Abstract Expressionism and Other Modern Works: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection

At The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

This collection has been described as being unique in that it is the only extant collection put together during the lifetime of the artists. Most of these works are American and were collected in New York City between 1950 and 1954 although there are other modern, European, works from other dates. I am uncertain if the entire collection was on view.

Lately I have become very interested in studying collections: I am curious to discern the common thread running through a body of collected works and to see if I can ascertain what the collector’s interests might be beyond the school or style. These works are mid century abstract expressionist works. That is the main theme. As a secondary theme many of the paintings were black and white with some small touches of color…or none. Where color was dominant the hues had a lowered chromaticity so that overall there was a mellow tone to the collection. The exceptions to this were in the works by Hans Hoffman and Alexander Calder. In Calder’s work the three primaries were softened by the addition of areas in black and white. In Hoffman’s work the green hue of two squares was softened by the red hue of the ground.

There were two main influences: those artists following Arshile Gorky began with a reference to the human figure and those following Hans Hoffman referenced “nature”, meaning, I believe, landscape.

One of the most interesting common threads, but not a factor in selecting the works, is that many of these paintings are works made before that particular artist created his familiar iconic image that is seen in almost every museum today. For example the Clyfford Still is a black on white ragged edged movement, but not the common black vertical tear with some additional bright color. While that later development can be seen everywhere to the point of having become common, this is by far the most interesting work of his that I have yet seen.

There is a de Kooning sketch from early in the Woman series, dedicated to the collectors, but the oil on canvas is of black lines of what appears to be several figures drawn one over the others. Where the forms remained open they were closed with additional, gratuitous, lines. This created an allover pattern and the areas defined by the crossing lines were then filled in as flat independent forms. White and a muddied white are predominant with slight touches of color here and there. As a result there is a sense of there being “something” here, but rather than seeing it clearly it has become a field of confusion: what do I see; what is here? I was reminded of Frost’s poem, The Watchers: “they cannot look out far; they cannot look in deep…” Too many museums ride the de Kooning bandwagon by exhibiting only his work from the Woman series. It was a great delight to find this really wonderful painting in this collection.

For all the look of modernism about these works, there is in the whole collection a very strong sense of classical repose. But the most interesting characteristic is that it reads as a personal collection representing personal interests within a specific time frame rather than being a group of works displayed in a museum in order to illustrate a particular school, an historic era, or an art world polemic.

The works by Murray Louis and Kenneth Nolan are stained raw canvas and here they are credited with having begun that tradition although in other reading I had understood that Helen Frankenthaler was the first to do this. Her work here has some staining in the early stages of the development but she then continued with a heavier impasto. She has used a long thin rectangular format and has made it even thinner by painting a wide black area on one side. Two distorted large circles almost appear to be mirror images of one another and these circles are repeated in smaller sizes. There is a wonderful and powerful sense of action, surface and depth. The painting is very dynamic, much more so than others of her works which I often find too cloying with their watercolor-like, ephemeral prettiness. This had not only a motif of circles, but, over all, it had real balls.

Facing the de Kooning across the room was a Phillip Guston work, an abstraction which had the structure of a cubist painting, in which all of the elements rushed to and built up a complexity in the center of the format, leaving the surrounding sides less developed. This was very pale and seemed almost an out of focus flower garden, saved from complete prettiness by some dirty beige scrumbling. I’m not a Guston fan, especially of the late works, and if I had to choose something of his for myself it would be from this period.

The Hans Hoffman, essentially two green squares on a red ground, has a very strong sense of surface. The greens do not leap out as might be expected, but rather seem calmed and almost subsumed by the red. They rest and seem very slightly to hover. Near and far are suggested. Despite Hoffman’s usual six colors, three primaries and three secondaries, these do not seem to be “rich” colors. But neither are they juicy and so overall there is a rather Spartan sense of “making do” with this limited palette. There is less the sense of exploiting the richness of color than there is of an artist at work in his studio using color as a tool.

Hoffman is very good and I enjoy his work, observing how he creates a sense of balance through variation of the elements within what is usually a standard format, how he creates a sense of forms by altering the direction of the brush strokes, but I think, despite his adherence to color, generally minus white and black, that he is not a colorist, he seems far more interested in form and in using color to suggest form. And despite his influence, I think that he is not “major”. Hoffman’s work lacks depth: what you see is what you get. The work of one of his students next to his had a beautiful sense of color used to define the work. It was beautiful and juicy color. It was every bit as good as Hoffman’s if not a more satisfying visual experience.

On the other side of the Hoffman was a small work painted by Richard Artschwagle, “Bread”. On pressed wood the heavy surface texture was given a black over white finish with a shaded oval in the center indicating a loaf of the title. Eschewing the grandiose values of abstract expressionism, this small jewel holds its own amongst the larger works with accomplishment, talent, and wit.

In the smaller room outside, a Larry Rivers work, a portrait of his mother in law, was done in the large format. The figure, a line drawing, is seen reposing in a stuffed overlarge arm chair. It is excellently drawn but the areas indicated then became suggestions for the development of the color, as if the line and the color had been maintained as two separate elements. (Contrary to the Cezanne dictum: The color is the drawing.) Worked up primarily in a dusty rose and a pale olive green, with some orange flesh tones, the motif is there but the painting has its own presence and authority. It is a very, very nice painting. It is very human and very respectful. I have always liked Larry River’s work and I am always so sorry that he is not more highly regarded than his frequent omission in American museums seems to imply. If status were based on talent alone he would have his due.

Of the paintings I would think that the Robert Motherwell, Ode to the Spanish Republic, is the star turn. The black and the white are both very clean and very forthrightly stated, with the black appearing to have been dramatically imposed over the white ground. Although nothing but shape, the black is very visceral and evokes the sense of the genitalia of a Picassian bull, Spain. The ochre just to the side of the lower center edge is exactly the right color and the right amount of it. And, yes, this is the well known Motherwell iconic image. But the fact that it still provokes a powerful response, indicates, I believe, its validity and authenticity. The same cannot be said for the Marin watercolor, the Rothko color field painting nearby, or the rather too pretty Jackson Pollock Lavender drip painting.

There were some pieces of sculpture in this collection as well; most of it set at the quadrants within the room. Without exception they were welded metal, looking heavy, overwrought, and rather hostile. But then I don’t like sculpture. Neither, apparently, did the other visitors: almost everyone discovered these just before bumping into them. They leapt back and then walked around them without giving them further attention.

While this is a very good collection it would be difficult to determine that it is a great collection. This genre is widely represented in American museums where the works are presented one by each of the artists displayed. This collection too has one by each artist, unless there were others that were not shown here. For the most part the collectors have avoided what I think can be considered the clichéd utterances. All of the “right” names are included and many of the lesser known names have created works that stand as equals to those of the stars. It is a handsome group of paintings and shows a consistency of taste and discrimination. If I have any reservations it is that this represents a very brief moment in art history; it has depth in numbers but lacks breadth in the long term overview.

Another work in the smaller room was a really fine collage made of paper and fabric by a woman artist who, it was stated, had name recognition and fame during the time these works were collected but who, with the lessening dominance of abstract expressionism, faded from public awareness. I consider abstract expressionism as but one of many twentieth century ism and I am certain that even many of the well known names will someday take their place in the store rooms of the art world as well. Except for the Larry Rivers work I did not see anything in this collection that I thought would occasion a reappraisal of the movement as it is presently defined.

Wanting to know more, to answer the questions this exhibition raised, outside the gallery, at one of the Met’s ubiquitous sales kiosks, I considered buying the catalogue but in thumbing through it I was very surprised to see that the color of the reproductions was extremely garish and hardly representative of the beautiful colors in this collection. Therefore, at $50.00, I passed on it, despite the vigorous protestations of the salesclerk. But then, that is her job: to sell the books.