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Florida Art History The history of art in Florida spans from the first European artist, Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, who focused on maps and informational sketches, (1564), until the present day when art in Florida explodes into the modern forms and styles. These range from the folk art of Purvis Young to the ultra high tech of 3Dpoetry.org. For many years, few true artists came to Florida, as it was a rough frontier due to the swampy terrain and subtropical climate. Those early artists, who did come, however, were fascinated by Florida's Native lifestyles. Choosing to capture in realistic form, the life in Florida they saw. The artists who chose to portray the spectacular sunsets and sunrises, tropical forests hung with moss, and the unique flora and fauna, all came later in the early Florida art history. A wide array of these artists and their paintings are written about here. The early artists document the portrayals of early explorers and naturalists like Mark Catesby and John James Audubon, These two well known artists painted in a realist form that was two dimensional in style. Their subjects were nature and the Floridian natives. The next notable artist is George Catlin who was strong on the native figure and natural events, forest fires and such. In the year 1712, Mark Catesby, an artist-naturalist embarked on scientific expeditions to what were then the southern colonies of British North America that would ultimately result in the first major work on New World botanical and animal life, His book was titled; The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. His color plates were hand completed and focused on informational depictions. The elegant folio pages gave the Old World the first glimpse of the new. Carolus Linnaeus is reported to have used many of Catesby's drawing and actual specimens and much of his text for the 10th edition of Systema Naturae (1758) which lays the foundation of today's system of biological taxonomy. One artist of special note in Florida is a traveler named William Bartram. He was a recorder of nature. He filled pages with words and is well known for his books. His drawings were his own, and he was a detail oriented artist. William Bartram was also an accomplished naturalist. He traveled widely, particularly in the southeastern United States. Florida held special place in his heart. He spent time here between the years 1765 and 1777. Bartram published an account of his adventures in 1790’s in a book called Travels. It was such a wonderful book that it became an American classic. The book described his travels in the southern states including Florida. Bartram wrote of his personal experiences and scientific observations. He was the first person to use personal experiences in writing about Florida. He demonstrated fine attention to detail in drawing the subjects of his studies, not just the animals but added some thing more about the subject. He showed snakes eating frogs and birds feeding on insects or on twigs of plants. Then as we move through history, we find the artistry of Charles King. Charles Bird King spent much of is efforts recording the Native Floridian in portraits. He painted Osceola, the Seminole chief. St. Augustine, the first permanent settlement, also came to be the first center of art in Florida. It was to be reinvented several times. First, after the Civil War, when Northerners began to flock to Florida for health and pleasure, art found a place in the thriving business of travel literature. This called to artist like Edward and Thomas Moran (landscapes early central peninsula), who began to paint the beauty of Florida. Edward Moran was known for his romantic Florida seascapes. Thomas Moran painted realistic landscapes from around the central portion of the Floridian peninsula. In the 1880s, St. Augustine, through the efforts of Henry Flagler, again became the center of artistic endeavor, attracting artists like Martin Johnson Heade. A landscape painter who traveled much of is early career then after a stay in New York, Heade finally settled in Florida. At the end of the century many prominent American artists arrived and painted the Florida they found. This included Frederic Remington, Hermann Herzog, Winslow Homer and George Inness. Innes paintings focus on landscapes and can be found hanging in the Tampa Museum of Art and the Boca Raton Museum of Art. As an artist Innes felt that there was a higher being in the wholeness of nature, His paintings reflect this. In the first half of the twentieth century, Florida paintings were created by such notables as John Singer Sargent, Jane Patterson, Martha Walter, Milton Avery, William Glackens, Ernest Lawson, Harold Betts, and Frank Weston Benson. One of these is Anthony Thieme. Many schools claim the work of Anthony Thieme. He was born in Rotterdam, Holland and then studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rotterdam. He then moved to the Royal Academy at The Hague (1905), as an apprentice artist in Düsseldorf, Germany, under George Hoecker, Germany's foremost stage designer (1906-08), and at the School of Fine Arts, Turin (1909-1910). After completing his studies he traveled in Europe, England, and South America, and he worked as a stage designer in these places both before and after coming to the United States in 1917. In 1919 he settled in Boston where for nine years he worked as a designer and painter of stage settings for the Copley Theatre, while also doing book illustrations for Boston publishers. By 1927, Thieme had established a studio at Cape Ann in Rockport, Massachusetts, where he taught summer painting classes and became well-known for his seascapes and shore scenes. While he worked in an Impressionist manner, he was also profoundly influenced by the Dutch seascape tradition, and was particularly interested in the effects of light on water. His work was exhibited in New York, Washington, Paris, and London, and was acquired by many museums. In 1946, Thieme's Cape Ann studio burned down, together with much of his work of the previous thirty years. Rather than rebuild his life in Massachusetts, Thieme struck out for territory which he had not previously explored. His first stop was Charleston, South Carolina, where he spent two months in prolific activity, inspired by the revelation of light and color far more intense than that to which he had become accustomed. The paintings that he produced in Charleston were a far cry from his "picturesque New England harbor scenes," as the reviewer of Thieme's exhibition in 1947 at the Grand Central Art Galleries acknowledged. The serenity and tonal discipline of his seascapes was abandoned for the elaborations of wrought iron and profusion of blossoms that Charleston imposed on his senses. The heady aroma of the Southern landscape induced him to continue his travels - to St. Augustine. This move caused the Lost Colony to claim him. This time in his career was the time when experts claim he did his best work with light and color. He painted many marinescapes in Florida and Nassau in 1948, to Guatemala in 1949, to the Riviera in 1951, and to Spain in the year of his death, in 1954. 1 Many of the Post offices built in the 1930s during Roosevelt's New Deal were decorated with murals depicting enduring images of the local life." In the 1930s, as America struggled with the depression, the federal government looked for ways to provide work for artists. During this time government-created agencies funded the arts in unusual ways. Often losing the artist’s identity they funded them to paint local murals. Mural artists were provided with guidelines and themes for executing their mural studies. Scenes of local interest and events were deemed to be the most suitable. Unsuitable designs were vetoed by the town’s representative. The artist was commissioned to paint what the representatives thought “Right” The heroic theme was celebrated and embraced. Historical events and daring and courageous acts were also popular themes. One famous depiction of a local hero is featured on the wall of the West Palm Beach post office. The legend of James Hamilton, Florida's barefoot mail carrier is told in six narrative panels. The artist, Stevan Dohanos, rendered the story of the long suffering postman who delivers the mail against all odds. These murals provide local communities with a colorful record of their heritage and give us all a glimpse of the American public's taste during a fascinating time in our nation's history. There are still a few of these in small Florida towns. Emmett John Fritz was born in Kansas on October 13, 1917 and died in 1995. Mr. Fritz is listed in "Who Was Who in American Art" and "Davenport." He studied at Pratt Institute in 1937. In 1950, Fritz moved to St. Augustine, Florida. He joined the Lost Colony in December 1950, and quickly became a local favorite. This was the time when the St. Augustine Art Association started the annual “Art Marts” around Christmas time. These outdoor art shows were supported by the local merchants as they brought foot traffic to the city. Fritz is represented in Lightner Museum and many other and collections including the collection of King Juan Carlos of Spain. He painted in the tradition of late 19th and 20th landscapes and cityscapes plus Caribbean Islandscapes and many scenes around St. Augustine One true Floridian, who was well ahead of his time, was A. E. “Beannie” Backus. He was an influential leader in his community. His story is worth volumes, but here is an excerpt from the Backus Gallery Site 2 about this Renaissance man. It was at his studios - first at the mouth of Moore's Creek, a stone's throw from where this gallery stands, and later, at the northeast corner of Avenue C and Second Street - that both a forum and sanctuary were given to artistic expression, racial tolerance and gestures of human decency. Born January 3, 1906 along the Indian River in Fort Pierce, Backus was largely self-taught as an artist. Abiding by the aphorism "Seize upon that which is nearest and make from it your work of art," he first became known for his still lifes of the ever-present hibiscus and later for his landscapes of Florida's backwoods. After Winslow Homer, he was one of the few artists in the early 20th century to depict Florida's rugged beauty on canvas. While Backus became teacher to a legion of artists, he is best remembered by friends as a humanitarian. It was around his kitchen table that debates would erupt on almost any issue. A rum bottle beneath the kitchen sink seemed always to be at the ready. The conversations were often lively, if not shocking. Backus liked to have people around him with whom he disagreed. He said he could imagine nothing more boring than a night of pleasant conversation and liked to quote friend and fellow artist Waldo Sexton, "I'd rather be a liar than a bore." Leaning back in a captain's chair, Backus could hold forth on any topic, ranging from personal finance ("Never give money to a friend on the condition that it must be repaid"); social etiquette ("Never throw a party and ask your guests to bring something"); and philanthropy ("You have to give away $10 for $1 to do any good"). His studio became home for Haitians off the boat, West Virginians off the bus, kids on the outs with their parents or friends down on their luck. Backus also channeled much of his energies into influencing the children who hung around his studio. (Backus had been married, but his wife Patsy died when she was just 29, and they never had any children.) For generations of "Backus Brats," the studio became the place where you might finish your first painting, steal your first kiss or win your first debate with an adult. The annual Backus Halloween parties, always intergenerational and interracial affairs, were a show-case for the creative talents of the latest crop of Backus kids. Backus lived modestly. Appliances and cars were always replaced with used ones, and a single room in his house, the art studio, was air-conditioned. But he gave generously, writing checks or donating paintings to almost any charity that would ask. He also quietly helped finance the educations of several generations of art students. Albert Ernest Backus died of heart failure on June 6, 1990. While the studio survives only as a place in the heart for the hundreds of people who knew him, his legacy continues in the gallery that bears his name. Though Backus was a driving force behind the creation of the gallery, he asked that it be known simply as the Gallery of Fort Pierce. It was only in the days after Backus' death that the gallery's Board of Directors renamed the facility as a memorial tribute. The gallery and the people who support it are testaments to the continuity of his artistic spirit. Artistic Technique A.E. "Bean" Backus was largely self-taught, relying on books and magazines for much of his early training. His formal art education was limited to summer sessions at Parsons Art School in New York City. From the 1930s through the 1950s, much of Backus' work was impressionistic. Monet had been one of his early influences, and the French artist's use of color was adapted on Backus' early Florida canvases. The Florida Highwaymen were a group of African-American landscape painters who were tauht by Florida landscape artist A.E. "Bean" Backus during the 1950s-60s. His influence extended to the twenty-six artists who have been given the name "The Highwaymen." Some in the formal art world have given this group and its followers the name "Indian River School," but they are most well-known as The Highwaymen. Not known as "The Florida Highwaymen" in their heyday, the name was coined by Florida art collector Jim Fitch in a 1995 article. The Highwaymen were mostly self-taught painters. Excluded from the traditional world of art shows and galleries, the Highwaymen painted on inexpensive materials and hand framed their paintings with crown molding. They packed these paintings into the trunks of their cars and sold them door-to-door throughout the southeastern coast of Florida., and from the runk of the car sitting beside the highway. Sometimes the paintings were staked before the oil paint was dry. One can make out the imprint of the base of the next frame on a few of the paintings. The Highwaymen have completed the full circle of art in Florida. They display the fascination with the beauty of the natural vistas of Florida. One photographer that stands out above the rest in this area is Clyde Butcher. His photography of the Florida landscape is first class. An award-winning, black and white landscape photographer for over 30 years, Clyde Butcher captures on large-format film the transcendent, natural beauty of Florida’s rapidly disappearing landscape, particularly the Everglades and Big Cypress regions of Florida. 3 Art in Florida has moved beyond the two dimensional representations of painting and image making. Technology has opened many avenues for artists to explore. The artists are still expressing themselves; they are still displaying their work. Today we can visit those that we enjoy wit the click of a key. The learning and developing of style and skill is, as ever, available in formal studies or by self experimentation. The Ringling School of Art and Design has fostered multimedia artists of inspiring works. Their students continue in the world as leaders, their professors are active as well. One of these is represented in this gallery. Take the time to look at Alison’s display here then follow the links to her 3Dpoetry.org 1Source: adapted from ART AND ARTISTS OF THE SOUTH: The Robert P. Coggins Collection, Bruce W. Chambers, Ph.D., University of South Carolina Press, 1984, pp. 80-81 2 Source: Adapted from http://backusgallery.com/learn04.htm 3 Source: http://www.florida-arts.org/programs/halloffame/butcher.htm All images used on this page are believed to be in public domain.