Opinion: Art And Friendship

The exhibit now at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in Manhattan, containing many works by artists associated with the East End, is as offbeat as it is noteworthy, the kind of show not ordinarily found in a commercial space. It is a balm for the summer doldrums.

Just about everything on exhibit dates back to the '50s and early '60s, before the artists were established and, in some cases, before they had found the style for which they became known. This means that a number of surprises await viewers unacquainted with early examples of the artists' work.

On the other hand, more seasoned gallery-goers will doubtless have an entirely different take on the show. Perhaps, like my own, it will be a feeling of nostalgia, a longing for a time when most new American art was nice to look at, modest in scale, and free of gimmicks.

Respect For The Past

I might as well come right out and say it: The show has a period look. That is not to say the works look dated. It's just that the artists had some connection with and respect for the past.

First and foremost there is Fairfield Porter, who for so many years lived in Southampton, where his widow, the poet Anne Porter, still lives. Their large, rambling house on South Main Street was the setting for many of his paintings.

A simple oil on board he did in 1950 is the earliest work in the show. A densely painted landscape, it has nothing in common with his familiar plein air paintings that came later.

Fairfield Porter

There are three other Porters on display, and they are unmistakably his - gentle, beautiful works in the American grain.

Chief among them is an oil portrait of Roland F. Pease that is as good as any of the artist's works in this vein. (All the selections in the show are from Mr. Pease's collection and will eventually go to the Vassar College Museum of Art.)

This thoughtful, evocative portrait caused my nostalgia to take an unexpected turn: I found myself reflecting upon certain aspects of the artist's unusual career.

Overdue Recognition

It seems incredible now, but recognition was a long time in coming. This was partly due to the reluctance of galleries to show his work and partly, I suspect, because Porter thought of himself as an art critic - as indeed he should have, since he was one of the best.

As is well known, artist friends who admired his work persuaded the old Tibor de Nagy Gallery to give him a show. The first exhibit was in 1952, when Porter was 45.

Think of it! Can you imagine an artist in today's art world waiting that long to show his work? What's more astonishing, Willem de Kooning was about the same age as Porter when he had his first one-man show.

The Women

As I moved through the gallery, it gradually dawned on me that a surprising number of things were by women. Elaine de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Nell Blaine, Jane Freilicher, Jane Wilson, Grace Hartigan - they had all exhibited at this venerable gallery, and here they were together in the same room!

Now I began to think about other women in the group, women of the same generation: Joan Mitchell, Marisol, Mary Abbott, and Fay Lansner came to mind. Perhaps Lee Krasner's name should be added, though she - like her arch-enemy Elaine de Kooning - was somewhat older.

Some of these women were more successful than others, but they all went on to sustain long and in some instances important careers. However, even when they were starting out, they did pretty well - as well, perhaps, as women in today's art world.

Compromises

No doubt they felt that accommodations and compromises had to be made.

For example, Grace Hartigan first showed under the name of George Hartigan, Elaine de Kooning painted under her husband's good name, and Helen Frankenthaler was significantly helped by her relationship with Clement Greenberg.

But the point is, they persevered and they succeeded.

Then I came to the Frankenthaler in the show, a luminous all-over abstraction from 1957. Unexpectedly, it put into perspective my ruminations on female artists.

In Perspective

I was reminded of the 1970 Metropolitan Museum of Art survey of American painting and sculpture from 1940 to 1970. The charismatic Henry Geldzahler was the curator, and he came under fire for many reasons, not least because only one woman was represented, the painter whose work I was now scrutinizing.

Could something like that happen today? Could a curator hope to get away with it? Not with those guerrilla women around. (They are still around, aren't they?)

Conclusion: Women in the arts are definitely better off now, in the wake of feminism.

Grace Hartigan

Yet it's hard to imagine that Grace Hartigan could have done any better. Hers was a bold, somewhat crude form of Abstract Expressionism that so impressed the powers-that-be at the Museum of Modern Art that she gained admission into its collection early on.

She was on her way; that was all it took to make her well-known, even famous. But her fame was short-lived, and the painting purchased by the Modern - was it "Grand Street Brides"? - has not been on exhibit there in many years.

Let me add that I greatly admired her 1953 painting, "Venus and Adonis (After Rubens)." A gauzy affair predominantly in pink, it delightfully suggests the Rubens work.

Rivers Still-Life

I also especially liked the watercolor landscapes by Jane Freilicher and the late Nell Blaine. While Ms. Freilicher has received wide and well-deserved recognition, Ms. Blaine was in her lifetime an artist's artist who seemed destined for a posthumous reputation.

Since Larry Rivers is one of our own, having lived in Southampton for better than 40 years, I feel it incumbent to mention the small, wonderful work of his that Mr. Pease acquired in 1953.

A modest, utterly simple still-life, it is nothing more than a hint of a vase and two flowers, painted in the artist's early touch-and-go style. What it possesses is a delicacy and tenderness eschewed by Mr. Rivers in his later works, which are less intimate and more hard-hitting.

Surprising Grooms

The show also includes a skinny, vertical Kenneth Noland painting that looks like a Barnett Newman, several works by Robert Goodnough that remind one how good this neglected painter is, several Modernist abstractions by another neglected artist, Maurice Golubov, and a work by an artist who is anything but neglected or underrated.

That artist is Red Grooms. His small oil on wood is the surprise of the show, because nobody could possibly suspect that he painted it.

"House at Night" is its title and subject, and it is as unique and haunting as one of the great little paintings of the reclusive painter of Water Mill, Albert York. I can think of no greater praise.

I failed to mention the show's title, "Art and Friendship." What Mr. Pease means to suggest, as I understand him, is that he did not set out to become an art collector; it just happened - through friendship, after the late Tibor de Nagy introduced him to his artists and their works.

The gallery is open Monday through Friday until Aug. 8, after which it will be closed until Sept. 2. When it reopens, the show can be seen through Sept. 13.