Einar Jónsson

            First off, apologies this wasn’t up yesterday.  There was an issue at work and I was called in early, before I had time to schedule this to post yesterday.  So here it is a day late, but no worse for wear. ;)

            So if you remember back two weeks to the pictures from the south of Iceland, you might remember a picture from out in the sculpture garden at the Einar Jónsson Museum in Reykjavik.  I fell in love with those sculptures the first time I was in Iceland, and being able to go back in go in the museum and see more was just wonderful.  I figured who better to learn a bit more about than Einar.  I didn’t find a whole lot of varying information on Einar, so this might be a bit brief, but I’ll try and make up for that with pictures.

            Einar Jónsson was born on May 11, 1874 at Galtafell, the family farm in southern Iceland.  There isn’t much known about Einar’s childhood other than that he had “an artistic bent” (1).  We know he went to Reykjavik for the first time when he was fifteen, and first saw parliament and the paintings there.  When he was seventeen, he moved to Reykjavik and began to learn English and drawing (2).

            At this time there wasn’t a heritage of sculpting in Iceland.  In 1893 Einar left Iceland for Copenhagen, Denmark, where he first learned wood carving.  He then began learning true sculpting, and took night classes. (3)  And from 1896 to 1899 Einar studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen.  Einar studied under the Danish sculptors Vilhelm Bissen and Theobald Stein.  Beginning in 1902, Einar studied in Rome on a grant from the Althing (Icelandic Parliament).

            This time in Rome seems to have shifted something in how Einar worked.  While living in Rome he was able to visit throughout Germany, Austria, and Italy.  When he left Rome, Einar “completely rejected naturalistic depiction and publicly criticized the classical art tradition, which he felt had weighed artists down” (4).  Einar became focused on the need for artists to figure out their own style and path, following what they wanted to do rather than trying to follow what others had done.

            Personally, Einar turned to German symbolism, also using personification and allegory in his pieces.  He also became interested in the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg and theosophy, working this into his art as well.  While he was concerned about these abstract themes, he also wanted his art to be accessible and so always used concrete imagery that the public would understand and interpret themselves. (5)

            In 1909, Einar made a deal with the Althing.  They would build him a home, studio, and museum (all in one), and he would donate all of his works to Iceland.  It took some time, but in 1914, the Althing accepted this proposal.  Parliament pitched in for one-third of the cost and a national collection was taken up to provide for the other two-thirds. (6)  For his workspace/museum, Einar chose the highest point in Reykjavik and built the building to his own plans, though officially it was designed with Einar Erlendsson.

            Throughout this whole time he was away from Iceland, he was still creating Icelandic works either on his own or through commissions.  In this period he created “The Outlaw” (1900), “Jónas Hallgrímsson” (1907), and “Jón Sigurðsson” (1911); the statues of Jónas Hallgrímsson and Jón Sigurðsson are both displayed in Reykjavik.  He also took commissions for statues of Ingólfur Arnarson (in Reykjavik) and Þorfinnur Karlsefni (in Philadelphia; a second in Reykjavik).

(A note on all these people: Jónas Hallgrímsson was a poet and author; Jón Sigurðsson was a saga expert and politician who led Iceland’s independence movement; Ingólfur Arnarson, with his wife, was the first permanent settler in Iceland and founded Reykjavik; Þorfi.nnur Karlsefni was an explorer whose son, Snorri, was the first European child born in North America.)

            At this time, in 1917, Einar married Anne Marie Jørgensen (Anna Jörgensen).  Together they travelled to the United States so Einar could continue work on the statue of Þorfinnur Karlsefni.  This statue was the first part of a bequest to “create a series of sculptures ‘emblematic of the history of America’” (7).  In 1920, Einar and Anne moved back to Iceland, and the following year his second major North American work was commissioned: a statue of Jón Sigurðsson for the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg.

            Finally, in 1923, on Midsummer’s Day, the Einar Jónsson art museum opened.  This was the first art museum in Iceland.  The museum was on the main floor, Einar’s apartment was on the upper floor, and his studio was on the lower floor.  These positions shifted slightly over the years as Einar and Anne grew older and couldn’t move throughout the building as easily, including a building out back in what is now the sculpture garden.

            Einar and Anne put work into the garden out back, and some of the bronze casts in the sculpture garden were cast while he was alive.  Einar died October 18, 1954 at the age of 80; Anne died October 2, 1975.  The sculpture garden didn’t open until June 8, 1984.

            Einar Jónsson wasn’t like most sculptors.  Most sculptors work in clay, but due to the geologic makeup of Iceland, there wasn’t the clay for him to use.  Instead, Einar used plaster to create his pieces.  This also allowed him to continue working on a piece for much longer than modelling clay would allow (sometimes up to a decade) (8).  Only towards the end of his life and after his death were his works cast in bronze.

            In addition to the twenty-six pieces on display in the sculpture garden at the museum, Einar created eight public monuments and did at least four private commissions.  In the museum you can see the plasters Einar created for some of his well-known pieces, pieces in the garden, and pieces that were never cast in bronze.  It’s a really wonderful museum and it was great being able to travel throughout Iceland and see his pieces across the country.

1, 8 - Einar Jónsson

2, 3 - The Einar Jónsson Museum - Timeline

4, 5, 6 - The Einar Jónsson Museum - Carreer [sic] and viewon art

Violet Oakley

            Back in 2010 my family took a trip to Philadelphia.  On the way we stopped in Harrisburg and went to the Capitol building (we’d go to any capitol building we could when on vacation).  One of the first things you notice about the capitol is the gorgeous green dome.  When you enter the building it’s just as gorgeous.  A big part of what makes Pennsylvania’s capitol special is the murals throughout.  The murals were done by Violet Oakley, the first American woman to receive a public mural commission.

            Violet Oakley was born on June 10, 1874 in Bergen Heights, New Jersey (her birthplace is often listed as Jersey City; Bergen Heights was part of Jersey City, so neither is wrong).  Both of Violet’s grandfathers were members of the National Academy of Design, so when Violet wanted to be an artist, she had a relatively easy path.  In 1892 she started at the Art Students League of New York, and the following year went to study in England and France.  In France she studied at the Académie Montparnasse.

            In 1896 Violet returned to the US to study.  She began at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, but less than a year later she left and transferred to the Drexel Institute School of Illustration after the urging of her sister, Hester, who was already attending Drexel.  At Drexel, Violet studied under Howard Pyle.  At this time she also made friends with Elizabeth Shippen Green and Jessie Willcox Smith, other students of Pyle’s; Pyle nicknamed them the Red Rose Girls because they lived together at the Red Rose Inn (1).

            Violet had success as an illustrator.  She had pieces in The Century Magazine, Collier’s Weekly, St. Nicholas Magazine, and Women’s Home Companion.  At the time, about 88% of subscribers to magazines were women, and so there was a push to show the world from a woman’s perspective, and so women were hired as illustrators. (2).

Despite the success at illustration, and teaching her illustration, Pyle actually encouraged Violet to pursue large scale pieces and helped Violet get commissions for murals and stained glass pieces.  Violet still worked on small pieces when she could.

            Violet attributed her style to Pyle and to the Pre-Raphaelites.  Her art also showed a “commitment to Victorian aesthetics during the advent of Modernism” (3).  Violet had also become a Quaker in her adult life (she was raised Episcopalian), and wanted to showcase the Quaker ideals of pacifism, equality of races and sexes, and economic and social justice (4).

            In 1902, architect Joseph M. Huston chose Violet to create murals for the Governor’s Reception Room in the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, purely on the basis of her talent (5).  Before this point, her only mural had been at the All Angels Episcopal Church in New York City.  Violet admired William Penn’s utopian vision for Pennsylvania, and wanted to highlight this.  She travelled to Europe to study about Penn’s life.  The murals in the Reception Room took Violet over four years, and highlight her talents as well as her interest in history.  Violet would do fourteen murals total for the Reception Room, and 43 murals in total in the Capitol building.

            In 1903, while she was working on these murals, Violet joined Christian Science.  While she had been in Florence, Violet had her asthma cured through prayer and so joined Christian Science.  She was a member of the Second Church of Christ, Scientist in Philadelphia from its founding in 1912 until her death in 1961.  In 1939, Violet even illustrated a poem by Mary Baker Eddy (the founder of Christian Science) in the style of illuminated manuscripts.

            In 1911, Violet was working with Edwin Austin Abbey on the Senate Chamber and Supreme Court Rooms at the Capitol, when Abbey died.  Due to her talent and work with Abbey, Violet was chosen to finish Abbey’s work.  This work took Violet nineteen years, over which time she completed the murals, six illuminated manuscripts, and a book about the murals.

            After her work at the Pennsylvania Capitol, Violet did a mural at the League of Nations Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland; the Henry Memorial Library at the Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia; and the First Presbyterian Church in Germantown in Philadelphia (6).

            Throughout the rest of her life lived on and off with the Red Rose Girls and Henrietta Cozens.  Their home in Mt. Airy, PA was called Cogs from their initials (Cozens, Oakley, Green, and Smith).  The home was later called Cogslea, and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Violet Oakley Studio in 1977.  Her home and studio in Yonkers, NY, where she lived on and off from 1912 to 1915, are also in the National Register as Plashbourne Estate.

            Violet lived at Cogslea with her longtime companion Edith Emerson after the other Red Rose Girls moved out.  Edith was the director and president of the Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia.  They lived together for the rest of their lives.  Violet Oakley died on February 25, 1961.  She is buried in the Oakley family plot in Green-Wood Cemetery.

            While Violet’s work had fallen out of favor after World War II, there was renewed interest starting in the 1970s.  In 1996, Violet Oakley was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame - the last of the Red Rose Girls to be inducted.  In June 2014, Violet’s grave was featured on the first gay themed tour of Green-Wood Cemetery (7).

1, 2, 3, 4, 7 - Violet Oakley

5 - Women of History: Violet Oakley

6 - Violet Oakley Historical Marker

Edmonia Lewis

            This is another person I found on Pinterest.  Edmonia Lewis’s caption reads “Mary Edmonia Lewis (ca. July 4, 1845 - ca. 1911) was the first African American and Native American woman to gain fame and recognition as a sculptor in the international fine arts world.  She was of African American, Haitian, and Ojibwe descent” (1).  If that doesn’t sound interesting, I don’t know what does.  When I started reading about her, she’s even more interesting, but with some said parts to her story as well.

            It’s not entirely clear where or when Mary Edmonia Lewis was born.  She claimed July 4, 1844 for her birthdate.  She could have been born any time between 1840 and 1845 though.  She was probably born around Greenbush, New York (now in either Rensselaer or East Greenbush).  It’s also possible she was born in Albany, New York or Newark, New Jersey.  In one interview she said she was born in Greenhigh, Ohio.  July 4, 1844 in Greenbush, New York seems to be the agreed upon date and place.

            Edmonia was the daughter of an African-American gentleman’s servant and a Mississauga Ojibwe/African-American weaver and craftswoman.  Both of her parents died when she was young.  Her mother’s two sisters took in Edmonia and her brother Samuel (who was about twelve years older than Edmonia).  At this point Edmonia was known as Wildfire, and Samuel went by Sunshine.  Edmonia lived with her aunts for about four years in the area near Niagara Falls.  She helped sell Ojibwe baskets and other souvenirs to the tourists that came to Niagara Falls.

            In 1852, Samuel went to California to look for gold.  He must have been fairly successful because he was able to send money back to Edmonia for a number of years.  Samuel helped pay for Edmonia’s education at the New York Central College in McGrawville.  This school was a Baptist, abolitionist school.  Edmonia started at NYCC in 1856 but left after just three years “when she was ‘declared to be wild’” (2).

            In 1859 Edmonia started at Oberlin College with help from her brother and some abolitionists.  Oberlin was one of the first schools to admit women and minority students.  At Oberlin, Edmonia began studying art, excelling at drawing.  It was around this time that Wildfire chose to be called Mary Edmonia Lewis; a few years later she would drop Mary and just be Edmonia Lewis.

            At Oberlin, Edmonia boarded with the Reverend John Keep and his wife.  Keep was an abolitionist and an advocate for coeducation.  Keep was also a member of Oberlin’s Board of Trustees.  At the Keep residence also lived two white students, Christine Ennes and Maria Miles.

            In the winter of 1862, Edmonia, Christine, and Maria were going out for a sleigh ride and had some spiced wine.  Edmonia didn’t have as much as the other girls and the other girls got very sick.  It was discovered that they had been poisoned with Spanish Fly.  They were very sick for a while, but recovered.  It was believed that Edmonia had poisoned them, but since they recovered, no charges were filed.  People in town were very upset by this though, and Edmonia was dragged off to a field and beaten.  Due to public pressure, she was charged with poisoning Christine and Maria.

            Oberlin defended Edmonia.  Her lawyer, John Mercer Langston, was shot by one of the sick girls’ fathers.  In court, Langston argued that “the contents of the girls’ stomachs had never been analyzed, and thus the charges against Lewis could not be proved” (3).  Witnesses testified against Edmonia, and she didn’t take the stand.  She was either acquitted or the case was dismissed, and so she was free to go.  (Langston “would go on to become the first African-American elected to public office in the United States and a founding dean of Howard Law School” (4).)

            The following year Edmonia was accused of stealing art supplies from Oberlin, but was acquitted of this charge as well.  The women’s principal would not allow Edmonia to register for classes for her last term, though, and so she never graduated.

            After leaving Oberlin, Edmonia debated returning to the Niagara Falls area and her mother’s tribe, but instead went to Boston.  The Keeps’ wrote to friends in Boston, introducing her to William Lloyd Garrison.  Garrison introduced Edmonia to area sculptors and writers.  She tried at least three people before she found a teacher willing to take her on in Edward A Brackett.  Brackett specialized in marble busts and had abolitionists for clients.  He lent Edmonia fragments of his pieces for her to copy and be critiqued.  It’s not clear what happened, but Brackett and Edmonia split and it was unamicable.

            In 1864, after a solo exhibition, Edmonia opened her own studio.  Her pieces at this time were mostly of abolitionists.  Her 1863 and 1864 subjects included John Brown and Robert Gould Shaw.  Shaw’s family purchased her bust of him, and the success of that allowed her to make plaster copies and sell them for $115 each.  She also made medallion portraits of Brown and Garrison.

            Between 1864 and 1871, Edmonia was written about by a number of prominent Boston and New York abolitionists.  While she wasn’t opposed to the coverage she was getting, Edmonia didn’t want false praise.  “She knew that some did not really appreciate her art, but saw her as an opportunity to express and show their support for human rights” (5).

            Due to the success of her bust of Shaw, and the medallions of abolitionists, Edmonia was able to save up enough to travel to Rome in 1866.  In Rome, the sculptor Hiram Powers gave her some room in his studio.  She also was supported by Charlotte Cushman, a Boston actress, and Maria Weston Chapman, an anti-slavery advocate.

            In Rome, Edmonia first began sculpting in marble.  She also started pieces about Emancipation, the first of which was Freedwoman and her Child.  She used the neoclassical forms and mediums to create pieces related to blacks and Native Americans.  Edmonia was profiled in London in Atheneum and Art-Journal.  In 1868, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visited her in Rome and she sculpted his bust; his family praised the piece.  She had previously created pieces based on Longfellow’s poem, Song of Hiawatha, and it’s possible he saw these pieces when he visited her.

            Edmonia was rare in Rome at the time because she did all of her own work.  Most sculptors would create the model and then hire Italian workers to carve the marble.  Edmonia did all the carving herself, possibly “to forestall expected suggestions that a black woman could not possibly have created works of such skill and accomplishment” (6).  Because of this though, “fewer examples and duplicates of Lewis’s work survive than other sculptors of the period” (7).

In 1870 Edmonia had an exhibition in Chicago, and in 1871 in Rome.  In 1873, Edmonia received two $50,000 commissions.  Her studio became a tourist spot in Rome, being featured in guide books as a destination.  A big boost to her profile was having a piece in the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.  For this Edmonia created a 3,015 lb., full length sculpture of The Death of Cleopatra.  People weren’t sure about the subject matter dealing with death, but thousands still came to view it.

After Philadelphia, Cleopatra was exhibited in Chicago in 1878.  It was eventually purchased by a gambler and was used to mark the grave of a racehorse named Cleopatra.  After this it was put in storage and damaged by some Boy Scouts who painted the sculpture.  Eventually the piece was rediscovered by the Forest Park Historical Society and was donated to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1994.  Cleopatra was cleaned and restored to near-original condition.

As neoclassical art decreased in popularity, so did Edmonia.  She had become a Catholic in 1868 and continued to do work for Catholic patrons, but her profile was on the decline.  She travelled to the US for exhibits of her works.  In 1883 she created an altarpiece for a church in Baltimore.  Two of her pieces, Hiawatha and Phyllis Wheatley, were exhibited at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

In 1901, Edmonia moved to London, but after that little is known of her life.  She never married and never had children.  It was speculated that she died in 1911 in Rome, or in Marin County, California (she had travelled to San Francisco at some point).  But recent digging has discovered that she died on September 17, 1907 in Hammersmith Borough Infirmary in London from chronic kidney problems. 

Edmonia’s pieces had faded from memory, but many have been recently rediscovered.  As mentioned, Cleopatra is now at the Smithsonian.  Other pieces are at Howard University’s Gallery of Art.  In the early 2000s, a play about Edmonia, Wildfire: Black Hands, White Marble, was written by Linda Beatrice Brown.

1- Pinterest caption

2, 5 - Edmonia Lewis

3, 6 - Edmonia Lewis

4, 7 - The Life and Death of Edmonia Lewis

Fordite

            This is probably going to be short, as there’s not a whole lot of information on the topic.  It had a very limited window of production, and is gaining in popularity, making it rare, but it’s not really… historical, or a thing that there’s been a lot written about.  There are lots of pictures, so there will be a fair amount here too.  Having grown up and lived most of my life in metro-Detroit, the auto business is everywhere.  This is another one where I’m not sure where I first heard of Fordite, probably on some clickbait article with pretty pictures, to be honest.  But it’s interesting.

            Fordite is a man-made “stone” created in car factories before the 1970s.  It’s also called Detroit Agate, Motor Agate, and paint rock.  The agate moniker comes because of the similarity in appearance to real agates.  Before the 1970s, auto plants painted cars in bays, by hand.  The coats of paint would be heated to harden the paint, and more layers would be added.  Paint would build up in the tracks in the ground, and would also be heated and hardened.  Some of the tracks had up to one hundred layers of paint in them.  The paint would just build up until it became too thick to work around, and then it would be removed.

            James Pease, an auto worker in 1967, “recalls contractors cleaning paint booths during model changes” (1).  An urban legend has it that workers would just bring home pieces for their family members.  Cindy Dempsey, one of the first people to make Fordite jewelry (more on that in a bit), recalled being shown some of this layered paint in the 1970s.  “A family friend who worked for one of the Detroit automakers told her that her vividly painted Pet Rocks … resembled pieces from the plant where he worked.  He brought a chunk and showed it to her” (2).  Cindy “used sandpaper to showcase the paint lump’s colors, then topped the finished stone with varnish.  It became the prototype for her later creations” (3).

            In the late 1970s, the auto companies changed the way they painted cars.  No longer was the process done by hand, and the paint was different too.  The paint nowadays is electrostatically attached to the cars, and there is almost no excess paint sprayed.  Because of this, there’s no buildup of paint on the floor or otherwise.

            Fordite was not unique to Detroit, and the name is misleading: all built up paint from old car factories is called Fordite.  Fordite from Detroit generally has layers of a grey primer between the layers of colorful paint.  In Ohio, where a lot of vans were produced, the colors are more earthy, though there are pops of colors from the 1970s.  In Great Britain, there are more opaque, metallic, and translucent layers (4).  Fordite can be dated by the colors in the pieces: in the 40s there were more blacks and browns, giving way to lots of brighter colors into the 60s.  Fordite collectors and experts can even tell which company or factory the sample came from.

            As mentioned earlier, Cindy Dempsey was one of the first people to make Fordite into jewelry.  Now you can find quite a number of sellers online and, presumably, in shops.  (One website I found, in addition to selling Fordite jewelry, sells jewelry from old bowling balls as well.)  Original Fordite does contain lead, but generally not in levels that are harmful, and not usually unless ingested.  Modern jewelers can recreate Fordite because of it being a finite resource, and so real Fordite is much more valuable.  Fordite is popular for its nostalgia factor and because it is a recycled material and so more eco-friendly.

            So that’s Fordite.  Like I thought, a short article, but pretty pictures!  I’d love to have something made of it, but at the prices it goes for, that’s probably a bit of a long shot unless I save up.  Next week, back to something with a bit more substance!

1, 2, 3 - Mary M. Chapman, “Your Earrings Remind Me ofGrandma’s Gran Torino,” The New YorkTimes, Aug. 23, 2013.

4 - Fordite: A Jewel Made From Layers of Old Car Paint

Coles Phillips

            A few years ago I saw a book at the store, drawn to the cover art.  I didn’t remember what the book was called or who it was by, but I remembered that cover.  Early 2014, I found the book again because I remembered the cover.  The book is Fadeaway Girl by Martha Grimes.  I bought the book and read it (it was fine; turns out it was the latest in a series I hadn’t read), and the book talked briefly about the Fadeaway Girls of artist Coles Phillips.  I’ve been a little obsessed with his art ever since.  Not just the Fadeaway Girls, but his advertisements and magazine covers too.  As of this writing, two of my social media profiles are his work.

            Clarence Coles Phillips was born in October 1880 in Springfield, Ohio.  From the age of eight, and throughout his life, he raised pigeons.  He was always interested in art, too, but that wasn’t really a viable career in late-1800s Ohio.  After Coles graduated high school, his father got him a job at the American Radiator Company in Springfield.  Coles didn’t really care for this though and, after securing a letter of recommendation (you can never be too safe), he enrolled at Kenyon College in 1902.  While at Kenyon he joined the Alpha Delta Phi literary society, as well as doing illustrations.  The 1901-1904 editions of the Kenyon College yearbook, The Reveille, published some of his illustrations.  Coles decided that, like American Radiator, Kenyon wasn’t really right for him, and moved to Manhattan after his junior year.

            In New York, Coles pulled out that letter of recommendation from his boss at American Radiator in Ohio, and got a job at their New York office, rising up to be a salesman.  While at American Radiator, though, Coles was caught with a caricature of his boss and was fired.  By chance, a friend of Coles’ told J. A. Mitchell, publisher of Life, what happened.  Mitchell offered Coles a job at the humor magazine (not the photo-journalism magazine that would come later).  Coles decided to go to art school first though.

            For three months Coles took night classes at Chase School of Art.  Those three months were the only formal art training he ever had.  Coles decided school wasn’t right for him again.  He worked for a time at a studio that did assembly-line art; Coles was responsible for feet and ankles (which would come in handy when he did hosiery ads later on).  After this he moved briefly to an advertising agency, but decided to open his own instead.  In 1906, C. C. Phillips & Co. Agency opened with only two employees, one of whom was Edward Hopper, one of Coles’ former classmates.

            In 1907, Coles met with J. A. Mitchell and was hired on at Life.  Coles first nationally published illustration was a black and white centerfold of a young lady across the table from an old lady, captioned with a line from The Rubiyat.  This first illustration came out April 11, 1907, and more black and white centerfolds followed.  Coles’ art was very popular with Life’s readers.

            That same year, Coles met Teresa Hyde, a nurse.  She became his most frequent model in his early years, and in early 1910 they married.  From 1905, Coles had been living in New Rochelle, New York.  New Rochelle was popular with illustrators at this time and for years afterwards.  Illustrators J. C. Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell also lived in New Rochelle.

            Shortly after he began at Life, the magazine switched over to color covers and asked Coles to do the art.  They wanted something new and distinct to set their magazine apart.  Coles gave them his fadeaway idea.

            The story goes that Coles got the idea for the fadeaway technique when he was visiting a friend.  The friend was dressed in a tux, playing a violin, in a very dimly lit room.  Coles couldn’t see all of his friend, but rather the friend was suggested by “the highlights on the violin, the shine on his shoes, and the small bits of white shirt that were visible” (1).

Coles had tried his new technique in black and white, but wanted to try it in color.  Doing the fadeaway technique for the magazine cover required studying the proportions of the canvas and the final dimensions for the cover, to make sure the effect would not get lost between painting and printing.  Coles' first cover for Life was February 20, 1908.  This played with the ideas he was forming, but wasn’t a true fadeaway image.  He continued to tweak his work, and on May 28, 1908, the first Fadeaway Girl cover was published.  Like his friend in the tux in the dark, the Fadeaway Girl was “a figure whose clothing matched, and disappeared into, the background” (2).

Over the next four years, Coles did over fifty-four covers for Life, moving on to a contract with Good Housekeeping for covers for them for five years, becoming their sole cover artist beginning for two years beginning in July 1912.  Other magazines he did covers for included Colliers, Ladies’ Home Journal, McCall’s, Saturday Evening Post, Women’s Home Journal, and Liberty.  In the middle of this time, in 1911, Coles Phillips went from C. Coles Phillips to just Coles Phillips.  Coles was one of the first illustrators to “insist that his name appear with all his images, including advertising work, and he usually painted a signature in print letters into each work” (3).

Part of why the fadeaway technique was so popular, on the publisher’s end, was that, while it was new and striking and popular with audiences left to fill-in the rest of the image themselves, the magazines were “getting by with single color or two-color covers in a day when full-color covers were de rigeur for the better magazines” (4).

In addition to producing art for magazines, Coles was also designing book covers.  These covers started quickly after his Life covers.  His cover for The Gorgeous Isle by Gertrude Atherton came out in October 1908.  Other books Coles did covers or illustrations for included The Siege of the Seven Suitors by Meredith Nicholson, Michael Thwaites’ Wife by Miriam Michelson, and The Fascinating Mrs. Halton by E. F. Benson.

By 1911, Coles Phillips’ art was so popular that a collection of his art from Life and Good Housekeeping was published in the collection A Gallery of Girls.  This was followed with another in 1912 called A Young Man’s Fancy.

            At the turn of the century, the Gibson Girl was the popular girl for illustrations and advertisements.  She was prim and proper, with big hair and sleepy eyes.  The girl of the teens and twenties was modern and athletic.  She showed more skin “but she still had a wholesome look to her” (5).  Coles Phillips helped popularize this image.

            In addition to his art in books and magazines, Coles Phillips did advertisements too, a rare artist at the time who didn’t see a problem with doing commercial art as well.  These advertisements are really what helped popularize the new girl of the teens and twenties.  A lot of his ads were for women’s clothing, including hosiery.  He also did ads for automobiles and flatware.  A lot of the companies he did work for necessitated a more modern and athletic girl than the Gibson Girl had been.  You can’t advertise hosiery without showing a girl’s legs.  Automobiles were seen as fast and daring, and so the girls became so too.  In 1924 he “caused a sensation with his ‘Miss Sunburn’, a bathing beauty created for Unguetine sun tanning lotion” (6).

            In 1920 Coles Phillips entered the Clark Equipment Company’s “The Spirit of Transportation” competition.  While he lost to Maxfield Parrish, James Cady Ewell, and Jonas Lie, his entry took everyone by surprise.  While a number of the entries had classical themes, Coles’ had a winged, naked woman carrying a torch in front of an automobile.  Like the 1924 Miss Sunburn ad, this was more than audiences were used to seeing in such a modern style.  Despite the shock some of his work elicited, Coles’ popularity didn’t diminish.  In 1921 and 1922 the U. S. Naval Academy included his work in its yearbook, Lucky Bag.  He continued to produced advertisements as well.

            In 1924, Coles was diagnosed with tuberculosis of the kidney.  He’d been sick on and off and would continue to be so until his death.  In January of 1927, problems with his eyesight made painting increasingly difficult and so he turned to writing.  He didn’t live much longer though.  On June 13, 1927, neighbor and friend, J. C. Leyendecker took Coles and Teresa’s four children to Manhattan for the Lindbergh ticker tape parade.  While they were out, Coles died at home from his kidney problems.  He was just 47.

            Coles Phillips’ art during his lifetime and afterwards was featured on “magazine covers, illustrations and ads, postcards, posters, poster stamps, prints, book illustrations, calendars, hosiery and silverware boxes, fans, blotters, streetcar signs, and booklets” (7).  In 1993 he was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame (8).

            I’m just going to leave you with a bunch of his art (in addition to those scattered throughout this post).  I just love his techniques and the overall feel his art has.  I hope you all enjoy it as well.

1, 3, 7 - Norm Platnick, “Coles Phillips and the Fade-AwayLady,” American Art Archives.

2, 4 - Coles Phillips

5, 8 - Coles Phillips

6 - Coles Phillips: American Imagist

Gertrude Käsebier

            I chose today’s topic because her work keeps popping up for me.  Gertrude Käsebier photographed Evelyn Nesbit, who I’m fascinated by; her photos have been used on book jackets, stamps… a lot of things.  She was a portrait photographer and a co-founder of the Photo-Secession movement.  A lot of her work focused on domestic images of women.  Despite knowing all this now, I still don’t feel like I really know her.  I think I understand her art a bit better, and the changes in photography, but not really what she was doing.  Maybe writing this and rereading it will help me know her better in the future.

            Gertrude Stanton was born on May 18, 1852 in Fort Des Moines (now just Des Moines), Iowa in a log cabin.  Her parents were John W. and Gertrude Muncy Shaw Stanton, and she had a younger brother.  In 1859, John moved to Eureka Gulch and opened a sawmill hoping to make some money from the gold rush happening in Colorado; the following year the family followed.  The family moved around a lot, John trying to find gold where he could.  Eventually the family moved to Golden, the capital of the Colorado Territory; John was elected the first mayor of Golden.  The family’s new wealth and status meant they wanted bigger and better things for their children now, and so Gertrude was pushed towards music.  She resisted though, always more interested in art and pictures than anything else.

            When the Civil War broke out, the Stantons moved to Brooklyn, New York.  At the time of their move, John may have been dead already.  Some sources said that he died, and that caused the family to move; another source said that he moved with them and worked processing minerals in New York.  However it all exactly happened, the family moved to New York and Gertrude’s mother rented out rooms in their home to make money.

            From 1866 (or 1868) to 1870, Gertrude went to the Bethlehem Female Seminary (later Moravian College) in Bethlehem, PA, living with her maternal grandmother while she went to school.  She would return home to New York on occasion though, and on one of these occasions Gertrude met her future husband.  Eduard Käsebier was a German businessman, working to import shellac into the United States.  Eduard rented a room at the Stantons home on some of his trips.

            Gertrude and Eduard married on Gertrude’s twenty-second birthday, May 18, 1874.  This marriage gave Gertrude a home and family and financial stability, but not much else.  Gertrude didn’t have patience for housework and was still interested in art.  Eduard wanted a normal wife and family.  Neither person would budge and the marriage collapsed.  The couple had three children – Frederick William in 1875, Gertrude Elizabeth in 1878, and Hermine Mathilde in 1880 – but once the last child was born, the couple separated.  Gertrude once said, “If my husband has gone to Heaven, I want to go to Hell” (1).

            Despite their separation, Eduard continued to support Gertrude financially.  This support allowed Gertrude to go to art school.  Once her youngest child was grown enough, Gertrude enrolled in the Pratt Institute in 1889.  Originally she studied painting, but quickly fell in love with photography.  In 1894 she won places in two photography competitions: The Quarterly Illustrator for best photograph, winning $50, and runner up in the New York Herald’s contest.

            In 1894 Gertrude took a yearlong trip to Europe to further study art and broaden her knowledge.  She was still taking typical art photographs at this time, focusing on cityscapes and landscapes.  While she was in France, though, the weather was too bad to take pictures outside, and so Gertrude shifted to portraiture.  Also while in France, Gertrude was publishing photos and essays in French magazines.  In addition to studying in France, Gertrude studied in Germany under Hermann Wilhelm Vogel, who had also worked with Alfred Stieglitz.

            At this same time, Eduard fell ill and Gertrude returned home.  Eduard was only given one year to live, but ultimately lived another twelve.  Moving back to New York, Gertrude had to find a way to bring in an income.  She worked as an assistant to Samuel H. Lifshey, learning how to run a studio and work as a professional photographer.  In 1896 Gertrude opened her own studio in her home, moving shortly after to “the emerging upscale shopping district known as the ‘Ladies Mile’ developing rapidly along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan” (2).  This is when Gertrude’s portraits took off; she took over 150 photos of New York socialites at this time.  Her photos are reminiscent of classically painted portraits, but she always denied this comparison.

            In1896, Gertrude had her first solo show at the Boston Camera Club; this was to drum up business without being seen as commercial.  Many of her other early photographs are of friends and family and highlight the theme of motherhood.  (While Gertrude never had anything positive to say about marriage, she always showed motherhood in a positive, but realistic, light.)  Gertrude’s style became popular; she used few props and only simple backgrounds.

            Gertrude also took a number of photos of Native Americans.  Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show was very popular and was touring the country; on their stop in New York, Gertrude took their photographs.  Having grown up out West, Gertrude wanted to show the Native Americans as she saw them as they were, nothing romantic; her photos were completely different from those of Edward Curtis, who was known for his photos of Native Americans.

            In 1898, Gertrude entered some pieces into the Philadelphia Photographic Salon.  Out of 1200 entries, only 259 were picked; Gertrude had ten pieces in the Salon.  The following year Gertrude was one of the judges in addition to showing more pieces that year and in 1900.  In 1899, Gertrude showed The Manger.  The piece was purchased for $100, setting a record for photographic art.

In 1898, also, Gertrude reached out to Alfred Stieglitz, ostensibly “asking for his advice on photographing outdoors, even though she had already published outdoor photographs” (3). They had similar ideas about photography, and he started promoting her works.  In 1899, he printed five of her pieces in his journal, Camera Notes, saying she was “beyond dispute, the leading portrait photographer in the country” (4).  In 1899 Gertrude was also praised in Everybody’s Magazine, “placing her at the top of both art photography and magazine photography” (5).

Gertrude began to be known for photographs of famous people.  Between 1900 and 1902, ten of her portraits of famous people were shown in World’s Work, including Mark Twain, Arthur Twining Hadley (president of Yale), Booker T. Washington, and Jacob Riis (6).  Her photos were also being used alongside fiction as illustrations.  Unlike Jacob Riis, and fellow early female photographer Alice Austen, Gertrude Käsebier was not interested in photographing the lower classes.

Gertrude was one of the first two women elected to join the Linked Ring in England (the other being Anne Brigman).  In 1901, Gertrude travelled to Paris with Edward Steichen and photographed sculptor Auguste Rodin.  Also in 1901, in Ladies’ Home Journal, Frances Benjamin Johnson included Gertrude in a piece on “The Foremost Women Photographers of America” (7).

Gertrude’s assent in the art photography world happened very quickly.  In just over three years she had reached the “highest level of accomplishment and acclaim in art photography in the United States” (8).  In her art, Gertrude was trying to be symbolic, yet intimate.  To give her photos this dual purpose, she would rework her photos to change the appearance.  Originally Gertrude worked with platinum prints, but moved to gum-bichromate in 1901, allowing her to create a different look.

In 1902, Alfred Stieglitz formed the Photo-Secession group, including Gertrude, Clarence H. White, and Edward Steichen as founding members.  This group was an offshoot of Pictorialism.  Pictorialism is all about manipulating the image and elevating photography to an art form.  These photographers would use different focus types, print in something other than black and white, and alter their prints with brushstrokes or other surface manipulations (9).  Photo-Secessionists were artists aligned with Stieglitz’s point of view.  Stieglitz dedicated the first issue of his second journal, Camera Work, to Gertrude’s pieces.

By 1908, Gertrude’s relationship with Stieglitz was over, having been strained for years.  In 1906, she had joined the Professional Photographers of New York which was more about selling photographs.  Gertrude had to make money to support her family due to her husband’s continuing illness, and Stieglitz was opposed to commercial art.  Additionally, Gertrude also cofounded the Women’s Federation of the Photographers of America with Clarence H. White, another group Stieglitz was opposed to.  Gertrude officially resigned from the Photo-Secession in 1912.

In December 1909, Eduard finally died and was followed shortly by Gertrude’s mother in August 1910.  This began a decline in Gertrude’s output, though she still focused on portraiture.  In 1914 she opened a new studio in New York and in 1916 became one of the founding members of the Pictorial Photographers of America.  In 1925, with failing eyesight and hearing, Gertrude’s daughter Hermine joined Gertrude’s business; in 1929, though, Gertrude shut her studio.  That same year, there was a retrospective of Gertrude’s work at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences.  Gertrude Käsebier died on October 13, 1934 in Hermine’s home.

In 1979 Gertrude was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame.  In the late twentieth century there was renewed interest in Gertrude’s works.  In 1979 the Delaware Art Museum put on an exhibition of her work; in 1992 the Museum of Modern Art had an exhibition, which eventually travelled to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  In 2002, Gertrude’s best-known work, Blessed Art Thou Among Women (1899), was put on a US postage stamp.

Gertrude Käsebier was not only “one of the first American women to have a successful career as a photographer, but she was one of the first photographers anywhere to focus on the family” (10).  Her work still looks fresh, to me, and just so beautiful and atmospheric.

1 – Lori Oden, “Gertrude Kasebier,” International Photography Hall of Fame.

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 – Beverly W. Brannan, “Gertrude Käsebier,” Prints & Photographs Reading Room, The Library of Congress, 2013.

9, 10 – Steve Meltzer, "The Nearly Forgotten Mother of ModernAmerican Photography, Gertrude Käsebier,” Imaging Resource, May 12, 2012. 

Alphonse Mucha and Slav Epic

            Lastweek I discussed Alphonse Mucha’s rise to popularity.  This week we’ll look at what he considered his most important works, as well as the rest of his life and, briefly, his legacy after his death.

            Last week I briefly mentioned Mucha’s 1894 meeting of August Strindberg, and his introduction to occultism and mysticism, which he became increasingly interested in.  On December 20, 1899 he printed Le Pater, which he considered to be his printed masterpiece.  Le Pater examined occult themes in the Lord’s Prayer.  Only 510 copies were printed.  Le Pater was one of two pieces Mucha considered his masterpieces.  The other would start taking shape in in 1900.

            In 1900 the Exposition Universell took place in Paris (the 1900 World’s Fair).  This fair would celebrate the past century and its accomplishments, as well as the developments for the next century.  In 1899 Mucha was approached by the Austro-Hungarian government to create their decorations for the 1900 Exposition.  In preparation for creating these decorations, Mucha travelled to the Balkans and had the idea for what would become Slav Epic, what he considered his fine art masterpiece (more on it shortly).  Mucha ultimately decorated the Bosnia-Herzegovina Pavilion, and gave input on the Austrian Pavilion as well.

            For the Exposition, Mucha was also approached by Georges Fouquet, a jeweler, the son of the jeweler Alphonse Fouquet.  Fouquet wanted “to create a truly innovative collection” for the fair (1).  Fouquet loved the jewelry Mucha put in his artwork, and wanted to create the pieces.  The jewelry that Mucha and Fouquet created redefined jewelry at the time by choosing materials for “their aesthetic, rather than monetary, value” (2).  Mucha and Fouquet worked together for three years.

            Mucha’s work for the Exposition was award winning.  His decorations for the Bosnia-Herzegovina Pavilion won the silver prize at the Exposition, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire “made [Mucha] a Knight of the Order of Franz Josef I for his contributions to the empire” (3).  Mucha was also elected as a member to the Czech Academy of Sciences and Art.

            After the Exposition, Fouquet moved his shop.  He decided to have Mucha design everything for his new shop, inside and out, as well as all of the contents of the shop (“furniture, light fittings and showcases” (4)).  Mucha conceived of the shop as a “complete work of art” that was inspired by nature, with peacocks throughout.  In 1902, Mucha had work exhibited at the first International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art in Turin.  One of his pieces that was included was a snake bracelet that he had created with Fouquet, and owned by Sarah Bernhardt.

            In 1903, Mucha met his future wife Marie (Maruška) Chytilová.  Maruška was 22 years younger than Mucha, and had come to Paris with her relatives.  She was a student at the School of Applied Arts in Prague, and while in Paris wanted lessons with Mucha.  Luckily, her uncle was Dr. Karel Chytil, a Czech art historian; he approached Mucha, and Mucha agreed to teach Maruška, but also suggested she take classes at Académie Colarossi.  Mucha and Maruška would marry in 1906.

            In 1904 Mucha took his first trip to the United States with the help of Baroness Rothschild.  His arrival was front page news.  In attempts to raise money to create Slav Epic, Mucha tried to become a society portrait painter.  His first commission was Mrs. Wismann, a friend of Rothschild’s.  In 1905, Mucha returned to the U.S. and taught classes at the New York School of Applied Design for Women.  His classes were available to women and men and were incredibly popular.

            In 1906, after Mucha and Maruška married on June 10 in Prague, the couple travelled to Chicago where Mucha taught at the Art Institute of Chicago.  From 1906 to 1910, the Muchas visited to and travelled throughout the United States.  While Mucha was in the U.S., he was, again, trying to earn money for Slav Epic.  He began taking commissions, again, as a sort of society painter.  One of the people who hired him was Charles Richard Crane, the heir to R.T. Crane Brass and Bell Foundry.  In 1908, Crane hired Mucha to paint his two daughters.  The painting of Crane’s daughter, Josephine, depicted her as Slavia, a Slav goddess (the second painting was never finished).  Crane became very interested in Mucha’s Slav Epic idea.

            In 1908, Mucha was commissioned to decorate the interior of the newly renovated German Theater in New York.  This project consisted of five large decorative panels, the stage curtain, the foyer, the corridors, the staircase, and the auditorium.  The decorative panels included The Quest for Beauty, flanked by Comedy and Tragedy.  The theater was torn down in 1929, and only the preliminary sketches exist today.

            While the Mucha’s were in New York, their daughter, Jaroslava, was born on March 15, 1909.  Their son Jiří was born in Prague on March 12, 1915 (Jiří would become a future novelist, as well as his father’s biographer.)  That same year, Mucha worked with the actress Maude Adams.  Adams was playing Joan of Arc in Schiller’s Die Jungfrau von Orleans in a one night gala event at Harvard.  Mucha did the poster for the event, featuring Adams, and also designed the costumes and the set.  In 1909, the Muchas also vacationed in Rosice, South Moravia.  Mucha began sketching for Slav Epic while on this vacation.  Crane had decided to fund Mucha’s work for Slav Epic because he was so interested in the project.

            In late 1909, Mucha was asked by the city of Prague to do the decorations for their new municipal building.  So in 1910, Mucha returned to Prague.  The work he did at the municipal building included small panels, murals, and even the ceilings.  While in Prague, Mucha also worked on the decorations at the Theater of Fine Arts and the murals in the Mayor’s office, as well as other landmarks in the city.  The work at the Mayor’s Hall “celebrate[d] the heroic past of the Czech people and the unity of the Slav nations” (5).

            While in Prague, Mucha started working on Slav Epic.  He was meeting with specialists, and reading everything he could about Slavic history and people.  By 1912, the first three panels - The Slavs in Their Original Homeland, The Celebration of Svantovít Festival, The Introduction of the Slavonic Liturgy - were completed and presented to the city of Prague at the end of the year.  The first panel, The Slavs in Their Original Homeland, shows the persecution of the Slavic tribes by the Germanic peoples, and a promise of peace and freedom (6).

            (Mucha was immensely patriotic.  He wanted to help preserve the Czech language and culture against Germanic influences from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in any way he could.  He even helped design posters for a lottery that would raise money for Czech schools.  In 1922, Mucha would also do a poster asking “Western countries to send shipments of food and grain” to Russia after its collapse after the Revolution (7).)

            Slav Epic is a huge piece, and each panel itself is enormous.  In 1913, Mucha travelled to Paris to learn how to properly hang and light such large paintings.  In 1913 he also travelled to Russia to do research for the fourth panel, The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia.  In 1914, he presented this panel, as well as The Defence of Sziget, and The Printing of the Bible of Kralice, to Prague.  In 1916, three more canvases were presented to Prague: Milič of Kroměříž, Master Jan Hus Preaching at the Bethlehem Chapel, and The Meeting at Křížky which created the triptych, Magic of the Word.

            At the end of World War One, Czechoslovakia was founded as an independent nation, and was officially recognized in 1919.  Mucha was such a big part of Czechoslovakia and such an advocate for the Czech peoples, he was commissioned to design the new stamps, money, and other governmental documents.  In 1919, he designed the 100 crown note, followed by the 1,000, 500, 50, 20, 10, and 5, all between 1919 and 1931.

Mucha continued working on Slav Epic, and two more panels were completed in 1918 and presented to the city: Petr Chelčický at Vodńany and Jan Amos Komenský.  In 1919, the first exhibition of Slav Epic took place in the Klementinum in Prague.  Five of the completed canvases were shown: the Magic of the Word triptych, Celebration of Svantovít Festival, and The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia.  These five went on tour to the United States.  In one week in 1920 at the Art Institute of Chicago, 53,000 visitors went to see the paintings.  In 1921, the Brooklyn Museum exhibited the five canvases, as well as fifteen oil paintings, one hundred-thirty drawings, and some of Mucha’s best known posters; 600,000 visitors came to see this exhibit.

In 1923, Mucha gave three more canvases to Prague: Tsar Simeon of Bulgaria, After the Battle of Vítkor, and The Hussite King Jiří of Poděbrady.  The following year Mucha took trips to the Balkans and to Greece to do research for the remaining pieces for Slav Epic.  Three more canvases were completed that year: The Bohemian King Přemysl Otakar II, The Coronation of the Serbian Tsar Štěpán Dušan as East Roman Emperor, and After the Battle of Grünwald.  The last three pieces of Slav Epic were painted in a school auditorium in Prague: The Holy Mount, The Oath of Omladina under the Slavonic Linden Tree, and The Apotheosis of the Slavs.  The Apotheosis of the Slavs combines the themes of the other nineteen canvases; it has four sections, each a different color, each showing a different period in Slav history.

In 1928, Mucha and Crane officially give Slav Epic to Prague in celebration of Czechoslovakia’s tenth anniversary.  The completed pieces were shown during Prague’s tenth anniversary celebrations (Omladina was not yet complete).

After the completion of Slav Epic, Mucha continued taking commissions for work.  He did a stained glass in the newly restored north nave in St. Vitus’s Cathedral in Prague, and a mural for the Nymburk City Savings Bank.  In 1932, Mucha and his family moved to Nice for two years.  In 1934, France made Mucha an Officier de la Légion d’Honneur on the recommendation of President Poincaré.  In 1936, back in Czechoslovakia, Mucha began a new triptych - The Age of Love, The Age of Wisdom, The Age of Reason - which was to be for all mankind, not just Slavs.  Mucha’s health was beginning to fail and he was worried about the possibility of war, and the piece was never finished.

With the rise of fascism in the 1930s, some began to view Mucha’s works and his nationalism as “reactionary”.  Mucha was one of the first people arrested by the Gestapo when they invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939.  Mucha caught pneumonia during his interrogation and, while he was released, he was weakened.  His health continued to deteriorate and on July 14, 1939, Mucha died, just shy of his 79^th birthday.  He was buried in Slavín Cemetery in Vyšehrad, Prague.  The Germans had banned gatherings and speeches, but the Czech art scholar Max Svabinský “deliver[ed] a funeral speech to a large crowd of mourners” (8).

            This is already longer than I’d intended so I’m going to go through his legacy pretty quickly.

            When Mucha died, his style was beginning to be seen as outdated.  Because of this and the war, Slav Epic was put into storage for twenty-five years, becoming water damaged as a result.  In 1961, Jiří Mucha’s biography of his father was published and interest in Mucha began anew.  In 1962, Prague commissioned the first nine panels of Slav Epic to be restored at their new location in Moravský Krumlov’s castle (where they were stored during the war), and by 1963 those panels were displayed.  Moravský Krumlov funded the restoration of the remaining canvases.

            In the twenty-one years from 1963 to 1984, worldwide exhibitions of Mucha’s art took place, starting in London and continuing in Paris, Los Angeles, Baltimore, New York, Brussels, Tokyo, and Uppsala.  These exhibits include illustrations, posters, and photography.  In 1968, Moravský Krumlov exhibited all twenty pieces of the Slav Epic at the castle, where they would be on continuous display until 2011.

            In 1991, Jiří Mucha died, and the following year, his wife Geraldine and their son John set up the Mucha Trust and the Mucha Foundation.  The Trust and Foundation help to control copyright issues, as well as setting up exhibits and tours.  Beginning in 1993, the Foundation worked on exhibits in London, Prague, Tokyo, Lisbon, Hamburg, and Brussels.  In 1998 the Foundation opened the Mucha Museum in Prague.  Exhibitions and retrospectives continued.  There were exhibits in London and Washington, D.C., Edinburgh, China, Taiwan, Japan, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Poland, Spain, Austria.

            In 2010, Prague requested the return of Slav Epic from Moravský Krumlov.  When the move was proposed, there was a protest in Moravský Krumlov against it with more than one thousand people showing up.  In 2011, the City of Prague Gallery forcefully removed Slav Epic for return to Prague.

            So that’s Mucha.  There was a lot more to talk about than I would have guessed.  I never knew he was so politically involved or that he had created something like Slav Epic.  I only knew of Mucha from his Art Nouveau works, all pastels, pretty women, and swirling designs; that’s not bad, but there’s so much more!  I wasn’t sure where to put it in above, but Mucha was also responsible for the bringing freemasonry back to Czechoslovakia.  Mucha’s artistic influence is still seen today.  In the 1980s he influenced artists and musicians, the band Soilent Green even using one of his pieces as an album cover.  One of my favorite internet-y, pop culture-y artists, Megan Lara, does gorgeous Art Nouveau works in the style of Mucha (the tall, narrow forms).  He’s so influential and so much more interesting than I ever knew.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 – Mucha Foundation Timeline