David McCosh | Learning to Paint is Learning to See

David McCosh LEARNING TO PAINT IS LEARNING TO SEE ❚ Roger Saydack

David McCosh LEARNING TO PAINT IS LEARNING TO SEE The McCosh Exhibitions, 2005–2014

Roger Saydack Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art University of Oregon, Eugene

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Table of Contents

Foreword by Jill Hartz

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Introduction by Danielle Knapp

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The David John McCosh and Anne Kutka McCosh Memorial Collection: Stewarding a Legacy Preface and Acknowledgments by Roger Saydack

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Learning to Paint is Learning to See: The McCosh Exhibitions, 2005–2014

Essays by Roger Saydack David McCosh (1903–81), from The Oregon Encyclopedia

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David McCosh and the Promise of Oregon

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Karin Clarke Gallery, January 2005 My Introduction to David (and Anne) McCosh

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The Cohasset Paintings of David McCosh

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University of Oregon Museum of Art, Summer 2000 The Portrait as a Mirror: Character Studies by David McCosh

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Karin Clarke Gallery, October 2005

Collaborations with my Subject

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Karin Clarke Gallery, August 2006

Along Horse Creek (detail), n.d., page 39 Page 1; figure 1.

Outskirts of Town, Early Spring, circa 1926 Watercolor on paper, 10 1/2 x 11 inches Collection of Jeff and Cathy Seltzer

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The Places That Made Me a Painter: Paintings and Drawings

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by David McCosh Karin Clarke Gallery, August, 2007

A Short History of McCosh’s Designs for the Murals The Opening 50 of the Middle West Karin Clarke Gallery, August 2007 Anne McCosh: One Remarkable Woman

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Karin Clarke Gallery, February 2008

Newly Discovered Paintings and Drawings by Anne McCosh

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Karin Clarke Gallery, October 2010 Selections from the Oregon Years

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Karin Clarke Gallery, July 2011 The Night Drawings of David McCosh

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Karin Clarke Gallery, November 2009 David McCosh and the Oregon School of Landscape Painting

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Schrager & Clarke Gallery, April 2014

McCosh Dedication A Museum’s Collection is its Message to the Future Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, May 2009

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Foreword Jill H artz Executive Director of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

STARTING IN 2005, Roger Saydack, a connoisseur and

Committee for its generous advice and support; and

collector of Pacific Northwest modernism (in addi-

the many collectors of Mc Cosh works that appear

tion to his classical music expertise and esteemed

herein. Jonathan Smith, JSMA photographer, worked

legal career), began organizing exhibitions of work

tirelessly to capture new high resolution images of

by David McCosh and Anne Kutka McCosh for the

the works that illustrate Mr. Saydack’s essays. Chris

Schrager & Clarke Galleries in Eugene, Oregon. These

White, collections manager, assisted with oversight of

intimate and focused exhibitions have continued for

the Memorial Collection. The handsome publication,

ten years, each bringing new light to a different aspect

designed by Diane Nelson, JSMA’s graphic design

of their work. This publication gathers together the

manager, sensitively allows the artists’ work to shine.

curator’s writings and images of the work presented

Two recent graduates from the University of Oregon,

in those shows, which together affirm the beauty,

curatorial interns Claire Sabitt (M.A., Art History,

rigor, thoughtfulness, and importance of the McCosh

2016) and Madeleine Kern (B.A., Art History, 2016),

legacy. We are deeply grateful to Mr. Saydack for so

provided invaluable assistance during the inventory

eloquently sharing his passion for their lives and art

of the collection in preparation for this publication.

with us.

During their lifetimes, the McCoshes were loved

Thanks to the David John and Anne Kutka McCosh

and admired by so many in Eugene especially. Gener-

Memorial Museum Endowment Fund, the McCosh

ations of students learned how to draw, paint, and

Advisory Committee, and the McCosh Memorial

look thanks to David McCosh’s tenure in the Univer-

Collection housed in this museum, we are dedicated to

sity of Oregon’s Art Department, and both artists’

bringing that legacy to wider audiences in the North-

works hold places of honor in homes and businesses

west and beyond. In 2010, Danielle Knapp became our

throughout our region. Whether you are familiar

first McCosh Curator, and her insightful essay in this

with their art or are becoming acquainted with it

volume, relating the history of the artists’ careers, as

for the first time, we hope you will be informed and

well as her continued work researching, writing, and

enriched by this offering.

exhibiting their work, further enhances this goal. The JSMA is indeed fortunate to have a scholar perfectly matched with a collection that provides endless opportunities for scholarly investigations, and we look forward to her future accomplishments in this area.

She joins me in thanking Mr. Saydack for spearheading this project; Karin Clarke for her gallery’s focus on Northwest art; the McCosh Advisory 5

McCosh Advisory Committee Past and Present Members Bonnie Butler Craig Cheshire Mark Clarke Andrew Cook Robert Fraser Bonnie McCosh Sandra McCosh Leonard Charles Pressman Hope Pressman Roger Saydack

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Introduction

The David John McCosh and Anne Kutka McCosh Memorial Collection: Stewarding a Legacy Danielle M. K napp

THE WORKS OF DAVID (1903–81) and Anne Kutka McCosh (1902–94), both accomplished painters with natural talents and formal training, would have been no less impressive had the couple not left such a sizable collection of finished and unfinished artworks, ranging from sketchbooks and small studies to large framed canvases, to the University of Oregon to allow for future study and enjoyment. How fortunate we are that such a generous gift was, in fact, arranged by Kutka McCosh in the years following her husband’s passing. The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is

The couple on their wedding day, Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 1934.

Unknown photographer, McCosh Memorial Archive

grateful to have been entrusted with not only the largest repository of both of these artists’ works and

less create the hundreds upon hundreds of drawings,

related materials from their personal archive, but also

prints, and paintings that he produced.

the responsibility of sharing these treasures with the

Archival documents and letters reveal how seri-

public. The Memorial Collection presents a wealth of

ously McCosh weighed decisions that might upset the

possibilities for in-depth research, exhibition develop-

balance between his teaching and painting. In 1940,

ment, and continued connoisseurship.

he declined the invitation to complete a mural for

What

is

especially

remarkable

about

David

the Eugene Post Office and the commission was later

McCosh’s prolific career as a painter (he preferred

awarded to Carl Morris (letter from David McCosh

this more accurate designation over the generic title

to Edward Rowan, Assistant Director of the Section

of “artist”) is that it was evenly matched by the depth

of Fine Arts, August 8, 1940). He explained, “I regret

of his commitment to his students at the University

very much that at this time I do not feel that I could

of Oregon. His teaching career spanned decades but

do justice to the commission and therefore cannot

its impact did not end with his retirement in 1970.

accept it. I am committed to a full program for the

When one hears from his former students how indel-

coming year which will give me less time than ever

ible a mark McCosh made on their appreciation of the

to paint. [. . .] Broken time is extremely unsatisfac-

creative process, their understanding of color harmo-

tory for important work and it is too late for me to

nies, their self-discipline as artists, and their own

arrange for a leave of absence [from teaching duties at

painting practice, it can be hard to imagine how such

the University of Oregon].” Three important sabbati-

a dedicated instructor ever found the time and energy

cals from the University of Oregon would come later:

outside of teaching to work in his own studio—much

to the Washington coast, Mexico, and New Mexico 7

(1949–50), to Europe and Morocco (1958–59), and a

(McCosh’s earliest trip abroad was a period of eight

return to the American Southwest and Mexico (1965–

months in England, France, Ireland, and Italy funded

66). Anne Kutka McCosh accompanied him and also

by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s John

painted during all of these travels.

Quincy Adams scholarship, 1928–29; Kutka McCosh

As we now know, and as will be explored in much

had previously visited Mexico in 1931 on a Gladys

greater depth in Mr. Saydack’s writings that follow

Roosevelt Dick Studio travel scholarship). But the

this introduction, these breaks from teaching and

reach of these years was long. Periods spent at the

opportunities to travel were formative for McCosh.

Pacific coastline, as a visiting instructor in Montana

The greatest leaps in his own growth and develop-

and Michigan, and at his cabin along Horse Creek

ment as a painter did not occur within the walls of

east of Eugene were particularly stimulating.

the Art Department classrooms in Lawrence Hall. In

also

sustained

an

incredibly

active

total, McCosh’s time spent outside the United States

schedule of exhibiting his work. His paintings were

equaled less than four years, a blink of an eye within

featured in one-man or group shows nearly every year

the long lifespan of a man who passed away at age 78

for the entire period that he lived in Oregon, up to a

David and Anne McCosh on sabbatical in Mexico, 1966.

Unknown photographer, McCosh Memorial Archive

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McCosh

solo exhibition at the Governor’s Office in Salem the

and students have played major roles in carrying out

year before he passed away. Retrospectives followed at

Kutka McCosh’s wishes for the collection: Lawrence

the University of Oregon Museum of Art (now JSMA)

Fong, retired curator of American and regional art;

in 1985, the Littman Gallery at Portland State Univer-

Jean Nattinger, retired registrar; Colleen Thomas,

sity in 1986, and again at the University of Oregon

former assistant registrar; June Black, former associate

Museum of Art in 1993 (David McCosh Exhibition Series,

curator, and alumni Mary Helen Burnham, Claudia

curated by Craig Cheshire and Bonnie Butler) and

Fischer, Aleksandra Globig, Lindsay Keast, Kathleen

2000 (Community Favorites from the David McCosh Collec-

Metzger, Deborah Sepulveda, Merrit Thompson, and

tion). Since the establishment of a full-time curatorial

Jessica Wilks.

position to manage the collection in 2010, the JSMA

The exhibition of the McCoshes’ works in and

has mounted the exhibitions The Making of David

beyond this community, their dissemination to other

McCosh: Early Paintings, Drawings, and Prints (2011),

public collections through loan or gift placement,

David McCosh’s Eugene, and McCosh in Europe (both

and the creation of publications to serve as records of

2014–15), and started a series of annual lithography

exhibitions and research are equally vital in order to

shows (2016)—All of which have involved university

fulfill our mission. There is no better example of how

students in research, checklist development, and other

this art collection and its archive have been mined,

curatorial tasks.

reinterpreted, and appreciated outside of the univer-

Anne Kutka McCosh’s contribution to the arts

sity than the series of focused exhibitions that Mr.

has had less scholarly attention, though the body of

Saydack has curated over the past ten years. His and

work that she created (beginning with her education

gallerist Karin Clarke’s mutual dedication to keeping

at the New York Art Students League in the 1920s)

this material in the public eye has continually rein-

evidences her remarkable skill and, especially, her

vigorated appreciation of it. Rather than wane, as

instincts for portraiture. Before her marriage, she

those who knew the McCoshes best during their

worked and exhibited in New York City and was the

lifetimes have passed on, interest in both painters’

recipient of the Tiffany Foundation Fellowship at

work has actually continued to grow. The tremen-

Oyster Bay in both 1928 and 1930, the latter at which

dous responses to the exhibitions at the Karin Clarke

she met her future husband. Kutka McCosh typi-

Gallery and Schrager & Clarke Gallery are proof.

cally demurred from exhibiting her own paintings

As the current steward of these works, I am

and drawings after the couple’s move to Oregon, but

delighted that this compilation of essays and accom-

posthumous gallery shows and essays have reinvigo-

panying illustrations will strengthen this important

rated a long-overdue and much-deserved focus on the

legacy. It will serve as a record of not only the shows

work that she created over the course of her long and

that Mr. Saydack has curated, but the groundwork

productive life.

laid thus far in our shared commitment to promote

Kutka McCosh’s foresight in establishing the Memorial Museum Endowment Fund in 1990 has

the understanding and appreciation of David and Anne McCosh’s contributions to the arts.

preserved not only her husband’s legacy as she had hoped, but has allowed for the widespread appreciation of her work in the years since her death in 1994. Over the past two decades, many former staff 9

Author’s Preface & Acknowledgments

Learning to Paint is Learning to See: The McCosh Exhibitions, 2005–2014 and into the spaces of a subject as he experienced its colors and complexities—sometimes searching slowly and methodically, at other times racing excitedly along.

Like the Impressionists, McCosh developed detailed methods and techniques for his work. His calligraphic brush strokes and patches of carefully graduated colors moved the viewer’s eye through the painting at the same speed that McCosh’s eye moved through his subject. His point of view was always interior, personal, and focused on discovering the essential character

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MODERNISM was sweeping through American art

that a casual glance misses. And like the best painters

when David McCosh began painting in the 1920s.

among the Impressionists, McCosh had the technical

Social

Expres-

knowledge and skill to assemble all of the disparate

sionism, Minimalism and Pop Art all had their day

Realism,

Expressionism,

Abstract

information he learned from the subject into a well-

during his career. By the time McCosh retired in the

organized and visually engaging work of art. His most

early 1970s more than a few prominent artists and

vivid work is among the most important and innova-

critics were proclaiming that painting as a serious art

tive painting to have come from the Pacific Northwest.

form was dead. American art changed fundamentally

Beginning in 2005, I curated a series of exhibitions

over those years; but McCosh and his painting did not.

of works from the collection of the David John and

He was as well-trained and educated as any American

Anne Kutka McCosh Memorial Museum Endowment

painter and he was quite familiar with all the trends

of the University of Oregon Foundation, which were

and movements of his time. But the purpose of his art

presented at the Karin Clarke and the Schrager &

remained constant because for him painting was about

Clarke Galleries in Eugene. My idea was to explore

learning how to see. And his voice as a painter and

themes in David’s work and to discuss questions

the look and feel of his work always flowed from that

about his methods and purposes. Anne’s work was

simple yet profound premise.

also presented in two exhibitions that featured her

Painting has the unique ability among the arts to

insightful portraits. This publication brings together

tell a story in a single, confined space that a viewer can

images of paintings and drawings from all of the

take in as a whole. Think of all the battles, dramas,

exhibitions, the explanatory essays I wrote, and addi-

allegories, and fantastic tableaus in our museums. But

tional materials that were created for gallery talks

a painting can also recreate a personal experience.

and for this publication.

Claude Monet said that the purpose of his painting was

The help and support of many have been important

to state as accurately as he could his sensual response

to me as I’ve worked on this project over the years. In

to a scene as it appeared to him at a specific moment.

particular I am grateful for the insights and inspira-

This was the aesthetic premise of Impressionism, and

tion I gained from my many conversations with the

it led to an entirely new approach to painting.

painters and McCosh students Craig Cheshire, Mark

McCosh’s painting was also about his personal

Clarke, and Margaret Coe and also from the writ-

response to his subject. But his interest was in how

ings of the artist and philosopher John Berger. My

making a painting helped him see what was distinc-

thanks to Karin Clarke for being such a great cham-

tive and special about his subject. That’s what he

pion for McCosh and the art of painting; the staffs of

meant by “learning to paint is learning to see.” He

the University of Oregon Foundation and the Jordan

was fascinated by how his eye moved across, around,

Schnitzer Museum of Art, in particular Danielle

Knapp, the Museum’s McCosh Associate Curator, for her kind assistance; the members of the McCosh Advisory Committee, all devoted friends and colleagues of

Fall Creek, 1964 Watercolor on paper, 19 x 22 1/4 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0906

David and Anne, for their cooperation and encouragement; my wonderful wife, Elaine, who is near the end of this list but is always first in my heart; and, of course, Anne McCosh, whose belief in David and his work lasted a lifetime and now beyond through the endowment she created.

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The Oregon Encyclopedia A Project of the Oregon Historical Society David McCosh (1903–1981)

DAVID Mc COSH, an important Oregon painter and influential teacher, was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1903. He spent a year studying liberal arts at Coe College in 1922 and a year later began six years of study at the Art Institute of Chicago, from which he graduated in 1926. In May 1927, while a graduate student at the Art Institute, he won the prestigious John Quincy Adams Fellowship, which enabled him to travel and paint in Europe during the winter of 1927 and most of 1928. In 1930, while he was painting in Oyster Bay, Long Island, on a Tiffany Foundation fellowship, McCosh met Anne Kutka, a gifted young painter who was also a Tiffany fellow. The two were married in New Mexico in July 1934.

McCosh began teaching in 1932 at the Art Institute and at the Stone City Art colony in Iowa, a summer program organized by his friend Grant Wood. In November, 1934, he accepted an appointment at the University of Oregon, where he taught painting, drawing, and lithography until his retirement in 1970. McCosh died in Eugene in 1981. While McCosh invested energy and thought into his teaching, painting was the focus of his life. His style changed over his long career—from the post-impressionism of his student days, to the earthy, midwestern regionalism of the 1930s, to highly original Oregon landscapes that had a directness and sense of personal discovery. Despite the style, all of his paintings were based on careful observation. “Learning to paint,” McCosh said, “is learning to see—not to recognize only familiar things.”

For McCosh, new places invariably meant new and fresh “situations,” as he called them, to discover, but his greatest inspiration came from the Oregon landscape. Night Drawings, a series of studies of complex landscape situations, addresses fundamental questions: How do I know these things? How do I see Portrait of David McCosh by unknown photographer, circa 1960. McCosh Memorial Archive.

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them? With carefully placed marks and calligraphic lines, McCosh recreated his visual experience of the

dense and entangled vegetation of the Northwest

Further Reading

forest, at times deliberate and meticulous and at other times quickly moving with energy and emotional engagement.

McCosh created his most successful paintings when his close analysis of a subject resulted in an empathetic understanding of its essential character.

Cheshire, Craig. “The Sketchbooks of David McCosh.”

Eugene: University of Oregon Museum of Art, 1994.

McCosh, David, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. http:// jsma.uoregon.edu/collections/americas-regional-art/davidmccosh/default.aspx.

In his late work in particular, he explored the potential of painting to create meaning as poetry and music do, not through a literal description of the world but through the creation of a work of art that states the essence of an experience in a form everyone can share.

McCosh’s work has been included in exhibitions at many museums and galleries, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Maynard Walker Gallery in New York, the Seattle Art Museum, the Portland Art Museum, and the University of Oregon Museum of Art. During the 1930s and 1940s, he was commissioned to paint murals for the 1933 International Exposition in Chicago; at post offices in Kelso, Washington, and Beresford, South Dakota; and for the National Park Service in Washington, D.C. His teaching schedule affected how much time and energy he had for painting, and among his students are influential artists and teachers, including Craig Cheshire, Nelson Sandgren, Tom Hardy, Harry Widman, Rudy Autio, Mark Clarke, and Margaret Coe. The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon holds the McCosh papers and a large collection of his work. Anne McCosh established the Schnitzer Museum’s David John McCosh and Anne Kutka McCosh Memorial Museum Endowment Fund in 1990 to preserve and promote the understanding of David McCosh’s work and to support other Museum programs.

Saydack, Roger. “David McCosh (1903–1981).” The Oregon Encyclopedia. www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/mccosh_ david_1903_1981_/#.Vs9J-0b09fY. ©2016, Portland State University and the Oregon Historical Society.

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David McCosh and the Promise of Oregon January 2005

“IT WAS 50 YEARS AGO this summer that I had my

Many of us who came here from “back east” never

first sight and taste of the Far West, most notably

get over our first sight of Oregon. It may be the sky,

Oregon. I was hooked for life. . . .

so enormous and different from what we knew, the

“Sadly deprived is the American youth who never

peculiar sharp angle the light can have this far north,

has known the wonder and delight of a first crossing

or any of a thousand sights and experiences that we

by land of half the continent, better yet, the whole

had only imagined before. We discover all of it in a

of it. From six miles up one does see, to be sure,

great rush of excitement, and, like Charles Duncan,

weather and seat position permitting—something of

we revel ever after in the memory of those first

the immense stretch of plain far below and, soon, of

days. David McCosh, who was from Iowa by way of

the jagged, menacing Rockies, but there is no sense of

Chicago, discovered this country gradually, closely,

touch, of personal, physical involvement. . . .

and intimately enough to paint it. Throughout all of

“In the summer of 1939 . . . on (a) glorious two

his years here, no matter where else he traveled and

week trip (out west) in a friend’s road-weary DeSoto

without regard to the changing fashions of the art

sedan . . . every mile . . . was terra incognito.

world, he painted the Oregon landscape. This land-

“The thrill of discovery is not reserved alone for the Columbuses, the Lewis & Clarks, the Amund-

scape, returned to repeatedly, was the steady heartbeat that gave life to his art.

sens of the world, those who first set eye or foot upon

If you are mostly familiar with David McCosh’s later

the Unknown. No matter that thousands of people,

paintings, the patches of color and calligraphic lines

millions, even, had already seen the Badlands, the

that create dense tangles—not unlike the underbrush

Black Hills, the Big Horns, Yellowstone Park . . . Mount

we have in these parts—you may think of him as an

Hood, the Columbia Gorge, Portland—no matter, I

abstract painter. He didn’t think of himself that way at

hadn’t seen them.

all. His painting was almost always based on his careful

“All was new, wonderful, exciting. No ‘peak in

observation of some specific situation, as he would say,

Darien’ was the nameless spot from which I first looked

in the world around him. He said that when he painted

out over the endless sweep of the Pacific Ocean, but

something—a fir tree, for example—he worked to elimi-

Vasco Nuñez de Balboa could not have been more awed

nate the usual, the ordinary, so he could focus instead on

on that historic September day in 1513.”

what is most extraordinary about that tree. The pieces in this show are especially vivid instances of McCosh painting what is extraordinary, with the fresh vision and

From “One Trip West, Hooked for Life,” by Charles Duncan (August 4, 1989). Reprinted in An Orange for Christmas and Other Reflections (Guard Publishing Company, 1993).

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thrill of discovery that characterizes his best work.

The show includes paintings from McCosh’s first days in Oregon—when everything was new and

Farmhouse on Millrace (Millrace with Horses), 1934 Oil on linen, 20 x 29 1/2 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0035

exciting; a group of rarely seen works from a period of

“Learning to paint,” McCosh said “is learning to

crisis for him—when his painting had gone stale and

see—not to recognize only familiar things. We hope

he struggled to find his art again on a sabbatical trip to

that others will try to see what we tried to see, and

Cohasset Beach in Washington; common street scenes

if a painting encourages that effort, it is a reasonable

in Eugene (that he made extraordinary); several views

success.” If you give these paintings that chance, they

of Horse Creek—his favorite stream in the mountains

will show you why McCosh chose to move here, why

near here; and some late and especially beautiful dense

he stayed, and what it is about this place where we live

tangles of underbrush that are at once complex, yet

that holds so much promise.

strikingly simple.

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McKenzie Backwoods, 1970 Oil on linen, 31 1/2 x 39 1/4 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0139

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Wind at the Beach, n.d.

Watercolor on paper, 21 x 14 1/4 inches Collection of Michael and Mary Adams

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Horse Creek, after 1955 Ink on paper, 13 x 20 1/2 inches Collection of Eric Schabtach

Left Seaweed Tangle, circa 1949 Watercolor on paper, 21 x 19 inches Collection of Paul and Dana Skillern Horse Creek, after 1955 Watercolor on paper, 22 x 30 inches Private Collection 19

Veneta (Second Version), 1936 Oil on linen, 25 1/4 x 35 1/8 inches Private Collection

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Beached Stumps, 1949 Oil on canvas, 22 x 32 inches Private Collection

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My Introduction to David (and Anne) McCosh THE ESSAY about McCosh’s Cohasset paintings, which

On the very last day of the show, I was sitting in

follows this introduction (page 24), was written for

the galleries on a bench, lost in front of one of my

Community Favorites from the McCosh Collection, an exhi-

favorite works, when a bright-eyed, older woman (I

bition at the University of Oregon Museum of Art

later learned she was 83 years old), with well-curled

(UOMA, as it was known then) of paintings by David

hair and an old-style east coast, matter-of-fact

McCosh. The show was presented in the summer of

manner sat next to me and said, “You know, I’ve seen

2000, a few years before the Karin Clarke Gallery

you here a lot. You look at art like you’re a painter.

exhibitions began, which are the subject of this publi-

Were you one of Dave’s students?” I thanked her for

cation. I was one of six individuals who were invited

the compliment and told her that I’d been looking

to select three of McCosh’s paintings from the Muse-

at paintings all my life, studied painting in college—

um’s permanent collection and explain the choices

really worked at it—but now I mostly just try to

in a brief statement that would be posted alongside

understand painting. And I described some of my

the selections.

few seconds—l learned later that was a long pause in a

I first saw it at the UOMA shortly after moving to

conversation for Anne—and she asked, “What’s your

Eugene in 1976. It was original, personal, and visually

name?” Anne had a way of speaking rhythmically

exciting—some of the most interesting and authentic

and pronouncing her words with an almost musical

painting I had seen in Oregon.

There wasn’t much of McCosh’s work to be seen in

clarity, which probably came from learning English as a second language, after the Czech her parents spoke.

the other museums and galleries I visited in the North-

I told her, and she responded by saying, “Well, I’m

west. But the UOMA in those years usually had on

Anne McCosh, and you sound like you’re serious. If

display a rotating group of works from the Museum’s

you want to see more of David’s work, I have it all

Northwest collection and different McCosh paintings

in the studio at our house. Give me a call and we’ll

would periodically appear. I looked forward to each as

make a time for you to come over and look.”

a new discovery. I was especially taken by Goats on a

That was the beginning of a fine friendship. I

Hillside in Spain—with its animals, carefully observed

made many trips over to the studio and spent hours

and painted so they integrated into and moved seam-

looking at David’s work and discussing it with Anne.

lessly through the rough fabric of the Spanish land-

I describe that experience in the essay in this publi-

scape. I thought then as I do today that this is a major

cation entitled “Anne McCosh: One Remarkable

American painting. Why isn’t the painter who made

Woman.” With her blessing I curated a retrospec-

it—David McCosh—nationally known?

tive exhibition for the Maude Kerns Art Center of

In 1985, the UOMA mounted a major retrospective,

McCosh’s works on paper, which I selected from her

planned, curated, and installed by former McCosh

personal collection. When I was invited to participate

students who understood his work deeply. That show

in the Community Favorites show, it was several years

was a revelation, and it remains to this day one of the

after Anne’s death, but our discussions about the key

best and most important exhibitions of the life’s work of

points in David’s development as a painter were very

a painter that the Museum has presented. I visited the

much in my mind. As I wrote about my selections, I

show many times, studied the paintings closely, poured

recalled the importance she placed on the work that

over the essays in the show’s catalog, and read all of the

he did at the beach in Cohasset, Washington, during

reference materials that were cited to learn more. What

his first sabbatical leave from the university in the

was the source of McCosh’s art, I wondered. Who was

fall of 1949.

the man who made it?

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reactions to McCosh’s work. She looked at me for a

McCosh’s work impressed me from the start when

Sun Bleached, 1949 Oil on canvas, 29 5/16 x 39 1/2 inches Collection of the Seattle Art Museum, Bequest of Anne Kutka McCosh

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The Cohasset Paintings of David McCosh Summer 2000

“ALWAYS REMEMBER this moment,” he said to his

beautiful, frightful beach. He had only himself to

young son seconds before the opening kick-off, with

teach at Cohasset, and it transformed his art.

100,000 people roaring all around them, “Because

These paintings make me wish that McCosh

right now anything is possible.” That’s how I feel

never left Cohasset, never went to Cornwall, France,

about this group of paintings.

Mexico, Spain, even that he never went back to

David McCosh was forty-six in 1949. The talented

teaching. There’s no question that he was a gifted

young academic had been teaching for fifteen years at

teacher who developed a memorable style, but for me,

the University of Oregon, and he was into middle age.

he seldom matched the straight-ahead power and the

Happy, satisfied, contented? No—far from it. Frustrated,

deep meaning of the Cohasset paintings. The force,

depressed, concerned that his teaching was consuming

the intensity of this work rivals the Abstract Expres-

his art is probably closer to the truth. He could do

sionist paintings that were being made in New York

anything he wanted with a paintbrush, but his art had

at the same time. There are beautiful, original real-

become stale. His paintings were accomplished, but life-

izations of the strange things McCosh saw out on the

less. He worried that he had lost his ability to see things

sand and of the tide that left them behind. We see

as fresh and new. He needed to find a place where he

rich, sensuous places exactly like his beach on a foggy

could do that again. A place that he could discover.

morning. This is painting that flows naturally, inevi-

He had that opportunity with his first sabbatical

24

tably, and directly from observation.

leave from the University in 1949. He and his wife,

Cohasset was to be McCosh’s epiphany. Why then

Anne, went to the beach at Cohasset, Washington, for

and there? Getting away from teaching must have

the fall months. It was “a wild, primitive place,” she

been a large part of it—in spite of his great gifts, and

told me years later, “with all kinds of strange things

perhaps because of them, teaching was consuming

left behind on the sand when the tide went out. It

much of his creativity. But equally important had

was unlike anything we knew. David felt like he had

to have been his discovery of a great primal force of

to start all over again to paint there.”

our region: the Pacific Ocean. He had seen the ocean

And start over he did. He painted in a manner that

before, but he didn’t discover it until he began to

matched the primitivism of the place, using pigment

paint what he saw there. The excitement, the drama,

directly out of the tube, palette knife, sticks, twigs

the joy of that discovery are in these paintings, as

from the beach, pushing, pulling the paint, forgetting

fresh as the day he made them, waiting to be shared.

the conventions he taught, the refinements he had

We should all have our Cohassets. These paintings,

learned. He painted exactly what he saw, as directly

with work from the rest of his life on the walls around

and simply as he could. He wanted nothing to stand

them, show us what Cohasset means. It is a time when

between the viewer and his experience of this raw,

anything is possible.

After the Storm, Cohasset Beach, 1949 Watercolor on paper, 12 x 15 inches Private Collection

25

Beach, 1949 Gouache on paper, 11 x 15 inches Private Collection

26

Beach, 1949 Oil on canvas, 22 x 22 inches Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Purchased by the State of Oregon; 1970:10.2 27

The Portrait as a Mirror: Character Studies by David McCosh September 2005 peasant of 19th century Holland? And who were the artists who gave us their portraits: the Greek and Roman sculptors, Memling, Holbein, van Gogh?

Portraits can also engage us in a discussion of the even bigger question: “Who am I?” The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has a self-portrait of Rembrandt (fig. 3) that I have been looking at for more than forty years. It is not Rembrandt as the self-assured jokester we see in his early self-portraits.

It is a portrait of a middle-aged man, who has taken

IF YOU HAVE EVER had your portrait painted, you’ve

some hard knocks in life. By the time he made this

probably been surprised, maybe amused, perhaps

painting, Rembrandt’s young wife had died, he had

perplexed because what you see in the painting is not

been through the equivalent of bankruptcy, and

what a mirror shows you. You see what the painter

the wars, plagues, and grief of 17th century Europe

chose to portray about you, of course, but also about

weigh heavily on him. His proud gaze has crumbled.

himself. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, the

He seems weary, worn. Yet his anxious, searching

portrait painter has used the facts of the subject’s

eyes burn through us. A lifetime is compiled in this

appearance as the starting point for an imaginative

face. Whenever I am in that great museum, I make a

exercise in psychology. And as we know, such an analysis can tell us as much about the analyst as it does about its subject.

Painters sometimes say that a painting isn’t finished until it has a face that looks back at the viewer. This is true metaphorically for any painting, portrait, or otherwise. The “face” is the painting’s independent life.

In portraits, the painting’s face comes alive when the artist gives the image a unique, living personality. To do this, the artist must find a distinctive character in the subject that he understands well enough to express in paint. Often, character that is known this well is character that is shared. When the portrait reaches the point where it looks back at the artist, he sees something of himself. So in this sense, the portrait is like a two-sided mirror that reflects the image of the subject on one side, and the painter on the other.

The viewer—you or me—sees both the sides of the mirror. For the viewer, a portrait addresses that simple, but endlessly fascinating question we have about others: “Who are you?” Who was Julius Caesar or Constantine? Who was the nameless tradesman from 15th century Flanders who stands before us now, the nobleman from 16th century Germany, the 28

special point to see this painting. One day I happened

people dominated his work; when he lived in Eugene,

to look at the tag on the wall next to it, noticed the

the landscape was his great passion.

date when the painting was made, computed how old

In 1934, during the depths of the Depression,

Rembrandt was then, and understood for the first

McCosh was employed by the Public Works of Art

time the real hold this portrait had on me. Rembrandt

Project to paint portraits of workers at a Civilian

made this painting when he was the same age that I

Conservation Corps camp in Illinois. Think about

was on that day. For all the years I had been looking

that for a moment—a government sponsored program

at it, I was becoming the man in the painting. From

whose purpose was to commission gifted young

that day on, the man in the painting would be the

painters to make portraits of workers. Not the great

man that I once was. This portrait had become a

and wealthy of society, not its political leaders, but

mirror for me.

the common people. The sketch in this show for the

We think of David McCosh as a landscape painter.

painting The Foreman and the painting entitled The

But during the years that he studied and taught in

Bachelor (fig. 2) were made around this time, and they

Chicago, people were most often his subject. The

provide an interesting comparison.

landscape paintings we remember him for came after

The

Foreman

is

an

idealized,

young

worker

he left the big city and moved to Oregon. McCosh

portrayed as a hero, almost like a Greek Olympic

always painted what he found unique and interesting

champion. Boldly drawn with great balance and

about his surroundings. When he lived in Chicago,

symmetry, the piece is obviously intended to illustrate the virtues of the American manual laborer.

While there must have been a model who posed for the drawing, the piece is not about that individual; it is about the qualities he embodies.

The title of The Bachelor suggests that this work is also about universal qualities that a category of people share, in this case, a lonely man, sewing a button on clothes in need of mending, seated in front of an open door that invites him out into the dark night. But unlike the foreman, the bachelor strikes us as an actual person, not a stereotype. His face is asymmetrical, which makes it possible for McCosh to create the impression of a man of multiple emotions —complex, contradictory, and lifelike. The painting

Figure 2. The Bachelor, 1932 Oil on canvas, 25 x 30 inches Private Collection Opposite page: Figure 3. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–69) Self-Portrait, 1660 Oil on canvas, 31 5/8 x 26 1/2 inches Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913 29

Figure 4. Self-Portrait (Unfinished), circa 1928 Oil on canvas, 18 x 20 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0202

30

makes us ask why this man is a bachelor. Was he

McCosh’s most deeply emotional portraits are the

always alone? Is he alone by choice? We don’t know

paintings of his wife, Anne. Yet the titles of Yellow

his name, but we sense that the bachelor is a real

Sweater and The Blue Smock (fig. 5 and 6) make us

person, because we see a history and a future in his

wonder what he thought was the real point of these

face. David McCosh was twenty-nine years old when

paintings. Are they simply compositional studies, still-

he made this painting, romantically involved with his

life paintings that happen to feature his beloved wife

future wife, but still a bachelor. We might ask how

as a willing model? That hardly seems possible given

much of McCosh is reflected in this painting.

the great care McCosh used to capture something of

The Self-Portrait (fig. 4), which is undated, but

Anne’s thoughts and feelings. Anne was a gifted artist

probably from around 1928, is the very epitome of

who had studied at the Art Students League and

the intense, romantic young painter. The paint itself

managed a New York City gallery in the late 1920s and

has a dashing, almost unfinished quality that neatly

early ’30s. His paintings of her always seem to show

characterizes the young artist. There is a young man

her lost in thought or in a sort of reverie. Those of

each of us has known in this painting. In Self-Portrait

us who remember her crusty and direct manner see a

with Apple, painted in 1932, two years before McCosh

side of Anne in these portraits that she did not often

moved to Oregon, we see an almost sarcastic depic-

reveal in her later years. David also did several sensi-

tion of a rather sullen young fellow who appears to

tive paintings of Anne when he returned briefly to

be trying to look like a hayseed. Again, we know this

portraiture in the 1940s (Figure in a Hammock and The

guy. Is this how the hot young painter from Chicago

Red Vest (fig. 15, page 58), but, for whatever reason, he

felt about moving out to Oregon?

never painted her again.

Figure 5. The Blue Smock (Anne), before 1937 Oil on masonite, 34 1/4 x 28 1/2 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0166 Figure 6. Yellow Sweater (Anne’s Portrait), 1936 Oil on canvas, 25 x 22 1/2 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0002

The Greeks believed that the portrait must depict the entire body, not just the face, because the soul is expressed throughout the body, not in the head alone.

The belief that the body as a whole expresses personality is wonderfully illustrated by the watercolor entitled Repast (fig. 7), where the hearty diners feast on their meals and on one another’s company, and by Parade (fig. 8), an especially bitter lithograph from the Depression years. In spite of its title, Parade is no celebratory march; it portrays a breadline. I remember Anne telling me that this print sent chills through her as it brought back the terrible emotions she felt when she saw these long lines of beaten but angry men, unable to support themselves and their families, desperate for food.

Had McCosh stayed in Chicago, we would almost certainly know him today as a painter whose great subject was the people of his time. While he would have had a different subject, I suspect he would have been the same painter. His portraits and character studies have the technical and structural integrity we see in all of his best work. They are based on careful observation, and they focus on what is distinctive, special, and personal about his subject, just as his landscape paintings do. But because their subject is people, we respond differently. We find emotion in them, we speculate about the experience that shaped them, at times we may even speak to the paintings as if they could answer us. I imagine that if we asked McCosh about this, he might say something like, “That’s good.

Now try thinking like that about landscape painting.”

Note: The best study of portraiture that I know is regrettably long out of print, but well worth searching for: Likeness: A Conceptual History of Ancient Portraiture,

by James D. Breckenridge (Northwest University Press, 1968). Breckenridge brilliantly relates ancient portraiture to the changing politics and philosophies of those times. This book first articulated for me the questions that a portrait can ask.

31

Untitled (Man and Woman in Restaurant), 1930s Ink on paper, 8 x 11 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0588 Untitled (Model with Head in Hands), 1930s Graphite on paper, 10 x 8 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0599

32

Figure 7. Repast, 1930s Watercolor and ink on paper, 13 3/4 x 22 1/4 inches Private Collection

33

Bather Running, 1933 Lithograph on paper, 5 x 9 inches Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art; 1990:2.71

Figure 8. Parade, 1933 Lithograph on paper, 12 x 10 inches Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art; 1990:2.93 34

35

Collaborations with My Subject August 2006

THIS SHOW ASKS THE QUESTION: how do we explain the

difference

between

a

highly

accomplished,

successful work of art (in other words, a really good painting) and a painting that is more than all of that—a painting that represents an artist’s finest work, a painting that can rightly be termed “great”?

Let’s begin by recognizing that the terms “good” and “great” as applied to art carry heavy baggage.

Some would say that these terms represent subjective judgments that are little more than expressions of individual preference or bias. Is David McCosh a greater painter than Carl Hall? Is he a greater artist than the sculptor Jan Zach? Is a great painting by McCosh as good as a great painting by Marsden Hartley? Or is a good painting by Hartley better than a great painting by McCosh?

We’ll leave those meaty questions for another day.

36

For present purposes, I’m using the terms “good” and

that McCosh was a highly skilled painter who had

“great” as a way of assessing the relative success of

mastered the fundamentals of pictorial structure,

McCosh’s various paintings, not as a way of ranking

color harmony, balance, tension, and the like. And

them against the output of any other artist (as enter-

that explains all the really good paintings he made.

taining as that might be).

But why are some of his paintings dramatically more

The question that gave rise to this show really

successful than others? What makes some works so

came from my study of McCosh’s large body of work,

vivid, so charged with energy that they practically

first with his wife, Anne, as my guide, as I prepared

leap off the wall? How do we explain them? And why

a retrospective of his work for the Maude Kerns Art

didn’t he just make great paintings every time out?

Center in 1988, and then in the last several years,

I don’t know that McCosh ever answered these ques-

as I worked on the series of shows this gallery has

tions. If we take him at his word, his paintings began

presented. McCosh did many good paintings. But

with his careful observation of his subject. He looked

what is really striking are the occasional pieces I

for what was unique and distinctive. He painted what

would find in the stacks, such as those in this show,

he saw in his subject that he found no where else. But

that are simply off the charts. There’s no question

there must be something more that explains how his

Figure 9. Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–90) Cottage Garden, 1888 Reed pen, quill, and ink over graphite on wove paper, 24 x 19 1/4 inches Private Collection Figure 10. Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–90) Nursery on the Schenkweg, April–May 1882 Black chalk, graphite, pen, brush, and ink, heightened with white body color on laid paper, 11 5/8 x 23 1/16 inches Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Walter C. Baker, 1971

subject, or perhaps more accurately, it’s an energy that comes out of the artist’s collaboration with his subject.

What I am describing is by no means unique to McCosh’s art. Consider, for example, the drawings of van Gogh. Compare his fine descriptive landscape from 1882, Nursery on the Schenkweg (fig. 10), with the amazing Cottage Garden (fig. 9) from 1888. Nursery on

great paintings came to be. If McCosh’s art was simply

the Schenkweg is a beautiful, carefully made work, with

a record of his observations, why are some of his paint-

fine sensitivity to the broad planes and rhythms of

ings so much more vital than others?

the Dutch landscape. This is a very good drawing by

One quality that the paintings in this show

any standard, but work like this doesn’t explain how

share, which is a hallmark of great paintings by any

Vincent became the best known, highest priced, most

artist, is their extraordinary vividness. What does it

widely loved artist of our day. Cottage Garden does. It

mean for a painting to be “vivid”? It means that the

explodes off the page. It has the clarity and elegance

painting, in some significant sense, has a life of its

of Nursery on the Schenkweg, but its emotional intensity

own. By that I mean that the artist has responded

is of an entirely different order. Van Gogh responded

so completely to his subject that the painting is no

so strongly to this richly varied garden that he kept

longer a representation or rendition that the artist

working and striving to bring it to life on his sheet.

controls. In a sense, this exceptional vividness comes

The more he worked, the closer he got to the energy

from an energy that the artist has tapped into that

in the garden that he found so compelling. Imagine

is not his own. It’s an energy that comes from the

how carefully, how precisely van Gogh must have

37

Persimmons II, n.d.

Watercolor and charcoal on paper, 15 1/8 x 21 inches Collection of Joan Darling-Jones and William Jones

looked at this scene to place its many plant forms on

illustrate this point.

is that he found the rhythm of this garden and then

1. Still life paintings that represent McCosh at his

merged his own work into its natural flow. As an

most controlling. Here, he manipulates and even

artist moves from objective analysis of his subject to

creates the subject matter of the painting.

becoming absorbed into its very movement and struc-

2. Landscape paintings where McCosh is at his

ture, the barrier that separates him from the subject

loosest and most free. The landscape provides

fades. The artist actually begins to draw with his

the inspiration, the point of departure, and the

subject. He has discovered, and is now in a real sense

touchstone for the painting.

collaborating with, the essential character that made

3. A special group of figure studies, where McCosh

the subject so compelling to him in the first place.

paints a subject that is traditionally very

Achieving empathy with a subject, as van Gogh did in

controlled in a quick and intuitive manner.

Cottage Garden, can make a good work great.

38

This show includes three subjects by McCosh that

his page. But the remarkable aspect of this drawing

Figure 11. Along Horse Creek, n.d.

Watercolor on paper, 17 1/2 x 23 1/2 inches Private Collection

Still life paintings can tell a story by depicting

he found a balance that was just right and which

objects that take on the character of artifacts of a

called for exactly the deft paint application he used in

person, a place, or an era. McCosh uses still life to

these pieces. Still life paintings can be handsome and

explore the relationship between forms and color,

beautifully controlled but ultimately stiff and lifeless.

much as abstract painting does. Objects that are visu-

What’s special about these paintings is the free and

ally interesting because of their shape or color are

easy balance in them. This most artificial of subjects

selected by the painter, placed in a setting, and then

resulted in paintings that are among the most natural

moved about almost like chess pieces on a board to

and organic works McCosh ever made.

create the relationships that the painter depicts. That

We are used to seeing energetic, lively McCosh land-

sounds pretty academic, and it often is, but the still

scapes, but the paintings in this show are unusually

life paintings in this show go beyond a study of balance

vivid. Of the many studies McCosh did of his beloved

and form. We can see McCosh becoming totally

Horse Creek, a mountain stream in the foothills near

engaged in moving and manipulating his objects until

McKenzie Bridge, where he and Anne had a cabin, the 39

Figure 12. Nude in Saugatuck, n.d.

Watercolor on paper, 13 1/2 x 20 1/2 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0553 Goat Herd and Cacti, 1959 Watercolor on paper, 9 1/2 x 14 inches Private Collection

two in this show stand out. Along Horse Creek (fig. 11)

arrangements to paint her in a landscape setting. He

practically dances with a spirit that must have come

also made up his mind to throw caution to the winds

from the play of light and shadow and sparkling water

in these sessions and paint as quickly and intuitively

on a sunny, summer day. We can imagine McCosh

as he could. And the paintings in this show are the

sitting on a rock, so wrapped up in recreating these

results. He was delighted, and even liberated, by them.

images and patterns that his painting just took off on

It’s easy to see why. Nude in Saugatuck (fig. 12), with the

him. This isn’t a simple record of his observations; this

form of the model reflecting the landscape setting, has

is the day itself, the light, the color, the shadows, and

a vitality that is completely apart from much of the

the sun, in front of us on the page.

genre painting McCosh was doing at the time.

Figure painting, for a classically trained artist

I suspect that each painting in this show resulted

like McCosh, is the most careful and exacting of all

from a process that for McCosh was unusually

subjects. So where did this show’s loosely painted,

engaging. The process of selecting and establishing

sensuous nudes in a lush landscape come from? In

the still life model, becoming deeply involved in

1938, McCosh was invited by his friend (and former

a landscape situation, or forcing himself to paint

classmate) Francis Chapin to teach and paint with him

quickly and intuitively, drew him in, and in each case

at the Art Institute of Chicago’s summer workshops in

he submitted in some significant way to the energy he

Saugatuck, Michigan. When McCosh left Chicago in

found in his subject. A master painter like McCosh is

1934 for Oregon, his career and Chapin’s were pretty

a master at controlling the elements of his craft. But

much on equal footing. Both were considered prom-

the great paintings of a master often seem to be those

ising young artists with the potential for big careers.

where he gives up complete control. They seem vested

Four short years later, Chapin was on his way to real-

with an energy that is not entirely his, an energy that

izing that potential. He was a well-regarded teacher at

results from collaboration with his subject.

the Institute and the director of its Saugatuck Institute, he was gaining a national reputation for his painting,

40

and he enjoyed strong sales at high prices in good

Nelson Sandgren, master painter, good friend and mentor,

galleries. McCosh’s career, measured by gallery sales

died earlier this month. Nelson loved painting completely –

and reputation, was slowed by his move to Oregon. He

he loved everything about it—making it most of all, but he

was troubled that he couldn’t even get Chapin inter-

also loved the intellectual challenge of trying to figure out

ested in selling a painting to the museum in Eugene

what it all meant. We spent some very fine hours together

because the amount he had to offer ($300), which

talking about art, trying out ideas, struggling to explain the

McCosh considered a nice sum indeed for a painting,

inexplicable. Nelson was proud of his heritage as a student

was peanuts to Chapin. McCosh wondered if a part of

of David McCosh at the UO in the 1940s. He faithfully

the reason that Chapin was getting so far ahead of him

attended the McCosh shows here, even when travel wasn’t

was because McCosh had tightened up too much as

easy for him. Everyone who was at the McCosh gallery

a painter, maybe because he was so pre-occupied by

talks will remember Nelson’s joyful, insightful, impromptu

his teaching at the University, but also because he no

comments. Nelson would have liked this show—he would

longer had colleagues around him like Chapin. So he

have loved using this wonderful art as a springboard to

decided he would try something new at Saugatuck. He

wrestle with audacious ideas about how it came to be. This

hired a model he thought was especially fine and made

show is respectfully dedicated to his memory.

41

The Places That Made Me a Painter: Paintings and Drawings by David McCosh August 2007

THIS EXHIBITION, the gallery’s fourth of the work of

the exercises of a master craftsman strutting his stuff.

David McCosh, is as much about the man as it is about

These are McCosh’s first-hand experiences of new

his work. I started with the idea of selecting paintings

places, laid down on paper for us to share.

that showed how intensely McCosh responded to the

Why did he paint this way, what was he trying to say,

unique character of the places he lived in—the land-

what does it all mean, and why should it interest us?

scapes that gave him, as he said, “an abundance of

The best explanation I’ve seen by McCosh himself of

new material for observation.” I wanted to find works

his intentions and purposes as a painter is in the writing

that evidenced as clearly as possible the thrilling,

that accompanies these comments, which I think is so

fresh point of view he realized through the close and

exceptional that I’m presenting it in its entirety.

careful observation that motivated his painting. What I found was a body of work that McCosh referred to as “something like an expanded notebook of firsthand experiences, recorded without much reworking.”

What surprised me most was how personal this work felt and how much I learned about him as I studied it.

Proposal for a Sabbatical Leave David McCosh, 1953

Because I wanted to trace this theme though his entire

Draft of a statement proposing a sabbatical leave from

career, the show became a retrospective. But given the

teaching duties at the University of Oregon

personal nature of these pieces, it also takes on the character of an autobiography that speaks of McCosh

My project, which I hope to be able to do someday, in

throughout the ages of his life.

any case, is simply to remain where I am and try to

My comments here will be brief, because I really

42

paint the material around me.

want to direct your attention to a remarkable piece of

I have been living and teaching in Eugene, Oregon,

writing by McCosh that I found in my research. But

for eighteen years. During that time I have produced

first, consider if you will, the romantic expressionism

many paintings but always on the interrupted and

of Dad’s Home in Ireland, the sweet feeling of home in

semi-occasional basis that a teaching schedule and its

Early Spring (fig. 1; page 1), the tender discovery of the

interests allow. In 1949–50 I had a Sabbatical Leave

colors of the desert in Landscape, New Mexico (painted

which was spent in two localities—Gray’s Harbor,

on the trip when Anne and David were married),

Washington, and in Mexico. The approach that devel-

the probing analysis of San Miguel and Tree in Torre-

oped out of necessity in both cases brought me closer

molinos (fig. 13; page 46), and the excitement of visual

to what I would like to be able to do with paintings

discovery in Along the Millrace (fig. 14; page 48), Corn-

and gave me some broad convictions about the signif-

wall Coast, and Ospidaletti. These pieces are more than

icance of painting which I am anxious to put to a

Village, 1928 Watercolor on paper, 10 1/2 x14 1/4 inches Private Collection

43

test here in Oregon. An extended and uninterrupted

interest in painting was slight, respond to the meaning

period of times seems to be necessary.

of the painting even though they still asked “what is

The validity of a painting, as I have come to think

it” in some cases. They didn’t ask “Why did you paint

of it, rests on its roots in experience. Perhaps the

it,” which, to me, is a far more important question

most significant painting is that which is motivated

and one that the painting itself should answer.

by concepts of visual reality. For myself, concepts

It was also rewarding to realize that I had gotten

come only after intensive searching and uninhibited

away from the deadly attitude that attempts to supply

observation.

something interesting to others and in place was

I would like to feel that not only is the meaning of

trying to deal with something that sincerely interested

a painting of mine clear but that it furthermore could

me. It is my conviction that even though the sincere

be stated unambiguously in words.

interest is focused on a modest personal discovery, the

Both at the beach in Washington and in the desert highlands of Mexico, I started with drawings and

resulting statement will have a fascination for others in spite of incompleteness and groping handling.

paintings in oil and watercolor, which were as faithful

What I propose to do is to pursue the character of

to the observed material as I could make them. In

this section of Western Oregon in the same fashion.

both cases, I chose what seemed to me to be most

Just what exact subject matter would be concentrated

characteristic elements and conditions in that they

on will be discovered as the experience progresses. I

combined many qualities that seemed to me mean-

am sure that I do not want to make it up. Whether

ingful and expressible. Also the material suggested no

it produces regional painting in the sense of having

other paintings to me.

some subject matter trade-mark or being freakishly

Gradually, the concept of what I wanted to do

different is immaterial. Painting that I admire is

clarified and I think my painting statements did too.

always regional in a broad sense and autobiographical

Some of the paintings are quite frankly a statement

as well. Rather than try to escape reality, I would like

of the appearance of a situation, while at the other

to try to face it and let the consequences be deter-

extreme are some that are apparently without recog-

mined by the experience.

nizable subject matter. Actually, this is a deception

The significance of my project rests on an affirma-

since I have to make an effort to remember whether

tion of faith—that reality cannot be invented—that

a particular painting was done on the spot or from

emotions must be genuine and that honest painting

drawings and remembered sensations. The more the

holds a unique position which no other activity or

concept of the total character became clear to me, the

form can replace.

more the form of the painting became a result. Still, I think it is true that while the work varies in many respects, including the way the paint is applied, the series from the coast are unified and distinct from the Mexican series.

44

Note: It is not clear whether this draft was ever completed

A penetrating observer is the same person whether

and the proposal submitted to the University. McCosh did

he is observing a painting or nature, and the quality

not have a second sabbatical until 1958–59, which he used for

of his observation does not change. It was a pleasant,

travel and painting in Europe. He never did take a year off

and new, experience for me to have persons whose

from teaching to simply paint in Oregon, as he proposed here.

Five Sailboats, n.d.

Oil on paper, 13 3/4 x 16 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0559 45

Figure 13. Tree in Torremolinos (Spain), 1958 Ink on paper, 11 x 14 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0329

46

Olive Tree and Pink House, 1958 Watercolor on paper, 18 1/4 x 25 inches Collection of Susan Williams 47

48

On the Right-of-Way, 1930s Watercolor on paper, 13 x 19 inches Collection of Ethel Marks

Left Figure 14. Along the Millrace, n.d.

Oil on paper, 15 1/4 x 20 inches Private Collection Bridge over Millrace, n.d.

Oil on paper, 16 x 20 1/8 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0287 49

A Short History of McCosh’s Designs for the Mural The Opening of the Middle West August 2007

inches long and six feet wide, on the subject of “The Opening of the Middle West,” with the following suggested topics: The Louisiana Purchase, The Mail in this French Settlement, Pony Express (Buffalo Bill, or a Pony Express Rider), Covered Wagon or Stage Coach being attacked by Indians, Frontier Post Office or General Store, Rail-Heads and the Pushing of the

IN APRIL 1935, David McCosh was among a limited

Railroad West, or Transference of Mail from the Rail-

group of painters from across the United States who

road to the Pony Express. The instructions gave the

were invited to compete for a commission from the

painters some latitude:

Painting and Sculpture Division of the Procurement

“The subject matter should be limited to the

Division of the Treasury Department to paint a set of

general theme stated, but the artist can express the

murals for the new Post Office and Justice Department

general theme as he sees fit. He may include all of

buildings in Washington, D.C. This invitation was

the topics suggested, may add to them, or may take a

no small honor. Each member of a special Advisory

simple specific incident to express the general theme.

Committee, consisting of many prominent museum

Any addition, found through research which fits into

professionals, a number of well-known painters and

the general theme is welcomed.”

sculptors, and several national political and govern-

McCosh took this project very seriously. His

ment figures were each asked to nominate artists in the

panels (“Building the Railroad” and what appears to

United States who they felt “were best fitted to carry

be a Pony Express theme) are carefully researched,

out the painting and sculpture for the two buildings.”

beautifully drawn and classically composed. But alas,

Eleven painting commissions were awarded outright

he received the rejection letter that is all too familiar

to the painters who received the most votes from the

to every artist who enters public competitions:

Advisory Committee, and they include many of the

“I am very sorry to inform you that your designs

best-known American painters of the day: Thomas

were not among those chosen for an award in the Post

Hart Benton, George Biddle, John Steuart Curry,

Office Department Building here in Washington.”

Rockwell Kent, Leon Kroll, Reginald Marsh, Henry

But this one had a happy ending:

Varnum Poor, Boardman Robinson, Eugene Savage,

“However, the Section of Painting and Sculpture

Maurice Sterne, and Grant Wood.

50

wants to appoint you to execute a design for a small

The Committee decided to give the other painters

post office. The blue prints and specifications and the

who were nominated but received fewer votes the

amount which you will be paid for this work, if you

opportunity to compete for the remaining eleven

accept the appointment, will be mailed to you at an

painting commissions, and the young David McCosh

early date.”

was one of the 175 painters who accepted the invitation

In the later 1930s and early ’40s, McCosh was

to enter this competition. Each painter was assigned

invited by the Treasury Department to paint murals

a specific subject matter and was asked to submit

in a number of small post offices. Despite his busy

a proposed design in color on a scale of two inches

teaching schedule, he was able to accept and complete

to the foot. McCosh’s assignment was to propose a

two commissions: Kelso, Washington (1936), and

mural consisting of two panels, each thirteen feet six

Beresford, South Dakota (1942). Both post offices are

Top: Sketch for Mural: Opening of the Middle West I, 1935 Graphite on paper, 30 x 13 1/2 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.1734

Sketch for Mural: Opening of wthe Middle West II, 1935 Graphite on paper, 30 x 12 inches Private Collection

still in use, with the McCosh murals intact. Interest-

absence.” So the Eugene commission went instead to

ingly, McCosh was invited in 1940 to paint the murals

the young Carl Morris. The 1935 competition may also

for the new post office in Eugene. But he had to

have led to the commission McCosh received in 1937

decline the commission:

from the Treasury Department to paint two important

“I regret very much that at this time I do not feel I could do justice to the commission and therefore

murals for the National Parks Service of the Department of the Interior in Washington, D. C.

cannot accept it. I am committed to a full program

This exhibition includes the actual designs McCosh

for the coming year which will give me less time than

submitted in the 1935 competition (artists who did not

ever to paint. I have learned that it takes continuous

receive commissions were not paid for their designs, so

application to produce large designs. Broken time is

McCosh’s designs were returned to him by the Trea-

extremely unsatisfactory for important large designs

sury Department), as well as a number of his prelimi-

and it is too late for me to arrange for a leave of

nary studies for this project.

51

Anne Kutka McCosh Head Study, n.d.

Oil on board, 20 1/2 x 18 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; AKM.0006

Anne McCosh: One Remarkable Woman February 2008

I MUST HAVE KNOWN ANNE for about two years before we had our first real conversation about her art. She loved talking about art, especially about her husband, David’s work. She freely and vigorously shared her candid and often scathing opinions and ideas about painters famous and local, historic and living. Her candor sometimes put people off, but Anne came out of a tradition that had a strong set of values about art.

She expected nothing less than the highest professional standards from those who held themselves out as artists. She was a great supporter of artists who met those standards, and a harsh critic of those who did not.

Anne McCosh sitting by stream, circa 1940.

Unknown photographer (possibly David McCosh), McCosh Memorial Archive.

But her work was gently, but firmly, off limits during those conversations. She would deftly steer

important, and that her responsibility was to attend

my questions about how she handled various issues

to its preservation. She felt this way because of her

or subjects toward a discussion of Matisse or Diego

love for him, of course, but this was also her profes-

Rivera. She never told me why she didn’t want to talk

sional assessment of the value of his work. I suspect

about her work, she just made it clear that there were

that the lack of attention she gave to her own work in

other, more important topics for us to consider.

her later years was a reflection of her assessment of its

The studio in her home on Fairmount Boulevard

52

relative value as well.

was filled with David’s work. Racks were built into

We were sitting in the studio one day, as we often

the walls to hold his paintings. Cabinets and shelves

did, at the corners of a table. I was going through a

had been specially constructed to store his drawings

stack of David’s watercolors one by one. We would

and watercolors. Work tables were cluttered with the

talk about some aspect or another of each. Often,

objects he used as still-life models. Cans filled with

the talk about a painting led Anne to tell me about

his brushes and painting tools were everywhere.

their life together at the time the painting was made.

Tubes of paint, drawing materials, sketchbooks, a

His art was such a focal point for them. I was quiet

massive easel—everything he used was right where he

for a few minutes, trying to figure out a passage in

left it. His paintings were hung throughout the house.

one of David’s complicated tangles, when Anne said,

But her work was nowhere to be seen.

matter-of-factly, “You know, you’d be very interesting

Anne never seemed to resent this attention to

to draw. Just look at the way the collar of your shirt

David. She believed, quite sincerely, that his work was

lays on top of that sweater. You see people differently

53

when you draw them—you get to know such inter-

with her feeling for others. But I felt Anne giving me

esting things about them—you pay attention to the

a good, swift kick, and I imagined her saying “That’s

distance between the bottom of their nose and the

too fancy. These drawings aren’t about me. Can’t you

top of their lip—the shape of their ears—but none

see, they’re about these remarkable women.”

of that means much unless your drawing finds the

The time I’ve spent with the work in this show has

person underneath all of that information. Oh, it’s

been like a conversation with Anne. This is not her

such fun.”

highly finished and sometimes rather stylized (sorry,

In the last few years of Anne’s life, she began to

Anne) painting of the 1930s and ’40s. Many of these

bring her work out and show it first to friends (all

drawings are sketches, studies that show her at her

this time it had been stored in a wretched situation

intuitive best. They carry the creative spark, the

in the laundry room next to the studio) and then at

candor, the sense of complete immersion that charac-

a show at the UO museum and a gallery in Seattle

terized a conversation with Anne about art. Her great

that featured art from the 1930s by women artists. It’s

mentor, Nicolaides, could have had Anne in mind

worth noting that Anne’s work came out of storage

when he wrote:

only after she created an endowment with the University of Oregon Foundation that ensured the preserva-

. . . drawing depends on seeing. Seeing depends on

tion of David’s work.

knowing. Knowing comes from a constant effort

The drawings and prints in this show, which span

to encompass reality with all of your senses, all

her entire career, demonstrate how well she had

that is you. You are never to be concerned with

mastered the professional standards that she held

appearances to an extent which prevents reality

in such esteem. Anne studied drawing in Kimon

of content. It is necessary to rid yourself of the

Nicolaides’s classes at the Art Students League in

tyranny of the object as it appears. The quality of

New York City in the 1920s. Nicolaides was a master

absoluteness, the note of authority, that the artist

draftsman who wrote The Natural Way of Drawing,

seeks depends upon a more complete under-

which remains one of the best and most influen-

standing than the eyes alone can give. To what the

tial books about drawing ever written. Nicolaides

eye can see the artist adds feeling and thought. He

provided the foundation, but the sensitive, empa-

can, if he wishes, relate for us the adventures of

thetic quality of this work shows how often Anne

his soul in the midst of life.

found the person underneath all of that information.

We can speculate about what Anne’s career as a

So, Anne, I think maybe we’re both right. Yes, your

painter might have been had she never met David

drawings show us what made these women remark-

McCosh or become so committed to his work. But I

able. But we wouldn’t know these women today, if it

think it is a mistake to characterize her in terms of

weren’t for your special ability to understand char-

David. I asked Anne once if she would like to have

acter and then recreate it for us in your art. Like it

her work shown together with David’s. “Never!” she

or not, Anne, these drawings speak to us about you.

said. “All people will do is compare the two of us and

They are, as Nicolaides would say, the adventures of

argue about who does this or that better. I hate that

your soul.

sort of thing.” She was right, of course. Anne’s draw-

And now, dear reader, please allow yourself to

ings occupy a world of their own. Each is as confi-

engage in conversation with the remarkable women in

dent, serene, and insightful as Anne was. I originally

these drawings, including, most especially, the remark-

was going to call this show “Art as an Instrument

able artist who found them for us, Anne McCosh.

of Compassion” because these drawings are so filled 54

Anne Kutka McCosh Catherine Hudson, circa 1930s Lithograph on paper, 12 1/8 x 8-1/2 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; AKM.0011 Below Anne Kutka McCosh Untitled (Head of Woman), circa 1960s Ink on paper, 12 x 9 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; AKM.0026

55

Newly Discovered Paintings and Drawings

by Anne McCosh October 2010 Fortunately, Anne’s newly discovered works had not deteriorated any further during storage, likely because they had never been handled during all the years they were in the box. So they were properly matted for the first time and prepared for exhibition in the Memories show. This “new’’ work is so closely related to the work I described in the essay Anne McCosh: One Remarkable Woman that there was no need to write a separate essay for the show. But what a delight it was to present a group of her wonderful drawings that we didn’t even

THE EXHIBITION Memories: Paintings and Drawings by

know existed—including a number of portraits of

Anne McCosh was a result of the “discovery” in the

young children whom Anne depicted so beautifully,

McCosh Memorial Archive at the Jordan Schnitzer

several of which are reproduced below. The “lost box”

Museum of Art of a previously unknown group

of Anne McCosh works was a real find that was well

of works on paper by Anne McCosh. The box was

worth the many hours of sifting and working through

labeled many years earlier as containing unfinished

the large amount of material that Anne left to the

works by David. But as I looked through the contents

University of Oregon Foundation as part of the David

of the box with members of the Museum’s staff, it was

and Anne McCosh Memorial Collection.

clear that, in fact, it contained a small group of Anne’s characteristic and insightful portraits together with a few works that showed her distinctive treatment of other subjects, including landscape scenes of some of the same places in Oregon that David had painted. No one knew that these works had survived.

I had known that Anne did not have a very high regard for her own work, and this was evidenced by the casual manner in which these works had been set aside, undoubtedly by her some fifty years earlier. She must have re-used the simple cardboard box that at one time contained David’s unfinished studies. She didn’t use an acid-free archival box for her own work or even bother to re-label the old box she did use.

What a difference there was in the way she handled his work and hers. The works in the old box were not matted; they were stacked in a pile with sheets of wax paper casually inserted between a few drawings to separate them. Several of the works had been tattered and even badly torn in the distant past. This was in contrast to the careful manner in which Anne insisted that all of David’s works on paper be carefully matted and wrapped for storage consistent with the best archival practices.

56

Anne Kutka McCosh Untitled (Young Boy), circa 1960s Charcoal on paper, 15 x 17 3/4 inches Private collection

Anne Kutka McCosh Young Girl, circa 1940s Ink wash and graphite on paper, 22 x 17 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; AKM.0407

57

Selections from the Oregon Years July 2011

THIS EXHIBITION was designed to run in collaboration

58

The Red Vest (fig. 15) was included in The Portrait as a

with the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art’s exhibition,

Mirror. November Garden (fig. 16) was a part of Collabo-

The Making of David McCosh: Early Paintings, Drawing

rations with my Subject. Both are greatly admired paint-

and Prints, which was devoted primarily to McCosh’s

ings that represent the finest work McCosh did in

work before he moved to Oregon in 1934.

Oregon. Anne in a Red Vest is a beautifully organized,

The works in this show were all made during the

sensitive portrait from his early years in Eugene in the

years McCosh lived and worked in Oregon, from 1934

1930s. November Garden is one of the great paintings of

until his retirement from painting in 1971. All of the

his later years in the 1960s, a dramatic, flowing study

works were selected from the exhibitions that had

of the corn stalks in his backyard garden as winter

been presented previously by the Karin Clarke Gallery.

drew near.

Opposite: Figure 15. The Red Vest (Portrait of Anne Kutka McCosh), 1948 Oil on canvas, 25 x 30 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0014

Figure 16. November Garden, 1954 Oil on linen, 36 x 40 inches Collection of Margaret Coe 59

Forest Stream #2, 1955 Oil and ink on paper, 36 x 29 inches Private collection

The Night Drawings of David McCosh November 2009

He wanted instead a piece-by-piece reconstruction of the activity and the elements that comprise how we see. The carefully placed marks and calligraphic lines in the black-and-white Night Drawings are intended to create entanglements with their shifting and twisting spaces in the same way that a careful observer sees them. McCosh said that what he knew was the result The significance of my [work] rests on an affirmation of

of how he saw a situation. The Night Drawings show us

faith—that reality cannot be invented—that emotions must

his process of observation, which at times was delib-

be genuine and that honest painting holds a unique position

erate and meticulous and at other times, as in the

which no other activity or form can replace.

Night Drawings with multiple colors, it moved quickly

– David Mc C osh, Sabbatical Proposal, 1953

with great energy and emotional engagement.

When I first began to study the Night Drawings,

I would say that Cézanne in starting to draw a given

I wondered if they were technical exercises that

situation asked himself “how do I know,” not “what do I

McCosh designed so that he could focus on the

know”. . . . Cezanne doesn’t pretend to know anything—he

elements of painting and drawing: the ability of the

states as honestly as he can in painting equivalents the causes

brush, for example, to make marks that sometimes

he has been able to discern in the situations that produce

surprise the painter with their individual character

knowledge. Knowing is the result, not the cause.

and which suggest a direction for the next set of

– David Mc C osh, Lecture on Cezanne

marks that is different from what the painter had been thinking. The Night Drawings may have had that

60

IN THE NIGHT DRAWINGS, McCosh purposefully sepa-

original purpose, but these works became more than

rated the act of drawing from his observation of any

a record of his observations, even more than a demon-

subject other than the drawing itself. These drawings

stration of how he observed landscape situations.

were made at night, in his studio, not on site while he

He explores in this work the potential of painting

was observing a specific subject. He didn’t even base

to create essence, to create meaning as poetry and

them on sketches that he had made previously of a

music does, not through a literal description of the

specific subject, as was often his practice. As he drew,

world, but through the creation of a work of art that

he had in mind the Northwest landscape situations,

states the essence of an experience in a form we all

as he called them, that he had observed for years: the

can share.

entanglements and twisting spaces created by dense

Is the complexity of these tangled webs the essence

vegetation, the cathedral lighting of the forest, the

that McCosh is after? His point seems to be finding

colors reflected off a sunlight stream. But he asked as

the pattern, the structure that brings order and life

he worked, “How do I know these things? How do I

to the complexity we see. The Night Drawings aren’t

see them?”

intended as chaotic experiences but as examples of

To answer these questions he started with paint,

order. They are the experiences of an individual who

or ink, or watercolor, the elements of the landscape

through painting discovered something that goes

situation as he saw them. He wasn’t trying to make

beyond what he was able to observe. This is what

a photographic-like summary of a visual experience.

makes painting unique among activities or forms of

61

Forest Interior, 1960s Oil on paper, 20 1/2 x 27 1/2 inches Private Collection Tangle, 1960 Casein on cardboard, 36 x 40 inches McCosh Memorial Collection (MMC.0132)

artistic expression. McCosh is not often thought of as a spiritual painter, whose work reflects or participates in ideas that transcend painting itself. But the Night Drawings and his related late works have a spiritual dimension that results from McCosh’s discovery of order, structure, and simplicity in complex and chaotic environments.

This is the fifth in a series of shows at the Karin Clarke Gallery that have presented various aspects of McCosh’s long journey as a painter. I intentionally waited to show the Night Drawings until now because they embody a philosophy of painting that he developed during a lifetime of study and practice. But there is another quality about them that shouldn’t be missed. Many of the works in this show have an extraordinary freshness about them, with colors as bright and vivid as the day they were laid down. They were made forty to fifty years ago, yet they haven’t aged or changed, and maybe they never will. They are like visitors from another time. This must have been what Henry James had in mind when he wrote about seeing great paintings from other eras: As he stood before them the perfection of their survival often struck him as the supreme eloquence, the virtue that included all others, thanks to the language of art, the richest and most universal. Empires and systems and conquests had rolled over the globe and every kind of greatness had risen and passed away, but the beauty of the great pictures had known nothing of death or change, and the tragic centuries had only sweetened their freshness. The same faces, the same figures looked out at different worlds, knowing so many secrets the particular world didn’t, and when they joined hands they made the indestructible thread on which the pearls of history were strung.

– H enry Ja mes, The Tragic Muse

62

Right Late Summer Flowers (Sunflowers), circa 1960 Watercolor on paper, 22 x 15 inches Private collection

63

Branches, 1953 Watercolor and ink on paper, 19 1/2 x 25 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.1211

64

Night Drawing (Windbreak), circa 1965 Magna on paper, 28 x 36 inches Collection of Fred and Debbie Mohr

65

David McCosh and the Oregon School of Landscape Painting April 2014

LET’S START with the title of the show. I admit that

his various approaches to the landscape and his charac-

it’s intentionally provocative. The Oregon School

teristic palettes during these years. I selected works that

of Landscape Painting has no walls, no leader; it

are examples of McCosh’s most inventive and creative

has rules, but they often get bent a bit. I see it as a

responses to the various landscapes of Oregon to see if

group of like-minded painters who have found inspi-

they might inspire the other painters to submit some of

ration and source material in the Oregon landscape,

their most inventive and creative work.

and who, most importantly, share some beliefs and

There are no rules that I asked the other painters

values about painting as an art form despite their

to follow in selecting their pieces, other than that they

very evident differences in styles, approaches, and

should be Oregon landscapes. I invited each painter to

attitudes (yes, attitudes). It’s a school in the sense of

write a statement about his or her work, its relation-

the Hudson River School or the New York School

ship to McCosh, to the Oregon landscape, or what-

of Abstract Expressionism. David McCosh was a

ever they would like to discuss, to be posted on the

member of the school, not the leader or the dean—

wall with their work. And we’ve scheduled informal

but a member. Each of the painters in this show, in

gallery talks during the show by the painters, which

one way or another, has a relationship to McCosh,

will give each the opportunity to discuss their work

his methods and his approach to painting, just as his

and help us understand what it is that ties all of the

work has a relationship to theirs. I see all of them as

painters in this show together.

peers, not disciples or students—but fellow travelers.

66

When I think about what McCosh and the other

The idea behind the show was for me to select a

painters in the show have in common, I’m reminded

small group of McCosh’s Oregon landscapes and then

about some of the things that Paul Cézanne said about

invite six other painters who share some common

painting when he talked with friends who came to

ground with McCosh to each select three of their

visit him late in his life. One time, he described for a

works to be shown with the McCosh pieces. Hanging

writer friend what he called his personal way of seeing

all of the work together gives viewers the opportu-

the landscape. He said that when he looked at a tree

nity to experience seven different approaches to the

as a distant and remote object, he became very aware

Oregon landscape by painters who in spite of their

of the space between him and the tree. So he painted

differences have quite a bit in common.

the tree descriptively and objectively as a separate

The McCosh works I selected are predominately from

object. But at other times, he saw the tree with all of

the 1950s and 1960s, which, I think, is his great and most

his senses as a tangible object that was enlivened by

distinctive period. Five were done at the Coast, two in

its colors, its smell, its tactile qualities, the light and

Central Oregon, and seven are from the forests around

atmosphere of the forest, and his painting became an

the McKenzie River and Horse Creek. They represent

attempt to realize his sensations—and place the tree

Forested Retreat, n.d.

Watercolor on paper, 15 3/8 x 21 3/4 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.1022 67

into the harmony he saw in nature. His belief was that

lithograph and the bold, interlocking colors and the

if his painting wove the components of the landscape

dancelike lines and shifting spaces of his paintings.

together into a mosaic with its colors blending gently

Bets Cole brings the ambient light of the landscape

into one another, he would make the sensuous experi-

into her work with a sure sense of tone that gives us

ence of the landscape palpable for us. He said that he

the feel of the air. And then there’s Nelson Sandgren,

wanted his painting to join nature’s hands and parallel

the courageous, imaginative Romantic who paints

nature’s unity. “The landscape thinks itself in me,” he

directly from his heart. Nelson’s paintings are like

said. “Let the scene be born, let it germinate in you,”

dreams of what a painting might be.

was his advice to other painters.

This painterly, sensuous response to the landscape that strives for harmony is at the heart of David

68

We are so fortunate to have these painters to help us realize the beauty of the landscapes of Oregon and all that we can experience in them.

McCosh’s lyrical, lively painting. Cézanne’s response

My thanks to each of our painters—Craig, Mark,

is also very close to Craig Cheshire’s beautifully

Margaret, Bets, Jon Jay, and Erik, for his father,

ordered and realized works that invite the eye to move

Nelson—for rising to the not-so-gentle challenge I

slowly and linger long. Mark Clarke’s work reaches

placed in front of them to submit work that would

so deeply into the essence of his landscape situations

best help us understand the purpose and the impor-

that we see what Cézanne meant by the landscape

tance of landscape painting in Oregon.

“thinking itself” inside the painter. The vibrant work

My hope is that this show will open up a conver-

of Margaret Coe creates a sensuous experience of the

sation among these painters, and among you, their

landscape that is rich and palpable. Jon Jay Cruson

viewers, from which we all will learn. Once again,

parallels nature’s unity in the quiet elegance of his

David McCosh is a teacher.

Fallen Log at Horse Creek, n.d.

Watercolor on paper, 15 1/8 x 22 1/8 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0887 Left Forest Pool, n.d.

Watercolor on paper, 15 1/8 x 22 1/2 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0946 69

70

Horse Creek in the Spring, n.d.

Oil on linen, 23 3/4 x 34 7/8 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.0161

Left Dune Edge, 1966 Ink on paper, 15 1/4 x 22 inches Private Collection Horse Creek Boulder, n.d.

Watercolor on paper, 20 3/8 x 29 3/4 inches McCosh Memorial Collection; MMC.1746 71

Nelson Sandgren (1917–2006) Parkside Gardener Oil on panel, 36 x 48 inches Nelson Sandgren Estate

72

Craig Cheshire (American, born 1936) Rocky Shore at Yachats, 2009 Oil on linen, 24 x 36 inches Courtesy the artist

73

Jon Jay Cruson (American, born 1942) Night Grass, mid-1980s Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 inches Courtesy the artist

74

Bets Cole (American, born 1951) Clear Sea, 2004 or 2007 Acrylic on paper, 19 x 28 inches Private collection

75

Mark Clarke (American, 1935–2016) Near Cummins Creek, n.d.

Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 30 inches Courtesy the artist’s estate

76

Margaret Coe (American, born 1941) Yaquina #5, 2014 Oil on board, 18 x 36 inches Courtesy of the artist

77

McCosh Dedication

A Museum’s Collection is its Message to the Future May, 2009

DAVID AND ANNE McCOSH, whose endowment provided

Kenneth Callahan, Mark Tobey, C. S. Price, Charles

a major portion of the funding for this publication,

Heaney, Carl Morris, and David McCosh. It was this

loved the very idea of museums—those wondrous

spirit that Anne wished to perpetuate and support

places where the great art of the ages is discovered,

with the David and Anne McCosh Endowment.

collected, preserved, and then rediscovered and

In her last visit with the McCosh Endowment

presented by curatorial staffs whose passion for the

Committee, Anne challenged us with these words:

work in their care rivals that of the artists who made

“You have such a great opportunity. Think of all you

it. And this museum, in their city and at their univer-

can do for the artists and for the people who come

sity, was special for David and Anne. Its collections

here to discover, to learn, and to love art.” This

and exhibitions were rich in some areas and modest in

presentation of the highlights of the museum’s collec-

others when compared with the great museums they

tion is both a cause for celebration and a challenge for

knew from their days in Chicago and New York. But

the future. “This is a good beginning,” Anne, ever the

this museum, a university museum with a teaching

teacher, would have said about the collection. “I see

mission, was especially close to their hearts.

many wonderful things. But we can do even more.”

Their great friend, Wallace Baldinger, director from

This collection should always be a work in progress.

1953 to 1973, showed them how a museum, like a great

Built by careful purchases, generous gifts, it is our

teacher, could develop understanding and even inspire

message to the future. May this presentation of its

the creation of art. Baldinger, like many of the leaders

highlights inspire us to do even more to nurture and

of this institution over the years, was a consummate

grow this body of work for all those who come to the

scholar, a fine educator, and most important for artists

museum to discover, to learn, and to love art.

like Anne and David, he was a dedicated advocate for the art of his time and his region. Like all great museum directors, Baldinger had the eye and the heart of an artist. And like all great scholars, he understood the art made by those around him in the context of the art of other places and times. The Pacific Northwest has been fortunate to have had museum directors

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in Seattle, Portland, and Eugene who, like Baldinger,

This dedication was written on the occasion of the JSMA’s

discovered, gave shows to, purchased the work of, and

75th anniversary in 2009 and first appeared in print in

provided inspiration and hope to a number of little-

the exhibition catalog Lasting Legacies: The First 75

known painters whose work is now the bedrock of

Years (Selections from the Collection of the Jordan

the art of our region—among them, Morris Graves,

Schnitzer Museum of Art).

David McCosh in studio, photograph by Mary Randlett (American, born 1924), 1973 79

Published by

Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art 1430 Johnson Lane 1223 University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon 97403-1223 541-346-3027 jsma.uoregon.edu ISBN 978–0–9903533–7–9 Published with private support from The David John and Anne Kutka McCosh Memorial Museum Endowment Fund.

Danielle M. Knapp, Editor Diane Nelson, Designer Printed by Brown Printing All photography, unless otherwise noted, by Jonathan Smith.

Page 28 and 37, images © The Metropolitan Museum of Art Page 79, image © Mary Randlett, University of Washington Library, 1973 © 2016 Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. All rights reserved.

No portion of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher.

The University of Oregon is an equal-opportunity, affirmativeaction institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the American with Disabilities Act. This publication is available in accessible formats upon request.

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