"A welcome back, every year" by Jessica May
By Jessica May, Deputy Director and Robert and Elizabeth Nanovic Chief Curator
July and August in Maine always brings my mind to Alex Katz’s inimitable Study for Lawn Party (1965), which is part of a series of spectacular studies that Alex made that summer in preparation for his 9 x 12 foot Lawn Party, which is now a promised gift to the Museum of Modern Art. The PMA’s Study for Lawn Party feels especially poignant now: in it, the artist’s wife, Ada, with back to the painter, chats with Neil Welliver, a friend, a fellow painter, and a longtime part-year resident of midcoast Maine. The painting wakes up all my senses this year in particular, calling back to a different time: Ada and Neil are most certainly standing less than six feet apart, seemingly casual in maskless conversation, Neil with a drink in hand, one likely handed to him by another party guest. They stand near the Katzes’ famous yellow house, itself a part of the legacy of Maine’s 20th-century art history. Against the yellow background, Alex painted the shadow of nearby branches with fast, loose brushstrokes; the effect is of vibration, crackle, the buzzy noise of an afternoon party. If we cannot literally hear a conversation between Ada and Neil, we can certainly feel it.
Alex Katz (United States, born 1927), Ada and Neil, Maine (Study for Lawn Party), 1965, oil on board, 24 1/2 x 32 inches. Museum purchase with support from the Freddy and Regina Homburger Endowment for Acquisitions, the Friends of the Collection, and the Harold P. and Mildred A. Nelson Art Purchase Endowment Fund, 2013.19
This painting now feels like a record of a whole world lost to time; that’s a little melodramatic of me, but it’s not inaccurate. The Katzes’ home, like so many throughout Maine, were places that lit up in the summertime with convivial artists’ communities. This past winter, I had a chance to have a conversation with painter Lois Dodd about David Driskell, in preparation for our upcoming exhibition, David Driskell: Icons of Nature and History. The two artists met in the summer of 1953 at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, where David was a summer participant (Lois was not, but was married to sculptor Bill King, who was; together, Lois traveled up to Skowhegan that summer with Bill, as well as with Alex and his first wife, Jean Cohen). I called Lois because I thought she could tell me stories about David from that first summer, but much to my surprise, her memories of 1953 were limited; instead, her memories of seeing David annually, at any number of summer occasions, were rich, wonderful, and insightful. “That’s the thing about Maine,” Lois said, “There’s a real artist community.”
Lois Dodd (United States, born 1927), Self-Portrait in Green House Window, 1971, oil on linen, 53 1/2 x 36 inches. Museum purchase with support from the Contemporary Art Fund, in memory of Bernice McIlhenny Wintersteen, 2000.1
This summer feels so different because the big social occasions of the summer—the lectures, the lawn parties—are all either very small or happening on a computer screen. There’s a sadness to that—I miss seeing all these wonderful people—but I have to hope that for many artists who return to Maine annually, this is a summer with a quieter footprint, maybe a little more time to paint, read, reflect, or even take walks. The community is a bit smaller this year, and I can hardly get near our galleries without a pang of sadness about David’s passing on April 1 of this past spring. Yet it is comforting to think about Lois Dodd, painting as she has for decades in her barn.