Big Easy Graduation

 

Graduation Celebration – The Big Easy

Sundance, my brother (formerly known as James O’Connell Morgan Jr.), started his college career at Georgetown University in 1962. He has always exemplified the word “potential”.  He was, at the same time, a victim of high expectations (peers, parental, and anyone who knew him). I recall my older brother being coddled after he broke his collar bone as the Junior Varsity Quarterback at Saint Ignatius. I kid him to this day about that time when he was sipping a beverage from a bendy stray on a makeshift recovery bed set up in front of his very own TV set in the living room as the boy QB prince of Edgewater Drive.

His journey included two suspensions from Jesuit Georgetown, a study abroad (that yielded no academic credit), and a stint as a football teammate at the University of San Francisco (another Jesuit school). He also served in the Navy. (Upon discharge he postponed his academic pursuits in favor of stints in flooring sales, restaurant wait staff, and hotel hospitality work. He landed in Miami and eventually New Orleans.) Fast forward five decades and Sundance becomes a fixture at City Park as a tennis instructor. One of his students (Dawn) convinced him to explore dramatic arts at Delgado CC for which he would earn an associate’s degree. Now eligible for some government assistance our hero matriculated to the University of New Orleans and applied his newly refreshed academic discipline to earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Inter-disciplinary Studies in 2021.

This is cause for celebration. Morgan siblings descend on the Big Easy from Tampa (Greg), Cleveland (Dan), Novato, California (Rob), Columbus, Ohio (Lynn), and Saint Louis (Wes). Sundance donned a graduation cap as we gathered at the Five Guys Restaurant near his house in Mid City NOLA. This family gathering swelled to nine with the addition of Lynn’s granddaughter Colleen and Greg’s boys Wes (the Lesser) and Matt. Greg is in charge of logistics as Uber shuttle between two hotels and the restaurant.

At the restaurant, the Morgan party draws straws for original sketches by our father dating back to 1940s WWII era (framed by Rob); open envelopes of random photos selected for each of the siblings (assembled by Wes); nosh on burgers and fries served up by Greg. (He catered to our table and picked up the check as well.) Sundance presented each of his siblings with a custom money clip as a token of appreciation. Yesterday, a sibling gift pack (from Dan) and a round of "Happy Birthday to you" could be heard from the hotel suite occupied by Dan, Lynn and the 12-year old Colleen. Wes (The Lesser) and Matt took turns focusing smart phone cameras for the obligatory over documentation of the event.

Part II of the celebration is hosted by Bernie in her fabulous mid-century home where the evening includes wine, beer and a buffet style spread in the kitchen. It is here we begin to get a sense of the impact of Sundance on the community he has built over 20+ years in New Orleans. A prominent banner (Congratulations Sundance) is pool-side along white tablecloth rounds of four. Toasts are offered over champagne leading to a hearty rendition of “for he’s a jolly good fellow, nobody can deny”.

The world revolves around Sundance on this day. However, sports fans from Tampa (Greg and his boys) along with Wes and Rob camp out in front of big screens for 3 ½ hours of Stanley Cub playoff hockey between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers (At Manning’s Sports Bar and Grill on Fulton Street). The series is not conclusive on Thursday Night (at two games to one) after the Panthers prevail avoiding elimination. Meanwhile Lynn and Dan with Colleen in tow show up just as we are departing Archie Manning’s restaurant. Rob has sponsored rounds of servings of nachos, poppers, catfish sticks, fried shrimp bits, topped off with a round of beignets (which he claims totaled under an expected price tag in the range of a night out with his wife Joy on a California date night). Dan, Lynn and Colleen still need to be fed. Greg saves the day again with a local pizza delivered to the Aster Crown Plaza Hotel on Canal Street in the French Quarter.  

Friday Night Rob insists on viewing Golden State Warriors vs. Memphis Grizzlies “play-in” game. This contest ends in disappointment for Rob into the evening hours. The 117-112 Memphis overtime victory doesn’t count for stats because of the Covid-19 truncated season. Rob, Greg and his boys are just loud enough in the adjoining room for Wes to know that the Golden State team is finished for the season. He goes back to sleep because Uber Greg is the shuttle ride to MSY (Louis Armstrong Airport) early on Saturday morning so Wes and Rob can exit the Big Easy for California and Missouri.

Meg and Parker visit Saint Louis Art Museum

  

My wonderful niece and her husband are on a bit of a road trip and will be traveling through Saint Louis from Kansas City. They know I am a huge fan of the art museum and agree to make a stop to visit before returning to their suburban home outside Nashville, TN. The plan is to spend some time at the museum. In preparation, I cannot help but go into docent mode. I settled on a dozen artists I hoped to highlight. 

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), In particular his mother and child painting done when he was just 20. (Tomorrow is Mothers Day after all).

Henri Matisse (1869-1954), The Fauvist was 11 years older than Picasso but they became lifelong friends. I love this painting inside but with a peak outside in Nice, France.

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) He left us too soon at 37 years of age. The museum has an awesome painting by the Post Impressionist. This painting was done in the frantic productivity of that last year of his life in 1890.

Aristide Maillol (1861-1944) The French Sculpture’s The Mountain features his Muse Dina Vierny (1919-2009) in the sculpture garden. His Muse honored the artist by establishing a museum collection of Aristide Maillol works in Paris. (The Mountain is made of lead. I discovered another at the Columbus Museum of Art.)

Claude Monet (1840-1926) The water lilies painting at our museum is one of three panels that were in the artist’s studio at Giverny when he died. The three water lilies paintings (a triptych) were acquired by Nelson Atkins Museum in KC, Saint Louis Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Monet is the reason for the term Impressionism. (He was among the first to show in 1874 with the group of artists too often rejected by the Salon).

Edgar Degas (1834-1917) He was also among the original French Impressionists. His wax model of a little dancer of 14 years was in the sixth showing of the Impressionists in 1881. It was cast in bronze and our museum has one on display. (Another bronze cast is at the Metropolitan in NYC.)

Max Beckmann (1884-1950) Labeled by the Germans a “degenerate artist” The Expressionist was forced to flee (first to Holland and later to Saint Louis to teach in 1947 to Washington University-Saint Louis). We visited the Max Beckman self portrait. He was on his way to see this self-portrait on view at the Met in New York when he has a heart attack In 1950. He never made it. RIP Max Beckmann.

Robert Henri (1865-1929) American leader of the Ashcan School. The dramatic dancer painting from 1916 shows his brush technique. Well this painting was replaced on this day by a nice landscape scene by George Wesley Bellows. The Ashcan School is an entirely separate art lecture and maybe best done in Philadelphia. Meg and Parker are a great audience and I would truly love an excuse to lead them on another museum tour. (Cleveland, Philly, Fort Lauderdale....TBD)

Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) - Midwest Regionalism and muralist. Jackson Pollock studies with this American Artist before Abstract Expressionism and New York City became the center of the art world.

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) - Pollock in the 1940s was leader of Abstract Expressionism. Another life cut short tragically. He was only 43 when a car accident killed him somewhere on Long Island.

Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015) – Studied at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY Color Field Painter. Spectrum II is proudly on display in the Saint Louis Art Museum East Building addition. He might have crossed paths with my father James O’Connell Morgan who attended Pratt and like Kelly was an expert in camouflage techniques.

Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929) Sculpture/Pop Art. The electrical plug in front of museum is another everyday object from popular culture. KC museum has Oldenburg badminton shuttlecocks and downtown Cleveland has a FREE stamp by this artist. This artist, I mentioned to Meg & Parker (by the way) is the only artist on this list who is still alive.

 

Max Beckmann self-portrait with cigarette, Claud Monet water lilies,  Picasso (at age 20) Mother, Matisse in Nice, van Gogh at age 37, Degas little dancer age 14 years, Aristide Maillol Mountain (muse), Jackson Pollock, Ellsworth Kelly Spectrum II, Thomas Hart Benton, Claes Oldenburg 3-way plug, Robert Henri (not present at SLAM today)

Wes Morgan Megan and Parker Millsap at the Saint Louis Art Museum May 8, 2021 

The Ashcan School

 

McSorley's, 1912 by John Sloan 

About 1900, a group of realists artists set themselves apart from and challenged the American Impressionists and academics. The most extensively trained member of this group was Robert Henri (1865–1929), who had studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1886 to 1888 under Thomas Anshutz (1851–1912). Anshutz had himself studied at the Pennsylvania Academy from 1876 to 1882 with Thomas Eakins, who had defied Victorian decorum in his teaching principles and in his boldly realistic paintings. Eakins would become the lodestar to Henri and his associates. After spending the years from 1888 to 1891 working at the Académie Julian in Paris, Henri taught at the School of Design for Women in Philadelphia and gave private art classes in and around that city and, during return visits to France, in and around Paris.

Beginning in 1892, Henri also became the mentor to four Philadelphia Illustrators — William James Glackens (1870–1938), George Luks (1866–1933), Everett Shinn (1876–1953), and John Sloan (1871–1951)—who worked together at several local newspapers and gathered to study, share studios, and travel. Between late 1896 and 1904, they all moved to New York, where Henri himself settled in 1900.

Henri and his former-Philadelphia associates comprised the first generation of what came to be known as the Ashcan School. A second generation consisted of Henri’s New York students, of whom George Bellows (1882–1925) was the most devoted. The term Ashcan School was suggested by a drawing by Bellows captioned Disappointments of the Ash Can, which appeared in the Philadelphia Record in April 1915; was invoked by cartoonist Art Young in a disparaging critique that appeared in the New York Sun in April 1916; and was given curatorial currency by Holger Cahill and Alfred H. Barr Jr. in a 1934 exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Although the Ashcan artists were not an organized “school” and espoused somewhat varied styles and subjects, they were all urban Realists who supported Henri’s credo—“art for life’s sake,” rather than “art for art’s sake.” They also presented their works in several important early twentieth-century New York exhibitions, including a group show at the National Arts Club in 1904; the landmark show of The Eight at Macbeth Galleries in February 1908, which included the five senior Ashcan School painters along with Ernest Lawson (1873–1939), Maurice Prendergast (1858–1924), and Arthur B. Davies (1862–1928); the Exhibition of Independent Artists in 1910; and the Armory Show—an immense display dominated by modern European art—in 1913.

In their paintings as in their illustrations, etchings and lithographs, Henri and his fellow Ashcan artists concentrated on portraying New York’s vitality and recording its seamy side, keeping a keen eye on current events and their era’s social and political rhetoric. Stylistically, they depended upon the dark palette and gestural brushwork of Diego Valazquez, Frans Hals, Francisco de Goya,, Honoré Daumier, and recent Realists such as Wilhelm Leibl, Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas. They preferred broad, calligraphic forms, which they could render “on the run” or from memory, thereby enlisting skills that most of them had cultivated as newspaper illustrators.

Although the Ashcan artists advocated immersion in modern actualities, they were neither social critics nor reformers and they did not paint radical propaganda. While they identified with the vitality of the lower classes and resolved to register the dismal aspects of urban existence, they themselves led pleasant middle-class lives, enjoying New York’s restaurants and bars, its theater and vaudeville, and its popular nearby resorts such as Coney Island. Because they avoided civil unrest, class tensions, and the grit of the streets, their works are never as direct or disturbing as those of their European counterparts or of the reformist images of American photographers such as Jacob Riis.

The Ashcan artists selectively documented an unsettling, transitional time in American culture that was marked by confidence and doubt, excitement and trepidation. Ignoring or registering only gently harsh new realities such as the problems of immigration and urban poverty, they shone a positive light on their era. Along with the American Impressionists, the Ashcan artists defined the avant-garde in the United States until the 1913 Armory Show introduced to the American public the works of true modernists Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and others.

Henri and most of his Ashcan colleagues continued to paint—even into the 1940s, in the case of Sloan and Shinn. Although their creativity waned and their pioneering character faded, they infused some of their late canvases with their earlier vigor

H. Barbara Weinberg The American Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art April 2010.

Stag at Sharkey's 1909 by George Wesley Bellows  - on view at Cleveland Museum of Art