American and British art of the twentieth century

In our art course these past few weeks we have been considering American and British art of the twentieth century.

American art before the twentieth century was colonial art depicting the West.

America’s emergence artistically in the first half of the twentieth century owed much to the camera.

Arthur Steiglitz made photography an art form and of course there was the cinema.

There was also the Ashcan school.

I liked their vivacity and range – especially, for those who like sporting art, the depiction of pugilists.

Nonetheless, as the Cold War took its grip, there was a feeling of cultural inferiority to the Soviets who could point to musicians like Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rachmaninov and also writers like Tolstoy, Chekhov and Pushkin.

The CIA played a covert role in the development of abstract expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.

Both these artists died by their own hand and probably did not realise how their talent was manipulated.

They are now household names commanding huge prices in the auction rooms and with dealers.

For many years I did not “get them”, but stopped short of that silly comment that anyone could paint them.

Now I appreciate the swirl of the horizontal of a Pollock and the way that Rothko softly and subtly diffused paint into the canvas.

British art is hard to classify and in the twentieth century became polarised between the figurative and abstract.

Walter Sickert, in his dark Camden Town series, was more figurative influenced by his friend Edgar Degas and his trips to Dieppe.

Yet, born in Munich to Danish and Irish parents, he did not arrive in England for some time.

Stanley Spencer was an individualist who even at the Slade still returned to his beloved Cookham every day.

He left his first wife to marry Patricia Preece, who continued to live in a gay relationship.

We considered the lesser known YBAs – Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin being the most celebrated.

A frisson went through the class when we were shown images of prepubescent boys and girls by the Chapman Brothers.

I was less inclined to enter into moral judgment than enquire how it is that two brothers paint together: does one paint the face, the other the body?

Finally I must refer to a contributor to an arts programme extolling and explaining Frank Auerbach.

She managed to do so without mentioning Auerbach, who came over as a Jewish child refugee in the Kindertransport fleeing the Nazis.

Finally we now appear to be welcoming Ukrainian refugees but it’s a salutary reminder of what a refugee can contribute.