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ART TIMES
Vol. 31 No. 1
Summer 2014
(June/July/August)
Elizabeth Okie Paxton and The Breakfast Tray: The Modernity of a New Woman Artist By Rena Tobey Pick any period of art history, and only a handful of artists will be remembered. Piecing together the history of women artists injects an additional layer of complexity— women were not encouraged to be a professional artist for most of history. The United States has proven to be no exception, and yet women have earned a living as artists from its colonial days. Resurrecting the career of an artist like Elizabeth Okie Paxton (1877-1971) is especially challenging because only a few of her paintings are in public collections. Further, her archived correspondence centers on her role in managing her husband’s career. William McGregor Paxton (1869-1941) was the beneficiary, like other male artists before, during, and since his time. He benefited from an art-savvy wife who supported his career, using her energy in the bet that his offered the more secure future. The Breakfast Tray, from about 1910, allows us to get to know an artist almost lost to memory and as arguably her most provocative work, distinguishes Okie Paxton as a modern artist. Drawing on her apparent knowledge of art trends, this painting incorporates in both subtle and more overt ways the issues of her day, while demonstrating her mastery of tantalizing narrative. In a literal way, Okie Paxton links the “old” century with the “new” as a transitional figure, who also had a very modern temperament. Likewise, The Breakfast Tray offers an intelligent nod to art of the past, conveys the ambiguities of its period, and anticipates what modern and contemporary American art will become. The painting invites us into a world—feminine, messy, sensual, and believable. It is full of personality. Rather than convey a sense of easy domestic harmony, this bedroom can evoke wonder, anxiety, curiosity, titillation, and a variety of narratives that rarely resolve. The artist treats
this interior like a still-life composition to be arranged, but then throws it into disarray. At first, the scene seems deceptively simple. Dappled morning light enters a bedroom, highlighting the silver service of a breakfast tray perched on a chair by an unmade bed. Light glistens off the discarded black pumps. It bounces off the polished, turned knee and spindles of the Windsor-backed chair. Deep shadows—under the shoes, along the chair rails, under the bed—suggest the low level of the rising sun. A newspaper has been tossed away. A dressing gown is ready to slink off the bed, as the lace-trimmed sheets and pillow, still marked with the warm impression of a head, all jumble and tumble toward the floor. This movement prevents the scene from being a posed still life. Someone has tossed another garment over the footboard. Is it a man’s robe? His trousers? The two pillows kiss in bed. The starched cloth napkin has been jammed up against the seat back of the chair. The succulent grapefruit and abandoned roll are clearly defined, but the silver pieces meld together, blurring certainty. The samovar appears too small in relation to the grapefruit, which overwhelms the matching porcelain mug and jug. The chair is shorter than the doorknob, creating a sense of vertigo from the disproportion. Relative sizes are difficult to assess, so either the room is gigantic or the chair is child-sized. The details do not matter as much as the immersion in the feeling of being in that languorous bed. The painting is at once photographic, impressionistic, and wholly modern. The tight zoom in on the scene creates immediacy and there-ness, turning the viewer into a voyeur or even an actor in the scene. Immediately, we know that rigorous activity messed up this bed, and with the shoes discarded in haste, the scene appears to
be post-coital. Who are the lovers who enjoyed this bed? Where have they gone, apparently in a hurry? Why is the tray set only for one? Was the lover expected? Did one or two people enjoy this breakfast in bed? Who prepared the tray—is it the result of the work of a servant, another unseen participant in this narrative? Part of the joy of the painting is the stories it evokes and indeed demands. A painting like The Breakfast Tray makes us want to know the artist. The collection of letters that remain document business transactions about her artist-husband’s Elizabeth Okie Paxton. n.d. work, giving us little In the William McGregor Paxton Papers, 1886-1971, personal informaArchives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. tion about her except that she was Continued on Page 15
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