Dahlov Ipcar, Blue Moons and Menageries
Published by Bates College. Pages 79, Price $29.95 (2018)
Essay by Sara Torres Vega PhD
Distributed by Maine Authors Publishing, Thomaston, Maine.
“Dahlov Ipcar, Blue Moons and Menageries” is a book and art catalogue. Hard cover and just published, it is the lasting record of a major exhibit held at Bates College during the summer of 2018. It is a collector’s item in the art world because it preserves the works of Dahlov Ipcar, Maine’s beloved artist, in an exhibit which includes all the media she worked in. It establishes her as an important artist nationally. This book for scholars and art lovers is outstanding because of the artistic layout, quality of colored reproductions, and research by Sara Torres Vega, PhD.
In Cape Elizabeth, Maine, at the Rachel Walls Fine Art Gallery, three days before Thanksgiving after a major and unusual snow storm in Maine, I interviewed, Sara Torres Vega, an Education and Research Specialist from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, who wrote an essay in the book. She said,”The story of Dahlov Ipcar appealed to me because her work was the first youth exhibit to be shown in 1939 at the Museum of Modern Art.” Torres Vega continued, ”Her mother, Maguerite Thompson Zorach and father, William Zorach, were leaders in the Modern Art Movement in the 1930’s and I became interested in following up the work of their daughter, Dahlov Ipcar.” Torres Vega discovered that Dahlov had her own style because she was allowed to create in her own unique way and was not taught specific rules of creativity.
Ipcar’s parents had broken away from old traditional concepts of art education and allowed Dahlov freedom of expression. Torres Vega stated, “My interest in Dahlov and sharing research about her was to explore ways she found as an adult to create and develop on her own in finding beauty in everyday life.” She added. “ It took two years to do the research which resulted in this book.” She is grateful to Rachel Walls,who represents the Ipcar Art Collection, for introducing her to the Ipcar family, Robert and Charles, who provided her with primary source materials including: photographs, early works, and personal letters.
Torres Vega was impressed with Dahlov’s work, growth, and development here in Maine over the years, as seen in the Bates College art exhibit which included 113 works and all the media Dahlov created in: oils. woodcuts, watercolors, cloth sculptures, and selected illustrations from over 40 children’s books. Torres Vega said, ” I hope this publication will make Dahlov Ipcar a national figure in the art world because it preserves her best works chronologically in a comprehensive way.”
The photographs by Luc Demers in the book are outstanding. The unique part of the layout is that in many places the photos capture the placement of the works as hung in the exhibit.Therefore, to read this book is to actually see the exhibit. If you were unable to see the exhibit, this book, not only preserves it, but creates a chance to see it in your own home.
In the introduction, Anthony Shostak, Bates College Education Curator, said, “Ipcar rarely left her farm in small-town Maine but she traveled extensively in her imagination to Africa, and South America, and far off places…… Her paintings are passports so we may travel there too…”
I believe this beautiful book which preserves the best works of Dahlov Ipcar is a passport for her works to be shown in other museums across the nation.The outstanding Bates College Ipcar exhibit of 2018 was just a beginning of her works traveling across the nation. Dahlov’s work is unique, not just regional. It represents an original vision of tight designs and intricate patterns that is her distinctive style in itself. She is a beloved artist of Maine and her works merit national recognition.
If you only buy one art book for Christmas this year, buy “Dahlov Ipcar, Blue Moons and Menageries.” You will have an art collector’s item in your home to enjoy for many years.
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Louise Nevelson, Light and Shadow
by Laurie Wilson
Published by Thames and Hudson Inc. (2016)
Pages 427 Price $39.95
New York art dealer Arnold Glimcher in the book, “Louise Nevelson, Light and Shadow,” said “Louise Nevelson’s life was such an intricate pattern of fantasy synthesized with reality, that separation from myth and facts is nearly impossible.” He continued, “Nevelson herself was her greatest work of art.” That statement sums up the famous sculptor, Louise Nevelson, in a book which took the author, Laurie Wilson, over 400 pages to explain. However, Wilson, an art historian and psychoanalyst, explains Nevelson well with such intimate details and sensitive compassion, that the book reads fast and is stimulating.
Louise Nevelson was born in Kiev, Russia in 1899 and died in New York in 1988. She was born Leah Berliowsky and her parents left Russia because of religious discrimination. The Berliowsky family was Jewish. As immigrants they moved to Rockland, Maine. Isaac Berliowsky came to America first, and like many immigrants sent for his family when he could afford it. By 1905 they were together as a family in Maine. Isaac Berliowsky became a successful lumber businessman. However, the family was never accepted in Rockland because they were Jewish. This affected Leah’s whole life. In 1920 she changed her name to Louise and married Charles Nevelson. After the birth of her son, Mike, in 1922, she left Charles and retuned with her son to her family in Rockland.
An independent woman before “Women’s Liberation”, she traveled often and studied art at the Art Student’s League in New York. By 1932 she traveled to Germany where she studied under Hans Hoffmann and became influenced by cubism. In the 1940’s she began experimenting with materials of wood which she found on the streets of New York,and became known for her intricate patterns dealing with light and shade. Gradually throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s she became recognized by major museums across the nation. The Farnsworh Museum in Maine showed a major Nevelson exhibit in 1979.
Although successful as a sculptor, Nevelson had a tragic life.
She was separated from her son during his youth which affected his adult life as discussed in the book. However, she achieved recognition in her lifetime which few artists receive. This book is important because it focuses on her major works located in specific places across the nation. It shows that women are equal to men in creating art of monumental dimensions and intellectual depth, and provides stimulation and hope for the next generation.
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The Masterpiece
by Fiona Davis
Dutton 2014
Pages 347 Price $26.00
The Grand Central Station Terminal of New York is the background of this novel. While the story is fiction there once was a Grand Central School of Art founded in 1923 on the 7th floor of Grand Central Station Terminal. The School was run by the Grand Central Art Galleries,and even had a summer school in Eastport, Maine. However after 20 years, it closed in 1944.Although the story is fictional, there is a lot of interesting information on the history and architecture of the Grand Central Station Terminal.
The actual story begins with Clara Darden in 1928, who teaches an illustration class at the Grand Central School of Art. She is an artist herself getting ready to show some of her own works in an art school exhibit.
Chapter two jumps 50 years and opens in 1974 focusing on another young woman. Her name is Virginia, a single woman who needs a job as a stenographer. Virginia is sent to Grand Central Station Terminal.While searching for the ladies room, Virginia stumbles into an area which was once the Grand Central Art School. She is amazed at the artifacts still there, including an illustration by Clara Darden,which she automatically likes.
Almost every other chapter leaps between 1928 and 1974 in a time travel style of writing. The sequences are a little choppy and contrived but the novel reveals two separate stories about two women who live 50 years apart, and work at the same place, the Grand Central Station Terminal. Both women search for independence and a mysterious work of art. To find out who finds the work and where it becomes located, you will have to read the story.
Pat Davidson Reef is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston. She received her Masters Degree at the University of Southern Maine.She taught English and Art History at Catherine McAuley High for many years.She now teaches at the University of Southern Maine in Portland in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Classic Films. She recently wrote a children’s book,”Dahlov Ipcar Artist, and is now writing another children’s book “Bernard Langlais Revisited.”
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