Will Barnet his New York City2009 studio, photographed by Carlo Buscemi, 2009 38 • Fine ArtinMagazine • Spring

Will Barnet 1991, 14” x 17” pencil on paper, Richard E. Schiff, formerly in the collection of Mary Sinclair

Will Barnet’s Eight Decades as an Artist by Richard E. Schiff

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ill Barnet used to tell us students that Daumier had been one of his early influences, among others, of course. And though he has clearly distinguished himself among contemporary American painters, Will Barnet is far better known for the hard edge abstract work he began in the early ’50s. In an age where drawing seems to have lost its importance, it is very much what is clearly missing from the art of today. People are no longer learning art in places like the Art Students League of New York only, but since the mid-sixties, in University classrooms, where a major in art is spread out among required liberal arts courses. The work of Will Barnet belongs to the great history of draftsmanship that represents the bulk of the history of art, even from days in the caves.

Will Barnet was born to Sarah and Noah Barnet in Beverly Massachusetts in May 1911. He first came to New York to study in 1930 after a few years at the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. At the League, he studied under Charles Locke, a master lithographer and print maker. Locke introduced the young Barnet to Nicholas Poussin and Honore Daumier. Like the great Daumier, Barnet drew on the simple life around him for subjects. His output in the 1930s was remarkable. continued on Page 41

Harold Weston, courtesy of Harold Weston Foundation

Harold Weston & Will Barnet Two Great Artists, Two Great Men By VICTOR BENNETT FORBES

Walking with fellow Keene Valleyite and art-lover Seymour Preston to the National Arts Club off Gramercy Park in Manhattan on a cool September 2008 evening to catch a screening of Harold Weston: A Bigger Belief in Beauty, a documentary chronicling the life and times of one of America’s most noteworthy artists, I remarked that the first time I was here was to interview the great Will Barnet in his studio upstairs in the 1980s. A very memorable afternoon. As soon as I finished the sentence and entered the large gallery where the film was about to be shown, there was the stately figure of Mr. Barnet holding court in the front of the room. I had no idea of the relationship between these two artists and was thrilled to renew my acquaintance with one of the great masters of the 20th century. continued on following page Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2009 • 39

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arnet, approaching the century mark in years, was an affable host, meeting and greeting the many attendees. He played a prominent role in the beautifully shot film, moving the story along with, among others, denizens of the tiny but scenic Hamlet of Keene Valley, NY (population 1063), including the artist Frank Owen and the builder Baird Edmunds, whose recounting of driving a truckload of Weston’s paintings down to the city is a refreshing and hilarious take on artas-adventure in the 1960s. A one-time hermit in the Adirondack mountains, Weston (1894-1972) had a palette and dynamism in his early years that was van Gogh-like in its power and passion. His work reflected his love of the mountains and of his wife, muse and model who spent two years with him in his remote St. Huberts cabin while he painted those famous “landscape nudes.” Long before “Your Body is a Wonderland” became a hit record, Weston created an artistic wonderland on paper and canvas in the au natural visages of his Quaker wife Faith as mountain range. Weston also was driven to answer a humanitarian impulse to engage in the pivotal events of his time, including both World Wars and, later, the fight for a federal commitment to art and artists in the United States. He was the guiding spirit behind the National Council on Arts and Government for ten crucial years leading up to the 1965 legislation creating the National Endowment for the Arts, which he had a hand in drafting. He also secured Eleanor Roosevelt’s support for his plan to combat the inevitable widespread hunger that would be rampant after World War II, and through his urging the US managed to avert a worldwide calamity. A Bigger Belief in Beauty, narrated by Tony Award winner Jefferson Mays, chronicles this life story with rich archival material, a sensitive sound track, and never-before-seen artworks from all periods of Weston’s career. Interviews with artists, historians, and friends combine in a documentary that accords Harold Weston the attention he deserves as a major player in the art and politics of his time. First published in 1971, a new edition of Freedom in the Wilds: An Artist in the Adirondacks, edited by Rebecca Foster, has recently been released by Syracuse University Press. The book became a classic among Adirondack literature for its thoughtful exploration of wilderness and creativity. In this third edition, Ms. Foster updates the original by bringing to the foreground Weston’s compelling personal story. She also adds a rich trove of his letters and journal entries, along with new illustrations, explanatory notes, and a new introduction that will give Weston’s story greater resonance with contemporary readers. Not only that, but it is an adventure story, a love story, a chronicle of a boyhood spent in the Adirondacks and a young manhood spent 40 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2009

“From the very first his art was that of an individualist, a man going his own way.” —Lloyd Goodrich, Director of the Whitney Museum, Congressional Record, 1972 Harold Weston on Snowshoes, 1920, Photo courtesy of Harold Weston Foundation

at war in Iraq, with great insight into the New York art scene of the 1920s, including interaction with Alfred Steiglitz and a wonderful personal history of life in those rugged mountains, when it really was rugged. (ed. note:) I read the book without stopping. This was my response: Dear Rebecca, I have just now received Freedom in the Wilds and every word, every letter, every thought, every painting touch me deep in my spirit. I can also say that I, too, belong to the Adirondacks. As your grandfather wrote, “Nowhere else is my home.” Giant Mountain looks down upon me,

as it did Harold and he remains a giant among us. I long to impart his vibration in these pages, and in my life.

Russell Banks, author of Cloudsplitter, says, “Foster has brought to Weston’s book a context – artistic, philosophical, and biographical – that places it among the classics of American writing about the relationship between art, nature, and the deeply examined life.” For further exploration of this triumphant sojourn on earth via an artist’s creative vision and actions, visit www.haroldweston.org, treat yourself to the book and DVD, and be inspired.

Will Barnet, Three Chairs #2, 1995, Oil on canvas, 32 x 45 inches, Courtesy of Babcock Galleries, New York

Barnet: Eight Decades of Art continued from page 39 Barnet also studied with and printed for Jose Orozco. In Orozco’s work he encountered the human figure more profoundly than before. Barnet had no love for the landscape, seeing it so fouled by man, but always relates to the human figure as the central issue of human experience.

Barnet captured the American scene of the 1930s Depression. He is the recorder of the character of the average New Yorker, in general the urbanite of the decade. He shows us the texture of that time, colorless, but rich in velvety black and white. Deep chiaroscuro with highlighted people. Light and form are revered. His drawing sublime. It’s a shame that the idea of drawing is all but lost in this crazy age of techno thinking. There could be no better place for this kind of art than on the web. Looks good, doesn’t it? Because real drawing will always look good. It doesn’t take an art expert to tell you these are moving, artistic experiences. Will Barnet is 98 years of age and still resides in Manhattan. He once said to me, on an autumn evening as we strolled the South Street Seaport together, “These country people think they live longer, but I’ll tell you Dick, city people are healthier. You know why? Steam heat! It’s better for you.” That's a New Yorker for you, and Will Barnet is the New Yorker for the world!

Will Barnet, Awakening, 1943, Oil on canvas, 18 x 22 inches Courtesy of Babcock Galleries, New York

Harold Weston, Basin, 1922, Collection of Jonathan and Jennifer Ring, courtesy Harold Weston Foundation

“Weston’s works are rich and sensuous paintings. He loved landscape and the air of light. He did what he wanted to do.”

– Will BarneT

Harold Weston, Giant Mountain Sunrise, 1922, Private Collection, courtesy Harold Weston Foundation Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2009 • 41

“There’s a lot of history, but history changes.”

“I

A discussion with Will Barnet, January, 2009, from the artists’s New York studio

CARLO BUSCEMI PHOTO

n Europe,” said Mr. Barnet at that interview printed in our newspaper, SunStorm, in 1985, “if you are once established a master and a mature artist, you become a symbol of respect for life. In America, it’s a whole new ball game each time you have a show.” It was a pleasure to see Will Barnet featured so prominently in the marvelous documentary Harold Weston: A Bigger Belief in Beauty. His eight decades as a professional artist give him a rather unique perspective on the art world and American history, which he happily shares with us. His understanding of the process of making art and his theories on composition and color are as simple and profound as his paintings and prints. He begins by fondly recalling his years with his good friend, Weston. Harold was a very energetic person, he liked to put on shows. He was always forming one kind of organization or another. He was a very wonderful man, very kind, very considerate and did what he could to help people with their problems in the art world. The artists of the Federation were all very individual, very different, had their own movement, their own way of seeing things and doing things, but were all bound by the Federation. Harold was very involved in that and I helped him. Weston was president of the Federation from 1953 to 1957. We put on some shows to exemplify the quality of work being done at the time, one big one at the Riverside Museum, all this was going at a time when nobody was selling a thing. Art began to sell in the ’50s when the development of Expressionism, Pop Art and other ideas came along and kind of overwhelmed the artists who were not involved in them. We were very individual artists and never allowed ourselves to be particularly influenced by any movement – we were just ourselves. Certain painters not in the movements suffered neglect though many of us as individuals survived. Harold was a personal artist who had his own point of view, so on the art scene he became, you might say, less prominent. Harold was always his own man, not influenced by provocative things going on in front of the art works, in magazines and newspapers. His were rich and sensuous paintings. He loved landscape and the air of light; he did what he wanted to do. He was involved politically – he was in a sense a politician – and had some connection with Washington, asking for certain things so the arts got more money. He was beyond the big movements of publicity and celebrity. It was not an easy picture to be in as it kept changing from generation to generation and each generation rejects the other generation. Study it very carefully and you’ll find out how generations have antagonism toward another, though sometimes they come together. Harold was working with specific imagery, the mountains of Northern New York and all that and mine was more the City and people, in terms of subject matter and treatment. On the outside you had all these other people doing more bombastic work, who had a lot more publicity. Some of us may have been on the sideline then, but time shows that work done by painters like Weston is more and more appreciated today. This is not an age which is interested in that sort of thing, exactly. We have cartoon ideas and other mediums and have ended up with Jeff Koons today being very popular. When you think of Andy Warhol, why should he be so important? He never even painted a picture. It’s a very peculiar thing to discuss what took place. I was there, I saw it all. I took my own individual point of view that was classic, more of a painter’s point of view. I’m basically a painter, and I saw painting lose importance as a medium. It became video, objects being picked up in the room…you see it in the Whitney, the Modern, the Guggenheim. The tragedy of our time is that 42 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2009

painting has been so ignored. The only time a critic can say something intelligent is when they look at an Old Master I started out in the Great Depression, in 1931, a 20 year-old young guy from New England and I saw everything. It was an entirely different Depression than it is now. Bread lines were enormous, soup kitchens were the order of the day. There was no Social Security, there was the poor house. People were literally starving. I was one of the young men who documented these conditions in my work as a supervisor in the WPA Graphic Department. It was my work during the 1930s, and I was also painting during this time and developing myself as an artist. Great murals were done then, chronicling what was going on in this country. They were fabulous murals of new buildings, dams, railroad tracks, all kinds of things to make the country stronger and more wonderful. It was a period where being given the job and being paid was very exciting. After all, you were in a Depression. But we were not in a depression because we were being taken care of – we ended up with one of the greatest things that could happen in America: Social Security. It helps me pay my rent today. I don’t have to sell a lot of work and can survive by painting, particularly having worked as long as I did. We were building a new society and for the first time artists were getting an income – 24 bucks a week – entirely different than bailing out banks. It’s all nonsense, and shouldn’t be that way. They should reach the common people who are having a hard time. Before 1930 there was no middle class, there was no Social Security and Russia was very influential. People thought Russia was an answer in that our system was failing, but my background was Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln. My work was more or less involved with evictions, breadlines and people having a hard time getting by, but I didn’t try to put too much political propaganda in my work. I did it in more of a painting way. I was painting an image of a social scene that was taking place. I had goals to preserve the system but to make the government more involved with the people, not business. Since Reagan, we’ve been run by the corporate world. In the ’30s, we never thought of accumulating. We could just get by and enjoy the few small things we had… Banks were not allowed to be involved in Wall Street, or to be involved with doing anything other than helping people save their money and keep it saved. They are not supposed to be investing, that’s the wrong thing, that’s why we are in trouble. It’s going to take time, I guess. Roosevelt went directly to the people, told the banks to go ‘bail yourselves out’, and told Wall Street the same thing, ‘We’re going to help people.’ Thank God we had a great President who brought people out of the Depression by getting jobs for people who had hard times. Much as I love Obama, unless he is not influenced by big investors and finds jobs for people first before bailing out any bank, nothing will change. Roosevelt dismissed banks and Wall Street and went for people. The WPA gave people jobs (before that there was a PWPA) and a lot of vitality to artists. It gave us a sense of being supported by the government. It was a rare thing. Never in the history of our country did the government support art like this… actors, artists, poets, writers. The people around Roosevelt were also great… It was an exciting time. The idea of what art was all about was discussed. People used to stay up late arguing, ‘Is art propaganda? Is it personal?’ The 30s were a vital period, very political and ver y radical, too. Will Barnet, Cafeteria Scene 1934, The capitalist system failed… interview continues on our website www.fineartmagazine.com

Lithograph edition of 10, Printed on Rives paper by the artist.