying the “suggested” price of $25,
and see where you land. Try the street.).
Of the
remaining locations, only Yale (Joseph Stella) and the Amon Carter Museum of
American Art in Ft. Worth (Aaron Douglas) have free admission.
The Citizens'
Stamp Advisory Committee which selects and approves stamp designs with the approval of the Postal Service, says:
"Stamp selections are made with all postal customers in mind, not just
stamp collectors." And yet the Committee promoted galleries that cater to
more elite purses than many citizens carry.
In addition
to Douglas, The Prodigal Son (1927;) and Stella, Brooklyn Bridge (1919-20), the other featured artists and their works are:
Stuart Davis, House and Street (1931), Whitney Museum of American Art;
Charles Demuth, I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold (1928), the Met; Arthur Dove, Fog Horns
(1929), Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center; Marcel Duchamp, Nude
Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912), Philadelphia Museum of Art; Marsden
Hartley, Painting, Number 5 (1914-15), the Whitney; John Marin, Sunset,
Maine Coast (1919), Columbus Museum of Art; Gerald Murphy, Razor
(1924), Dallas Museum of Art; Georgia O'Keeffe, Black Mesa Landscape, New
Mexico/Out Back of Marie’s II (1930), Georgia O'Keeffe Museum; Man Ray, Noire et
Blanche (1926), the Met; and Charles Sheeler, American
Landscape (1930), Museum of Modern Art.
At the unveiling of the
stamps in New York (where else?) Richard Uluski, U.S. Postal Service vice
president, Northeast Area Operations said: “We understand the power in these
miniature works of art to celebrate American heritage history and
culture." The stamps, he said, are "a lasting tribute to 12
amazingly talented artists."
The "most consistent
supporter" of Arthur Dove was Duncan Phillips, the founder of the Phillips
Collection in Washington which has 185 or the majority of Dove's works,
according to Wikipedia,
and yet, the Committee chose to go to Colorado Springs and its Fine Arts Center for its
single Dove painting, Fog
Horns, for which a New York firm holds
the copyright.
Michael Howell is the
collections manager and registrar for the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and
was unaware the commemorative stamp of Fog Horns had been released until
I contacted him.
The two artists missing
from the collections of the four Washington institutions I checked are Aaron Douglas and Gerald Murphy.
Douglas (1899-1979) was "a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance,"
and sometimes called the father of African American art. He founded the art
department at Fisk University where he taught for 27 years. Wikipedia says
Douglas was encouraged by his mother to pursue his passion and inspired by the
black painter, Henry O. Tanner. Douglas ”refused to compromise and see blacks
as anything less than a proud and majestic people."
But who is Gerald Murphy? (Howell didn't know, either.)
Not that
Gerald Murphy? The husband of Sara Murphy? The good friends of F. Scott and
Zelda Fitzgerald who played a prominent role in Tender is the Night? That Gerald Murphy?
He painted, too?
Well, he painted some, for eight years between 1921 and 1929, before he died in 1964. The Murphys suffered
the deaths of their two sons and endured financial problems which may
have been factors in Murphy's conclusion of his art output.
Whatever the case, only 14 of his works are known to have survived, "owing
largely to his [Murphy's] own indifference," wrote Peter Schjeldahl in the
New Yorker about a Murphy show at
Williams College Museum of Art in 2007. Now, only seven or eight are
extant.
"At any rate, it’s
unlikely that Gerald, had he continued, would have improved" for whatever
he had, he had in the beginning, because "he was a man who wasn't really
an artist," Schjeldahl wrote. Murphy and his wife collected folk art.
When the Dallas Museum for
Contemporary Arts announced in 1960 it would host a show of Murphy's works, the
artist said, according to Schjeldahl: "I've
been discovered. What does one
wear?"
Gerald Murphy was
"amazingly talented"?
Who chose Gerald Murphy's work for the one of the 12 modern art stamps? And why?
If the Stamp Select
Committee were truly honoring “amazingly talented” artists like the postal
official said, why didn’t it consider more of the 120 artists from the 1913 Armory
show, many who are familiar
names, but, rather than art appreciation or recognition, perhaps the Committee
meant to educate the people.
The Committee
might have chosen, too, more than a single token woman artist (O'Keeffe), like Marguerite Zorach, Marie Laurencin, Ethel
Myers, Mary Cassatt, Mary Foote, Grace M. Johnson, Gwen John, Margaret Hoard,
Bessie Marsh Brewer, Aileen King Dresser, Edith Dimock, May Wilson Preston,
Frances Simpson Steven, Louise Pope, Hilda Ward, Edith Woodman Burroughs, Anne
Goldthwaite, Edith Haworth, Florence Dreyfous, and Sherry E. Frye, some of
the women who exhibited at the 1913 launch.
Or how about the Murphys'
friend, Zelda Fitzgerald? She painted, too. But she was from the South. Two
strikes! And where is her copyright? Three strikes!
A Postal Service
website, the USA Philatelic, calls the artists "significant
American modernists all of whom were at the forefront of embracing new modes of
expression that began in Europe and developed into uniquely American
perspectives."
Rather than the
"Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee," why not call it what it is: the "Select Stamp Committee."
patricialesli@gmail.com
Benjamin Hutto, organist at St. John's, Lafayette Square
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