DC -- Donald W. Reynolds Center (Archives of American Art) -- Exhibit: A Day in the Life: Artists' Diaries:
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Description of Pictures: A Day in the Life: Artists' Diaries from the Archives of American Art
September 26, 2014 – February 28, 2015
Reading an artist’s diary is the next best thing to being there. Direct and private, diaries provide firsthand accounts of appointments made and met, places seen, and work in progress—all laced with personal ruminations, name-dropping, and the occasional sketch or doodle. Whether recording historic events or simple day-to-day moments, these diary entries evoke the humanity of these artists and their moment in time.
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
SIPGDY_141018_001.JPG: A Day in the Life
Artists' Diaries from the Archives of American Art
SIPGDY_141018_007.JPG: A Day in the Life: Artists' Diaries from the Archives of American Art
September 26, 2014 to February 28, 2015
Reading an artist's diary is the next best thing to being there. Direct and private, diaries provide firsthand accounts of appointments made and met, places seen, and work in progress -- all laced with personal ruminations, name-dropping, and the occasional sketch or doodle.
Whether recording historic events or simple day-to-day moments, these diary entries evoke the humanity of these artists and their moment in time.
SIPGDY_141018_015.JPG: Frederick Hammersley diary, 1952-1956, bulk 1952-1954
Creator: Frederick Hammersley
1952–1954
Frederick Hammersley spent most of his career in the Los Angeles area, where he developed colorful paintings in the style known as hard-edge abstraction. In 1951 he began a five-year diary but only persisted through three years. In his small, angular handwriting, he summarized the events of each day, focusing on school and studio work. His handwriting remains consistent through the diary, but each year is carefully colorblocked. As a result, the diary mimics the aesthetic of his paintings.
SIPGDY_141018_024.JPG: Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney journal, vol. 1, 1890 May 10 - September 14
Creator: Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
MAY 30, 1890
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was born into wealth and privilege. As a teenager, she began keeping diaries, a habit she maintained well into her 60s. In 1890 she traveled to Paris, where she visited numerous museums and the newly opened Eiffel Tower and tried her first "gin lime" (also known as a gimlet). On May 30, Whitney confessed that she had not wanted to visit the famous Louvre: I DID NOT MUCH LIKE THE IDEA OF GOING TO THE LOUVRE, I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE STUPID FOR ME, BUT INDEED IT WAS NOT; NO FAR FROM THAT; I ENJOYED IT VERY MUCH. In 1928, Whitney founded the Whitney Studio Club, an art gallery that eventually became the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1931.
SIPGDY_141018_030.JPG: Margaret Tupper True diary concerning Allen Tupper True as a baby, 1881-1891
Creator: Margaret Tupper True
MARGARET TUPPER TRUE'S DIARY OF BABY ALLEN TUPPER TRUE
AUGUST 29, 1881
Allen Tupper True painted dramatic scenes of the American West. He was born in 1881 in Colorado to Henry True, a cattle rancher and mercantile salesman, and Margaret True, a schoolteacher. Margaret kept a journal during the early years of Allen's life, lovingly documenting the milestones in his development.
SIPGDY_141018_039.JPG: Reginald Marsh diary, 1912
Creator: Reginald Marsh
MAY 27, 1912
Though Reginald Marsh was a lifelong free-lance illustrator for the New Yorker, Esquire, and many other national magazines, he is best known for his paintings of New York nightclubs and street scenes in the 1930s and '40s. Marsh's 1912 diary, when he was 14, shows his early talent for illustration. On May 27, he sketched and described a recent track practice. The boys rigged together a high jump standard with rope and easels borrowed from Marsh's father, muralist Fred Dana Marsh.
SIPGDY_141018_049.JPG: Oscar Bluemner painting diary, 1911 June 12 - 1912 Jan. 30
Creator: Oscar Bluemner
NOVEMBER 23 1911
Oscar Bluemner's art evolved directly from his painting diaries, which he kept from 1911 to 1936. Trained as an architect in Germany, Bluemner had an architect's penchant for planning. On walking tours of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, with his painting diary in hand, he made rough outlines of landscapes and plotted complex color arrangements. Each sketch from nature was a blueprint of light, line, mass, shadow, and color. Later he embellished his books with additional studies and extensive notes. ONE RULE, wrote Bluemner, DRAW AND PAINT, EQUALLY, CONSTANTLY, SEPARATELY, THINKING, FEELING.
SIPGDY_141018_055.JPG: Helen Torr Dove and Arthur Dove diary, 1936
Creator: Helen Torr Dove
SEPTEMBER 28–29, 1936
The daily activities of Arthur Dove were typically recorded by his wife, Helen Torr Dove. But in 1936, Helen had to abruptly leave the family farm in Geneva, New York, to help her ailing mother. Dove assumed diary duties in her absence. He often recorded the temperature and barometric pressure in notes on the day's weather. For a span of three months, he sketched enigmatic circles. Perhaps the multi-colored shadings were Dove's system for tracking the phases of the moon. Shortly after the diary ended, Dove depicted the moon in two paintings, The Moon Was Laughing at Me and Me and the Moon.
SIPGDY_141018_065.JPG: Diary entry, which recounts the news of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination and funeral procession, 1865 Apr.
Creator: Rubens Peale
APRIL 23, 1865
Peale was 81 when he recorded the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865. On April 23, Peale stood in line for most of the morning attempting to view Lincoln's body in Philadelphia, but pressing crowds forced him to give up. That evening he and his daughter Mary were allowed to enter a back door: A FINE OPPORTUNITY OF VIEWING THE CORPSE AND DECORATIONS OF THE HALL, WHICH WAS TOTALLY COVERED WITH BLACK CLOTH EXCEPT THE STATUE & PORTRAITS OF GENERAL WASHINGTON & WIFE. I STAID [SIC] ONE HOUR AND LEFT MARY GAZING ON THE CORPSE, SHE INTENDING TO PAINT A PORTRAIT OF HIM.
SIPGDY_141018_104.JPG: Henry Mosler Civil War diary, 1862
Creator: Henry Mosler
OCTOBER 9, 1862
Born in New York City, Henry Mosler first gained recognition in 1862 as a Civil War illustrator for Harper's Weekly. Mosler, then 21, kept a small pocket diary in 1862 while serving with the Union Army in Kentucky as a volunteer aide-de-camp to General R.W. Johnson and as an artist correspondent for Harper's. Though only 37 pages long, the diary provides a firsthand account of the suffering and weariness of war. He wrote, TODAY WE SKIRMISHED AND ADVANCED IN LINE OF BATTLE IN PERRYVILLE AND FOUND IT EVACUATED. IN THE EVENING COL. BLAKE COTTON AND MYSELF WENT OUT TO VIEW THE BATTLEFIELD WHICH WAS A SIGHT THAT I HAVE NOT THE POWER TO EXPRESS.
SIPGDY_141018_114.JPG: Cecilia Beaux diary, 1912
Creator: Cecilia Beaux
APRIL 16, 1912
Cecilia Beaux's talents as a portrait painter were highly sought after during the late 1800s and early 1900s. In April 1912, she was working in New York on a series of portrait commissions from the social and political elite, when news of the sinking of the Titanic reached the United States. Beaux was strongly affected by the incident; she wrote, NO ONE SPEAKS OF ANYTHING BUT THE GREAT HORROR. A MOST UNJUST AND UNNECESSARY BLUNDER OR RATHER STUPID RECKLESS CARELESSNESS OF EVERYTHING BY SPEED FOR THE RICH. I AM KEEPING THE RECORD.
SIPGDY_141018_125.JPG: William Christopher diary of march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, 1965 March 13-15
Creator: William R. (William Rodolphus) Christopher
MARCH 15, 1965
In March 1965, artist-activist William Christopher traveled to Selma, Alabama, in support of the Civil Rights Movement. In the previous week, state troopers had attacked protest marchers in Selma, and a white mob inflicted a fatal beating on James Reeb, a Unitarian minister. On March 15, Christopher attended Reeb's memorial service, at which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the eulogy. Afterwards, Christopher joined the crowd that marched with Dr. King to the Selma courthouse to lay a wreath in Reeb's honor.
SIPGDY_141018_154.JPG: Abraham Rattner diary, 1939 September 1 - October 28
Creator: Abraham Rattner
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
Born in Poughkeepsie, New York, Abraham Rattner studied at the Corcoran School of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. After traveling abroad in 1919 on a year-long scholarship he established a studio in Paris, where he remained until September 1939 and the beginning of World War II. Rattner wrote about fleeing Paris. On September 1, Germany invaded Poland, and on September 3, France, along with Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, declared war on Germany.
SIPGDY_141018_163.JPG: Janice Lowry journal 93
Janice Lowry journal 93, 2001 July 12-December 3
Creator: Janice Ann Lowry
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
Janice Lowry's journals are evidence of her passion for assemblage. In each she combines verbal and visual expression with a variety of techniques and material -- ink pens, colored pencils, collage materials, stamps, and watercolors -- to create highly personal documents that embody her lifelong commitment to the everyday. On September 11, 2001, Lowry commented on terrorist attacks as they unfolded. She concluded that, THE ONLY SOLUTION IS FOR ME TO DO ORDINARY THINGS, JUST REGULAR THINGS.
SIPGDY_141018_198.JPG: Karl and Marion Zerbe diary, 1940
Creator: Karl Zerbe
DECEMBER 31, 1940
German-born expressionist Karl Zerbe and his wife, Marion, often hosted New Year's Eve parties for their circle of friends in the Boston art scene. His diary entries on January 1 provide a colorful record of these events. The handmade menus and snapshots of decorated rooms suggest the gaiety of the night's festivities, along with Zerbe's reflections on his hangover.
SIPGDY_141018_214.JPG: F. LUIS MORA (1874-1940)
PAINTER, ILLUSTRATOR
F. Luis Mora wrote in more than 242 pocket diaries, dating from 1899 to 1920. Each pocket-sized diary contains the events of a month. Mora wrote of meetings and projects with the Salmagundi Club and the National Academy of Design in New York City. He commented on the work of his art students and the quality of art in local galleries. He often included thumbnail sketches as graphic shorthand for an activity, such as his visit to the 1913 Armory Show, about which he wrote: IT WAS THE PURPLE HIPPOPATAMUS IN THE REAR TENT THAT ATTRACTED THE CROWD AT THE 69TH REGIMENT ARMORY SHOW. THAT THEY CALL A SUCCESSFUL ART EVENT. IT WAS ART -- ART IN ADVERTISING.
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2014 photos: Equipment this year: I mostly used my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000.
Trips this year:
three Civil War Trust conferences (Winchester, VA, Nashville, TN, and Atlanta, GA),
Michigan to visit mom in the hospice before she died and then a return trip after she died, and
my 9th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Las Vegas, Reno, Carson City, Sacramento, Oakland, and Los Angeles).
Ego strokes: Paul Dickson used one of my photos as the author photo in his book "Aphorisms: Words Wrought by Writers".
Number of photos taken this year: just over 470,000.
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