A MIR Tribute: Barbara Crane's 60 Year Retrospective

“I keep chasing perfection—the perfect negative,

the perfect image, the perfect group of images;

it’s the chase that is so exciting, so all consuming.”

—Barbara Crane (Foerstner 238).

Sometimes I am absolutely overcome with a feeling of intense pride for our city of Chicago; on such a day this week, I stepped out of the downtown rain and into the Chicago Cultural Center—Tiffany glass dome, mosaic tile-work, gold leaf plaster motifs, winding staircases. On the fourth floor: Barbara Crane: Challenging Vision, a 60 year retrospective of the Chicago-born photographer. Witnessing Crane’s immense oeuvre—some 300 photographs, representing samplings over 64 distinct bodies of work—I felt like one who discovers the evidence of mysterious, prolific, totemic relics—treasure in a cave. Yet here the “devotional” array does not sparkle garishly like rubies; rather, Crane’s work is crowned with a sort of humility. Branches, bones, fungi, flowers, regenerative accidents (the Wipe Out series), amorous scenes at fairgrounds and beaches—a massive, yet attentive, gathering of the fecund stuff of our world.

On Thursday, I attended a thoughtful, inspired gallery talk led by Abigail Foerstner, essayist on Barbara Crane.

Abigail Foerstner, essayist on Crane, stands near Sticks

The exhibit hall’s grand space, with its gold leaf plaster ornamentation reminiscent of natural motifs, finds harmony with Crane’s own rather organic “ornamentation”—repeated frames of human activity, building structures, and natural matter become a strangely reverent and “decorative” treatment. Her works are also reminiscent of nests, in the sense that their composition finds origin in the regenerative array of cast-off materials used to support new growth.

Foerstner shared charming, little stories about Crane—for many years, one could recognize Crane pulling her red golf bag filled with her camera equipment through downtown Chicago streets; in more pastoral settings, she cars her Deardorff camera in a red wagon through the woods. She also owns one of only 8 cameras in the world which uses 20 X 24 peel apart prints (used for her photograph Potpourri). Some of her methods include photographing out-of-doors in the late night woods, while casting strobe light on branches; when photographing pigeons, she held her camera in one hand and threw birdseed overhead with the other!

John Rohrbach comments on the experimental feel of her work: “On one level, the work is reminiscent of early snapshot photographs where people played with the camera rather than staidly following Kodak’s dictates of family vacation record keeping” (Foerstner 11).

Alternatively, if one were to view Crane’s oeuvre through the lens of a “family vacation record”, one could witness the family of humankind, as it commutes downtown, partakes in beach-side romances, and journeys through national parks.

Crane brings the feeling of the cosmic to a leaf or a stick, a bone a feather—Abigail calls her work a “parallel universe”—in her work we find the stuff of the everyday, and yet she confronts the most mundane with an attitude of such supreme attention, we feel as if we are witnessing peculiar, holy vestiges.

Sand Findings

Abigail calls Crane’s studio itself—a converted Singer Factory—a “universe,” and identifies the artist as “Barbara the Great Collector.” When Foerstner met Crane 25 years ago, the artist invited her into her kitchen for coffee—on the walls were installations of hub caps and feathers, broken glass, nuts and bolts in glass jars on the window sills; Crane told Foerstner: “Everything’s useful for a photograph.”

The photographs which resonated with me the most are her On the Fence series, which Foerstner identifies as “sculptural” groupings (Foerstner 18). During a Guggenheim fellowship in Tucson, and without a darkroom, Crane forged a relationship with Kodak, and began to take 8-by-10 inch polaroids of various objects displayed on a backyard chain link fence.

Seemingly democratic in her affections and attention toward cast-off items of the natural and human world, she photographed the head of a cactus, held in place with twisty-ties, shiny black feathers wound through the links, slide cartridges, a “Grandmother-to-be” tee-shirt, a dead rabbit. Her use of the expression “on the fence” speaks to me in terms of ambivalence and the liminal—the photographs are a strange temporal display of decay, re-use, the kitsch (I love the green twisty-ties as fasteners with the cactus!), the tragic (the rabbit) all weighted equally because of the continuity of the framework (the chain-link fence)—and yet each have different emotional resonance.

I asked Abigail if Crane ever speaks of her work in terms of the shamanistic, apotropaic, magical, and ritualistic; Abigail responded that while she could personally read Crane’s work as “shamanistic”, Crane tends to speak of her own work as a “gathering.” In a wonderful excerpt from Foerstner’s biographical essay in the book Barbara Crane: Challenging Vision, photographic process are related to the magical:

“'Abracadabra,’ her father would say. And, like magic, an image slowly appeared.‘I still think it’s magic,’ Crane says. ‘My studio and darkroom are my private spaces” (Foerstner 239).

I was quite interested in Abigail’s comment that Crane’s Neon Series showcases a “mask-like ritual property.”

from Neon Series

In the vein of imbuing strangers and public spaces with a sort of spiritual attention, Crane used 1500 sheets of film in the process of making People of the North Portal—folks exiting through a doorway at the Museum of Science and Industry. Here we see Crane’s motifs of repetition and rhythm, also found in such works as Commuter Discourse, in which she photographed, in the dazzling words of Abigail Foerstner: “the stampede facing west while the sunlight pours like a tsunami across the east.”

Armed with an enormous speed graphic press camera, and hoping the local folks would consider her on hire for the parks department, Crane also embarked on capturing the Wrightsville Beach series.

I love Abigail’s perfect description of this series: “A magnetic field of coolers, jewelry, radios and sunglasses” punctuated with “intense body language.”

Other vivid, rhythmic can be found in such works as White Roll: Albanian Soccer Players and in the series Urban Anomlies.

I am interested in the manner in which whole groups of pages in a novel can constitute the climax or the denouement, and yet the photograph is fragmentary yet has the feel of a whole world, a field of living action. Foerstner aptly identifies the “dramatic effect” created by the very nature of “photography as a medium that fragments each moment it records” (Foerstner 245). “Art critic Kirk Varnedoe characterizes the use of repetition and fragmentation in modern art as both liberating and imprisoning:

“On the one hand, the thing ripped from its former integral context, and given independent life, as indicative of the disruptions of new individual freedom; and on the other, the form recurring in exact or near-exact identity, as indicative of new conceptions in collective order” (Varnedoe 180).

Repeats: Fringe Benefit

Barbara Crane’s use of repetition builds rhythm and music:

“While doing the Repeat and the Petites Choses Series, I was taking notes at the symphony as visual diagrams of the crescendos, legatos, and staccatos in order to widen my visual experience” (Foerstner 243).

Petites Choses

Consider Still Lifes (diptych)—the animal, photographed on both sides and doubled in self-confrontation.

from the series Still Lifes

A fellow artist, the sculptor Anna Bonnard, gifted the opossum skull to Crane as a wedding present—with a note: “you are the only person in the world I could send a dead animal skull” (Foerstner 247). I admire Crane’s novel interpretation and enlivening of the still life trope—her graceful undoing of romantic notions concerning hermetic arrangements of beautiful objects—in the series we see fangs and frozen whiskers, delicately patterned wings, abstract animal matter. Her series Visions of Enarc similarly disrupts our sense of the romantic, as the towering floral life appears rather threatening:

The Barbara Crane exhibit is ongoing through January 10, 2010. Upcoming related events:

Thursday, December 17, 12:15 p.m.

Gallery talk led by Whitney Bradshaw, Curator of Photography for the Bank of America Collection

Thursday, January 7, 12:15 p.m.

Gallery talk with the artist

Make plans to visit the Chicago Cultural Center, free and open to the public, and MIR Appraisal Services, Inc.—mere blocks from the exhibition! Please make an appointment to see some of the works in our gallery, featuring several works by Chicago artists, including the late Ruth Duckworth, Emmanuel Viviano, among others...

Jessica Savitz

MIR Appraisal Services, Inc.

307 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 308

Chicago, IL 60601

Phone: (312) 814-8510

Works Cited:

Foerstner, Abigail and Rohrbach, John. Barabara Crane: Challenging Vision. Chicago Cultural Center. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Varnedoe, Kirk. A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern. New York: Harry N. Adams, Inc., 1990.

William Q. Orchardson’s "Too Good to be True"

In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday we thought we would feature William Quiller Orchardson’s Too Good to be True, a painting that contemplates the spirit of giving in addition to featuring abundance and locally grown produce at its best. It is an exceptional painting by an artist who would by the end of his life was knighted in 1907 in addition to being an esteemed member among the ranks of the Royal Academy in England and Scotland.

Orchardson (Scottish 1832-1910) is best known for his “sketchy” quality of painting, his subdued colors and unique spatial arrangements of subjects. The canvas size of Too Good to be True is unusual because it accommodates the artist’s well known yet slightly bizarre distance typically left between subjects. This space increases the sense of drama and adds to the visual interest of the painting. This piece is also exceptional for its great detail, and in this case, the intricately captured vegetables, one can almost visualize a Thanksgiving cornucopia. The artist has rendered the scene so dutifully that the green onions still have their dirty hair-thin roots attached, and the tin can used to scoop textured peas showcases a ridged and dented surface. Orchardson manages to capture a potential feast of many colors, textures and sizes in an otherwise bland atmosphere.

The subjects of Orchardson’s paintings changed over time and spanned much more than seemingly nostalgic scenes like his most famous work Master Baby housed in the National Galleries of Scotland. Orchardson was a versatile artist who rendered historical images such as Napoleon in exile and literary characters from Shakespeare, Dickens and Sir Walter Scott. He exhibited consistently throughout his career and eventually became a respected presidential candidate for the Royal Academy by the late 19^th century.

Orchardson’s work attracted press attention both during and after his life. A recent article in the New York Times describes one of the artist’s paintings, On the North Foreland as "almost Impressionist in its freshness.” The image of a woman standing on the edge of a cliff, captures the effects of the wind on her dress and hat. The woman strains to keep her broad hat on her head and looks up to the sky with a liberating, almost euphoric glare. This image captures the artist’s ability to capture a moment and render it in a skillfully crisp manner that is truly exceptional. Paintings by Orchardson are in such world-famous institutions as the National Galleries of Scotland, the Royal Academy of Arts Collection in London, the Tate Gallery and the Musee d’Orsay Collection in Paris.

MIR Appraisal Services, Inc. prides itself on its extensive inventory of artists such as Orchardson, whose works that may not adorn your grocery shopping tote bag or other novelty gift shop items but that are nonetheless remembered in the art world for their innovations and stylistic mastery. Give us a call at (312) 814-8510 to schedule a visit to our office. In addition to our extensive menu of appraisal services at MIR, our appraisers and research staff can assist you with unveiling information regarding your long forgotten treasures. While your here you can see Orchardson’s lovely painting and many other stunning pieces of art.

Justin Bergquist
MIR Appraisal Services, Inc.
307 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 308
Chicago, IL 60601
Phone: (312) 814-8510

Works Cited:
Gleuck, Grace. “Life, Profusely Illustrated, for a Victorian Bourgeoisie,” in New York Times, 28 April 2007.

Gordon, Catherine M. “Orchardson, William Quiller,” in Oxford Art Online.

The Legacy of Innovative Sculptor Ruth Duckworth

Ruth Duckworth, an innovative modernist sculptor, passed away last month at the age of 90. Although one can identify influences such as Henry Moore and Isamu Noguchi in her work, Duckworth’s novel use of clay as a sculptural medium radically contributed to widespread sculptural practice. Ceramist Tony Franks recalls, “Ceramics studios across Britain were soon bursting with pinched porcelain fungi and swelling stoneware fruits. Organic clay had arrived like a harvest festival, and would remain firmly in place well into the ’70s.” Duckworth’s abstract forms, evocative of the natural world, range from the diminutive to monumental, totemic structures. MIR Appraisal Services, Inc. boasts such a Duckworth piece.

Nearly five feet in height, this sculpture, constructed from ceramic stoneware and mixed media, has recently been restored to museum-quality condition. Suitable for a museum collection, the sculpture embodies Duckworth’s emblematic explorations of the figure in abstract form. Though the form is suggestive of a spinal column with radiating vertebrae, the piece is most accurately placed within the stylistic realm of abstract art. "Such whimsical associations are the heart and soul of Duckworth's art, in which simple shapes invite whimsical stories and embrace the sensual side of a very gentle Surrealism," explains art critic David Pagel. In fact, Duckworth refrained from overtly explaining her art in terms of subject matter; she allowed “people to have their own fantasy or ideas about it, and not mine," Duckworth explained in a CBS interview.

It is interesting to note, however, that while Duckworth’s stylistic traits are that of an abstract modernist, her process itself at times constituted studying specific, concrete subject matter; Duckworth studied topographical images of Mt. Fuji and satellite photos of the earth for her suite of murals Earth, Water and Sky, a 400-square-foot stoneware mural, located in the University of Chicago’s Geophysical Sciences Building.

Her use of repeated, concentric circles moves the piece from aerial perspectives of landscape to geometric, abstracted forms.

Born in Germany in 1919, Duckworth began her career as a stone mason. As she developed her skills as a sculptor, she made use of stone, porcelain and bronze. Duckworth studied at the Hammersmith art school and the Central School of Art and Crafts. In 1964, she accepted a teaching post at the University of Chicago’s Midway studio, where she stayed until the late 70’s. She later converted two floors of a former pickle factory on Chicago’s north side for use as her home and studio; she removed a portion of the second floor such that she could view her murals in progress from an aerial perspective.

Ceramist Emmanuel Cooper commented with reverence, “She was a great original, pioneering her own path within ceramics, brilliantly exploring the idea of the figure, the vessel and the more abstract form.”

Jessica Savitz

MIR Appraisal Services, Inc.

307 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 308

Chicago, IL 60601

Phone: (312) 814-8510

To witness a Duckworth sculpture in person is a dramatic experience indeed; to view the Duckworth piece at MIR Appraisal Services, Inc., please do email mirappraisal@aol.com or call (312) 814-8510 or view it on the MIR Gallery website.

Works Cited:

Toutillot, Suzanne J. E. Masters: Porcelain: Major Works by Leading Ceramists. New York, Lark 2008.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/oct/30/ruth-duckworth-obituary

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/arts/25duckworth.html

http://www.artsmia.org/ruth-duckworth/preview4.cfm

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-me-ruth-duckworth26-2009oct26,0,5441912.story