Abstract Realism is taken over by Pop
Harold Stevenson (American, 1929 – 2022) was living in Paris during the late 1950s and early 1960s. He would make frequent flights home with a new crowd called jetsetters. As aeroplane [Harold’s word for it] travel became affordable, Harold’s perspective on what was happening in Paris France and what was happening in New York City was perceptive. The Sidney Janis Gallery exhibit featured one of Harold’s most iconic paintings, The Eye of Lightning Billy.
Harold painted it the summer of ’62 in his downtown Idabel OK studio. Locals watched through the plate glass windows from the sidewalks. Everybody in town new Harold and everybody in town knew Lightning. These two renegades met in 1953. Harold had come home to Idabel from New York City. He would often go to the county sale barn, sit hight in the bleachers and paint the cows and bulls that came through the auction arena. One day, a tall, good-looking cowboy caught his attention and he painted him. It was Lightning Billy. The two later met up at the Gemini coffee shop (still in business today). As they say, “it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Harold painted Lighting for thirty years.
Why is the Eye so big?
“Why so big?” What is the intent of painting a human eyeball 10 feet tall and 15 feet wide? At the time, Harold’s contemporaries were painting objects. Campbell Soup Cans, a slice of cake, a Brillo box, cartoon images. Harold saw the human body as the ultimate object of beauty. All bodies were beautiful.
Painting Lightning Billy was Stevenson’s rejoinder to the established academy’s idea of “they just put the good parts in history.” Stevenson gravitated to Lightning Billy as an illustration of how forced Christianity contributed to the demise of Indian culture and made Billy into the counter-culture man he chose to live as. Stevenson painted his object, the human body part, in the giganticism style to more fully enable the viewer to engage with the painting that represents the ethnographic voices of his subjects that deserve to be heard. Stevenson absolutely wanted to make sure you didn’t miss it.
The Jewish Museum of New York Recreates Pivotal Era, 1962-1964. On exhibit through January 8, 2023.
Learn about the exhibit here, Exhibition Examines Pivotal Three-Year Period in the History of Art And Culture in New York City.
New York: 1962-1964 is the last project conceived and curated by Germano Celant, the renowned art historian, critic, and curator who passed away in 2020. Celant was approached in 2017 by the museum to address its influential role in the early 1960s New York art scene during a momentous period in American history.
The result is New York: 1962-64, which uses the Jewish Museum’s role as the jumping-off point to examine how artists living and working in New York City responded to the events that marked this moment in time.
New York: 1962-1964 aligns with the years of Alan Solomon’s tenure as the Jewish Museum’s influential director. During the timeframe explored in this exhibition, epoch-changing events—such as the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963), and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (1963)—occurred at rapid speed and fundamentally altered the social and political landscape of New York City and the nation more broadly.
An unprecedented economic boom broadened the array of consumer goods that were available to shoppers, and an expanding media network introduced new voices into increasingly urgent conversations about race, class, and gender.
Artists featured include Diane Arbus, Lee Bontecou, Chryssa, Merce Cunningham, Jim Dine, Martha Edelheit, Melvin Edwards, Dan Flavin, Lee Friedlander, Nancy Grossman, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Yayoi Kusama, Norman Lewis, Roy Lichtenstein, Boris Lurie, Marisol, Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, Isamu Noguchi, Claes Oldenburg, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, Faith Ringgold, Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist, Miriam Schapiro, Carolee Schneemann, George Segal, Jack Smith, Harold Stevenson, Marjorie Strider, Mark di Suvero, Bob Thompson, and Andy Warhol, among many others.
New York: 1962-1964 is made possible by the Jerome L. Greene Foundation. Major support for the exhibition is provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom; The Ellsworth Kelly Foundation; Tracy Li; The Joan Toepfer Charitable Trust; the Arnhold Family; The Walter and Lucille Rubin Foundation; Agnes Gund; Helen Frankenthaler Foundation; Johanna and Lief D. Rosenblatt; The Goldie and David Blanksteen Foundation; Wendy Fisher and the Kirsch Foundation; The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Inc; The Skirball Fund for American Jewish Life Exhibitions; Horace W. Goldsmith Exhibitions Endowment Fund; the Alfred J. Grunebaum & Ruth Grunebaum Sondheimer Memorial Fund; and the Leon Levy Foundation.
Read what others are saying about the exhibit. It’s good!