Figures In Motion: The Mid-Century Paintings of Walter Quirt

FTHEIMID-CENTURY GUREPAINTINGS S INOF M OTI O N

WALTER QUIRT

FTHEIMID-CENTURY G U REPAINTINGS S INOF M OT I O N

WALTER QUIRT

T

here are few stories as uniquely captivating as that of the life and legacy of American artist Walter Quirt. As a pioneer of the social-surrealist movement in New York in the 1930s and 40s, a member of the radical John Reed Club, a longstanding WPA muralist, and an outspoken and uncompromising defender of his own beliefs, who was known for publicly calling Salvador Dalí a fascist and once threw Peggy Guggenheim out of his own studio, Quirt’s life story reads like a fascinating hollywood biopic. And, while his paintings can be found in 28 major museums including SFMOMA, de Young, Smithsonian and MoMA his contribution to 20th century art history has been largely overlooked since his death in 1968. For fear of “letting him go”, Quirt’s widow, Eleanor, refused to posthumously market and exhibit his work, and as a result his estate remained untouched until Eleanor’s death in 2009, housed at The University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, where Quirt was a professor. After her passing, Quirt’s three sons stored and maintained the estate until its rediscovery in 2015, and since then there have been two comprehensive retrospectives and multiple museum placements. Figures in Motion, however, is the first contemporary exhibition to focus solely on Quirt’s Mid-Century figurative pieces.

The paintings of the 1950s and 60s mark a vital step in Quirt’s evolution as an artist. Throughout this period, Quirt explored the figure with a more experimental and gestural approach than he had in his early works of the decades prior. In a 1954 letter to James Johnson Sweeney, Director of the Guggenheim Museum, Quirt remarks of his current body of work, “The paintings are essentially improvisations. Although I sometimes rely on mental images, but not often. I never use sketches.” Quirt used this automatic approach to further explore his longstanding fascination with tempo in art. He described in detail his attempt to take the current cultural tempo and translate it onto his canvases, using himself as the conduit. With a focus on structure, dimension, volume, density, texture and especially color, he would go on to compose the most inspired and vibrant paintings of his career.

In 1960 Quirt was honored with a comprehensive retrospective sponsored by The American Federation of Arts (AFA) with a catalog written by legendary writer and New Yorker critic, Robert Coates, who would later go on to coin the term “Abstract Expressionism”. The exhibition travelled for two years and was seen in seventeen different venues. Woman of Sorrows (page 9) and Song of the Guitar (page 6), both included in this important

exhibition, each illustrate Quirt’s approach to making art in this period, where he used color to charge his paintings with an emotional quality, and took the compositions to the edge of abstraction. However, with the addition of a few key brushstrokes, he brilliantly reveals figures within the compositions, which became central to his paintings of that era. The fluid application of his visual vocabulary is reminiscent of improvisational music, which was not by coincidence as Quirt and his close group of friends, including Stuart Davis and Romare Bearden, were all very much involved in the New York Jazz scene going back to the 1930’s. Quirt’s long relationship with music sheds light on the significance he applied to the concept of tempo within his work.

As these improvisations became more frequent, Quirt began experimenting with works on paper executed in quick drying acrylic paint. This gave him the ability to create multi-textured, full color compositions that possessed the spontaneity of expressionism. A group of these outstanding works on paper were featured in the AFA exhibition, however, the vast majority were placed in Quirt’s flat files immediately after their completion and were not readily seen by anyone for over 40 years. It’s fair to surmise that we are among the first people to see these flawlessly preserved paintings on paper since their rediscovery.

In addition to the perfect conservancy of Quirt’s archived paintings and drawings, the artist kept a lifetime’s worth of correspondence between museums, artists, critics and friends, along with catalogs and newspaper clippings from all of his numerous exhibitions. After his death, this astounding time-capsule of material was lovingly organized by the artist’s widow Eleanor Quirt. Her efforts have provided the necessary foundation for the continued research and understanding of Quirt’s life and legacy, as these materials have helped further refine the aesthetic and philosophical differences between the various stylistic periods of Quirt’s long career.

Figures in Motion: The Mid-Century Paintings of Walter Quirt, is the first exhibition to specifically celebrate his figurative work, executed between 1956 and 1964, and is an important part of our responsibility to not only understand Quirt’s contribution to twentieth-century art history as a whole, but to also comprehend each of the pillars on which that contribution was built.

CK Contemporary

Lake Harriet Series

Oil on canvas

60 x 75 inches

1963

Triumphant Family Oil on canvas 66 x 51 inches 1959

Song of the Guitar Oil on canvas 58 x 40 inches 1959

There Oil on canvas 60 x 50 inches 1962

Mythology

Oil on canvas

47 x 70 inches

1957-1958

Woman of Sorrows No. 1 Oil on canvas 66 x 41 inches 1958

Lake Harriet Series

Oil on canvas

58 x 41 inches

1964

139 Lake Harriet Series Oil on canvas 14 x 15 inches 1964

Eternal Need Oil on canvas 65 x 40 inches 1958-1960

Searing Pain Oil on canvas 70 x 41 inches 1958

Old Man Oil on canvas 70 x 49 inches 1958

The Apostle Oil on canvas 58 x 41 inches 1957-1958

The Dock People Oil on canvas 36 x 40 inches 1966

Modern Image Oil on canvas 40 x 36 inches c. 1964

Geometric Woman Oil on canvas 36 x 30 inches 1961-1962

Untitled, Woman in Blue Oil on canvas 15 1/2 x 9 3/4 inches 1963

Standing Figure Oil on canvas 23 x 11 inches 1963

Untitled, Reclining Woman Acrylic on paper 30 1/2 x 51 inches c. 1962

Untitled, Standing Woman Acrylic on paper 51 x 30 1/2 inches c. 1962

Untitled, Seated Woman Oil and ink on paper 28 1/2 x 22 1/2 inches c. 1962

Untitled, Frontal Figure Acrylic on paper 35 1/4 x 23 inches c. 1962

Untitled, Leaning Figure I Acrylic on paper 35 1/4 x 23 inches c. 1962

Untitled, Leaning Figure I I Acrylic on paper 35 1/4 x 23 inches c. 1962

Untitled, Figure in Red Acrylic on paper 24 x 19 inches 1960

Untitled, Small Seated Figure Acrylic on paper 6 x 5 1/2 inches 1962

Untitled, Standing Woman with Dark Hair Acrylic on paper 35 x 23 inches c. 1961

Untitled, Figure with Hat Acrylic on paper 35 1/4 x 23 inches c. 1962

Untitled, Abstracted Woman Acrylic on paper 35 1/4 x 23 inches c. 1962

Japanese Women Acrylic on paper 30 1/2 x 25 1/2 inches 1958

Untitled, Swirling Figure Acrylic on paper 22 1/4 x 30 inches 1964

Untitled, Man Looking Left Ink on paper 8 3/4 x 4 inches c. 1964-67

Untitled, Gestural Woman Ink on rice paper 19 1/4 x 12 inches 1963

Untitled, Woman in Dress Ink on paper 10 x 7 inches 1962

Untitled, Woman Looking Left Ink on paper 22 x 15 inches 1964

Untitled, Figure in Color Acrylic on paper 30 x 22 1/4 inches 1962

Untitled, Seated Male Acrylic on paper 30 x 22 1/2 in 1964

Untitled, Two Figures Ink on paper 22 1/4 x 30 inches 1964

Untitled, Moving Figures Ink on paper 11 1/2 x 14 1/4 inches c. 1965

Untitled, Lake Harriet

Mixed media

7 x 10 inches

1962

Untitled, Figure Group

Mixed media

15 x 22 inches

1964

Untitled, Geometric Figures Ink on paper 23 1/4 x 18 3/4 inches c. 1958

Untitled, Reclining Woman

Acrylic on paper

18 3/4 x 23 3/4 inches

1956

Untitled, Figure on Blue Acrylic on paper 28 3/4 x 22 3/4 inches 1961

Untitled, Small Standing Man Acrylic on paper 10 x 8 1/4 inches 1962

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