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Thursday 4 December 2008

American beauty

The American Scene
The British Museum

Coming of Age: American Art, 1850s to 1950s
Dulwich Picture Gallery

Hung off to the left in a place of its own is the best-known lithograph by George Bellows, depicting a prizefight and somewhat obscurely called ‘A Stag at Sharkey’s’ (1917). Bellows was the poet of boxing, his dynamic images full of drama and cleverly worked human detail. There are several of his dark figure compositions on show; for a change of mood, turn to the delicately coloured still-life woodcuts of Blanche Lazzell and Grace Martin Taylor, marvels of compact pattern-making. I also liked the Milton Avery black-and-white woodcut ‘Night Nude’ (1953), a long and toughly expressive piece, quite different from his more overtly descriptive landscape ‘Drawbridge’ from 1936.

Inevitably, the skyscraper architecture of New York looms large, whether in the futuristic and geometric images of Louis Lozowick or the precisely drafted ascent of Charles Sheeler’s ‘Delmonico Building’ (1926). A group of Edward Hopper etchings introduces the theme of the so-called American Scene, mostly night subjects, with a particularly poignant view of a naked girl taking the evening wind on her skin. There are far too many beautiful and arresting prints in this show to list them all by name, but let me just mention the extraordinary light in ‘The Race’ (1942) by Thomas Hart Benton, the sensual Iowa landscape in Grant Wood’s ‘March’, the Gothic savagery of Leonard Baskin, the lucid geometry of Josef Albers and Harry Bertoia, S.W. Hayter at his serpentine finest, the flaring forms of Latvian-born Adja Yunkers, and splendid things by Pollock and Louise Bourgeois.

The catalogue by Stephen Coppel (£25 in paperback) is excellent, packed with accessible information elegantly laid out around the illustrations. This must be an inspiring show for any artist but particularly for printmakers, yet its appeal is by no means limited to the specialist: the general public will also find a great deal to enjoy. If you don’t manage to see the show in London, it is touring in 2009, to the Djanogly Art Gallery in Nottingham (January to March), Brighton Museum and Art Gallery (April to August) and then to the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. The British Museum does the best print displays I’ve seen anywhere: I can’t recommend this show highly enough.

More articles from: Andrew Lambirth | this section

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