Did you ever stop to
think about the people behind historic art movements? A professor of mine once
said that without wealthy patrons such as the Medici in Florence, the Renaissance would not have happened. As much as
I despise the influence wealthy people have on society, I have to admit that
without rich people buying art, we probably would not hear about artists such
as Jan van Eyck, Antonie van Dyck, Rembrandt,
Picasso, or countless other artists throughout
time. Is this due to the fact that rich people have insight into art more than
any others? NO! Most often in the past it was because the artist proved to be
fashionable, displaying the latest tastes. What accounts for the advancement of
abstract movements in American art after
1945, a genre that was notoriously entrenched in realism until the 1940s, then?
I’ll say it once if I say it a thousand times: women have always had a major
impact on art history, and Betty Parsons is
one of THE most influential people in American modernism.
Betty Parsons was born into a wealthy family and studied
with many different artists. Although she studied with many artists in Paris,
the defining moment in her life was the 1913 Armory Show in New York, which
introduced Americans to European modernism.
She considered abstraction a “New Spirit” in art. After teaching art in
California, Parsons returned to New York in 1936. Her early paintings were
exhibited in the Midtown Galleries, where she was also offered a job.
In 1945, Peggy Guggenheim closed her Art of This Century
Gallery in New York, and Parsons agreed to take on many of the artists
Guggenheim represented. Her first major show was that of Jackson Pollock in 1947. She subsequently went
on to represent many of the nascent Abstract
Expressionists, such as Barnett Newman
and Mark Rothko. Clement Greenberg, the New
York art critic who was the biggest “fan” of the New York School artists, once
called her the “den mother of Abstract Expressionism.” She went on for three
decades to represent avant-garde artists, including minimalists such as Agnes Martin, and color field artists such as Ellsworth Kelly. Her commitment to modernism is
an extraordinary, if little reported, legacy in American modernism.
Why do I sing the praises of Betty Parsons? Not only because
of her art historical foresight, but also because she was an artist herself. I’ve
never trusted art dealers who weren’t artists themselves. Parsons began her
career as a painter and ended up producing constructions of found objects. Her
works, greatly influenced by Surrealism and Dada, were composed of bits of wood she found
on the beach near her home in Long Island. She called her works “carpenter’s
throwaways.” The titles, such as Jolly, were extensions of the poetry she
loved to write.
Betty Parsons was a true American original who is little
written about in mainstream art history texts. Her importance in promoting
Abstract Expressionism, as well as other modernist movements, is incalculable.
Activity: A found
object sculpture: Using recycled materials (found objects), create a figurative
sculpture. Select at least three objects to make a sculpture. Let the materials
suggest ideas for the form of the sculpture. Using glue or tape, assemble the
materials to suggest a human figure.
Correlations to Davis
programs: Explorations in Art Grade 4: 6.35, The Visual Experience; 10.2
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