An early
chapter from Ad Reinhardt’s career is well displayed at the Pace Gallery in midtown
Manhattan. Consisting predominately of gouaches and some collages and small
oils, all the work was made between 1935 and 1945 and well before Reinhardt
began to make the iconic black monochromes in the late 50s that continued until
the time of his death. Unlike the later severity of the ‘art-as-art’ writings,
satirical cartoons and ‘last possible paintings’, the work in this exhibition
shows a younger, energetic artist casting about for ideas. The thirties and
forties were a ripe time in American art. Suffering from the depression,
artists of the period grappled with European Modernism that had been imported
by Steiglitz in the earlier part of the century. Like many artists of his
generation, Reinhardt worked on the WPA (Works Progress Administration) from
1936-1940, the period covered by the current exhibition. The WPA was a short
lived, improbably glorious experiment put in place by Roosevelt to put
struggling artists to work, allowing many painters, sculptors and printmakers
the possibility of working for the first time solely in their studios. During
this time Reinhardt also joined and exhibited with the American Abstract
Artists (AAA), a group of New York painters who wanted to promote their own American
response to European Modernism, especially the work of Mondrian. Rounding out
this activity, in 1944 Reinhardt joined the Navy and sailed in the Pacific,
never seeing combat, but having enough time to make several live wire drawings
of ships pulling into port.
Reinhardt’s early
work, most of which was hidden in storage until recently, affords an
opportunity to see an unformed artist make the transitional fledgling steps
into maturity. Borrowing the popular language of his day, biomorphic
abstraction, automatic drawing, globular shapes and bright color, Reinhardt’s
work displays energy and the seeds for his later paintings. Lacking the piston steel
focus of his later monochromes, the work here gives the viewer a glimpse into the
messy development every serious artist travels towards an earned and vigorous studio
practice. Resembling myriads of other paintings from the era, the work still acts
as a mustard seed of the burgeoning consciousness of one of the high priests of
American Modernism.
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Untitled, 1938, 4-3/8" x 5-5/16"
gouache on board.
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Untitled, 1938, 8-3/16" x
10-5/8"gouache on board.
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Untitled, 1941, paper collage, 11 x
17-1/2" (29.2 x 44.5 cm)
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| Untitled, 1940, 10" x 13-1/8," gouache on board |
