Chapman Kelley's Memoirs - Chapter 2

     My generation-earlier cousin Otela was a famous debutante, suffragette and perennial delegate to the National League of Women Voters.  I had made a painting of her called "Pickle Server" because of a unique silver antique utensil she owned and which I included in the painting. She phoned her friend and neighbor Eleanor Rogers Onderdonk, sister of painter Julian Onderdonk. Eleanor was at one time the director at the Witte Museum.  The reason for Otela’s call was to invite Eleanor to see the painting.  Eleanor told me to send the painting to the Texas Annual Exhibition--the king-maker event that was sponsored by major Texas art museums. When it was time to choose, I didn't send that one, instead I sent "Kite" and "Beach at Eventide."

     The Men of Art Guild regularly gathered and exhibited at Cecil Casebier's frame shop.  We were visiting there one Friday evening with Fletcher Martin, a west coast painter whose exhibit was opening that Sunday.  Casebier had heard from someone at the Dallas Museum of Fine Art that distinguished Director Emeritus of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y., Francis Henry Taylor, the show's juror, had wanted a smallish painting submitted by an “unknown” painter.  They were looking for one priced at only $300.00 to win the Witte Museum’s Onderdonk Purchase Prize.  Such a price was indicative of work by a new painter like me.  However, a committee sent from the Witte Museum also had a say in the matter as they had been instructed to choose a portrait; they had to resuscitate a reject to comply.  Of course we were outraged at this lost "big break" for a newcomer and all the repercussions were much discussed. 

     At the Sunday opening, Margaret Pace a committee member, rushed to tell me that Taylor had wanted "Beach at Eventide" to win the Onderdonk Prize--I was floored.  Later I would see Eleanor Onderdonk at opera and symphony performances and she invariably asked what had happened to the painting of my cousin Otela!

     I received a letter from Jerri Jane Smith who ran an art rental at the Dallas Museum of Fine Art.  She requested the two paintings for the art rental.  I replied that I had an early 1957 exhibit scheduled at the Men of Art Guild, of which I was a member, and that I would need "Kite" for it but that when the Annual finished its tour she would be welcome to have it and "Beach at Eventide."

     Mary Nye, who had just opened a gallery in Dallas, wrote a letter to me saying that she wanted my paintings for a show in March of 1957.  So I accepted and had my first one man gallery exhibit at age 24, only 1 1/2 years out of art school.  That show sold unusually well and to rave reviews--Rual Askew art critic for the Dallas Morning News even bought work from the exhibit. Mary Nye wanted me to paint her, and as I did, several women visitors came to watch very quietly.

     Shortly after my return to San Antonio, Mary Nye called to tell me that these visitors would rent a studio and furnish students for three mornings weekly if only I would move to Dallas.  Wow, only three mornings! They were a very prominent group who had studied with Perry Nichols, one of the “Dallas Nine,” before he ran off to Morocco. They were Mrs. Al "Emma" Exline from the famous Millermore family and Mrs. Royal “Pug” Jodi Miller.  Jodi’s sister, Virginia "Ginny" L. Murchison was the wife of Clint Murchison Sr., at the time the third or fourth richest man in the world. After Pug Miller died, Jodi married George Biddle of the famous Philadelphia and New York family.  The two beautiful sisters Louise Roberts and Katherine Madden rounded out those who Jodi would tell me in later, the 1990s, that they didn't just import me to teach but thought I would be good for Dallas.  These charming women were as good as their word and even had some prominent men: Carr Collins Jr. and R.L. "Bob" Thornton Jr., (son of former Dallas mayor) who after he retired as head of Mercantile Bank, became an avid painter.  I had already booked passage aboard the Flandre for the summer to use my second Cresson Award so it wasn't difficult to accept the generous offer to move to Dallas.

     Lee Nordness, a New York art dealer stopped in Dallas on his way from an American Federation of Art convention in Houston.  He had heard of my successful show and invited me to visit him a his New York gallery while on my way to use my second Cresson Award for a painting tour of Europe.  Jodi Miller and Paul Raigorodsky, friend of Texas Governor John Connally, had even bought purchase options to choose from works made during the trip.  As a result, another exhibit using the work I painted in Europe was scheduled for the autumn of that year.  All of this allowed me to provide for my family while being away from them.

    On this second Cresson Award trip in 1957 I again went to the Festival of San Fermin in Pampalona, Spain but what a difference from the 1954 trip compared to being with Cresson Award art students.  Our group included civic leaders Jake and Nancy Hamon who I had met in Dallas, a poet from Spain, the Henry Cabots of the Boston Cabots and novelist Robert C. Ruark whose "Horn of the Hunter" was the result of his first safari trip to Africa and his later "Something of Value" became a best seller.  He led the picturesque life reputed to imitate that of author Ernest Hemingway.  Hemingway was a regular at the event.  Unfortunately for us, he was ill and unable to join us in Pamplona that year.

     Since this was a painting trip I spent a good amount of time in my favorite city, Florence.  Emma Exline, who had spent each August in Rome, invited me to join her.  She had entre to Surrealist Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico and so we spent a day with him in his studio at the bottom of the famous Spanish Steps.  I also had the pleasure of escorting her, and her glamorous movie star friend Italian-born Rosanna Rory, to the Villa Cesare where Rory was a judge for the Miss Italia contest. The car valets wore ancient body armor.  At the end of summer Rory was invited to a party in Paris given by legendary Hollywood mogul Jack L. Warner, of Warner Bros. The three of us drove Rory's convertible from Rome to Paris--complete with Hollywood license plates--what a life. The resulting second exhibition was another expected resounding success for me and we resumed classes with additional students.  One was Dick Lane. He was a wild sort of guy and became our first abstract expressionist--full time too.

     The Houston Museum under new director James Johnson Sweeney announced a statewide show juried by him and American sculptor Alexander "Sandy" Calder--but asked that all paintings be framed with 1/4" slats then popular with Abstract Expressionists.  Perry Nichols and I wrote the museum to ask if only paintings compatible with this frame were wanted.  The reply was negative, so we sent paintings anyway and were both rejected.  Dick Lane won the top prize with "Gusher" which I own.

   In early 1959 my students and I hung an exhibit at the new Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts' new building.  The building was purchased by, I believe, John and Lupe Murchison, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Lambert, Mr. and Mrs. Eddie Marcus and Mr. and Mrs. John O'Boyle.  I understood that 1/2 of the building would be rented to support the museum.  I had been the local painter most involved with the DMCA--lecturing, serving on panels, contributing work for auction and hanging exhibits with my students.  Douglas McAgy was the new director.

     One evening Jerry Bywaters, director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Art called me asking me to teach all of the adult classes in their summer school.  I did and they had to turn away several times the number of students that could be accepted.  Obviously the summer was considered a great success because I was offered my choice of classes for the winter and spring.  With my background I chose the High School Scholarship Class and the then not too popular Life Drawing.  The summer gained me another full time student, Bob Hayes who was between going to Harvard Business School and having to take over the family automotive business.  Linda and Bob Hayes and Joan and I became fast friends for many years.

     Since my high school students were not allowed in the museum life drawing classes, I invited them to ours and all the other classes at Atelier Chapman Kelley, of course without charge--and did they attend!  Dick Fox, my framer lived on the premises and so the high school students set up shop somewhere in the building and were there day and night.

     Dick Lane and sculptor Lo Jordans convinced me to open a gallery there also in 1959.  Atelier Chapman Kelley expanded to include exhibiting as well as my studio and classes.  German-born sculptor Heri Bert Bartscht who started the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts also asked to teach there and so we became an Atelier proper.  Our first guest instructor was famed artist Elaine de Kooning, wife of abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning.  Through the years we also had Hobson Pittman, Ben Kamihira, David DeLong, and Hiram Williams among others.  Most artists we exhibited also spent some time critiquing our students’ work.

     In the meantime, I had an again successful one man show at Meredith Long's Houston Gallery.  He wanted to become my business partner in Dallas.

     Cynthia Stuart was my student, tennis partner and generous friend.  Marilyn Corrigan was another of my students.  When I decided to open Atelier Chapman Kelley Cynthia contributed a $1,000 loan to install lighting, paint the walls, etc., and when I wanted to purchase my first car to go to the coast to paint she sent me to her husband R.H. Stewart III on the day that he was named president of First National Bank of Dallas, at age 34.   He had furnished his executive suite with paintings from his private collection. I was flattered when he asked me to replace them with whatever Cynthia chose from my gallery.

     We loaded our new Triumph TR3 with canvases strapped to the luggage rack above the trunk and with Joan, Cole and Kevin and Yo Yo the poodle left for the coast.  The canvases precluded putting the top up, so of course it rained on us and I had to weight the canvases overnight so that they wouldn't warp.  After the first night back in Galveston we found that they had no sand dunes for the 40" x 40" composition that I had come to paint.  We did find a large pile of sand with none of the anatomy that a dune develops, but I could have Cole and Kevin in place to be painted as if on the dunes with the multicolored wooden stakes I imagined in place.  I did study the effect weathering had made on knee-high dunes to make the anatomy plausible.

     I moved my gallery from McKinney Avenue to a large house on Maple Avenue.

     Cynthia Stewart wanted "Sand Dune" in repayment for her loan.  She generously withdrew the request after I told her I had planned on submitting it in an upcoming competition. She allowed me to enter it in the 1960 Texas Annual under one condition; she wanted it entered solely in the $1,000 Texas state fair competition where if it won top prize, would go into the permanent collection of the Dallas Museum of Fine Art..and it won!

Next installment to include:

Early success as a painter attracts serious students

Famous students

J.H. Clark art collection

Constantine Brancusi

Piet Mondrian

All of the above is copyrighted material, all rights reserved.  Permissiom for use will be considered upon written request.  Blog comments are welcome, the use of actual full names is strongly recommended, as are affiliations with organizations.

Chapman Kelley's Memoirs - Chapter 1

     Admin's note:

     On May 2, 2011, the Council for Artists' Rights sent an eblast telling of their choice for U.S. museum director of the decade:  Maxwell Anderson.

     As you may know, Anderson will be the next director of the Dallas Museum of Art beginning in January 2012.  And in a subsequent letter, CFAR recommended to the DMA's internal search committee and its contracted NY executive search firm that they choose someone most like Anderson to fill the position.  We are are extremely happy that Anderson has accepted the challenge to be the DMA's next director.

     Anderson's piece, "A Clear View:  The Case for Museum Transparency" so well elucidates his views, that the eye of the entire art world will be on Dallas.  The same museum conflicts are troubling many if not most art museums in the U.S.

     The art history of the transitional years in Dallas, what the late Robert M. "Mac" Doty called a renaissance--including a museum becoming the worst run in the country--has been hidden.  We have asked Chapman Kelley, a veteran of those crucial years, to shed light on that era by writing his memoirs.  It will be enlightening for everyone interested to know the true history.  Many will be watching developments made under the leadership of Anderson.

And now, the first installment of Chapman Kelley's memoirs....

************

     I have led a very interesting life during challenging times. As a result, beginning literally decades ago, I have been urged to write my autobiography. Now seems to be the appropriate time because it will also contain, to my knowledge, the only true history of Dallas' art community during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

     This memoir is for the many people who have so generously supported me and the other image makers who truly give of themselves to make the world a better and more beautiful place. 

     In 1985 and 1986 I lectured by invitation on my Wildflower Works at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and at the museum's professional school.  Robert M. "Mac" Doty attended the lecture. At the time, Doty was the director of the Currier Gallery (renamed Currier Museum of Art) and former curator of the Whitney Museum, NY.  Soon after the lecture, I visited with him at his home in New Hampshire.  Doty was very familiar with Dallas' art world during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.  He considered it to be in the midst of a minor renaissance.  He felt that my professional life as a painter had begun so early and at such a top level in both Dallas and New York that I could and should promise to reveal the disastrous deterioration the U.S. art world had taken by the 1980s.  Since my roles included painter, art dealer, art teacher, art collector, and having been so very fortunate personally--I promised to do it.  In an effort to be accurate I have since then probably read a book a week. 

   

     I was born the third of eight children to Ruby Victoria Sloane Kelley and Ralph Payne Kelley on August 26, 1932.  My family has some very interesting white Anglo Saxon protestants--some very famous, rich and influential; my great-great Uncle, American frontiersman Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson (1809 – 1868), a great-great grandfather, Robert Kelley, and my great-great-great grandfather, Dr. James H. Lyons, (1805–1881) three-time mayor of San Antonio including once at the end of the Civil War, respectively.  Most of my relatives gravitated to the field of education.

     Shortly after my birth my father was offered a one-fourth ownership for $100.00 in the newly created Frito Company; Frito Company evolved into Frito-Lay and is currently a division of PepsiCo Inc.  Instead, he opted to be its first independent distributor.  He did very well with his own sales company, but obviously would have done better as part owner. 

     We were raised in a large white brick house with a few acres on a hill overlooking San Antonio. Our household included live-in servants, and a menagerie of pets.  I raised registered Persian cats. Up until high school I was very athletic with riding horses, playing center on the football team, pitching on the baseball team, running on the track team, boxing and wrestling.  My father was my coach.  My two older brothers played in the high school band and I did also but before I was in high school--the E-flat alto saxophone.  So to this day I enjoy good music, particularly opera but also classic, folk, rock and jazz and the area consuming my interest is classical music.  I have the radio tuned to it around the clock, each day.

     I began drawing as early as I can remember and started classes with my sister Pat at San Antonio's Witte Museum at, I think, the age of eight.  I thought the children's classes was not enough and so I was allowed to participate in the adult classes including life drawing!  I was fortunate that my family encouraged achievement but did not worship money.  I soon began classes at the private Hugo D. Pohl School. During my freshman and sophomore years at a private high school I was allowed to leave at noon on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and skipping 60% of Geometry and Spanish classes to also study with Pohl--a classic beginning of very accurate draftsmanship. After Pohl retired, I continued classes at his studio until I left to attend the venerable Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), the oldest professional art school in the U.S. 

     My junior and senior years were spent at Thomas Jefferson High School which Don Vogel also graduated from and rightfully called the most beautiful high school in America.  My cousin Otela ran the library and my Aunt Otela was its guidance counselor.  Aunt Otela took me and my drawings to visit Ruby Dugash--painter and art teacher at Jefferson High.  I had some of the usual prodigy publicity by then and Dugash confessed that she had nothing to offer, so I was enrolled every afternoon in the art department as a special student at Trinity University.  Dr. Adah Robinson, who had studied at New York Art Student League alongside artist Ben Shahn, was the department chair and took a great interest and she was just what I needed at the time.  Since I was to graduate in 1950 Dr. Robinson and my Aunt Otela did research on my "next steps" and we chose the PAFA.  The academy had a number of real practicing professional artists, each teaching only one a day a week.  They would critique the same paintings and drawings.  PAFA also awarded William Emlen Cresson European Traveling Scholarships of which I won two, in 1954 and 1955. 

     In order to be accepted by PAFA one had to submit works.  I was in such awe of that institution that I stayed out for two semesters in order to prepare the best portfolio possible.  I entered the academy in the summer of 1951.  Amusingly, Roy Nuse, who taught drawing at the PAFA (every art school should have one like him), would not recommend the advancement of any student for at least a year.  He sought me out and insisted that I needed no more drawing and took my work to the other instructors.  As a result I was immediately advanced into painting--supposedly the first such instance in the history of the PAFA.  Later I won the Thomas Eakins Figure Painting Award and earned honorable mentions in both the Cecilia Beaux Portrait Painting and the Perspective Competition.

     Joan Catherine Wisner and I were married in my second year while at PAFA.  Our first son Cole Chapman Kelley II was born in my third and Kevin Carson Kelley in my fourth year--so I worked hard both in and out of school.

     While at the PAFA a group of us ate at a small French restaurant with music students from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.  We would go to musical performances with them and to their critiques afterwards and they would do the same with us vis-à-vis art exhibitions. While at PAFA I signed up for a coordinate degree program as part of the University of Pennsylvania and was accepted.  When I went to register I ran into some PAFA students who advised me to not divide my time and energy, but to instead pursue the academics later, which I did. 

     The principal painting instructors at the PAFA were Franklin Watkins who had had a one man exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in 1950--I own one of his paintings from that exhibit.  Also on staff were Hobson Pittman and Walter Steumpfig who had each been featured in a series of Life Magazine articles about leading painters of the time; it wound up with the one asking if Jackson Pollock was our greatest living artist.  In sculpture class we had instructors Walker Hancock and Harry Rosin.  In drawing class it was Roy Nuse, in printmaking Morris Blackburn and in painting we had Francis Speight, Julius Bloch and Rosewell Weidner.  Guest artists as teachers included Peter Blum, Stuart Davis, Jacques Lipchitz and Abraham Rattner.  I took my paintings regularly to Watkins, Pittman and Stuempfig and guest instuctors for critiques but also periodically to all the others as well.

     In my first or second year I was chosen to interview French surrealist painter Yves Tanguy for a television program broadcast live, which I did.  The student body cast their vote to have me head a committee to the academy's administration. But I deferred to an older student who assumed that chairmanship. One of my first exhibits at Atelier Chapman Kelley included the work of some of my former PAFA teachers--some major works by John McCoy were sold and that of Hobson Pittman, whom I regularly represented.

     PAFA students were taken to visit with major art collectors.  For example, we spent time with Henry Plumer McIlhenny whose dining room featured Toulouse-Lautrec's "Moulin Rouge" with a Degas "Ballet Master" in the powder room.  Mcllhenny's sister, Bonnie Wintersteen, had her fabulous Matisses.  Robert Sturgis Ingersoll who at different times was president and director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, challenged us to express and defend our historical and aesthetic opinions.  After Ingersoll's death Sotheby's had a 1970s auction of his personal art collection. I had to leave New York and return to Dallas for an event and so I asked one of realist painter Andrew Wyeth's daughters-in-law to bid for me. She assured me that if she bid for me one increment above the highest estimate I should be able to get a 7" and a 9" krater pottery and a stone Jacques Lipchitz that I remembered seeing in Ingersoll's garden. I acquired none because Ingersoll's "eye" was so respected that each object fetched several times the highest expectations.

  

     In addition to the Cresson Award I had also been awarded four years of tuition scholarships, three of which were used at the PAFA. For my first Cresson European Scholarship Award I traveled along with Richard Gibney, a mural student.  We went to England, France, Spain (for Pamplona's Fiesta San Fermin and its El Encierro or "running of the bulls"), Italy through Switzerland with time in Germany and Holland. We sailed on the Queen Mary and returned on the Queen Elizabeth.
     We spent most of the time in museums and often met up with other PAFA students.  We learned to eat at student Mensas where we frequently found students of music with whom we went to the opera and concerts.  They came with us to art exhibits.  Among academy students, a date was likely to be spent in a museum, which charged no admission fee; as they must be again soon in the U.S. 

     Whenever guest instructors were announced, many students would arrive early to sign up for a critique of their work.  The students' early arrival had to do with the estimate of the guest instructor's importance.  I did not arrive on time so American Expressionist painter Abraham Rattner did not get around to viewing my work.  It was the end of the day and everyone was outside going home.  The director and administrators were on the verge of taking Rattner to dinner.  However, on his way out he saw me putting my paintings away in my locker and stopped me saying he wanted to see more.  I chased around to present as good a group possible for him.  Luckily I found an empty room and quickly propped my work along the floor leaning them on the walls. Earlier in the day Rattner had been urging most of those whose work he had reviewed to learn more about their material, anatomy and solidity related to space--to develop a very painterly authority before expecting to make nonfigurative masterpieces as the Abstract Expressionists had--with the authority they had. And that pursuing a strained novelty was not the same as a well earned and considered truly personal originality. Rattner's last minute critique of my work caused a quickness, a gathering of the entire school.  At the time I was painting figures very solidly. Rattner used my work to make his points and surprisingly predicted national recognition for me; it was another example of my good fortune.

     One memorable event was seeing a large Giorgio de Chirico exhibition in Venice.  At the PAFA his bold use of chiaroscuro and free use of dramatic abstracted shadows inspired my first original group of paintings which became known as my "Nuns" series with titles like "Nuns on a Staircase," "Shine Boy - Toledo, Spain," "Cloistered Life"--and I am certain having seen original de Chirico work helped me to gain a second Cresson Award in 1955.  

     My generation considered going into the arts as a vocation.  No one had delusions of fame and fortune or to ever  make a living at it.  So in 1955 I returned to San Antonio and in order to support my painting and my family; I took a job working 45 to 50 hours a week as a purchasing agent.  My employer was Martin Wright Electric Company, the largest entity in the south and southwest U.S.  I never expected for my painting to support me, and family. 

     Once back in San Antonio, Dr. Adah Robinson critiqued my paintings.  She advised me that some universities were hiring the best exhibiting professionals they could get and that among them was the University of Texas at Austin. I had had my works graded at PAFA anticipating going back to do academic work and had all of the records sent for an appointment with Dr. Donald Weismann chair at the University of Texas.  I arrived on a Saturday morning with a station wagon full of paintings.  He asked me why I wanted to go back to school after completing four and a half years of formal study and winning two PAFA Cresson Awards.  I replied that much of my family was in academia and why not--it may make me a better painter. Dr. Weismann's university colleagues studied my paintings and drawings.  They said that if I insisted on becoming a student there, I would be accepted.  The consensus was that the art department would grant credit based on PAFA success. They agreed that my having previously studied and discussed history, philosophy, etc., that enrolling for those classes would be so elementary for me as to be a bore.  Their strong advice was for me to instead exhibit my paintings.  Dr. Weismann gave me copies of four letters that he sent to his friends at other similar universities to watch for me because he felt that any teaching job that I would accept later in my career would be because of professional standing and not accumulated degrees.

     Years later in 1966 I had a juried exhibition at Atelier Chapman Kelley for my current and former students work and a good bit of prize money.  I had Dr. Weismann as the juror--he contributed his honorarium to the prize sum.  I told him that before he heard from others I wanted him to know that I used our 1956 discussion as a lesson for others planning their careers in art.  He laughed at this and said that he did also.  I then added that I also included the fact that a couple of years after our last meeting, and largely due to his advice, my professional stature had advanced to the extent that I was in a position to recommend him to my dealer Mary Nye for his first one-man exhibit.

  

     Of course I had family and friends in San Antonio and continued to work, paint and play tennis.  My good friend Bill Thornton arranged for us to use his cousin's swimming pool.  The pool was located in an estate requiring seven full time gardeners.  In 1956 I painted a full length very Whistler-like picture of Bill against an interesting background; it was a paneled room imported from England, steeped in rich colors.  We went for a coastal trip to Galveston with Bill and his boat.  That's where I painted "Beach at Eventide.”  

Next week's memoirs installment to include:

Second European trip courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art's William Emlen Cresson Award

Chapman Kelley imported from San Antonio to Dallas, TX

First commercial gallery exhibition at age 24

First major art prize

All of the above is coyrighted material, all rights reserved.  Permission for use will be considered upon written request. 

Comments are welcome, the use of actual full names is strongly recommended, as are affiliations with organizations.

Speaking of Sculpture by Bill Verhelst

     I hung up the phone and said to my wife, "Well, they want me to say something about where do we go from here?" Her immediate reply was, "Who is we?"

     I guess That is a pretty good place to start. I am sure that you and I are most concerned about where we are going from here. It is the nature of the creative spirit that is within all of us ever to be asking questions. It is also our responsibility to our society and to our existence. This is the quality that the early school years manage to systematically destroy particularly in our childhood art. They seem to forget that it is also the responsibility of our society and its educational systems to create the circumstances allowing us freely to pursue the creative spirit within us. Perhaps rather than ask that collective question, "where are we going?" we should be asking "what are they doing to us and what can they do for us to achieve our vision?"

     Having started art school in 1946 after returning from the Second World War, it seems to me that I have seen a steady erosion of some of the values and conditions that made it possible for artists to remain true to the pursuit of their vision. The art market, art galleries and museums at that time respected this quality and tampered far less with the artist and his product. What has happened to connoisseurship? Where is the respect for creativity and the artist's dreams and visions? We might very well ask,what are they doing to us?

     Certainly the art scene today is most disturbing. For those who have spent time reading and thinking about art and aesthetics, distinguishing a work that has substance or content, goes well beyond a nicely designed piece with all the colors and shapes in the right place. Its silent message grasps the viewer without word, thought or explanation. What is disturbing today is an eroding of that quality. Vast numbers of creative works seem to lack originality and the aesthetic elements that lead to achieving that hidden vision. Attitudes in art schools, art galleries, art museums, municipal and corporate institutions all seem to focus on a sort of product and marketing mentality. Consequently, I see the artist being cast in the role of designer or illustrator ready to fill the next trend, order or assignment. All we need do is look a the art galleries and their lack of critical judgement and their mad scramble to handle anything marketable. Crude bad drawing (often conveniently called appropriation), derivative rehashing of any image, anything goes if it will sell!
   
     I worked as a museum curator when art museums carried the leadership role indetermining eminence in art. Their local, regional, and national competition formed a proving ground for the young artist, free of the marketplace. An artist had to have a credible resume of those kinds of shows in order to get gallery representation. A level of connoisseurship existed that is not prevalent today. Museum curators are inclined to shop the market now for what's hot and in.

     Art museums have changed considerably. The block buster shows produced to raise revenue, take on a sports event character, with all the hype. Booths selling memorabilia and the museum shop are examples. Art images are reproduced on jewelry, plates, coffee mugs, scarves and T-shirts. If there is any way to destroy the visual potency of something, simply reduce it to the commonplace.

     Unfortunately, this also shifts the public's interest from substance in a work and away from purchasing a serious print, drawing, painting, sculpture or finely conceived jewelry, pottery or craft object.

     Municipalities and the corporate community pose another problem. Often demonstrating a Chamber of Commerce mentality, they try to place works of art palatable to everyone. Asking artists to address themes, their easy solution, force an artist to speak not to what is in his heart but on what is on the mind of the administrator.Censorship and the quaint notion that art should address ecological, sociological or political problems can also be a limiting factor if it is imposed on the artist.

     I, personally, find it hard to abandon the feeling that visual art like poetry teaches us something about ourselves and our universe that goes far beyond simply putting down some nice colors and shapes. What should be done so that we can pursue acreative path to our inner visions?

     Education is obviously the principle force that could make a difference. Arts and humanities are an essential part of the human spirit. Learning how to live is certainly as important as learning how to make a living. Sound visual education of students by all educational institutions is a must if we are to have the kind of audience that is needed so that artists can pursue the best of their creative visions. Art schools, also, must focus on strong aesthetics and go beyond their trade school mentality.

     Lastly, we as artists, need to do some self-examination. We should try to be aware of and focus on that silent voice within us that when revealed can produce a creative and original work.

The above text was originally published in the Texas Sculpture Association Newsletter of Sept/Oct 1991 (reprinted by the TSA in 2008)

More of Wilbur Verhelst at http ://www .txsculpture .com /member /verhelst_ wilbert.html    
Note: transcribed by Council for Artists' Rights, 2011

Dallas wildflower artist petitions Supreme Court of the United States for review

The Council for Artists' Rights recently issued this release:

Flawed 7th Circuit 2011 precedent in Visual Artists Rights Act case is ripe for U.S. Supreme Court review - U.S. arts community envision high court opening the door to protecting artists' rights

July 26, 2011

Dear ally of artists' rights:

      On July 18, 2011, Dallas wildflower artist Chapman Kelley filed a petition with the Supreme Court of the United States requesting it to review the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (7th Circuit) February 2011 adverse decision to him in Kelley v Chicago Park District.  The 7th Circuit had denied Kelley's public artwork the Chicago Wildflower Works (CWW) protection under the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 or VARA saying that the work failed to hurdle two aspects of copyright law, namely, authorship and fixation.  

     To our knowledge, never before in the history of U.S. copyright law has a professionally trained and exhibited artist, such as Kelley, had to defend a work of art against someone else's definition of what constitutes art.

    In its February 2011 decision, the 7th Circuit's "en banc" panel of justices, Daniel Manion, Diane S. Sykes and John Daniel Tinder unanimously said that Kelley had not "authored" CWW and that its flowers were not sufficiently "fixed" to merit protection under federal copyright law. During the same time period, this original panel of justices denied the timely filing of a amicus curiae - friend of the court brief - prepared in support of Kelley by the laudable Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts - New York.

     The 7th Circuit's decision about the true "author" of CWW leads one to believe that all those wildflower plant seeds, independently and collectively, created CWW.  The time, money and effort expended on CWW was the seeds' own making, instead of Kelley.  What a preposterous idea! The justices' notion of the lack of "fixity" of CWW, they ruled that flowers are "temporary" and therefore unable to be experienced or recorded in a meaningful way is just as contestable.  The DNA of plants is so dependably fixed that plants furnish us obviously with much of our food, clothing and shelter material.

     After flourishing in a Chicago lakeside park for 20 years, during the summer of 2004 the Chicago Park District destroyed Kelley's public artwork, the CWW.  CWW was installed by him in 1984 as a noncommissioned work with official park district approval.  At 66,000 sq. ft. its elements were organic and inorganic; many species of native Illinois plants configured in a double ellipse, framed in gravel and steel banding.  CWW thrived solely on rainwater and used no insecticides or fertilizers.  It was maintained for 20 years by an army of volunteers under Kelley's direct supervision.  It garnered wide acclaim and was an environmental success story ahead of its time.  Notable about CWW was that it bloomed sequentially, constantly, through three seasons.  Imagine the environmental and monetary savings that resulted.

     Artists whose work has been altered without their permission have the federal copyright statute, VARA, to potentially aid them in their fight for justice.  We say potentially because obviously justices are reluctant to recognize Kelley's declaration and intention that his Wildflower Works was a work of art; Kelley initially entertained the notion that flowers could be used in art, publicly, since the mid-1970s.  The Council for Artists' Rights is not a legal scholar but it appears that those in the legal community use a term to differentiate what artists say and intend versus what the court recognizes as final and settled; the word is dispositive.  So although Kelley had consistently utilized flowers in his public artwork for nearly three decades, the court has stripped him of his identity and considered his statements, action and intention as not dispositive and legally without merit.

     Will the Supreme Court of the United States parrot the 7th Circuit's adverse decision and carry on the tradition of being hostile to the arts community in the USA or will it instead agree with Kelley's (and other artists) decades-old declaration that flowers can be used in artwork?  

    Should the Supreme Court not take up the issue during its next term, when, if ever, will professional artists such as Kelley be allowed to control the material, image and therefore content of their creations, to call it art and have it protected by VARA?

     If a court's approval is going to be necessary for an artist's choice of material and image, as implied by the 7th Circuit's holding, then it is the court who controls content.  Having the power to do so is a flagrant violation of all artists' 1st Amendment right to free speech.

U.S. Art Museums Must Follow this Leader

     At a time when a number of American art museums are plagued by scandals related to the lack of public accountability, mismanagement, and gross conflicts of interest, there is one director and museum that stand out as a beacon of responsibility to the public and the professional community coupled with a cognizance of its indebtedness to the American taxpayer. The Council for Artists' Rights would like to recognize Maxwell Anderson of the Indianapolis Museum of Art as the decade's most laudable museum director in the U.S.A.

     Founded on November 7, 1883, the Indianapolis Museum of Art has long had a very distinguished record as a premier encyclopedic museum. In recent years and under the guidance of Maxwell Anderson it has gained new accolades as an up to date example in setting the tone for museums of the future. He is fully aware that tax-exempt public institutions, such as art museums, must avoid the pitfalls of being operated for the personal social enrichment and monetary benefit of a few.

     In the spring of 2010 the American Association of Museums published a policy paper on its website, "A Clear View: The Case for Museum Transparency" written by Maxwell Anderson. In it, Anderson lays the groundwork for what an art museum should aspire to. His not for the faint-hearted "gold standard" recommendations have been incorporated into the IAM's day to day operations and long-term vision. You can read Anderson's paper in its entirety at the end of this post. And prior to that, on April 4, 2001 Anderson made a statement to the U.S. Congress championing artists' rights. It is part of the Congressional Record -Senate, on pages S3444 and S3445 available here.

     With such a stellar example of museum stewardship available to emulate such as Maxwell Anderson, the search committee of the Dallas Museum of Art would be well advised to consider its own Senior Curator of European and American Art, Olivier Meslay, to fill the position as DMA museum director

By the way, we have yet to hear back from the Dallas Museum of Art in response to our letter:

"April 12, 2011
Olivier Meslay, Senior Curator of European and American art
Dallas Museum of Art
1717 North Harwood
Dallas, Texas 75201
Tel. 214-922-1200
Email: to follow

Re: The Eugene McDermott Interim Director

Dear Olivier Meslay:

I trust this email finds you well. Your direct contact information is not available on the DMA website. Congratulations on being chosen as the Interim Director of the Dallas Museum of Art.

It is our hope that you will emerge as a serious candidate to become the next Eugene McDermott Director. Should you be chosen to fill that important position, we have every expectation that you will manage the DMA as a public institution and not--as some have commented over the years--as a "private country club."

Your background indicates that you value fiduciary trustworthiness; art museum scandals in Europe are virtually nonexistent and artists are held in the highest esteem.

All the best,
John Viramontes
Council for Artists' Rights
founding member    

The reason the Council for Artists' Rights feels so strongly about having Mr. Meslay at the head of the DMA is because under its previous management, we consider the DMA to have been the worst run art museum in the U.S. A quick Google search will reveal much evidence of instances of taxpayer and fiduciary accountability issues at the DMA such as the lack of transparency about the financial details of the King Tut exhibition, the dismantling of the Claes Oldenburg-Coosje van Bruggen Stake Hitch sculpture, a museum trustee's secret sale of a museum-promised Rothko painting valued at $31.4 million, and yet another sale yanked from the museum's future a Jeff Koons sculpture originally purchased by the Rachofskys for $1.2 million and sold at auction for $25.8 million, among others incidents going back to at least the 1970s.

     Here is Maxwell Anderson's article as published in 2010 on the American Association of Museums website:

"A Clear View: The Case for Museum Transparency
by Maxwell L. Anderson

Museums continue to operate largely as we always have, with minimal regulatory oversight of the kind routinely accorded institutions of higher education. Social media—such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter—now play an increasing role in the revelation of misconduct, bias and cluelessness. Yet our funding is principally from sources requiring superficial accountability, our strategic planning is rarely compelling, board and staff are uninformed about exactly who is and is not participating in our exhibitions and programs, and we provide fare that is indexed to internal priorities, with minimal effort to explain what we have chosen not to do, or the explicit rationale for what we have chosen to do.

It is essential that museum leaders resist self-congratulation and start explaining our priorities, our intentions, and the desired and measurable outcomes of our efforts. Fostering transparency in our operations is an indispensable attribute of every museum’s overarching management philosophy. It cannot remain an occasional indulgence or an option, any more than budgeting accurately, hiring thoughtfully or operating responsibly. Reciting bromides about our traditions or inherited purpose has no discernible impact on those texting observations about us on some of the 2.2 billion cell phones in use today.

In the same vein, excessive claims about attendance, box-office results or economic impact are behaviors that will come back to haunt us. We must explain the basis of attendance statistics; once we confess that many of our visitors and members return multiple times each year, the stats look a lot less rosy in relation to an exploding world population. Our ostensible economic impact should be measured and reported, with the supporting evidence explicit. And if we acquire and sell objects for and from our collections with only a secondary regard for potential claims on ownership, ethical dilemmas or sources and destinations of funds, we are exposing our institutions to great risk.

The following five truths are not self-evident; they need to be explained. And explain them we can, but only if we are true to ourselves and to the public in soliciting, capturing, contextualizing and revealing information about our activities.

The size of a cultural organization’s audience should not dictate the extent of its support from the public purse or from any other combination of sources. Every museum measures participation differently, so the purported results are unreliable. More importantly, the contributions of museums cannot be reduced to foot traffic/head count, any more than the contributions of scientific laboratories can be reduced to the number of laypeople who avidly follow advances in research.

We are not a subset of the entertainment industry and should not be measured by the same standards or adopt similar pricing conventions. Museum programming begins not with asking what a mass audience wants, but with what we might all benefit from experiencing, even if we have to struggle and sometimes fail to draw a huge audience.

A healthy museum should aim for a budget that supports its exhibitions, programs and other activities instead of looking for mission-irrelevant activities to pay the bills. Rather than focusing first on revenue-generating activities, administrators should start with a quest for contributed support. Otherwise, we veer towards a sales or entertainment model that ultimately jeopardizes our tax-exempt status. Exorbitant admission fees can’t pay the bills of art museums, but they can drive away families and younger audiences.

As mission-driven nonprofits, museums are red-ink businesses. Back-of-the-house costs include security, climate control, research, publishing, educational offerings, care of collections and salaries for employees not tasked with earned or contributed revenue. We must build endowments and solicit support to offset these expenses.

Government support of culture is an appropriate use of the public purse. While the system of tax-exemption provides a progressive mechanism to incentivize philanthropic support, it rarely results in contributions adequate to offset all costs facing cultural organizations. Furthermore, the premise in every Western democracy other than the U.S. is that cultural offerings are indispensable to their citizenry—they define a nation’s identity and shape a national conversation about what matters most.

So what is it about museum leaders that hampers the embrace of transparency? The answer is simple: the reward system for museum directors is antiquated and needs to be revamped to incentivize scholarship, conservation and educational outcomes—rather than the pursuit of crowds. The Internal Revenue Service has encouraged some rethinking of the current reward system. Compensation committees of boards are now obligated to disclose how they arrive at compensation decisions as part of the revised Form 990. Six pages of dense instructions published in January 2009 effectively stripped away the fig leaves of our cultural executives. It is a foregone conclusion that excessive compensation and first-class travel will need convincing explanations from here on out.

But this is only a small piece of the puzzle. Combating profligacy is a very low standard for what transparency can achieve. It is not asking too much for chief executives of nonprofit organizations to observe certain standards of behavior, eschew excessive benefits and avoid conflicts of interest. But surely the revelation of compensation on a broad scale should be the norm. Not revealed by a tax form are the less tangible expectations of leadership. Such expectations should include an open workplace culture, ample room for contrasting views and a focus on best practices rather than short-term glory.

The compensation committee normally asks the chief executive only to keep a balanced budget and make the museum relevant to its community, leaving other goals unstated. This limited mandate stems from the traditionally cordial accord between board and director that allows the management of the organization to oversee staff and the board to focus on policy and fundraising. But there are strains in the relationship, as witnessed in the public drama attendant to now-routine, high-profile exits of museum leaders. Several departures in recent years are a function of unrealistic expectations of the commercial viability of expanded facilities, which were built without adequate planning for increased operating expenses.

One problematic, often board-driven expectation of the chief executive today is to rattle the tin cup while holding one’s nose in the face of unwelcome conditions attached to gifts. In recent years, there has been a trend towards "venture philanthropy," in which a donor’s wishes can trump institutional need. True transparency would reveal that contributions with strings can lead institutions astray, as when philanthropist Catherine Reynolds signed a contract to support a hall of achievement for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. By the terms of the contract, she was entitled to propose people for inclusion in the hall. The Smithsonian had the right to make the final selection, but human nature could easily have prompted the lauding of some individuals based on donor preference rather than on a review panel’s objective assessment. Whether the inclusion of Sam Donaldson and Martha Stewart would have been worth a $38 million gift may remain a question for the ages, but the offer was withdrawn in the face of public criticism.

This is but one example of how transparency can serve the public good: The revelation of the terms, names and process led to controversy and a rescinded offer, and ultimately contributed to Lawrence Small’s exit as secretary of the Smithsonian. Nothing about this tale bears celebration. But the lesson learned is surely that there must be limits on how philanthropy plays out in a cultural landscape run largely on contributed revenue. And that open disclosure of gifts with strings is both a necessity and a means of preventing institutions from going down a path on which the long-term detriments exceed the benefits.

The dangers of pursuing earned revenue are no fewer. The feverish chase of ticket revenue or corporate underwriting has led to wrongheaded programming, from the Guggenheim’s Giorgio Armani retrospective to the legions of ground-breaking, revelatory and compelling exhibitions abandoned because their financial promise was deemed inadequate. True transparency would reveal that ticket sales are marginally beneficial for most museums and that they divide prospective audiences into haves and have-nots. And it might even open the door a crack to programming that provides a greater educational value than box-office appeal.

Despite these challenges, running a complex 21st-century organization with reflexive transparency is easier than it seems. At the Indianapolis Museum of Art, we approach every decision with the assumption that our activities will be open and evaluated. The topics for every senior staff meeting are posted on a staff-wide intranet in advance, and minutes are posted following every meeting. We manage budgets and projects with files open to all staff, encourage unedited staff commentary on the IMA blog hosted on our website and in general assume that apart from medical records and performance reviews, there is little we should keep from one another. We post our IRS Form 990 on the IMA website as soon as it has been approved by the board rather than waiting for Guidestar.org to find it almost a year later.

The IMA Dashboard has received a fair amount of notice since its September 2007 launch. An evolving template for institutional performance metrics, it was conceived by staff to help the public evaluate our museum’s adherence to mission, addressing issues such as energy consumption, the circulation of artworks in and out of the galleries, conservation treatment hours, funds raised year-to-date as a percentage of budgeted goals, size of endowment month-to-date and other potentially embarrassing matters. Recent additions have included an interactive map showing the Zip codes of our visitors, revealing the extent to which we attract an audience reflecting the demographics of our metropolitan area.

We also added a novel feature to the IMA website that lists objects to be deaccessioned (sold, transferred or exchanged), with valuations provided. The public can follow the disposition of deaccessioned works online or search for them, since we post the reasons for deaccessioning, sale date, funds received and links to works acquired from the proceeds of sales.

The steps we are taking towards transparency at the IMA are born of an instinct to rethink how a museum should operate in today’s electronic fishbowl culture. The ultimate objective is to raise the standards of the profession as we step into uncharted territory. The unexpected, rewarding result is a more honest organizational culture in which constructive dissent and failed experimentation are not punished, profession-wide innovation is favored over score-keeping about our successes and going to work in the morning is a continuous adventure. Once you decide to transition from providing select information to restricting select information, a host of new institutional behaviors becomes the norm. While a diminished endowment and challenging economic environment present many obstacles, our staff has chosen to model the best practices we can invent or follow, resist territoriality, reveal agendas when they surface and face tough choices with equanimity and honesty.

Of all workplaces, a museum should prize innovation and social benefit over personal or professional gain. That’s easy to say if you’re earning a salary as competitive as this author’s, and harder to say if you’re not. But unless I’m delusional, the majority of IMA’s staff is focused on our mission, energized by our potential and persuaded that our embrace of transparency has improved workplace ethics and performance. And if that isn’t the case, you’ll likely read qualifying commentary on our blog in short order."

A lighter look: the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals gives us a new seed!

          Valentines Day 2011 undoubtedly sparked the imagination of many lovers.

          The following day, the unbounded imagination of 7th Circuit Court appellate justices Daniel A. Manion, Diane S. Sykes, John Daniel Tinder was revealed for all to see.  That's the day, delivered via their ruling in Chapman Kelley v Chicago Park District, the judges unveiled their new concept:  a seed with amazing properties.

          That precedent-setting ruling essentially said that Kelley was not the "author" of his artwork the Chicago Wildflower Works.  Instead, the trio of judges declared the "author" of the artwork to be a wildflower seed itself.

          Anyone with an intimate knowledge about the Wildflower Works concept knows that Kelley purchased many thousands of dollars of wildflower seeds. He would be intrigued to no end and would be most anxious to encounter this new seed rolled out by the 7th Circuit. 

          This 7th Circuit creation has some truly magical attributes, the seed:

1. It has the brain to conceive and plan its own future.
2. It possesses a mouth and communicative skills able to convince many humans and fellow seeds to carry out its ideas.
3. It has access to funds that drive results.
4. It commands scientific knowledge able to design a community of plants that provide continuous flowering, solely using rainwater, utilizes no fertilizers, or insecticides, and yields a sequential growth pattern throughout the Midwest's three seasons.
5. It has the ability to inspire a small army of citizens, causing them to spend many hours as volunteers over a 20 year span, whose work caused flower blooms that delighted casual passersby of local and international origin, leading to much documented public praise.
6. It is able to lead and coordinate at a complex level to produce a work that everyone, including the Chicago Park District---excepting the 7th Circuit--has hailed as a successful work of art.

          It seems that all of these talents would rather define a human author.

          If seeds--there are far more seeds in the world than humans--truly have these humanoid abilities, we humans had better immigrate to another habitable planet.  Perhaps now that the 7th circuit has brought forth this remarkable seed as author, it can also provide an escape to the beyond for us.

          Should these justices and their law clerks be remanded to the third grade? 

Marla Fields: Frank Reaugh Production Continues

Independent filmmaker Marla Fields continues to garner support from the wider community.  The work-in-progress documentary on the life of Texas painter Frank Reaugh gains steam.

Wikipedia has more information on the "Dean of Texas Painters."

Spread the word if you can.