Martha Richardson Fine Art, Boston is pleased to announce the gallery’s first exhibition of work from the estate of the artist Kenneth Stubbs. The exhibition, opening October 5, includes a broad range of subject matter in various media, from an early casein done while the artist was studying in Provincetown, to works painted in Italy as well as a selection of seascapes and still lifes.
Kenneth Stubbs, Artist’s Statement:
“I feel that the structure of my painting is based on tradition – while the content is based on ideas. Where these two things – tradition and idea – meet in the form of my painting, they become real. First of all, the forms are real to me. Where they also say something, so much the better. If a modern statement is the result, it is modern simply because my interests are modern.”
Kenneth Stubbs (1907-1967) was a modernist. His mature work can best be described as geometric semi-abstraction. Born in Georgia, Stubbs attended the Corcoran School of Art, Washington D.C. from 1926 to 1930, followed by two summers (1931, 1934) of study in Provincetown with the early, innovative artist E. Ambrose Webster (1869-1935). Webster’s importance as a pioneering modernist is thoroughly examined in Gail R. Scott’s 2009 monograph E. Ambrose Webster: Chasing the Sun. As one of the first artists to settle in Provincetown (1900) and as the founder of his Summer School of Drawing & Painting (c.1910), Webster was not only a pioneer, but he also influenced a generation of artists, including Stubbs. Through Webster, Stubbs’ interest in the Golden Section, a complex mathematical ratio first explored in ancient Greece by Euclid and Pythagoras, was solidified. He often incorporated the ratio in his work, work that was not only mathematical at its foundation, but vibrant and full of motion. In Webster, the young artist found not only a great mentor, but also a kindred spirit who became a lifelong friend.
Stubbs composed his paintings with broad planes of flat color laid within clearly delineated lines; his shapes were often faceted with an emphasis on geometry. Although abstracted, Stubbs’ forms remain recognizable for the most part, whether in a landscape or a still life. His analytical mind drew him to the Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca, whose compositions were mathematically derived, as well as to the Cubist artists Juan Gris and Georges Braque. A polymath, Stubbs was not only an artist of exceptional talent, but also a successful chess competitor and a devoted player of the ancient game of Go for which he taught himself enough Japanese to read the associated literature.
One of the earliest works in the exhibition, Shorescape with Boat and Wall, 1934 was created during the artist’s second summer of study with Webster in Provincetown. According to Gail R. Scott: “The impact of Webster’s teaching – both “the Study” (methods of composition, color application, light and shadow) and “the ways of Art” (art theories and the intellectual foundations that interested them both) – thus shaped the young Kenneth Stubbs, providing a powerful impetus for his subsequent pursuit of geometric abstraction as a dominant style.” However, Scott also notes that works from this early period, in particular those from 1934, are “remarkably sophisticated” and “complex and subtle at the same time.” (1)
In the 1930’s and 40s, Stubbs’ fascination with faceted forms began to emerge, and found its full realization in The Dancers from 1948, one of the artist’s best-known paintings, and now offered for sale for the first time. (2) Much has been written about this important and widely exhibited work of art, expertly summed up by Dr. Robert Metzger: “The controlled orchestration of light and colors envelops a group of dancing couples in a tight, mirrored, shallow space. The angular lines and bold colors deliver a strong cacophony of vigor and vitality. Multiplying the rhythm with a zigzag of acuity, Stubbs creates a powerful dramatic focus despite the proliferation of intertwined figures. The complexity of the composition is handled with a remarkable assurance, with each plane intricately adjusted, one behind the other.” (3)
In 1949, the artist and his wife Miriam traveled to Italy to further his studies and to film Piero della Francesco’s murals of The Golden Legend in Arezzo. From January-April 1950, Stubbs was enrolled at the Academia delle Belli Arti in Florence. An interesting painting from this period, Behind the Cathedral, Florence, 1950, is included. Here, the artist has depicted the figures as ghost-like outlines, set against a backdrop of modernist “Renaissance” buildings, buildings void of details and delineated with broad planes of flat color. Other paintings from Stubbs’ time in Italy include oils of the Corte del Teatro, Venice and Positano, both from 1951. (4) For the moment, the artist had abandoned his exploration of the faceted, fractured forms seen in The Dancers in favor of an approach better characterized as Magic Realism, a label first used to describe a literary style and applied to the visual arts in the 1920s by Franz Roh. American artists came to Magic Realism later, in the 1940s and 1950s, and their approach differed from that of European artists. Rather than employing surrealistic devices or strange symbols, American artists created sharply focused, hyperreal, often shadowless worlds, resulting in works of art that explored the mysterious, ambiguous qualities present in the mundane. Whether intended or not, a painting such as the Corte del Teatro fits well into this Magic Realist canon.
Back in America, Stubbs returned briefly to his job, begun in 1941, as Instructor of Painting and Drawing at the Corcoran School of Art. He continued to paint and for the last decade of his life, Stubbs spent his summers in Provincetown. Other works in the exhibition include coastal views and still lifes, some of which blur the line between abstraction and representational subjects. However, even when a work of art is labeled as an Abstract or an Abstraction, one finds identifiable, or familiar forms. One such example is Triangles and Circles, a whimsical piece painted around 1958. At first glance, it appears to be a group of floating shapes, yet Stubbs has included a clear horizon line which indicates their position in a landscape space, reinforced by its alternative title, Kites Aloft. In Houses with Red Ground, Mustard Sky, the houses are abstracted faceted forms that never lose their identity as physical structures.
Kenneth Stubbs has left us with a body of work that is not only visually appealing, but intellectually challenging.
Endnotes:
(1) Quoted from Gail R. Scott, Kenneth Stubbs – Still Life Paintings, Acme Fine Art, Boston, September 8 – October 8, 2005, n.p.
(2) The Dancers, previously owned by the artist’s widow Miriam Stubbs, was included in no fewer than 11 museum exhibitions. Although often identified as casein on canvas, conservators have confirmed that it is oil on canvas.
(3) Robert Metzger, Kenneth Stubbs, a retrospective of the artist’s work at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, October 7 – November 27, 2011, p. 32.
(4) Again, the medium of oil, not casein, for these three paintings has been confirmed.
