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Art/World Page 3 [[right margin]] May 20 - June 20, 1988 [[/right margin]] Sloan, IBM Kraushaar By JUDD TULLY For the most part, the New York John Sloan etched and painted no longer exists. Viewing his gutter and rooftop scenes of Chelsea, Greenwich Village and occasional points south (Kraushaar Galleries. 724 Fifth Avenue, through June 8th, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, through June 18th), they appear as time-frozen antiques. Cobblestoned streets and fleshy women in great plumed hats have been bulldozed by progress and Nautilus machines. "Chinese Restaurant" (1907)-- Max Weber and Edward Hopper painted the same subject very differently--is pure lust, inspired by one of Sloan's nightly rambles around the city. While the derbied gent on the left slurps his Wonton, the beauty in the red feathered hat and scooped-necked dress devotes her charms to the two-toned cat parked on the checkerboard linoleum. Sloan is smitten--at least in memory--by her beauty. As in most of his interiors of that time, a moody darkness prevails. That was before he saw and participated in the Armory Show of 1913. Nothing in the show resembles a radical at work, one scorned by the contemporary critics of his day as vulgar and psychopathic. Hard to imagine he was something of a pariah, who did not have a solo show till his 44th year. Time has washed away the sting of his brush. Sloan made his living as a magazine illustrator, while biding his time for immortality, and copious examples from Harper's Weekly. The Masses, McClure's and Colliers attest to his drafting skill, as well as his biting humor. One of the stranger canvases, "Three A.M." (1909) depicts two women in a dimly lit tenement kitchen. The one at the stove, Rubensesque in her white nightgown, smokes and cooks dexterously while her companion chats at the table and sips coffee. Her feathered hat rests on the nearby stool, an exotic dash of color, a contrast to the somber surroundings. Sloan the social worker, the voyeur with the remarkable memory, editorializes on the sweet friendship. It doesn't matter whether the young woman sipping coffee has just returned from her job as a streetwalker, waitress or flower girl on the Great White Way. They're sharing an intimacy as the coal stove glows. Sloan (like Degas), preferred washerwomen to society dames. His "Scrubwomen, Astor Library" (1910-11) dominate the foreground, their muscular arms bearing heavy tin pails and wielding brooms. Further back, readers buried in their books seem of little import. Sloan, with Millet-ish ardor, boots the working woman up on a marble pedestal. You wouldn't recognize the great book-lined room on Lafayette Street since it now leads another life as The Public Theatre. Calmer scenes of Gloucester and New Mexico--through suffused with a new light--do not compare to his magnetic grip on New York squalor. Carpetbagger Marsden Hartley did much better with New Mexico. Sloan's interpretations of city life, the stuff Stephen Crane wrote about in his Manhattan sketches, prevails. They beat fast with soul. As the work matured, Gotham grew taller and meaner. "The City from Greenwich Village" (1922), a night-washed stunner looking south from the V-neck of Sixth Avenue and West 4th Street, predicts an ugly future. (You can see it now from that same vantage point but the view is clotted with blocks of concrete towers). A Wall Street spire glows in the distance, its pathway carved by the snaking elevated train that cuts through the wet night air. Rooftops, clotheslines and water tanks are Sloan's icons, witnessing the pneumatic roar of progress. It is more comforting to escape to his smoke-filled McSorley's Ale House on East 7th Street and lift a mug in that once male preserve. You can go there today and see the same grimy walls but you'll have to stand in line outside first with a younger breed of guzzlers who neither wear hats nor smoke pipes. The clash between then and now winds through the exhibition amplified by the nonstop clattering of artful computer gadgets buzzing the air from adjacent rooms. Sloan eventually got famous and his "Ashcan" mantle was no longer derided but cheered. But the city he painted had disappeared or had at least been transformed into another thing. Would he paint the crack dealers recruiting in Union Square? Probably not. It's odd to see a time captured on canvas, seventy, sixty, fifty years ago, that might as well be a thousand. The work looks mild-mannered now, more evocative than provocative. It's hard to imagine how it caused such a ruckus then. Sloan, "the spectator of life," shows us how it was in an exhibit made slightly more ironic and anachronistic by the deeds of its generous sponsor, IBM. UFFIZI Continued from Page 1 So now Uffizi-goers face the gaze Of painted Yankee painters, whereas we At Fifth and Ninetieth ponder and appraise The thirty Old World portraitists we see (Some more than once: one portrait is quadruple, And visual jokes abound, sans let or scruple). What titans are shown here by their own showing! Velazquez, Rembrandt, Andrea del Sarto... And yet there are few certain ways of knowing Just who did what in distant realms of art-o. (That bearded man must be Domenichino. A grand duke said he was--but how did he know?) In posing for himself you might expect A painter to give in to his own vanity, But most of these self-renderings reflect The mirrored images of shared humanity. (Vide the pathos of sick old Barocci Or the world-weariness of Carlo Dolci.) Three Englishmen (Lord Leighton, Walter Crane And Alma-Tadema) glow in gorgeous dyes While the four woman portraitists look plain But playful, too, in contract, as each plies Her pleasing art--with brush and paint, or, better, Spinnet and sheet music (La Tintoretta). This human drama, with its varied cast, Leaves one refreshed and marveling. The show Will grace the Academy's galleries till the last Day of July; and though I hardly know What syllable to put the stress upon, sir, United (pause) Technologies is its sponsor. RECENT AUCTION SALES RECORDS Sotheby's - Contemporary Art May 2, 1988 JACKSON POLLOCK, "Search," $4,840,000. FRANZ KLINE, "Ninth Street" $1,870,000. ANDY WARHOL, "210 Coca-Cola Bottles" $1,430,000. WILLEM DE KOONING, "Women Seated and Standing" $-1,210,000. RICHARD DIEBENKORN "July" $1,155,000. Sotheby's - Impressionist & Modern Paintings & Sculptures Part I May 10, 1988 EDGAR DEGAS, "Petite danseuse de quatorze ans" $10,120,000. PAUL CEZANNE "La cote du galet a Pontoise" $9,240,000. PIERRE AUGUSTE RENOIR, "Maternite ou femme allaitant son enfant" $8,800,000. Sotheby's - Impressionist & Modern Paintings & Sculpture, Part II May 11, 1988 HENRI LEBASQUE, "Madame Vian assise dans un parc" $907,500. MARIE LAURENCIN, "Creoles (11)" 638,000. Sotheby's Impressionist & Modern Drawings & Watercolors May 11, 1988. PAUL KLEE, "Auf der Wiese"- $742,500. Christie's - Contemporary Art May 3, 1988 JASPER JOHNS, "Diver" $4,180,000. JACKSON POLLOCK, "Number 31, 1949" $3,520,000. FRANCIS BACON, "Study for Figure I" $935,000. WAYNE THIEBAUD, "Heart Cakes" $605,000. RICHARD ESTES, "Baby Doll Lounge" $550,000. ANSELM KIEFER, "Yggdrasil" $418,000. JAMES HAVARD, Soshhoni" $49,500. Christie's-Impressionist & Modern Paintings, Part I May 11, 1988 VINCENT VAN GOGH, "Adeline Ravoux" $13,750,000. MARY CASSATT, "The Conversation" $4,510,000. MAURICE DE VLAMINCK, "Le pont de Chatou" $4,400,000. ALBERTO GIACOMETTI, "Trois hommes qui marchent" $3,850,000. FERNAND LEGER, "Le dejeuner" $2,200,000. Art/World News Brooklyn Museum - "40 from Israel: Contemporary Sculpture and Drawing," an exhibition of 80 works by a representative group of 40 contemporary Israeli artists who work in the mainstream of international art, will show through June 27. Artists represented include Zigi Ben-Haim, Pinchas Cohen-Gan, Teresa Gejer, Menashe Kadishman, Osvaldo Romberg, and Igael Tumarkin, as well as others who are less known in the United States. Brooklyn, N.Y. - "Gordon Matta-Clark: A Retrospective," the first comprehensive exhibition of the work of the late American artist Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978), is on view at The Brooklyn Museum through July 11th. AACH Ingber Gallery 415 West Broadway, NY May 31-June 25 Classified Close-out sale French publisher of limited editions has large selection of prints. Below wholesale prices - call Hinata (703) 532-0815. Art Competition $10,000 Awards Art of Northeast USA Painting, Sculpture, Drawing Open to Artists from New England, NY, NJ & PA Slides due July 1 Write: Silvermine Galleries 1037 Silvermine Road (off Rte. 106) New Canaan, CT. 06840 203-966-5617 Paintings from Greece & More June 7- June 12 Joan M. Kelly National Arts Club GREGG GALLERIES 15 Gramercy Park South 1:30-8:00 PM Markus Raetz EDITIONS/MIMI/ZEEMANSBLIK MAY 14-JUNE 11, 1988 Brooke Alexander 59 WOOSTER STREET NEW YORK 212/925-4338 John Sloan- PORTRAITS AND PLACES Through June 8 THE ESTATE OF JOHN SLOAN: PAINTINGS DRAWINGS ETCHINGS IS REPRESENTED EXCLUSIVELY BY KRAUSHAAR GALLERIES 724 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK 10019 (212) 307-5730 Summer Hours Monday-Friday 10 to 5 Joseph Decker (1853-1924) Still Lifes, Landscapes and Images of Youth An exhibition organized by Coe Kerr and Berry-Hill Galleries Full color catalogue with essay by Dr. William H. Gerdts, $20 ppd. May 17th to June 11th Coe Kerr Gallery 49 East 82nd Street New York Hours: Mon.-Fri. 9 to 5. Sat. 10 to 5. Closed Sat. May 28
