Casualties of War:
Modern Artists and the
Second World War

March 6 – Sept. 10, 2008
Selections from the
Permanent Collection of
the Blanden Art Museum
Curated by
Lindsay Shannon.
West Gallery

The Call of the Gazelle at Daybreak, 1950, Oil on canvas Joan Miroó [Spanish, 1893-1983]
BMAM: Gift of Miss Ann Smeltzer

Schimmer, 1930, Watercolor and ink on paper
Wassily Kandinsky [German/Russian/French, 1866-1944]
BMAM: Gift of Miss Ann Smeltzer

This exhibition takes a closer look at major modern artists in the Blanden's permanent collection in the context of the difficult period in which the artists lived. The hope is to demonstrate how one might think about style and biography in relation to the historical context of World War II, encouraging patrons to think about their own interpretations of these pieces.

The artists who created these works of art come from divergent backgrounds, but all were significantly impacted by the second 'total war'. Some artists, such as Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi, were a combination of several identities, creating complex reactions to the war that affected their lives.

Both World Wars exercised immense influence on Europe and America, fracturing and altering both societal and artistic identity in these cultures. The aftermath of the second 'total war' and the eventual revelation of tragedies surrounding the Holocaust created anxiety and criticism about the state of modern societies, as well as the pervading influence of 'Old World' values. Also thrown into sharp relief were the most basic issues of humanity and the value of individual human life.

The transition from the early 20th century into the postmodern age we now live in constitutes an era of controversial and rapid change. Experimentation in the arts was intended to create a visual 'language' for the public, which would supersede the boundaries of class, gender, and race, and although the project to 'heal society' did not succeed in the intended way, modern art has fundamentally changed the way we
experience the world.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a gallery guide to contextualize the artworks.

Cadiz,1952 Oil on canvas
Robert Motherwell [American, 1915-1991]
BMAM: Gift of Miss Ann Smeltzer

Graphic Statements:
Selections from the
Harold D. Peterson
Collection

Curated by
Lindsay Shannon
January 8, 2007–
July 12, 2008
Second Floor Gallery

Tchitchikov's Father Correcting Him, 1948
Etching and Roulette on wove paper
Marc Chagall [Russian/French, 1887-1985]
BCF: Gift of Harold D. Peterson

Selected prints from the Harold D. Peterson collection will be on display in the Second Floor Gallery. These pieces represent work from the greatest artists and printmakers, ranging from the early Renaissance through the mid 20th century. Artists on display will include Rembrandt, Goya, Whistler, and Grant Wood. These artists will be discussed in relation to their contributions to the field of printing and the graphic arts, revealing the history of this popular and controversial medium.

The artists and their choice of subjects will be discussed in addition to the technical developments they used to convey ideas. Just as the invention of moveable type by Gutenberg gave the dissemination of literature a wider audience, the medium of printmaking allowed the replication and distribution of visual ideas to reach more artists and patrons. Both inventions helped to usher in the Renaissance and continued to shape society into the modern era.

The 1996 Blanden publication Country Life, City Life: Prints from the Harold D. Peterson Collection, which also contains selections from this bequest, will be available in the gift shop in limited quantities.

Top: Sporting Event at Prince Kaga's Palace, Early 17th Century
Japanese, Tosa School. BMAM: Gift of Mrs. Helen Vincent Roberts
Above: The Terminal, 1947, Photomechanical (halftone)
reproduction . Alfred Stieglitz [American, 1864-1946].
BCF: Purchased by Blanden Charitable Foundation

The Paris Review is an English language literary magazine based in New York City. As its title may suggest, it was founded in Paris in 1952 to feature talented writers and poets. It is most famous for its author interviews, in which the authors tell in their own words the craft of writing and criticisms of their own works. These interviews have included the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison and William Faulkner. The Paris Review has been the first to publish many acclaimed authors, including Rick Moody, who wrote an essay for the Blanden's 2007 Richard Lethem Brown catalog.

In the early 1960s, artist Jane Wilson asked a number of contemporary artists to produce posters in a limited edition of 150 in an effort to promote interest in the magazine. Artists involved included Ellsworth Kelly, Louise Nevelson, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Willem DeKooning and Andy Warhol-whose poster was a blow-up of a bill to The Paris Review. In November of 1965, the first 23 posters went on display at the Byron Gallery, New York City. The exhibition immediately received outstanding reviews, and the Museum of Modern Art later purchased an entire set for their collection.

The Blanden owns three artist's images in this series; Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and Jim Dine. In addition to the Paris Review posters, several other selections of Pop Art from the Blanden's permanent collection will be on display.

KATE JAVENS:
American Beasts
Opening November 2nd
Closing February 16
East Gallery, West Gallery
and Lobby Gallery

Kate Javens' paintings are mesmerizing in the subtle cadences of their
brushstrokes, rendered with considerable delicacy and bravura. They are
gentle and inquisitive, using a vocabulary and sophistry of technique born of
decades of practice and discipline that transforms the stroke of a human hand
into a potent image.
The compositions are free, untrammeled by background, leaving
the impact clean, forceful. There is the subject – bison, bull, horse, crow,
barn swallow, moth, fish – and the surrounding luminal atmosphere
evoking threshold states and zones of transition.
Ms. Javens is an elegant, poised yet quicksilver woman. Even with everyday
gestures - offering a cup of tea, moving about the studio - there is the
sense of thoughtful, fluid motion about her. There is a certain, subtle rarity of
seamlessness between artist and brush, of brush and painting support [Kate
prefers theater muslin], and artist to winged, feathered, scaled, and hoofed
creatures that contains a vibrant synchronicity.
Perhaps a measure of the synchronicity is due to the magnificent
pedestrianism of all the connectors. Her Named For Series identifies men
and woman who did the extraordinary actions, but were ordinary in their
lives, not seeking attention, therefore not gaining “star” or history book
moments of type, hype, or sound. The physical subjects of her paintings –
bison, crow, fish – also ordinary, but when you see each one magnified on
such a scale, when you see the details of their physical being – the lift of a
wing, the depth of an eye – you are seeing the extraordinary.
With Kate Javens' painting you feel free to have still-breathing
open-ended responses, inventive reinterpretations,
and slow accretions of layered senses awakening, connecting.
You are present with a few facts and an abundance of possibilities regarding
yourself, the American beasts (bison, horse, bull, fish, moth, bird), the artist,
and an individual (Andrew Furuseth, Oscar Neebe, Lucy Parsons) who was a
“sport” of nature, someone so different, and generally off our historic
radar-screen. Personal, very deeply felt interpretations can emerge. Javens is
like a dowser finding the leavening and her paintings as symbols decrypted
graphically from whiteness – reportage emanating from a void, a reverberation,
differently scaled for risk-takers, a time apart from time, a late retort –
how blankness can yield image, I do not pretend to know, though I suppose
that is the question ultimately underlining the entire history of art.

Gib and Nancy Stanek purchased the painting Named for Benjamin Drew, No. 3, 2003 from Marcia Wood Gallery for the Blanden Art Museum. This beautifully nuanced painting in rich ochres and earthen browns is one of the signature NAMED FOR series works of art.

Ms. Javens considers this specific work to be one of her finest paintings, saying “the horse in this particular painting has that magical confidence of an adolescence.”

Benjamin Drew was born in 1812 and died in 1903. In the 1850s he traveled from Plymouth, Massachusetts north to Canada interviewing scores of former American slaves, including Harriet Tubman, who had fled via the Underground Railway. At the time there were approximately 30,000 African-Americans in Upper Canada. Drew transcribed their stories, publishing in 1856 a book entitled The Refugee: or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada. The costs of Drew's travels and work were sponsored by the support of the Canadian Anti-Slavery Society and John P. Jewett, a renowned antislavery sympathizer from Boston who had published Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852. Long out of print, Drew's book is the only collection exclusively about fugitive slaves in Canada and an invaluable record of early black Canadian experience.

Gib and Nancy are long-time Fort Dodge community leaders. Nancy worked many years for voters rights civic groups and was a multi-term trustee on the Blanden Memorial Art Museum board. Gib continues to work for Rotary Club, visiting international Rotary chapters, and spearheading the organization's civic projects. The museum is very proud to have Named For Benjamin Drew, No. 3, 2003 in the permanent collection for its thematic ties to our region and its place in Ms. Javens' oeuvre.