Customer Reviews

Marsden Hartley: American Modern : The Ione and Hudson D. Walker Collection, Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota

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When I saw this exhibition years ago at Pepperdine University it was massively impressive. But not just for the art. Also for the fact that an exhibition of this famous gay artist Hartley was being hosted at a famous right-wing school. The show was impressive for having quite a few of what collectors of Hartley like to call "stich" paintings. Made up of small stiches of color, almost having a feeling of Seurat being mixed with Cezanne. I think that explains these works better than Hartley supposedly having been influenced by an Italian artist Segantini. But that is a matter of opinion ultimately, I suppose. The sheer number of these "stich paintings" in the show made it special and very enjoyable. Yet I still marvel that it was at Pepperdine. A place that, for instance, recently hosted for a Law School Dean interview the horrid reactionary Robert George. Apparently, according to the Mirror of Justice Catholic law site, Robert George is not going in that direction because....you guessed it... he needs to spend time with his family, on the east coast. Perhaps being affiliated with various hate groups condemned by the Southern Poverty Law Center might have been part of why he ....needs to spend time with his family. And why even a right-wing school like Pepperdine agrees he needs to spend time with his family. That is what very right-wing reactionaries often need to do; spend time with their families. Or maybe Robert George got wind that Pepperdine had once hosted a painting show by a great gay artist Hartley and that is the real reason he now needs to spend more time with his family and not move to Pepperdine. That is not far-fetched, because recently his organization the American Principles Project pulled out of a conference because of the mere physical presence of gay people. In my opinion, alas, there is more greatness in any one of Hartley's paintings than in the entire works and biographical trajectories of those sorts of people.

Fascinating collection. The Walker's were amazing collectors. The museum should be in THEIR name. It could not exist without their collection.