Delicate, minimalist still life depicts a vase of cut stems from trees and plants. In keeping with the season—but also reminding us of time’s passage—two leafs have fallen upon an unadorned table. McEvoy’s flattened background transforms the leaves into an arrangement of color and form; a seemingly glowing, ruby-red globe is at once part of the autumnal pallette and an object of fascination in its own right. About the Artist: What’s known of McEvoy is very limited and seems to reflect the limited opportunities for women artists during her time. She was born in Dubuque, IA, and appears to have studied at the Art Institue of Chicago. By the 1930s her name is mentioned in newspaper items as a teacher at the Queensborough Community Art Center; reading poems or reading palms at a Woodstock summer fundraiser. Her paintings “Allegro” and “Intime” were shown at the Woodstock Art Gallery; “The Willow Tree,” “Paradise,” and “Flowers” at the Larkin House, Ossining, NY. At one of these shows her work was exhibited along with NDG artist Erna Lange, and it’s interesting to imagine that the two women might have met. During 1937 McEvoy worked for the “Gallery Tours” division of the Federal Art Project: “Miss McEvoy will describe the techniques of etching, aquatint, and lithography, and a demonstration of the printing of a lithograph will take place” (Daily Worker 13 April 1937: 7).
The references in this uncanny painting aren’t clear. At the front of a stage we see a performer, seemingly dressed as a princess and like Cinderella wearing only a single slipper. She holds in her hand a white flower. Behind her, peeking out from seven “legs” receding into the distance, are stylized characters who seem to be drawn from folk tales: a king and queen, a dour stepsister, and so on. The scene is framed by footlights, curtains, and at far right a rope pull reaches out to us invitingly. Mearns’ title references a yearly festival in Barcelona; the painting’s anarchic energy also may derive from her experience with Hervey White’s summer “Maverick Festival” productions. About the Artist: Born Emma Mearns in Philadelphia, at age 19 she married the poet Laurence Jordan, was divorced from him in 1931, and then married medical writer and publisher Blake Cabot in 1937 (he died in 1974). Petra Cabot, as she was known thereafter, began work for designer Russel Wright in 1939, on his “Food Focal” exhibit at the World’s Fair in New York City. In 1947, President Harry S Truman denounced modern art as “the vaporings of half-baked, lazy people....There is no art at all in connection with the modernists, in my opinion.” Mearns-Cabot was one of the Woodstock Art Association members to sign a letter rebuking Truman: “[W]hen a man in high public office chooses to denounce and condemn a large and important group of artists, because he happens to dislike their art, it becomes a matter of immediate and grave concern to all artists” (Kingston Daily Freeman 23 June 1947: 3). In 1952 she made her best-known contribution to American design with the Skotch Kooler, which refashioned metal “minnow buckets” into attractive and affordable picnic totes that became ubiquitous throughout that decade (“How”). Throughout her long life Mearns-Cabot continued to create in a variety of forms: painting, drawing, woodblock, illustrations for books and educational filmstrips, jewelry, and mixed media. 5 works at Woodstock Artists Association & Museum. 2 works at Woodstock School of Art. Sources Consulted: Douglas Martin, “Petra Cabot, Designer of the 1950s-Era Skotch Kooler, Dies at 99,” New York Times 29 Oct. 2006: A26; “How Two Young Men Saved an Ailing Business,” Changing Times: The Kiplinger Magazine Aug. 1953: 31-32.
A fierce encounter between two stallions recalls the work of Frederic Remington in its drama and stripped-down setting. Rounded masses of muscle on the horses resemble the surrounding hills, particularly at lower right. Although not perhaps set during nighttime, a stark contrast between white horses and the landscape’s darker colors likewise owes a debt to Remington’s moonlit scenes. Here there are no humans, other horses, or even trees to witness this frozen moment in time. About the Artist: Born in Townsend, MT, Meloy was raised on the family ranch, where he and his siblings were encouraged to pursue their creative interests as children. His parents arranged for a year of study with the landscape painter Elmer Boone, and meanwhile Meloy took correspondence courses in commercial art. Visiting friends in Chicago, a trip to that city’s Art Institute so moved him that he decided to enroll there, marking a change in plans and the “divide between a reliable career in commercial art and a more risky career in painting” (citation). Meloy relocated to New York in 1926, studying first with Robert Henri at the National Academic of Design and then John Carroll at the Art Students’ League. Meloy was influenced by the Ashcan School’s urban realism, sketching on New York’s busy streets and while riding its subway: “These urban portraits convey Meloy’s interest for the whole of life’s volume and mass. The movement of fast-paced New York is depicted through sweeping caricature into beautiful line figures in motion, changing light, and telling environmental information” (citation). During the late 1920s and early ‘30s Meloy supported himself, in part, through illustrations for western and outdoor magazines. Beginning in 1933 he created works for the WPA, including its Easel Art division. During 1941-42 he painted a mural, Flathead War Party, for the US Post Office in Hamilton, MT that still remains. Beginning in 1940 Meloy taught art at Columbia University, where he became intrigued by the more abstract painting of artists like Henri Matisse, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock. In a letter concerning his new experiments with color, line, and shape he wrote, “I want to fit in and at the same time I want to be alive and contribute something of myself” (Rodriguez). Meloy died suddenly in 1951, while waiting for a train in Grand Central Station. 2 works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2 works at the Brooklyn Museum. 3 works at the Yellowstone Art Museum. 18 works at Montana Museum of Art & Culture. 4 more images at FAP. His papers and approximately 4,000 oil paintings are the Montana Museum of Art and Culture. Sources Consulted: Gordon McConnell, “Henry Meloy: Record of a Life,” Henry Meloy: Five Themes, 1945-1951 (Yellowstone Art Center, 1990); Kathryn Lorraine Rodriguez, Henry Meloy: The Portraits, A Narrative of the Exhibition (MA Thesis at University of Montana, 2008)
Pale girl sits atop a pony, protected from the sun’s rays as apples fall from a tree nearby. The pony, meanwhile, stares blankly at the ground. Although Meloy’s familiarity with animals shows in his representation of anatomy and posture, the bright sun (and perhaps his interest in abstraction) washes away finer details of the scene; the watercolor becomes a composition in red, yellow, white, and brown, with carefully chosen accents of blue. About the Artist: Born in Townsend, MT, Meloy was raised on the family ranch, where he and his siblings were encouraged to pursue their creative interests as children. His parents arranged for a year of study with the landscape painter Elmer Boone, and meanwhile Meloy took correspondence courses in commercial art. Visiting friends in Chicago, a trip to that city’s Art Institute so moved him that he decided to enroll there, marking a change in plans and the “divide between a reliable career in commercial art and a more risky career in painting” (citation). Meloy relocated to New York in 1926, studying first with Robert Henri at the National Academic of Design and then John Carroll at the Art Students’ League. Meloy was influenced by the Ashcan School’s urban realism, sketching on New York’s busy streets and while riding its subway: “These urban portraits convey Meloy’s interest for the whole of life’s volume and mass. The movement of fast-paced New York is depicted through sweeping caricature into beautiful line figures in motion, changing light, and telling environmental information” (citation). During the late 1920s and early ‘30s Meloy supported himself, in part, through illustrations for western and outdoor magazines. Beginning in 1933 he created works for the WPA, including its Easel Art division. During 1941-42 he painted a mural, Flathead War Party, for the US Post Office in Hamilton, MT that still remains. Beginning in 1940 Meloy taught art at Columbia University, where he became intrigued by the more abstract painting of artists like Henri Matisse, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock. In a letter concerning his new experiments with color, line, and shape he wrote, “I want to fit in and at the same time I want to be alive and contribute something of myself” (Rodriguez). Meloy died suddenly in 1951, while waiting for a train in Grand Central Station. 2 works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2 works at the Brooklyn Museum. 3 works at the Yellowstone Art Museum. 18 works at Montana Museum of Art & Culture. 4 more images at FAP. His papers and approximately 4,000 oil paintings are the Montana Museum of Art and Culture. Sources Consulted: Gordon McConnell, “Henry Meloy: Record of a Life,” Henry Meloy: Five Themes, 1945-1951 (Yellowstone Art Center, 1990); Kathryn Lorraine Rodriguez, Henry Meloy: The Portraits, A Narrative of the Exhibition (MA Thesis at University of Montana, 2008)
University of the State of New York Bulletin 557 (12 Dec. 1913): 88 Courtesy of Internet Archive
This striking landscape is organized around the single arc of a highway that divides the space into two sectors: above, a brightly lit realm of forests and mountain ridges; below, a shadowed landscape of brown fields, a diseased tree, and a dilapidated farm house. Clearly, the travails of American farmers during the 1930s has influenced Mira’s subject matter. The highway itself is a pristine band of white futurity, guarded on one side by rails and on the other by electric or phone lines (which the farm conspicuously lacks). Improbably, we see three cars on the road along with two people walking alongside; what may be a farmer watches them walk away. About the Artist: Born in Italy, Mira immigrated to the US in 1904. He attended the Art Students League, the Beaux Arts School, and the National Academy of Design, where he studied with Ivan Olinsky; his works were exhibited at several Corcoran Museum biennials. As a young man of twenty-two, Mira and a fellow artist named Joseph Perna planned to hitchhike across the United States, painting pictures as they went. They paused in Gettysburg, PA, to paint several battlefield landscapes (Gettysburg Times 10 June 1922: 2), and then Mira was invited by one driver to paint a portrait of his parents in Detroit. “After a few months,” Mira recollected, “I became so absorbed in my work that I had completely forgotten about California. By this time my companion had become homesick and he induced me to return with him.” Returning to New York, Mira was best known for his cityscapes of lower Manhattan and capturing “the way busy people see it...None of those breath-taking shots cameramen contrive of towers and infinity, which no New Yorker sees in actuality” (Los Angeles Times 31 Jan. 1943: 35). 18 more images at The Athenaeum. 2 more images at FAP.
Luminous still life is not so much about the objects arranged here but how the light plays off them. In a cobolt-blue vase decorated with a rose pattern, we see a bouquet of roses at their peak of beauty and nearly glowing in the soft light. As a traditional symbol of fleeting beauty, however, we may notice a slightly drooping one at right that appears to be casting a shadow upon the wall. Mira’s colors for the table and wall aren’t strictly naturalistic; they’re chosen to coordinate with the tones of his June roses. About the Artist: Born in Italy, Mira immigrated to the US in 1904. He attended the Art Students League, the Beaux Arts School, and the National Academy of Design, where he studied with Ivan Olinsky; his works were exhibited at several Corcoran Museum biennials. As a young man of twenty-two, Mira and a fellow artist named Joseph Perna planned to hitchhike across the United States, painting pictures as they went. They paused in Gettysburg, PA, to paint several battlefield landscapes (Gettysburg Times 10 June 1922: 2), and then Mira was invited by one driver to paint a portrait of his parents in Detroit. “After a few months,” Mira recollected, “I became so absorbed in my work that I had completely forgotten about California. By this time my companion had become homesick and he induced me to return with him.” Returning to New York, Mira was best known for his cityscapes of lower Manhattan and capturing “the way busy people see it...None of those breath-taking shots cameramen contrive of towers and infinity, which no New Yorker sees in actuality” (Los Angeles Times 31 Jan. 1943: 35). 18 more images at The Athenaeum. 2 more images at FAP.
Oil painting of Greenich Village nightlife location dismissed by a Federal Writers Project description as "an uninteresting hodgepodge of buildings of varying sizes and ages, suggesting little of the charm that lies beyond its limits." In 1982, a small park was incorporated into this space. About the Artist: Born in Italy, Mira immigrated to the US in 1904. He attended the Art Students League, the Beaux Arts School, and the National Academy of Design, where he studied with Ivan Olinsky; his works were exhibited at several Corcoran Museum biennials. As a young man of twenty-two, Mira and a fellow artist named Joseph Perna planned to hitchhike across the United States, painting pictures as they went. They paused in Gettysburg, PA, to paint several battlefield landscapes (Gettysburg Times 10 June 1922: 2), and then Mira was invited by one driver to paint a portrait of his parents in Detroit. “After a few months,” Mira recollected, “I became so absorbed in my work that I had completely forgotten about California. By this time my companion had become homesick and he induced me to return with him.” Returning to New York, Mira was best known for his cityscapes of lower Manhattan and capturing “the way busy people see it...None of those breath-taking shots cameramen contrive of towers and infinity, which no New Yorker sees in actuality” (Los Angeles Times 31 Jan. 1943: 35). 18 more images at The Athenaeum. 2 more images at FAP. Sources Consulted: Archives of askART, including information courtesy of Brian Roughton Galleries.
Archives of American Art, Federal Art Project, Photographic Division, Box 16, Folder 19.