Saint Louis Art Museum Visit

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life With his illness exacting an increasing toll on his daily activities, the last months of Vincent van Gogh's life were nevertheless his most productive. Amid gradually increasing recognition for his work, he entered a period of extreme fruitfulness during his final 60 days on earth. Vincent was establishing an entirely fresh Post-Impressionistic style as he advanced toward the day of his death, July 29, 1890, at the age of 37.

Max Beckmann (1884-1950) Max Beckmann was a German painter widely regarded as one of the major figures of the Expressionist and New Objectivity movements. He was born on February 12, 1884 in Leipzig, Germany. As a young man he studied the works of Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Peter Paul Rubens. Beckmann served as a medic during World War I, his distorted angles, cynical self-portraits, and depictions of the grotesque aspects of humanity are often attributed to the trauma of his war-time experience. In 1933, the Nazi government dismissed him from his teaching position at the Stadel Art School in Frankfurt, and in 1937, he and his wife fled to Amsterdam where they lived for the next decade. After World War II, he was offered a position to teach at Washington University in St. Louis, and so he and his wife moved to America. Beckmann taught in different cities before settling in New York, where he was appointed as a faculty member at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. The artist died on December 27, 1950 in New York, NY.

https://www.pbs.org/video/broad-and-high-max-beckmann-st-louis-art-museum/

Robert Henri (1865-1929) Robert Henri was an American painter known for his use of lively brushstrokes and simplified forms. Henri’s preoccupation with Édouard Manet and his depictions of urban life were influential to the young Ashcan School painters John Sloan and George Bellows. Born Robert Henry Cozad on June 25, 1865 in Cincinnati, OH, the artist changed his name around 1882 in order to dissociate himself from his father who had recently killed a man. Henri went on to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia before continuing his education in Paris. Returning to Philadelphia in 1891, Henri befriended the younger painters Sloan and Bellows, who were working as newspaper illustrators at the time. As the artist began teaching a younger generation of painters, first in Philadelphia then at the Art Students League in New York, he became increasingly interested in pedagogical techniques, and later published the seminal book The Art Spirit in 1923. During his time teaching, he had a number of students that went on to become successful in their own right, including Stuart Davis, Edward Hopper, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi. Henri spent much of the latter part of his career travelling and painting in New Mexico and Ireland. The artist died on July 12, 1929 in New York, NY. 

Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) Thomas Hart Benton was an American artist whose paintings, lithographs, and murals contributed to the Regionalist movement. Along with John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood, Benton captured rural American life during the 1920s and 1930s. His large-scale works functioned as commentaries on societal injustices. Reflecting the values of the working class, the artist often focused his attention on the plight of farmers in the Industrial Age. “I have a sort of inner conviction that for all the possible limitations of my mind,” he reflected. “I have come to something that is in the image of America and the American people of my time.” Born on April 15, 1889 in Neosho, MO, Benton started his career as a commercial illustrator before enrolling at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1907. Moving to Paris a year later, where he met and fell under the influence of the Mexican artist Diego Rivera. Returning to the United States during World War I, by the early 1920s he had distinguished himself as an outspoken opponent to abstraction. This change in attitude was inspired by a reappraisal of his Midwestern roots and a desire to make work that everyday people could appreciate. He went on to teach at the Art Students League in New York, where one of his pupils included the young Jackson Pollock. The artist died on January 19, 1975 in Kansas City, MO, where his former home and studio are currently a historic site and museum honoring his legacy. 

Morris Louis (1912-1962) Morris Louis was an American painter and founding member of the Washington Color School movement of the 1950s. His inventive painting technique utilizing vertical stains of color on raw canvas, was largely inspired by the work of Helen Frankenthaler.

Born on September 7, 1912 in Baltimore, MD, he went on to study at the Maryland Institute College of Art from 1929 to 1933. Following graduation, Louis found employment with the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project in New York. Returning to Baltimore in 1943, his work became increasingly influenced by Joan Miró’s abstract works. In 1952, the artist moved to Washington, D.C., where, like his contemporary Kenneth Noland, he set out to deconstruct what constituted a painting’s formal properties. Tragically, Louis was diagnosed with lung cancer caused by extended inhalation of paint vapors at the age of 49. He died that same year on September 7, 1962 in Washington, D.C. The following year, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York mounted a memorial exhibition of his paintings. 

Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015) was an eminent American artist known for his abstract paintings. His use of bright colors, and simple shapes, contributed to the discourse of 20th-century painting. Born on May 31, 1923 in Newburgh, NY, he went on to study technical drawing and design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. In 1943, he joined the army and worked as a camouflage artist, creating painted objects intended to misdirect enemy bombers. After the war, Kelly returned to Europe on a scholarship from the G.I. Bill. While studying in Paris, he befriended fellow American artist Jack Youngerman and saw the works of Pablo Picasso. He returned to New York in 1952, and established himself alongside Frank Stella and Al Held in rejecting the gestural brushstrokes of Abstract Expressionism with his pared-down Color-Field paintings. He died on December 27, 2015 at the age of 92 in Spencertown, NY. 

Art on view at the Saint Louis Art Museum and copy largely courtessy of ARTNET with edits by Wes Morgan. Note also the link to PBS video segment on Max Beckmann collection filmed at SLAM.