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| John Marin, Weehawken Sequence, no. 16.144, about 1916. (c) Estate of John Marin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens |
The
Huntington's Art Collectors Council has bolstered the institution's American collection by purchasing two John Marin paintings from the pivotal Weehawken Sequence (about 1916); a Romare Bearden collage,
Blue Monday (1969); a set of 32 color soft ground etchings by four Gee's Bend quilt makers; a Louis Comfort Tiffany side chair (early 1890s).
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| John Marin, Weehawken Sequence, no. 16.97, about 1916. (c) Estate of John Marin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens |
For over 40 years, John Marin was the most famous American abstractionist. The Huntington paintings, each about 12 by 9 inches, are from a series of over a hundred small, semi-abstract views of the Weehawken, New Jersey, waterfront. They were among the earliest and most influential abstractions produced in America. Despite his influence, there were no Marin paintings in any Los Angeles collection until now. LACMA has
two watercolors.
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| Romare Bearden, Blue Monday, 1969. (c) 2019 Romare Bearden Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens |
The Romare Bearden is also unique as the artist's first collage in a local collection. Bearden turned to collage in 1963 and quickly made it his defining medium. That was recognized in his 1971 show at the Museum of Modern Art (which included
Blue Monday).
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| Loretta Bennett, No Way, No Way, 2007. Courtesy of the Artist and Paulson Fontaine Press. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens |
The Bearden is part of an ongoing effort to add African-African artists to the survey of American art in the Huntington's Virginia Steele Scott Galleries. So are the Gee's Bend etchings. In 2005 Paulson Fontaine Press, Berkeley, invited six Gee's Bend (Alabama) quilt makers to create prints. The artists in the Huntington purchase are Mary Lee Bendolph, Louisiana Bendolph, Loretta Bennett, and Loretta Pettway. The soft ground etching technique allowed them to press actual quilts into printing plates, to create original works on paper.
Reviewing a 2002 Whitney Museum show,
Michael Kimmelman praised the Gee's Bend quilts as "some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced." The etchings, drawing on a long tradition of practical abstraction, are an interesting counterpoint to the Weehawken pictures.
A Louis Comfort Tiffany side chair, dated about 1891-83, becomes the Huntington's first piece of Tiffany furniture. Carved from primavera and American ash, it's fitted with metal micro-mosaic marquetry and rests on glass balls enclosed by brass claws.
The new works are expected to go on view in the coming months.
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| Louis Comfort Tiffany, Side Chair, about 1891-93. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens |
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| Back of Louis Comfort Tiffany Side Chair. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens |
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