James Kalm askes: If Arshile Gorky, and Stuart Davis, were the first two of New York’s “Three Musketeers,” who was the third? If you don’t know, or can’t remember, it’s probably because the enigmatic John Graham attained the status of “outsider” by ascending from the very belly of the Modernist Beast to something beyond, something invisible, something “Hermetic”. Born Ivan Gratianovitch Dombrowski in 1886 Kiev , he escaped the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution, renamed himself, and immigrated to the USA. He landed in New York in 1920 and through his studies at the Art Students League made connections with artists who would become the foundations of the “New York School.” An early champion of European Modernism, he wrote “Systems and Dialectics of Art” in 1937. He discovered and organized early exposure for Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and Willem de Kooning, and just as Abstract Expressionism was gaining worldwide recognition, dropped modernism to pursue obsessive neo-classical portraits of wounded goddesses and witches. Also included are works by Arshile Gorky (some of questionable authenticity), and a pair of rarely seen de Koonings. A musical intro is provided by Piers Lawrence. This program was recorded April 17, 2021. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Here's the link to my 2005 review of John Graham published in the Brooklyn Rail:
www.lorenmunk.c...
17 окт 2024
