Art Beat 
Painting the Present, Imagining the Future

– By Mary Brennan Gerster –

I recently attended the opening of two exhibitions on Museum Mile on the same day: English artist George Stubbs at the Frick and New York artists from the 60's and 70's at the National Academy, “High Times/Hard Times.” Initially, I thought these artists couldn't be more different; but, surprisingly, I found they shared similar goals.

George Stubbs (1774 - 1806) was a painter shunned by the Royal Academy and unheralded until the 1950's. The artists in “High Times/Hard Times” are generally names unfamiliar to most museum attendees today. Both Stubbs and the group at the National Academy were exploring new ways to paint. Stubbs was financially successful in his own time despite rejection by the academic authorities; and today is a respected well-known painter.

The group at the NA has a few names still known today, such as Elizabeth Murray, Joan Snyder, Linda Benglis and Richard Tuttle. Most of the names however will be new to viewers. Stubbs had an audience within his own lifetime but then disappeared from the art historical landscape for over 100 years. The group of New York artists changed the New York art landscape and many have been lost in the time since.

George Stubbs is renowned as a painter of horses, and the Frick exhibition introduces us to works he made beyond the horse. Despite the Royal Academy placing animal paintings at its lowest ranking, Stubbs was commissioned by the nobility to do portraits of their horses.

When you note the exquisite technical detail in Stubbs' canvases, it becomes even more impressive when you learn that he was self-taught. His father, a Liverpool currier, was surprised when George announced his intent to become a painter. He taught himself to draw by studying anatomy through dissection. Local doctors helped him in his quest. In 1766 he published “The Anatomy of the Horse,” engravings he created as a result of these studies.

The linear quality in his work is reminiscent of the sculptural friezes from Egypt, Greece and Rome. His compositions have an extraordinary formality. The Reapers (1785) has figures in a line in the foreground and a massive tree on the right creates the perfect Golden Triangle. The subject will call to mind the work of Bruegel.

My favorite work in the show, A Couple of Foxhounds (1792), was commissioned by the Rev. Thomas Vyner. The background, a soft, pastel-pink sky, creates a sensation of warmth not detected in his other works. There is a poignancy within the eyes of these two life-sized dogs as well.

An almost mystical work, A Horse Frightened by a Lion (1770), has the drama of theater. The gorgeous white horse rears in the foreground, its fear visible in every accentuated muscle and tendon. The drama is played up with the dark rock looming behind the horse. The white of the horse is repeated in the spray of waterfall at the left and a mass of clouds at the apex of the triangle of the canvas. It's a wonderful painting for children to create a story around.

Twenty blocks up Fifth Avenue at the National Academy, the turmoil and chaos of 1967 to 1975 is represented by a group of artists working in New York during those years. During the 40's, 50's and 60's, New York City was the heart of the international art world as the Abstract Expressionists were changing the direction of painting forever. The question in the late 60's became: “Why painting?” As a result, artists were looking beyond the canvas.

Artist Alan Shields said, “Everybody in that time was thinking about change anyway. We were thinking about changing the social structure, thinking about changing the legal system. It was fairly evident for me to say well, I'd like to change the format of painting.”

Video art, performance art, sculpture from blankets, ties, newspaper and string, spray paint, taking art off the walls and onto the floor; everything was explored. Seeing this exhibition is a mini art history lesson for a very small frame of time. Some of it is memorable, some not. Mary Corse's Untitled (1965) from the “White Light Painting Grid Series” is a canvas of 16 squares of micro glass spheres. In its shimmering simplicity it has the beauty of the sun and sand.

David Dio's Untitled (1969), influenced by Barnett Newman and Color Field artists, creates a canvas in pinks and peaches with a Zen like quality. Dan Christensen's Pavo (1968) uses spray paint to create joyful sense of motion and music on canvas.

Elizabeth Murray, one of the most successful of the group, is represented with Flamingo (1974) a witty abstraction, using Hard Edged style with a single, curled bisecting line creating space and, well, a flamingo. Kenneth Showell's Besped (1967) combines Color Field theories with optical art techniques creating an undulating grid of color. Cesar Paternosto paints only the sides of canvas-covered stretchers with pattern.

Though Dorothea Rockburne's mixed media pieces leave me cold, I loved reading that she learned to draw by carving her skis in the snow at night in her native Canada. In an interview on NPR, Rockburne summed up the work of the time when she said, “The group was an extended family — we had a community that no longer exists, we argued and critiqued each other. Art was more about asking questions than getting answers.”

“George Stubbs: A Celebration” is at the Frick through May 27. The Frick is located at Fifth Avenue and 70th Street. Closed Monday. Pay as you wish on Sunday. No children under 10 and children under 16 must be accompanied by an adult. Call 212-288-0700 or visit www.frick.org.

“High Times/Hard Times: New York Painting 1967 to 1975” is at the National Academy through April 22. The museum, located at Fifth Avenue at 89th Street, is closed Monday and Tuesday. Log on to www.nationalacademy.org.