juice of life

Gallery of Modern Art, Clyde Singer

self- portrait

The Flower Vendor, 1935

After mentioning two of my favorite Ohio artists this week, Charles Burchfield and George Bellows, I realized I had forgotten another of my Ohio favorites, Clyde Singer (1908-1999).  I might just have to turn this subject into a series of posts.

Born in Malvern, a rural village in northeast Ohio, he worked as a sign painter's apprentice after high school, until he saved enough money to enroll in the Columbus Museum of Art School, back in the day before it was known as the Columbus College of Art and Design. In 1933, he enrolled as a scholarship student at the Art Students League, New York, where he studied for seven years with American greats such as Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, and Richard Edward Miller. Singer's early paintings were scenes of small-town Ohio life, and later shifted focus to more urban settings, capturing contemporary scenes of the time.

Old Shopper, 1945

In 1940, Singer became assistant director at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, and, except for military service during World War II, remained there until his death in 1999.

Stylistically, Singer is classified as a Regionalist. In his sixty-five years as an artist, he created well over 3000 works and is best known for his depictions of the American scene. I love the delightful, engaging way he depicts movement, as well as the emotion and personality of his subjects. Singer's objective was to capture what he called the "juice of life", recording everyday incidents with a gentle, satirical eye.

Wind on the Avenue, 1937
my personal favorite Singer
at my local Columbus Museum of Art
(I like to think Singer included himself on the left.)

search terms 2-12-2011

Stag at Sharkey's, 1909, George Bellows
Cleveland Museum of Art

diving pig

stag at sharkey's

ernst haeckel

idylls of spring

idylle printaniere

dance the virginia reel

dead bird crashes window

a beard without a mustache

old jewish headstone

film très bizarre

cracker jack prizes

tombstone with pigeons

making love midday in a manor

david welch pez ray gun

hitler with no mustache

hoosier cabinet etched glass

chewy cough drops in a white box

andersonville prison camp

full-blooded caramel shopping

raw goat head frozen

zappa's mustache

half man half fat cat

eat with hands

eat with your dirty hands

a thin french mustache

john paul jones' corpse

don't take any wooden nickles

seinfeld susan dies of licking

corset tight lace breath

goya's candle hat

rojan erotica

fowl with pearls

acanthus leaf tattoo

Last week, R.A.D. Stainforth posted his sitemeter search words for the week. I happened to think they were incredibly poetic, not to mention fascinating, especially when you think behind each particular phrase, someone was specifically sleuthing. Was their curiosity satisfied? The above list is comprised of the random subjects the public came to Willow Manor in search of, in one twenty four hour period of time. Crazy, huh?

sloppy

February Thaw, 1920, Charles Burchfield

Main Street, Salem, Winter Day, 1917

Like most in the Midwest, we've had an unusually cold, snow-laden winter. I have loved every minute; breakfasting around the fire, furry hats, fat woolly socks, steaming homemade soups and the pristine monochrome view from my frozen manor windows. Everyone seems anxious for spring, but I dread the sloppy thaw. Main Street, Salem, Winter Day, 1917, by one of my favorites, Ohio surrealist Charles Burchfield, captures this winter perfectly.

Most of Burchfield's (1893-1967) works were inspired by the rural surroundings in his hometown of Salem, in northeast Ohio, many from his own backyard. Dynamically working with watercolor, his paintings have a broad, mystic quality I absolutely adore. Burchfield is regarded as one of the key figures in early American Modernism and one of America’s masters of watercolor. I make it a habit to look for his pieces when I visit my local Columbus Museum of Art.

North Wind in March, 1960-66

Orion in December, 1959

mystery solved

click to enlarge

It must be the artist in me that draws me to the human face. Given the choice of a landscape, still life, or portrait, I will always pick a portrait, hands down.  So, it's no surprise several are scattered here and there about the manor.  (Click here and here for previous portrait posts.)  Last month, when my daughter was visiting, we took a little excursion to our favorite antique center.  I came home with an quirky unsigned 1960s era portrait of a young man.  I was drawn to his melancholy expression and soft earth tones.

Sara Carr, 1960
on the roof
of the Trautman Building

This week, when we took the in-law gang antiquing, I happened onto a stack of portraits in the same vendor's booth where I found the young man, and obviously by the same artist.  Most of them were signed by Sara Carr.  I chose a lovely dark haired woman, dated March 25, 1958.  After the family left, and the manor was quiet again, my investigative juices took over, and I did a bit of online sleuthing.  As it turns out, Sara Carr was a local Columbus, Ohio impressionistic artist who graduated in 1930 from the predecessor of the Columbus College of Art & Design.  She had a studio in the five story Trautman Building at 203 South High Street. In exchange for the use of a rural cottage owned by Warner Trautman, Carr painted a 25 foot panoramic mural of downtown Columbus, for the lobby of his building, in 1960.

Now that I know the background of the artist, it makes her paintings even more special. It's nice to think I have some of Carr's work, as well as a bit of Columbus history, sprinkled about the manor.  I've got to take a little trip downtown to see if I can find her mural.  Stay tuned.

detail of Carr's mural

Sara Carr, 1963, in her Columbus studio