Ordinary finds

On May 19, 1897, Oscar Wilde came out - of Reading Gaol, that is…

Wilde had been sentenced to two years hard labour after being convicted of “gross indecency” with other men…

Photo of Wilde, Napoleon Sarony (albumen panel print), NYC, 1882

“Wilde had arrived in New York in January 1882 on the steamship Arizona, with ‘nothing to declare but his genius’. He needed a publicity photograph for his lecture tour, so he went to Sarony’s studio and Sarony provided just what he wanted: an image of limpid dandyism in quilted smoking-jacket, silk knee-breeches and patent leather slippers. Apparently, ’ Wilde arrived holding a white cane across his fur-lined overcoat. Sarony took him first in his seal-skin cap, then bare-headed in his long trousers, then bare-headed in his knee-breeches.’ As Sarony declared, Wilde was ‘a picturesque subject indeed’.” - National Portrait Gallery label text

The stay in Reading Gaol had left Oscar Wilde a broken man physically and financially - and deeply changed spiritually. He immediately set off to exile in France where he died in November of 1900, never having returned to his native Ireland, nor to England.

Snapshot of Wilde in the spring of 1900, presumably taken by his lover Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas… - © National Portrait Gallery, London

Oscar and Bosie in better days…

Oscar Wilde; Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas by Gillman & Co.
silver gelatin print, May 1893
(via National Portrait Gallery, London)

Another of Napoleon Sarony’s Oscar cards, 1882…

I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood. - The Critic as Artist, 1891

Oscar Wilde was extremely popular up to his unsuccessful libel suit of Bosie’s irate father The Marquess of Queensberry (which led to his arrest and conviction) who had called Oscar a “posing Somdomite” (The Marquess couldn’t spell…), but occasionally received harsh criticisms from the gossip magazines that otherwise kept him in the limelight:

Photo of Wilde, by W. & D. Downey - carbon print, 28 May 1889; published 1891; © National Portrait Gallery, London

“From the beginning Wilde performed his life and continued to do so even after fate had taken the plot out of his hands.” - W. H. Auden, another splendid bugger…

Jacob Jordaens (May 19, 1593 - 1678), was one of three Flemish Baroque painters, along with Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, to bring prestige to the Antwerp school of painting.

Jordaens: The Satyr among the Peasants, Alte Pinakothek, München

I have posted numerous photos of Black intellectuals and artists by Carl Van Vechten, who usually shot in b&w. Here is one of his colour studies, of the young poet Durward Collins (Van Vechten shot a sequence of ten photos of Collins on September 5, 1962), who won the Hopwood Prize for Poetry at the University of Michigan in 1959.

(Courtesy of The Beinecke Library at Yale and their awesome blog, Room 26, Cabinet of Curiosities…)

Internet info on Durward Collins is very scarce - in fact I can find a lot more on his wives than on him… Who has any good info on this young poet and his later life?

Lorraine Hansberry (May 19, 1930 - 1965) was ‘young, gifted and black’ - a powerful playwright whose 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun became the first work by a black woman to be performed on Broadway…

Langston Hughes’s poem inspired her title: “What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun, / Or does it explode?”

“”I was born black and female,” Lorraine Hansberry said. These twin identities would dominate her life and her work. Rejecting the limits placed on her race and her gender, she employed her writing and her life as a social activist to expand the meaning of what it meant to be a black woman.

Her first play, A Raisin In the Sun, is based on her childhood experiences of desegregating a white neighborhood. It won the New York Drama Critic’s Circle Award as Best Play of the Year. She was the youngest American, the fifth woman and the first black to win the award. Her success opened the floodgates for a generation of modern black actors and writers who were influenced and encouraged by her writing.” (Source) Sidney Poitier starred both in the Broadway production and in the 1961 film version of A Raisin…

Her premature death, at the age of thirty-four, cut short her promising career. Lorraine Hansberry died of cancer on January 12, 1965. Hansberry’s TO BE YOUNG, GIFTED, AND BLACK, adapted from her writings, was produced Off-Broadway in 1969. It also appeared in book form next year.” (Source)

Photo credit, AP

Malcolm X (May 19, 1925 - 1965) was a seminal figure in African-American thought and political struggle. Born Malcolm Little, he educated himself in prison, lobbed off his slave name and took the great symbol of the unknown as his new moniker. Having converted to Islam, Brother Malcolm went to work for Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam - an organization he later disowned and whose assassins may well have been responsible for his death…

Malcolm X was a scintillating public speaker and had a superstar presence about him that could sway his listeners to follow him. He has later become a style icon for African-American men, as well as a political touchstone in the radical branch of the Civil Rights movement. Malcolm performed the Hajj to Mecca in 1964, after which he wished to be known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz…

Photo of Malcolm and his family: Malcolm X, wife Betty Shabazz, and daughters Attallah and Qubilah, circa 1962. Photographer: Richard Saunders. Richard Saunders Collection, Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library (great exhibit)

Eve Arnold, from her great photo essay on Malcolm X and the Muslim cause: Malcolm X Collecting for The Nation of Islam

“Eve Arnold was able to get permission from Malcolm X to follow him for two years with her camera. Malcolm X was the leader of the religious and political movement, the Nation of Islam, which advocates the supremacy of the black race. Arnold was invariably the only white face at Nation of Islam meetings. She was forced to wear special nonflammable clothing after cigarette butts were regularly stubbed out on her. At one of the rallies she was able to record the visit of George Lincoln Rockwell, the leader of the American Nazi Party. At the time she began her reportage, the Nation of Islam was still an unfamiliar organization in America. Life Magazine pulled the photographs at the last moment, because they would have appeared above an advertisement for chocolate cookies.” (Source)

More Malcolm X on OF: 1 (another Eve Arnold), 2 3

Different icon, different age: Grace Jones (b. May 19, 1948) sprang to fame in the late 70s as a black disco queen with a large gay following. She cultivated an angular, powerful, androgynous style in her appearence, and has continued to live as much by her looks as by her (not inconsiderable) wit…

Her persona has turned out to be well-suited for film as well..

Keith Haring literally used Grace Jones’ body as his canvas:

Jones, Haring - body, art

The story behind the iconic Grace Jones pose, ‘captured’ in 1978 by Jean-Paul Goude, and used for her 1985 compilation, Island Life:

“The arabesque that Grace Jones is executing in this 1978 photograph/artistic creation may be graceful, but it is also impossible. “What I’m interested is the illusion of reality,” says the photographer and art director Jean-Paul Goude, who was to be Jones’s Pygmalion, transforming her from hard-partying model to an androgynous fantasy image and international superstar. “And unless you are extraordinarily supple, you cannot do this arabesque. The main point is that Grace couldn’t do it, and that’s the basis of my entire work: creating a credible illusion.”” (Source) 

Today is the 70th birthday of Nancy Kwan (b. May 19, 1939), Hong Kong American actress who played a pivotal role in the acceptance of actors of Asian descent in major Hollywood film roles…

Kwan starred in The World of Suzie Wong (1960), with William Holden and Flower Drum Song (1961) - the only Rogers and Hammerstein musical to feature an all-Asian cast…

Tag-line: ”So where are you folks from?” “The East.” “Oh, New York, huh?” “Further east…”

Today is also the birthday of one of my favourite song-writers, Mickey Newbury (May 19, 1940 - 2002), who has languished on the verge of being forgotten for a long time now…

Nonetheless, Newbury was a very successful writer and he has been covered by over 1.000 other artists, within all imaginable genres (including 400+ versions of An American Trilogy, a huge hit for Elvis). At one point (1968) he had top ten songs on four different US charts: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) on the Pop/Rock chart by the First Edition, Sweet Memories on Easy Listening by Andy Williams, Time is a Thief on the R&B chart by Solomon Burke, and Here Comes the Rain Baby on the Country chart by Eddy Arnold. (Source)

An assessment: “The late Mickey Newbury was, by all accounts, a retiring man, ill-suited to the rigor and hype of the music business. As it turned out, this aspect of Newbury’s personality worked well for him. Although he recorded 15 albums over the course of his long career, he will remain known, foremost, as a songwriter. Perhaps to a greater extent than any of his friends and contemporaries (a list that includes Kris Kristofferson and Steve Young), Newbury specialized in material that crossed the boundaries of pop, country and soul. The quality of Newbury’s writing often approached that of great literature; but at the same time he never lost his directness, his ability to target the most primal and moving of human emotions. This combination-some might say contradiction-is what made him unique.

Newbury came of age in the r&b clubs of his native Houston, a city bursting with the hot sounds of Duke-Peacock Records (located in the city’s historic Fifth Ward). Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown thought so much of young Mickey’s talents as a singer that he dubbed him “The Little White Wolf.” Around the same time, Newbury began to haunt local coffeehouses and to perform his own songs. No doubt this early eclecticism-shuttling from folk to blues and r&b-inspired Newbury’s open-minded sensibility, and helps explain why his material has adapted so well to a range of musical contexts.” (from the American Songwriter site)

My fave: San Francisco Mabel Joy, off Mickey’s Frisco Mabel Joy album…

Click thru for the official Newbury site, where you can download much of his music…

The fiery power guitarist of The Who, Pete Townshend, turns 64 today. Here he does a signature split, with innovative but ill-fated drummer Keith Moon in the background…

The whimsical side of Pete Townshend: A banjo-driven tea party with his stuffed animals…

A punk rock icon: Joey Ramone, (May 19, 1951 - 2001, lymphoma) - frontman of the joyous American punk band The Ramones, who took the three chord rock anthem to new levels in the late 70s, till their calling it quits in 1996. The three founding members of The Ramones all died within a few years of the band’s demise…

This shot is by LA scenester photographer Brad Elterman, whose fine site is like a museum of 70s Angelino party cool…

Brad writes:

“This photo was taken after a Ramones recording session produced by the Kessel brothers, Dan and Dave, in Hollywood’s Gold Star Studios, with Rodney Bingenheimer in attendance. The Ramones cut “Slug” (on “Rocket to Russia”) and the Beach Boys’ “Surfin’ Safari.” I hung out with the Ramones on several occasions, with a memorable lunch at world-famous Duke’s Coffee House on Santa Monica Blvd, next to the infamous Tropicana Motor Hotel, favored by punks and other musicians. I find this photo very touching. I am honored to have been a friend of Joey’s.”

María Martínez-Cañas (b. May 19, 1960): Totem Negro XVI, 1992 - gelatin silver print on paper mounted on paperboard (Smithsonian)

“When María Martínez-Cañas was three months old, her family emigrated from Cuba to Puerto Rico in the wake of Castro’s political revolution. She developed an early “child-curiosity” with cameras and eventually she studied photography in Philadelphia and Chicago. In 1985, Martínez-Cañas received a Fulbright-Hays grant to study in Spain for six months, exploring Cuban maps from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries that recorded Spanish explorations of the strategically positioned island. The trip had a profound and lasting influence on her work, as she explains: “For the last few years my work has dealt with the search for a personal identity … the daily life of Cuban culture before the revolution, family stories, memories of Cuba where I was born but have no recollection of. After a while, I find myself with a terrible need of discovering, on my own, that which has been so unknown for so long. I am dealing … with a terrible sense of … separation, and alienation. I have always experienced a desire to belong to a ‘particular place.’”” - Jonathan Yorba. Arte Latino: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (New York and Washington, D.C.: Watson-Guptill Publications, in cooperation with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2001).

Gertrude Kasebier (May 19, 1852 - 1934): The Garden Party, ca. 1905 - platinum print on paper (Smithsonian)

“Gertrude Käsebier began her artistic studies at the age of thirty-seven after her children had grown up. While studying painting at Pratt Institute in New York, she began to explore photography. In 1897 she opened a photography studio in New York, specializing in portraits of women and children. Käsebier was a founding member of both the Photo-Secession group and the Pictorial Photographers of America. A favorite of Alfred Stieglitz, she was the featured artist in the premier issue of Camera Work.” - Merry A. Foresta. American Photographs: The First Century (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996).

Dick Arentz (b. May 19, 1935): Weeping Crab Apple, Bernheim, Kentucky, 1988 - platinum palladium print on paper (Smithsonian)

“Born in Detroit, Michigan, 1935. Currently lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he is an instructor in photography at Northern Arizona University. An exhibition featuring Arentz’s work was organized by the Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, West Virginia, in 1990. His book Four Corners Country was published in 1986.” - Merry A. Foresta, Stephen Jay Gould, and Karal Ann Marling. Between Home and Heaven: Contemporary American Landscape Photography (Washington, D.C. and Albuquerque, New Mexico: The National Museum of American Art in association with the University of New Mexico Press, 1992).

More bio from artist’s own web site: “In 1969, after amateur activities, Dick Arentz began three years of study with Phil Davis of the Photography Department at the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. His interest at that time, was in the large format silver contact print. As an informal “thesis,” he produced the Death Valley Portfolio in 1972. That was reproduced in a 1973 issue of Camera Magazine

After a sabbatical in Europe in 1973, Dick Arentz relocated in Flagstaff, Arizona where he taught studio and photographic history at NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY. In 1978, He was selected by the Arts and Humanities Commission as one of TWENTY ARIZONA ARTISTS. That year he began a six year project which was to be published as Four Corners Country in 1986, partly subsidized by a EDNA RIDER WHITEMAN FOUNDATION GRANT. The book was reissued in soft cover in 1994.

He returned to Ann Arbor in 1980 to study the platinum process with Phil Davis. Because of the lack of published information and the unpredictability of materials, he began researching and writing about platinum and palladium techniques. In 1983, he began to produce negatives with an antique 12x20 Folmer and Schwing Camera. By 1985, major museums and corporations began to collect his work. In 1987, he produced The American Southwest, a limited edition portfolio of 12x20 platinum prints with an essay by James Enyeart.

In 1988, desirous of a change in subject matter, Arentz accepted an ISAAC W. BERNHEIM FELLOWSHIP to live and work in Kentucky. He began a two year project photographing the Midsouthern states and Appalachia, concentrating on the human effect of the landscape. In 1990, a traveling exhibition and catalogue of that work, Outside The Mainstream, with an introduction by Merry Foresta, was funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS.” (Source)

Many more images here

Wendell Brazeau (May 19, 1910 - 1974): Still Life, ca. 1948 - oil on paper mounted on board (Smithsonian)

“Brazeau grew up in the “art-impoverished” city of Spokane, Washington. He moved to Seattle in 1928 to enroll in the University of Washington, graduating with a BFA in art in 1933. Brazeau worked a number of odd jobs afterwards, including a stint at Boeing during the war drawing 3-D perspectives from engineers’ plans. Following the war he returned to UW to complete his MFA, and remained there as a faculty member in the Art Department until his death in 1974.

Brazeau exhibited frequently in the northwest and California. His work, influenced by his studies and experience with illustration, was often geometrical with repeated shapes and bright colors. He was also influenced by the European painters of the time; e.g., many of his abstract paintings have a Klee-like quality, and his figures are often drawn in a cubist style using simple lines or curves.

Brazeau’s paintings can be found in the collections of the Seattle Art Museum, the Portland Art Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. The Seattle Art Museum held a solo exhibition of Brazeau’s work in 1957.” (Source)

Arthur Ames (May 19, 1906 - 1975): Brown and Blue, 1968 - vitreous enamel on copper (Smithsonian)

“Jean Goodwin Ames (1903 - 1996) and Arthur Ames were husband and wife. Though they shared a love for the medium of enameling, each had a separate and unique approach their art. Jean was born in California and Arthur in Illinois, however Arthur moved to Ontario California as a child so both were raised and went to school in California. Jean Ames studied at the Art Institute of Chicago but returned to California where she received a bachelor of arts degree in education from the University of California, Los Angeles and a master of fine arts degree from the University of Southern California. Jean met Arthur Ames while studying ceramics with master potter Glen Luckens.

Arthur Ames studied at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Both Jean and Arthur Ames were educators; Jean taught at Santa Ana High School and Citrus High School and Junior College from 1932 to 1936 and after that, graduate school. She was chairman of the art department at Claremont Graduate School from 1962-1969. Arthur Ames taught design at the Otis Art Institute for seventeen years.

Though they preferred working in enamels, Jean and Arthur Ames produced “paintings, sculptures, prints, ceramics, tapestries, murals, mosaics, and tile decorations.” Arthur Ames was a modernist whose work became more abstract and three-dimensional in the 1970s. Some of his early designs resemble stained glass or perhaps the work of Rouault.” (Source)