The Industrial Visions of Paul R. Meltsner (Art Digest Magazine, 1936)The artist Paul R. Meltsner (1905 - 1966) was one of many WPA artists given to depicting sweaty, mal-nourished proletarians laboring in the fore-ground of smoke-plagued, industrial cityscapes and his work can be found today in the vaults of every major American museum. This is a 1936 art review covering his one-man show at the Midtown Galleries in New York:
"Meltsner builds his pictures everyday scenes of industrial life, dedicating them to labor and the machine...He gets broad vitality in his forms and force in his compositions, relieving at the same time the usual drabness of such scenes by a tonic of color."
Another 1936 article about Paul Meltsner can be read here.
Max Beckman Since the War (Art Digest Magazine, 1946)Max Beckmann (1884 – 1950), having fled to Holland from his native Germany in order to escape Hitler, arrived in New York shortly after the end of the war and wasted no time in securing an aggressive dealer eager to arrange liasons between him and the the post-war dollar. "The first exhibition of Max Beckman's work since 1941 is currently being held at the Bucholz Gallery in New York. Director Kurt Valentin has assembled for this event important examples of Beckman's brush dating from 1939 to the present...Among the many drawings particularly remembered are a satirical 'Radio Singer' and a tongue-in-cheek 'Anglers', along with 'Head Waiters'." MoMA Purchased Paintings from the Degenerate Art Exhibit (Art Digest Magazine, 1939)"The art that Hitler has exiled as 'degenerate' is finding ready homes in other lands that have not yet been culturally crushed beneath the heel of Europe's twin tyrannies: Fascism and Communism. Because Hitler has embraced the calendar decoration as the supreme art form, the Museum of Modern Art in New York has been able to acquire five works that formerly were housed in prominent museums.
The article lists the purchased works.
Click here to read about the Nazi "Art Battalions"...
The First N.Y. Exhibit of Paris Art Made During the Occupation (Art Digest Magazine, 1946)"Recent paintings from Paris have been brought to New York by Pierre Matisse (1900 – 1989) and are now on view at his 57th Street Gallery [at the Fuller Building]. Represented are the Pierre Bonnard, Jean Dubuffet, Andre Marchand, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Rouault." Stuart Davis: Thirty Years of Evolution (Art Digest Magazine, 1945)A review of the Stuart Davis (1892 – 1964) retrospective that opened at New York's Museum of Modern Art in the fall of 1945. The artist referred to his influences: "In my own case I have enjoyed the dynamic American scene for many years, and all my pictures (including the ones I painted in Paris) are referential to it. They all have their originating impulse in the impact of [the]contemporary American environment."
New York Exhibit for Le Corbusier (Art Digest Magazine, 1946)A brief art review from 1946 announcing an exhibition of paintings, drawings, photographs, architectural plans and models by the modern architect Le Corbusier (né Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, 1887 – 1965) at the Mezzanine Gallery in Rockefeller Center.
"Along with Ozenfant, Le Corbusier invented Purism. The earliest painting in the collection, and the only one of that period (1920), which is familiar to art audiences as part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art."
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