Herman Maril: A Life in Art

A LI FE I N ART

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LewAllenGalleries

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Herman Maril A Life in Art

August 27 - October 2, 2021

Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com cover: Adolescent, 1970, Oil on canvas, 50" x 36"

Herman Maril | A Life in Art Herman Maril (1908–1986), often known as “The Dean of Baltimore Painters,” is a nationally recognized Modernist painter, of extraordinary stature. Maril’s work is distinguished by his beautifully conceived and organized style which reduced and simplified figures and objects to their essentials. Akin in this regard to the later work of his friend Milton Avery, Maril’s paintings are noted for his use of a simple, but eloquent color palette.

Over the decades, Maril has been regarded, if not beloved, for his seductive paintings of subdued domestic interiors, sundrenched seaside vistas, and sometimes intimate and sometimes expansive landscapes. Maril was decidedly a contemplative American artist who balanced intellect with intuition—creating figurative works that eliminate all but the barest essentials. His forms and figures are often depicted in a flattened, but orchestrated manner. The spare, exuberant quality that is felt in his paintings encourages viewers to interact and to recollect or incorporate their own stories. Maril’s paintings consistently demonstrate a clarity of structure and color that bears the hallmarks of thoughtful abstraction.

Maril’s extensive and successful artistic career is almost a conundrum. Born in Baltimore into a poor Orthodox Jewish family that had no familiarity or traditions of art, Maril was nonetheless determined as a young man to become an artist. Unusually, Maril’s financially struggling family strongly supported the young artist’s singleminded professional objectives. At the age of 14, with his parents’ support, Maril misrepresented his age and became possibly the youngest student in the history of The Maryland Institute—Baltimore’s nationally prestigious art academy. By 1928, at age 20, when he graduated from the Maryland Institute, Maril had already become respected in Baltimore as a sophisticated Modernist artist.

Almost from the beginning, Maril immersed himself in Modernism, which, just a few years following the artist’s birth, was introduced to an often astonished (and sometimes shocked) American populace. From his teen years onward, Maril was an avid explorer of museums and galleries in Baltimore, Washington, DC, and later New York City—examining and scrutinizing some of the greatest Modernist works available to view.

Around 1928, while Maril was still a student, he was introduced to the internationally renowned art collector Etta Cone by his Maryland Institute instructor, Charles H. Walther—considered at the time to be the Baltimore’s most innovative and influential Modernist artist. Etta Cone, along with her sister Claribel, created one of the most impressive Modern Art collections in North America. The Cone sisters were in the vanguard of introducing these preeminent artists to the United States, and their collection was later given to the Baltimore Museum of Art where it is now housed in an especially dedicated wing.

When visiting the dual apartments of the Cone sisters, young Maril was surrounded by countless paintings, hung salon-style, by some of Europe’s most avant-garde artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh. Maril’s exhilarating explorations of the Cone sisters’ collection proved foundational and helped refine his aesthetics and judgement. Their collection surely also enhanced his understanding of different approaches to the manipulation of space, forms, shapes, paint applications, and colors. In particular, the sisters collected hundreds of works by Henri Matisse, whose reductivist imagery and limited color palettes would leave an indelible mark on Maril—a mark that proved especially influential in his mature works.

While Henri Matisse’s art would prove influential throughout Maril’s entire career, in the early 1930s, the artist aligned himself with the Cubist works of Georges Braque and Juan Gris. In 1933, a simple and handsome Cubist

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landscape by Maril, Ellicott City Bridge, was exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Immediately afterwards, Maril exhibited two abstract works at Studio House, a gallery that was affiliated with the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC devoted to promoting up and coming artists. A Washington Post review noted that Maril “won second place twice over” with his “delightful abstractions.”

As the Depression deepened in the early 1930s, Maril could not afford to buy paints or canvas. His financial salvation arrived in December 1933, when Maril was accepted as a “Class A Artist” by the Public Works of Art Project – the first of the federally funded New Deal art projects. This assignment initiated a major trajectory for Maril’s career.

One of his 1934 works, Sketch of Old Baltimore Waterfront, was among those selected from the entire national PWA project to hang in a special exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The exhibition then traveled to New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Carnegie Institute. A similar painting of Baltimore Harbor was then selected by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to hang in the White House.

Years later, in 1977, Maril’s “Interior with Cat,” a 1972 oil painting, was selected to hang in the office of U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale (1977-81).

In 1935, the American Magazine of Art published a review by the noted art critic, Olin Dows, who captured the essence of Maril’s works—an essence that remained true throughout the artist’s lifetime: “Each picture has its core; each is beautifully conceived and organized… Each is distinct in mood...and clothed in poetry.”

At this point in his career, Maril often outlined his images with dark lines, and used vertical and lateral forms to create structure, tension, and energy. Maril’s work from this period also demonstrates the strong influences of the Ashcan Art movement, which celebrated scenes of everyday life as seen in images like “In the Barn.” Maril infused these works with tight, rigorous structure and a joyful juxtaposition of shapes and colors.

While Maril traveled both nationally and internationally, most of his art was created in Baltimore or on Cape Cod – and mostly in the fishing village of Provincetown. In 1934, while on Cape Cod, Maril and his work were personally discovered and ardently admired by the legendary Duncan Phillips, founder of the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, which now owns an extensive collection of Maril’s works. The unwavering, high-profile support of such a noted art connoisseur as Duncan Phillips provided a major impetus for the success of Maril’s long and distinguished career just as it did with the work of Maril’s good friend Milton Avery.

Beginning in the 1940s, Abstract Expressionism changed the face of American art with new artistic reorientations that obliquely provided Maril tacit permission to further develop his own artistic vocabulary. Maril’s newly expanded vision of art fused with the vastness of the beaches, tumbling surf, and extensive ocean vistas of Provincetown.

More than ever, nature became intrinsic and transformative to Maril’s works. From 1948 onward, Maril spent every summer painting in Provincetown.

Maril’s calculated reorientation of the painted perspective was conceived to make his works more accessible to the viewer. The visual shifts and tilts that one experiences in viewing his paintings add a tautness—perhaps even a bit of jauntiness—to what is often essentially still or placid imagery. At this point, Maril often softened or eliminated the edges of his imagery, while still maintaining structure, tension, and energy. Maril achieved an exciting and vital dynamism that, perhaps more than anything else, expressed the artist’s consummate joy in painting.

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Herman Maril | A Life in Art He also took even greater chances, further stripping his forms to their essence but maintaining his objective of pictorial synthesis. His canvases became larger, and the sense of space opened up to provide an embracing sense of expansiveness. Colorations, while still of a limited palette, become more emotional, nuanced, and intimate. One can almost sense the warmth of the sun or feel the saltiness of the sea air. Compositions became freer and more daring, and the imagery often energetically tilted toward the viewer as if offering the details for the viewer’s closer perusal. The reductive exposition and warm colorations provide an immediate sense of intimacy with the works.

Maril’s calculated reorientation of the painted perspective was conceived to make his works more accessible to the viewer. The visual shifts and tilts that one experiences in viewing his paintings add a tautness—perhaps even a bit of jauntiness—to what is often essentially still or placid imagery. At this point, Maril often softened or eliminated the edges of his imagery, while still maintaining structure, tension, and energy. Maril achieved an exciting and vital dynamism that, perhaps more than anything else, expressed the artist’s consummate joy in painting.

While Maril rarely discussed Asian art as an influence on his work, his continued visits to the Freer Gallery of Asian Art in Washington, D.C. would suggest the impact of those works would subliminally become intrinsic to Maril’s expanded vision. Like Japanese masters, Maril reduced his subjects to essential elements—bringing them together through evocative composition and economy of imagery, rather than with precise details. This can particularly be seen in Maril’s landscapes, in which the artist embracingly captures the essence, but not the literal aspects of the land, the trees, the water, the rocks, the sky, the clouds, the sun, and the moon. Comparable to Japanese imagery, Maril’s figures, as with “Adolescent,” often display a flatness as they seem to hover close to the picture plane, and the placement of these figures into a three-dimensional world is primarily generated by the interrelationships of shapes and colors in the paintings.

In creating a painting, Maril rarely created more than a perfunctory sketch in advance—especially in his later years.

It was not, however, unusual for him to “sketch” a work by moving around swatches of torn paper to define the forms and rhythms of a work. Maril consistently preferred the immediacy of the interaction of the artistic medium with the painting surface.

In viewing Maril’s use of color, those foundational torn-paper “sketches” come to mind. Maril, in his goal of simplification, reduces pictorializations to broad, flat areas of restful and delicate colors that, especially in his final years, are loosely applied without outline separations. Thus, a frisson is generated in which the shapes and colors harmoniously interact. In fact, even the “environment” (in lieu of might be perceived as a “background”) in a Maril painting plays an active role. The geometries of the compositions are based largely on subtle relationships among washes of color, and this interplay consistently provides the organizing and emotive power in his works.

Importantly, as a reductivist painter, Maril achieved his effects (much like Matisse), not only through the judicious limiting of forms, but also through a limited palette of just six or seven colors. While Maril echoes the reverence for color demonstrated in the paintings of his good Provincetown friends, Mark Rothko and Milton Avery, Maril devised his own palette and imbued his colors with his own distinctive spirituality—a spiritual essence that is readily experienced by the viewer.

As Herman Maril once stated, “I want a stark statement, but a statement that is full of human feeling.”

Justin Ferate

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Mexican Terrain, 1976 Oil on canvas, 24" x 17.75" 5

The Suburbanite, 1950 Oil on canvas, 28" x 22" 6

Tree Dune Forms, 1958 Gouache, charcoal and ink on paper, 13" x 17"

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Rooming House, 1941 Oil on canvas, 18" x 14.25" 8

At the Corner, 1939 Gouache, charcoal and ink on paper, 14.25" x 10.75" 9

In the Barn, 1947 Oil on panel, 20" x 16" 10

Coal, 1947 Oil on canvas, 30" x 24" 11

Approach to the Adirondacks, 1965 Oil on board, 15.13" x 22.38" 12

Untitled, 1954 Oil on canvas, 30" x 38"

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Grazing Near the Foothills, 1984 Oil on canvas, 41" x 49.75" 14

Feed Time (at H-Meek), ca. 1950s Oil on canvas, 22.5" x 28" 15

Southwest, 1970-1979 Oil on canvas, 44.25" x 60"

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Mexican Market, 1968 Oil on canvas, 40" x 52" 17

The Gleaners, 1959 Oil on canvas, 36" x 30" 18

Dark Pines, 1967 Oil on canvas, 36" x 47" 19

Adirondack, 1960 Oil on canvas, 29.75" x 40" 20

The Kite, 1978 Oil on canvas, 30" x 40" 21

Silent Vista, 1978 Oil on canvas, 40" x 30"

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Diagonal, 1977 Oil on canvas, 20" x 12"

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Stone Tables, ca. 1930 Gouache on paper, 20" x 14.25"

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Italy Fishing Near Bridge, 1973 Casein on paper, 15" x 18.5"

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Provincetown Current, 1967 Oil on canvas, 15" x 33.75"

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Building, 1981 Oil on canvas, 40" x 48"

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Studio with Figure, 1971 Oil on canvas, 40" x 60" 29

California Shore, 1974 Casein on paper, 14.5" x 23.25"

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Cattails, 1982 Casein on paper, 22.5" x 29" 31

The Picnic, 1970 Oil on canvas, 38" x 42"

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Spring, 1983 Oil on canvas, 28" x 20" 33

Winter, 1972 Oil on canvas, 30" x 36"

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1908-1986 EDUCATION

1926 1928

1959 1955 1951

Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, Baltimore, MD Maryland Institute of Fine Arts, Baltimore, MD

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2021 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013

2012 2009 2008 2003 2001 2000

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1997 1995 1994 1992 1991

1986 1984 1983 1981 1978 1977 1974 1967 1965 1963 1962 1961

1950 1949 1943 1940 1939

LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM Debra Force Fine Art, New York, NY Cahoon Museum, Cotuit, MA Debra Force Fine Art, New York, NY Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR ACME Fine Art, Boston, MA (also 2007, 2004) Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE Harmon-Meek Gallery, Naples, FL (also 2008, 1996, 1990) Walters Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD David Findlay Jr Gallery, New York, NY (also 2011, 2010, 2008, 2005, 2003) The Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, IN Walters Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown, MA Ward Museum, Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD Provincetown Art Association Museum, Provincetown, MA University of Maryland, University College, Adelphi, MD University of Maryland, University College, Adelphi, MD James Graham and Sons, New York, NY Cape Museum of Fine Arts, Dennis, MA James Graham and Sons, New York, NY Galerie Francoise, Baltimore, MD Butler Art Institute, Youngstown, OH Galerie Francoise, Baltimore, MD Adirondack College, Queensbury, NY Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY Adirondack College, Queensbury, NY St John’s College, Annapolis, MD Provincetown Art Association Museum, Provincetown, MA Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York, NY Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York, NY Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, IN Academy of the Arts, Easton, MD Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY Franz Bader Gallery, Washington, DC (also 1983, 1980, 1975, 1972, 1968, 1963, 1962, 1959, 1956) Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS Forum Gallery, New York, NY (also 1980, 1974, 1971, 1968, 1965) University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville, VA American Institute of Arts and Letters, New York, NY University of Maryland, College Park, MD Wellfleet Art Gallery, Wellfleet, MA (Also 1970, 1968, 1964) Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD (also 1946, 1937) Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD Baltimore Junior College, Baltimore, MD Athena Gallery, New Haven, CT Castellane Gallery, New York, NY Castellane Gallery, New York, NY

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Babcock Gallery, New York, NY (also 1956, 1953) Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA Barnett-Aden Gallery, Washington, DC MacBeth Gallery, New York, NY (also 1948, 1943, 1941) Whyte Gallery, Washington, DC (also 1947, 1944) University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA Wells College, Aurora, NY New York World’s Fair, New York, NY Hudson Walker Gallery, New York, NY Boyer Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Marie Sterner Gallery, New York, NY Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Adirondack College, Queensbury, NY American University, Washington, DC Amherst College, Amherst, MA Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, Israel Butler Art Institute, Youngstown, OH Cahoon Museum, Cotuit, MA Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA The Federal Reserve, Washington, DC Jewish Museum of Maryland, Baltimore, MD John Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD Howard University, Washington, DC Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, MD Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Morgan State College, Baltimore, MD Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA National Academy of Design, New York, NY National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, DC National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT New York University, New York, NY Newark Museum, Newark, NJ Phillips Collection, Washington, DC Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland Senate Office Building, Washington, DC Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC Snite Museum of Art, South Bend, IN University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ University of Maryland, College Park, MD University of Maryland, University College, Adelphi, MD University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA WPA Post Office Mural Projects, Scranton, PA and Altavista, VA

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Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com © 2021 LewAllen Contemporary, LLC Artwork © Estate of Herman Maril 38