26. Lineage: Generations of Realism

Bill Indursky: 0:00

The idea of the show lineage, generations of realism is to talk about how students learn from their masters and their masters learned as students from their masters.

Patricia Watwood: 0:14

I wanted to present a show at salmagundi club that showed the interconnection of artists that have woven through the club. And in our community of realism. People often train under a teacher, and then go on to become teachers themselves.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:34

Welcome to the BoldBrush podcast where we believe that fortune favors the bold brush. My name is Laura Moringa. Bear, and I'm your host. For those of you who are new to the podcast. We are a podcast that covers art marketing techniques, and all kinds of business tips specifically to help artists learn to better sell their work. We interview artists at all stages of their careers, as well as others who are in careers tied to the art world in order to hear their advice and insights. This BoldBrush episode is about an exciting event happening at this very moment at the salmagundi club. It's called lineage and it's an exhibition of paintings, drawings and sculptures that illuminates how the salmagundi club has encouraged generations of artists and stewarded the wealth of creative practices from which we all draw. We here at BoldBrush, we're joined by Patricia watt wood.

Patricia Watwood: 1:20

I'm the first vice president and I'm a member of the board

Bill Indursky: 1:24

and built in their ski. I'm the curator and executive director of the club,

Laura Arango Baier: 1:29

to tell us all about some of the artists being shown at the exhibition, some of the incredible history of salmagundi. And some upcoming events you won't want to miss. Hello, Patricia, and Bill, how are you today?

Patricia Watwood: 1:43

Hey, great to see you. Thanks.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:46

Good. Hey. So we are here, of course, to talk about the really exciting exhibition that's going on at salmagundi right now until the 10th of December, which is called lineage. So let's hear more about it.

Patricia Watwood: 2:02

I wanted to present a show at salmagundi club that showed the interconnection of artists that have woven through the club, our club has been a active club for professional artists since 1871. And many of the people who founded the club and were early members of the club, were important artists who are also teachers. And in our community of realism, people often train under a teacher, and then go on to become teachers themselves. And many of our artists that salmagundi you know, trained other under somebody who was a salmagundi artist, and then are now teaching today. And so that's the story we wanted to tell. It was also kind of important to me to present this idea that art is something that's cultivated in community, and in conversation. And in collaboration. We do, you know, sit quietly alone and our studios to do our creative work. But often, it's the momentum that we get from a conversation, or it's sharing ideas with people who really understand what you want to do that really keeps us inspired. And so our work always is somewhat in conversation with each other as artists, and salmagundi is a great place for that. And so the show is kind of about those two things.

Laura Arango Baier: 3:26

That's awesome. Yeah, it's all about passing on that torch of the traditional realism, which has grown a lot in the past 20 years, in my opinion. And I love that salmagundi has really celebrated it and championed it by inviting more and more of these athletes, students that have popped up to join and to now see this incredible exhibition that is no doubt inspiring, because you have such big names there. Bill, do you mind telling us some of the artwork that is going to be exhibited?

Bill Indursky: 3:56

Sure. The the idea of the show lineage, generations of realism is to talk about how students learn from their masters, and their masters learned as students from their masters. And it's kind of an obsession of people who sort of paint traditionally to sort of follow their lineage back. And I can even get my lineage back to like Michelangelo or, you know, this sort of thing. It's a fascinating because your method, your technique, your approach, and even philosophy are often based on who you learned it from, and what things they cared about. And what's also interesting to me is each generation, each successive generation, molds the conversation, so they may learn technique, or style or approach or even philosophies from their teachers, but then they adapt it to let's see what's happening in there. over time and culture, but the base knowledge stays the same. At salmagundi, we kind of pretend like modernism never happened, we just sort of kept going as if it didn't exist. And so in some ways, I personally consider us one of the most important cultural institutions in America, to be honest, we're the third oldest arts organization in America. 151 years, and we're in a house that's even older than that. on Fifth Avenue. It is in our, in our mission to, to basically better art for the betterment of, of humankind. It's a pretty general mission. But I really think the artists by sticking to the long tradition of the long arc of what representational art has always been, really is important to the world. I really think it's one of the few threads that have kept it going, when, during sort of what we call the lean times, you know, when maybe it you modernism was on the rise, and contemporary art was on the rise. And then our, even the skills to passing down and learning that art weren't there anymore. They had slowly fallen away as the popularity waned. Now, I'm so honored and thrilled that that is starting to all come back over the many years through efforts of a lot of the artists who are have been or are part of salmagundi. Yeah,

Patricia Watwood: 6:55

one of the things I wanted to do with this show is that there are these really important master painters who have kept our tradition alive. Artists like Harvey Dinnerstein, Nelson Shanks, Martha, Errol Bakker, artists who are still living like Max Ginsburg, and Burton Silverman, and the artists Richard Schmidt has passed on. So this particular special generation carried on realism and teaching in the 70s 80s and 90s. And were excellent teachers inspiring a future generation, but at the time that they were working, they were kind of a lone voice in the wilderness, like staying, you know, sticking to the realism and the figurative work that they were interested in. So I also wanted to honor how those important masters kept this tradition alive, and that they were really they were precious to so many of us students. And the other thing that's very interesting to see when you kind of see how it goes through generations is on one hand, yes, we're, we're working in a tradition, but you can see really clearly how the different periods responded to the world around them. You know, we have work from Thomas and shoots in lineage that shows a woman sitting at a desk reading and she's wearing a Victorian dress was sort of the Gibson Girl kind of hairstyle. And the color palette has these earth tones and kind of a muted skin tone. It's a really beautiful painting. But it's very clearly if that period, Abraham Ginsburg was Max Ginsburg's father taught max to paint, there's a painting of his mother in 1927. And those are just a good example of two in the works that show this very specific time and place that those artists live. And now if you go all the way forward to maybe an artists like Nelson Shanks, who was the paintings that we have on view, I think were made in the early 2000s. One is a painting of Marisa toe Mae. And you see how very specifically contemporary the world that he was looking at is, even though the language that he's painting in is somewhat more traditional. He, his colors, the vibrancy is very contemporary. And then if you go forward to really young artists, some of the young artists that we have in the show like Jeff Hong Lou, or Carrie Dunn, or Grace flot, these artists are now in their 30s. And you can just see from the way they're composing the elements, they're choosing to paint, the brushwork, the color, the vitality that they are also responding to the world around them. So it's not like the tradition of realism doesn't transform and grow and change over time. It really does. And so I like how this show kind of also shows that we are not doing the same realism that they were 100 years ago.

Laura Arango Baier: 9:56

Yeah, and even if we could, it would be impossible because like We've been mentioning we do not exist in the same world that the old masters did. And we can't fathom what kind of world they've been we're living in. So all we can really do is take these techniques and translate them with our more contemporary view, and yet maintain that tradition and that philosophy underneath it all.

Bill Indursky: 10:22

Amazingly, there's only been a few lines of key teachers, especially in what I call the lean times, that brought the knowledge of past days and old masters to the current generation. And you can really trace them back to like an Italian line, a French line, a Dutch line, and a German line. So really, there are four base ones. And it's so interesting because we have, for example, three Frank and duvan x. And the duvan X, who duveneck was an artist who settled in Cincinnati, Ohio, but he studied in Munich, and he spoke German, so it was a natural place for him to study. And at that time, that Munich school was taking realism to sort of the next level it was being informed by French impressionists, but it was also their own version. It has a thicker paint quality. It was brush here. And so duveneck teaches that sort of bravado type brushwork that became his signature, and which really affected generations of artists because duveneck taught at the Cincinnati Art Academy, and so that gets disseminated through the Midwest. You have an Italian line really represented by Annigoni. I mean, um, you know, even though he was made, basically known as sort of an English portraitists, he was Italian. And that Italian line, inspires a group of people who then start the Florence Academy, and the Florence Academy is Americans who go to Italy, and basically retrain Italians, that their own heritage because it was so lost, and it's just incredible. You can follow the lineage and you can just see the continuum of art.

Patricia Watwood: 12:26

We have a number of works in the show by people who are trained by Marina Simi, and Marina Simi was taught with Annigoni in Annigoni studio and kept his teaching alive after he went on and she was a really inspiring teacher to a generation. He taught Nelson Shanks worked with Marina Simi. In our show, we have yo que Threema and Alessandra Maroochy, Fred brown Steen. And there's a number of capsular what's his first name, and we have a number of artists who show that lineage then on my side, like my teeth, one of my teachers with 10 Seth Jacobs, and he taught at the Art Students League, but can trace his lineage back to like Frank Vincent du monde. And then that goes back to the academy, Julianne, so there's lineages on that side that go back to the French Academy. It's really very interesting. Most of us as individuals can kind of play what my teacher was this and that and go, it goes all the way back. It's fascinating.

Laura Arango Baier: 13:29

Absolutely, yeah, I learned under Michael John Angel. So and he learned under Annigoni. So there's that lineage goes all the way back. Then I also studied with, you know, like, Jacob Collins and studied with Odd Nerdrum. And those are two very different lineages, because odd I don't even know where he got it from, to be honest. But it's also interesting to now even have that where you learn under various different people that can be traced back. It's like this giant web. And that's the other interesting thing about salmagundi is that they have always been a part of this vast network of lineages of artists.

Patricia Watwood: 14:07

I really liked that about the club. And I hope that we will continue to kind of play that role. I bill has done great work, archiving and keeping records of who studied with whom and where, and being in New York City being in the United States. There are all of these different clusters. You know, there's painters in California and sort of California Impressionism, there's Pennsylvania, there's Boston, there's right and there's little lineages and all of these places. And I think that salmagundi is the natural place for sort of all of those people to cross fertilize, share information. Some people are more bold and brushy and tonalist. Other like think flat color shapes and other people are more thinking about value and structure and what's coming from like the Russian school. And I really love that about our community right now that there's so much interest in cross fertilization.

Laura Arango Baier: 15:00

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Bill Indursky: 15:54

By the mid to late, you know, an 18th century you know, you have important figures also like Jerome in France, and there was the rise of the middle class. And because of that, Americans were able to send their children over to Paris over to Munich and to study with them. And some of the earliest salmagundi ins you can see all that training that was you know, was was basically imbued within them. And the quality, especially early summer goods is really incredible. We have so many wonderful works. In our permanent collection, we have about a 2000 piece permanent collection. And so when I go through it, sometimes I'm sort of like floored at the beauty and subtlety and sophistication. In this show in particular, we borrowed quite a few works to sort of really fill out the full story. We have several, like I mentioned duvan x, we have several William Merritt chases who was a member, we have a Jerome, a beautiful one like kind of very haunting in a lot of ways. It's a wonderful little horse painting by Jerome. And so it the show itself is just, you know, you really get a sense of the various styles, and the various motives, and it's just incredible.

Patricia Watwood: 17:39

And the contemporary. With the contemporary artists, we were able to bring in a couple of works by Bo Bartlett. But Bartlett was Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, he also studied a bit under it was influenced by Nelson Shanks, and very close to Andrew Wyeth. So he represents an interesting little part of the American lineage. So we're proud to have those we have a lot of work connected through New York Academy of Art. Martha Errol Bakker was a my professor at New York Academy of Art. And at that time in my life, the only female professional female artists that I was able to study with, and that was really important influence in my life. And Wade Schumann, who's also on faculty at New York Academy of Art and a number of other alumni from New York Academy.

Bill Indursky: 18:29

Yeah, I was just kind of mentioned that, you know, we, the amount of women that have entered into traditional art has slowly been gaining and gathering, I'm really happy to say, you know, we as a club, you know, we were a typical private men's club, up until 1973. Most other clubs in New York actually didn't open to become, you know, co Ed until 1983, to 85. So we're actually a little ahead of this, the curve, but even our earliest shows, included women. And one of the things we're trying to do is really try to balance that a bit more and sort of show the diversity and range of how multiple people think, in the medium.

Patricia Watwood: 19:27

Yeah, and Bill's doing a wonderful job trying to augment the number of paintings by women artists in the salmagundi permanent collection. And that's an initiative we're gonna keep trying to support. But also with this show, we wanted to show with the younger generation of artists, that there is a lot more diversity in young artists in realism than there has been in the past. If you go back into history, and you look at the 19th century, the early 20th century, it is all male artists and white tend to The white male artists because those were the people who were frankly allowed to study in the life room, were able to get the large Commission's that could then support them as an artist. And so the younger generation shows how, you know, there's a lot more diversity. And that's something that we really hope to continue promoting at salmagundi. At the eighth fret realism is changing.

Bill Indursky: 20:23

Yeah, in the 1880s, there was only really one place in all of New York for women to study art. It was at Cooper Union, and it was only night classes. And, you know, the young people of the salmagundi club, when they they were only 19 to 26 years old, initially, when they started it, and there was only a sort of a handful of them initially, maybe up to 10, that used to critique each other's work and kind of go to the various studios have each other. And, you know, slowly over time, it became more formalized and more important. But what I what I really enjoy about it is that, you know, these these kids, it's, I could just honestly, I kind of think about it as like, wow, it's like these young, like 19 year olds and stuff like created something that now lasts 151 years, I just don't think they could have ever imagined it, you know, to go beyond that.

Patricia Watwood: 21:28

That's probably true. But and then the club really is just as vital today in terms of being a place where we have scholarship members, junior members, starting age 21, up to 35, for the junior in scholarship and members. And we really want to foster a community that has rigor that has critical discourse, that supports each other that really understands the goals and really kind of cultivates excellence doesn't have to be in a you know, realism is very broad tent. There's lots of different kinds of modes of representation. It doesn't even have to be realist. And I am proud of the way that the club continues to have those vital conversations.

Laura Arango Baier: 22:12

Yes. And that also goes beyond just this exhibition, for example, I know that salmagundi also has competitions, and they have like, for example, etching night, or like people come in, and they have like this amazing like night where, you know, of course, you pay for being able to use all of these materials, but you still get to go to a place and become enriched with other people. Yeah, at this club,

Patricia Watwood: 22:35

I do that monoprint party. And it's really fun. And it's only $30. And that includes all the paper and the ink and the printing press and access. So it's really wonderful. And I don't know how to do it. So then I asked my friends who have more experience, and we kind of guide each other and you can learn a new medium. Actually, I'm going to tell you about another project that we have coming up that I'm proud of which is going to be the salmagundi materials fair. So salmagundi has also been a place where art manufacturers like Frederick's linen, like Frederick's was a Club member Grumbacher Grumbacher was a Club member. And so we are bringing in people who are today's manufacturers, people like Raymar art or new wave art making, we're actually making a new palette with new wave that's going to be a traditional salmagundi palette modeled on the palettes and our historic collection but made for contemporary painter and DaVinci brushes. There's a guy who's does plaster casts, Justin Kendall doing plaster casts, which is useful not just for decor, but for study. Who are some of the other vendors so we're we're gonna bring these vendors in because we as artists also need to learn about why do you care about this particular pigment or OLED ground or a high quality, linen, all of these things are really important, actually, to the longevity of our work and to, to making good quality painting. And so that's another thing that I'm excited we're doing. It's December 3 and fourth year in New York at the club, that hopefully it will be an ongoing initiative.

Bill Indursky: 24:19

Believe it or not, there's not a single major art materials Fair in New York at all. And hasn't been for many years. So this will be the first one in who knows how many years. And artists are, you know, it's not just open to the trade or anything. It's open to all artists and the general public. Yes, free and open to the public. And so you can get discounts on materials, you'll get demonstrations to learn about the materials themselves, they'll be lectures and panels. It really should Be an incredibly educational interesting time.

Patricia Watwood: 25:03

Now, we have edge pro gear, who does travel easels, plein air easels. We have Royal Talens, makers of pastel watercolor, we have Legion paper who has a new product called Stonehenge oil that is like you can paint on the paper, which is really cool. So I'm really excited about all of the people coming in Chelsea classical Studio makes a traditional oil medium, which is really high quality. So we're excited to help artists find great materials, inspiring things to work from.

Laura Arango Baier: 25:38

Well, I love how salmagundi takes that initiative, because I know a lot of other painters were also in the realist realm, or people have gone to add to liaise. And one of the most important things that doesn't get talked about enough is materials. So I think it's great to provide this opportunity for not just members of the club, but also being free and open to the public.

Patricia Watwood: 26:00

You know, there are a lot of ideas from the 20th century that we sort of inherited. The idea that technique is an important, right, and materials, you know, whatever you're using is not really an important thing to invest in. But really technique is artistic intelligence. It's about process and understanding of materiality, the difference between the stroke that a sable brush makes and a nylon brush. And all of these really make, you know big contributions to the work that we make. And so when we as artists really share that information, it helps all of us be better artists.

Bill Indursky: 26:36

Absolutely. salmagundi is also the home of the world's largest American Artist Palette collection. So we have over 150 American artist palettes. And those palettes began being collected in 1896. And those people all were gathered by a former National Arts Secretary initially, and he was going to donate that to the national National Academy of Design here in New York, when he worked there. But they didn't want it because no place in America wanted anything but European pallets. And so after all that work, he was disappointed that they didn't want it. And we happened to be moving into our fifth avenue, townhouse location. And he said, Hey, would you like these? And we said, I'm sure. And so the pallets actually been on almost current display for more than 100 years in him within our townhouse, like in various rooms and locations, including the library. And right now the bar, which we have on display. And it's really interesting to see how the different artists over different eras lay out their paints. And this sort of palette, sort of collection really inspired Patricia to work with a new wave palette to develop the salmagundi palette. And I really, having felt it and seen it and you know how to you got to use it actually in

Patricia Watwood: 28:32

working with the prototype now for a couple of months. And as far as I'm concerned, it's perfect. It's the right, it's not too big. It's not too small. It fits my thumb, well, it's comfortable to cold. I really think it really it checks all of my boxes, and I think it's great. And we designed it based on the shapes and the aesthetic of the palettes in our collection, which are also just beautiful. They're just beautiful objects. And it's very interesting to see the historic palettes and you can see which colors Emil Carlsen put out on his palette. And then you can you know, if you want to study Emile Carlson's painting, you can set out those colors and in the future I want for the salmagundi to continue to keep that keep those records you know, what palette did Bo Bartlett use? What palette did no Buchanan use what palette did Nelson Shanks use, you know, and, and carry that information forward for the future?

Bill Indursky: 29:24

I proposed a digital sort of archive of where artists would go on to, let's say, a zoom type thing, photograph, you know, video of themselves talking about their palette and the colors that they lay down. And then we would store those in the cloud, you know, for posterity.

Patricia Watwood: 29:45

So the show lineage, but really, we want it it's just a sketch of an idea. Anytime you do one show, it does not show it doesn't show everything and there are many people who are like, Well what about this artist or this great teacher? What they're See, you know, it was impossible to it's just a sketch, right. And it's incomplete. But I hope that over time, we can continue to kind of keep this as an ongoing theme. So that people know that salmagundi is the place that they're going to be able to go to maybe study this in the future, you know, that for for art historians for, you know, hopefully, our museum, the salmagundi, museum collection will continue to be augmented with these contemporary artists with more women, people of color. And so hopefully, this show will inspire us to keep going in this direction.

Bill Indursky: 30:34

Yeah, I mean, we have like over 50,000 documents in our archives, often original applications in the artists hand. And all of these over time are going to be digitized. Finally, have a finding aid, you know, have artists letters, and sort of like their full set of letters. So it is slowly coming online, people should check out the website, there's lots of every month, there's nearly 60 events or more every month, that's two a day. And some of like their lectures and panels and concerts. And the

Patricia Watwood: 31:15

house is open seven days a week to go in and see the exhibitions. It's free and open to the public. You know, the dining spaces, the bar spaces are sometimes only for members. But many, much of the time those spaces are open to the public for and for exhibitions free. It's actually a treasure as far as being a free museum in the village in New York City.

Laura Arango Baier: 31:37

Wonderful. Absolutely. Yes. So how can people go to the lineage exhibition,

Patricia Watwood: 31:44

where at 47/5 Avenue, and the website is salmagundi.org. And you can come in, and he's 11 to 5pm.

Bill Indursky: 31:54

So the public is one to five on the weekends and one to six during the weekdays.

Laura Arango Baier: 32:01

Got it? And then do people have to get a ticket?

Bill Indursky: 32:04

No, it's completely free. They can just walk in right off the street. We just as my factory restored our beautiful gas burning lamps in the front of our building. They don't allow them anywhere in New York anymore. Like we're one of the very, very last places to still have it in New York. But it really adds something it really says like, No, this is the flame of tradition.

Patricia Watwood: 32:32

And the parlor is a beautiful historic parlor, the built building was built in 1852. So don't just come and walk into the club and walk around. It's also kind of a treat and a great place to visit. Also, just to tell you the materials fair is December 3 and fourth, you do need a ticket for that but it is free. So you can get your free ticket go to salmagundi.org and come please come and visit us for the materials Farragut there's going to be a lot of wonderful artists demonstrating around the building. So it should also just be a fun, hang.

Laura Arango Baier: 33:02

Great. Absolutely much.

Patricia Watwood: 33:05

Thanks so much for your time today, Laura.

Laura Arango Baier: 33:07

Thank you. So excited to hear all of this from both of you because I'm actually applying to the salmagundi club. Finally. So I also get excited just hearing about all of this and makes me wish I was in New York for all of these events.

Patricia Watwood: 33:23

Well, you will be sometime and we look forward to having you at the clubhouse.

Laura Arango Baier: 33:27

Thank you so much.

Bill Indursky: 33:28

Yeah, they're 1200 members of the club. And, you know, they're all around the world and around the US as well.

Patricia Watwood: 33:36

People are often sending work for for art exhibits from France from Italy from England. You know, we have artists all over the world and all sending send work in for exhibits and it's really inspiring.

Laura Arango Baier: 33:49

If anyone is interested in learning more about the history of the salmagundi club, you can check out one of our earlier episodes called official history of the salmagundi club with Alexander Kaplan. If you'd also like to learn more about the club itself, you can go ahead and go to salmagundi.org