Recently, I hit my first anniversary as a staff writer for DailyArt Magazine. I started pitching articles to DailyArt after earning an art history certificate from the Smithsonian. I found that while I didn’t have a reason to take online classes anymore, I still had a lot to learn. Writing for DailyArt has been a fabulous way for me to continue growing and to collaborate with knowledgeable editors. Below are four of my favorite pieces and why they stick out in my mind.
Masterpiece Story: Once Upon a Time by Keith Haring
While on a work trip to New York City, I learned I was staying close to a building that had a bathroom muralled on all four walls by Keith Haring, and that this room was free and open to the public. I went, and saw Once Upon a Time, and wrote what I think is probably the best opener I’ve written for any DailyArt article:
“Keith Haring’s Once Upon a Time mural is a 4-walled orgiastic display of penises, eager orifices, splashing ejaculate, and extended tongues tangled up in an ecstasy defying physical possibilities. What was once the second-floor bathroom of New York’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center (The Center) is now a one-room exhibit of Haring’s fantastical depiction of homosexual sex.”
Chiura Obata: Alien Enemy and Great American Painter
When DailyArt asked writers for ideas about immigrant artists, I immediately thought of Chiura Obata, who applied Japanese techniques to the California landscape. Obata’s artwork is equalled by his amazing personal story. Placed in internment camps during World War II, he kept right on painting and set up art schools within the camps that created exhibits throughout California. His story is one of amazing optimism and a search for beauty amid oppression.
“Chiura Obata applied Japanese training and technique to picturesque California landscapes with stunning results. Interned during World War II because of his Japanese heritage, he documented the injustice around him through his art and organized art schools for other detainees. Now, he’s celebrated as one of the great American painters of the 20th century.”
Betsy Graves Reyneau: Portraitist and Social Justice Warrior
Much of Betsy Graves Reyneau’s work is housed in D.C.’s National Portrait Gallery, and when I began researching her, I already recognized her work. Like Obata, she has a remarkable personal story and was heavily involved in the suffrage movement. Here’s a snippet:
“As an artist and an activist, Reyneau dedicated her life to fighting for civil liberties. As a suffragist, she picketed the White House. She marched for workers’ rights during the depression. During the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, she harbored refugee Jews in her London home. She spoke out against racial oppression and took part in sit-ins as far back as the 40s. Her friend, the Black poet Robert Hayden, once said of Reynau that to her, “nothing human was alien.”
Queen of Chicago: American Surrealist Gertrude Abercrombie
I’d never heard of Gertrude Abercrombie before taking on this assignment, but I do love surrealism and artists who create their own distinct visual language. Here, work builds upon itself and creates an alternative world. It implies a story in the way that many of Hopper’s paintings make you feel like you are glimpsing a moment that is part of a larger narrative. Also, her own story overlaps in interesting ways with the story of Chicago changing during the Great Migration.
“Gertrude Abercrombie’s barren landscapes, cats, female figures in long dresses, and other repeated imagery built a complex body of haunting American surrealist paintings, confounding audiences decades after her death. Sometimes called the “Queen of Chicago,” “jazz witch,” or “queen of the bohemians,” she thought her art akin to the progression of jazz music. Her friend, the great trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, called her the first “bop artist.” However, despite living at the center of the Chicago art and jazz scene, her work portrayed the quiet loneliness at her core.”
