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Passionate Observer: Eudora Welty among Artists of the Thirties

 

The R. W. Norton Art Gallery is pleased to announce the opening on March 21, 2004, Passionate Observer: Eudora Welty among Artists of the Thirties, a striking exhibition featuring over 100 works, including photographs, paintings, drawings, and prints by notable American artists of the 1930s.

At the center of the exhibit are Eudora Welty's dramatic photographs of Mississippi, Louisiana and New York during the Great Depression. Welty's images from this time period are placed alongside works by artists such as Edward Hopper, Thomas Hart Benton; photographers Berenice Abbott, Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn; and Southern artists Walter Anderson, William Hollingsworth, Marie Hull, and Karl Wolfe. Such placement allows the viewer to compare Welty's artistic motivation with visual interpretations of her contemporaries from this period. (right portrait of Eudora Welty, mid-1930's)

Renowned author Eudora Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1909 and was a life-long resident until her death in 2001. Her interest in photography was further nourished through her acquaintance with other Mississippi artists, such as Marie Hull, Karl Wolfe, William Hollingsworth, and Helen Jay Lotterhos. Both a compassionate observer of the world and a passionate image maker, Eudora Welty used the camera much like she used language to document the economic instability and prevailing personal hardship experiences of the Great Depression through her photography.

As the Great Depression deepened a need to look at and define the country's character, artists nationwide focused on the activities and patterns of everyday life in America. While some artists chose to critique it, some to glorify it, and others simply to show it, this collective focus was known as the American Scene Movement, which virtually produced a self-portrait of the nation during the trying times of the 1930s. Some of the artists were social realists, like Edward Hopper, whose works illuminated urban societal problems. At the same time, Regionalists, such as Thomas Hart Benton, were intent on creating authentic American art by depicting experiences of rural America.

While Welty and fellow artists in Jackson did participate in the American Scene Movement, they did not indulge in the incessant patriotism that the style evoked in many of the nationally known artists of this time period. Rather, Welty's photographs taken during the Great Depression are evidence of her optimism about the human spirit and pride in the South. It is through her words and pictures that one shares in Welty's celebration of her home and her people. With Welty's discerning artistic vision, she captures many aspects of life during this period, confirming why she was known as the 'ultimate passionate observer of her time." More than just a chronicle, Welty's photographs, like her celebrated story writing, reveal the courage and dignity of the American people during this pivotal era. (right: Child on Porch, mid-1930's)

In addition, the exhibition features the photographs of Margaret Bourke-White, the first woman photojournalist who worked during this period, as well as five photographers working for The Farm Security Administration (FSA) during the 1930s. The black-and-white photographs taken by artists Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn and Marion Post Wolcott feature farm life in Mississippi during the Great Depression are a landmark in the history of documentary photography. The FSA photographs, which portrayed the disheartened, impoverished state of the nation, side by side with those of Eudora Welty emphasize her more compassionate understanding of humanity and awareness of the resilient American spirit.

Passionate Observer: Eudora Welty among Artists of the Thirties was organized by the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, and is traveling under the auspices of International Arts & Artists of Washington, DC. A hardcover companion book to the exhibition is available.

The exhibit will continue at the Norton Art Gallery through June 13, 2004.

 

(above: Preacher and leaders of the Holiness Church, Jackson )

 

About International Arts & Artists

International Arts & Artists is a non-profit, comprehensive arts service organization. Founded in 1995, IA&A is using innovative approaches to respond to the needs of the international arts community.

IA&A promotes international and cross-cultural understanding by working with a multitude of museums and cultural institutions, showcasing a wide range of diverse artists, arts movements and cultural programs. IA&A has collaborated with institutions in more than 40 states in the United States and with institutions in France, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Brazil in an effort to make the arts more available to a broad segment of the population.

International Arts & Artists's Traveling Exhibition Service provides large and small institutions with a wide range of thematic and solo exhibitions. [1]

 

International Arts & Artists exhibition description

Photography taught me that to be able to capture transience, by being ready to click the shutter at the crucial moment, was the greatest need I had.
 
-Eudora Welty
 
Both a compassionate observer of the world and a passionate image maker, Eudora Welty was a visual artist who used the camera much like she used language as a writer. While Welty felt her primary medium was language, she continued to use a camera until 1950, when she left her Rolleiflex on a bench in the Paris Metro. Out of anger at her own carelessness, she never replaced it.
 
This provocative exhibition developed by the Mississippi Museum of Art with over 100 works features photographs, paintings, drawings, and prints by notable American artists of the 1930s. At the center are Eudora Welty's dramatic photographs of Mississippi, Louisiana and New York during the Great Depression. Welty's photographs from the thirties are placed alongside works by painters Edward Hopper and Thomas Hart Benton; photographers Walker Evans, Berenice Abbot, Ben Shahn, Margaret Bourke-White, Arthur Rothstein, Marion Post Wolcott, and Dorothea Lange; along with Southern artists Walter Anderson, William Hollingsworth, Marie Hull, and Karl Wolfe, comparing her artistic motivations with their visual interpretations from this period.
 
Born April 13, 1909, Eudora Welty was a life-long resident of Jackson, Mississippi, until her death in 2001. She left only to continue her education at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and to live in New York City for about a year, where she attended Columbia University. Welty enjoyed the opportunities provided by New York such as museums and theatrical performances, but her father's illness motivated her return to Jackson in 1931.
 
Upon returning home, Welty reintroduced herself to the small community of artists in Jackson. Marie Atkinson Hull was the acknowledged star of the local art scene having studied at the Art Students League of New York and in Europe. Shortly after Welty's return, a trio of younger artists would return to Jackson with equally serious intentions. All three were graduates of The Art Institute of Chicago, and all were in their home state of Mississippi to ride out the Depression. Karl Wolfe, Helen Jay Lotterhos, William Hollingsworth and Eudora Welty all became friends and mutual admirers.
 
The Depression deepened America's need to look at and define the national character. American artists nationwide focused on the activities and patterns of everyday life in America, some to critique it, some to glorify it, and others simply to show it. This focus, collectively called the American scene movement, virtually produced an American self-portrait. Some of the artists were social realists, like Edward Hopper, whose works illuminated urban societal problems. Others were Regionalists, the dominant group, intent on creating authentic American art through the experiences of rural America. Among the lead artists of this group was Thomas Hart Benton. Welty and Welty's artist friends in Jackson focused on the American scene, but none of them were on the hyperpatriotic bandwagon that the American scene movement evoked in many of the nationally known artists.
 
The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was created within the Department of Agriculture in 1937, one of the New Deal programs designed to assist poor farmers during the Depression. The black-and-white photographs created by the artists of the FSA are a landmark in the history of documentary photography. The work of five FSA photographers who traveled through Mississippi during the 1930s are included in the exhibition: Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn and Marion Post Wolcott. Like Welty's, their photographs are compassionate observations of humanity and show an understanding of place.
 
A southern sensibility pervades everything Welty made, and it is through her words and pictures that one shares in Welty's celebration of her home and her people. Although these photographs were made during a period of widespread economic instability and often great personal despair, they evidence Welty's optimism about the human spirit and pride in the South. Eudora Welty, perhaps more than any other artist working during the Depression, was the ultimate passionate observer of her times.
 
Two exhibitions of her photographs were mounted in New York in 1936 and 1937 and many photographs have been published since then. Passionate Observer: Eudora Welty among Artists of the Thirties debuted at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, Mississippi, in the spring of 2002. A companion book of the same title published by Mississippi Museum of Art is available. [2]

Editor's notes:

1. Text courtesy International Arts & Artists website at http://www.artsandartists.org.

2. Text courtesy International Arts & Artists website at http://www.artsandartists.org.

rev. 8/19/04, 4/14/05

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