Glenn O. Coleman
'Hurdy Gurdy Ballet' — 1920s New York — American Scene
1928

Name: 'Hurdy Gurdy Ballet' — 1920s New York — American Scene
Brand: Glenn O. Coleman
Price: 4800 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Glenn O. Coleman, 'Hurdy Gurdy Ballet', lithograph 1928, edition 50. Signed, dated, and numbered '14/50' in pencil. Titled in the bottom left margin, in another hand. Numbered '14' in the lower right sheet edge, in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper, with wide margins (1 1/4 to 2 1/8 inches), in excellent condition. Image size 12 1/8 x 15 15/16 inches (308 x 405 mm); sheet size 15 1/2 x 20 1/8 inches (394 x 511 mm). Archivally matted to museum standards, unframed. From the portfolio 'Lithographs of New York' — 12 lithographs printed by master lithographer George C. Miller, exhibited at the Whitney Studio Galleries, November 1- 24, 1928. Exhibited: 'A Century of Creativity: The MacDowell Colony,' 1907-2007, Library of Congress, February – August 2007. 'Life of the People: realist prints and drawings from the Ben and Beatrice Goldstein Collection,' 1912-1948, Library of Congress, 1999. Impressions of this work are held in the collections of the Addison Gallery of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Library of Congress, The Phillips Collection, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. ABOUT THE ARTIST Glenn O. Coleman’s career (1887-1932) as a celebrated New York illustrator, painter, and printmaker was a short one. Born in Ohio in 1887, he grew up in Indiana and arrived in Manhattan in 1905 to attend the New York School of Art, studying under William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri, and Everett Shinn. Coleman earned a name for himself in the 1910s and 1920s city art scene with his personal depictions of street life and working-class people. His illustrations (some of which he produced as lithographs) and paintings reflected the subject matter of his Ashcan teachers: Bowery bums, election night bonfires, slum kids, cops, criminals, “silk-hatted tourists,” bar stool sitters, and other denizens of Lower Manhattan’s corners and hidden enclaves. In 1910, Henri said this about Coleman, who was exhibiting a series of drawings in New York called 'Scenes From the Life of the People' “This work of Coleman’s is no confection of art junk….It is the record of a certain life drama going on about us here in New York—one side, very grim—a side shunned by many, but one he has looked upon frankly with open eyes and has understood as the thinker with human sympathy understands.” Coleman stated that his art is inspired by his personal vision of beauty, “Sometimes it is a mad beauty, sometimes a powerful and terrible beauty, sometimes a happy and refreshing beauty. I do not think one thing is more beautiful than another, that is, when I see each thing in its own place.” A contributor to the socialist journal 'The Masses' and participant of the groundbreaking Armory Show in 1913, Coleman exhibited widely, but he was never very financially successful. “He gained first-hand acquaintance with the experience of the urban poor: often penniless, he frequently was forced to forgo painting in order to work menial jobs to support himself,” according to Fine Art Limited. “In the mid-1920s, Coleman’s focus as a painter shifted away from the social environment of the city toward a preoccupation with such formal concerns as the geometry of its massive new architecture,” wrote Fine Arts Limited. “Just as his paintings assumed a more modernist style, however, he returned to his earliest sketches of the city as a basis for a series of more conventionally realistic lithographs that celebrate street life and the city’s ordinary inhabitants.” At some point in the 1920s, he relocated to Long Beach on Long Island, continuing to paint his inspired depictions of New York City. His work won prizes and was acquired by museums like the Brooklyn Museum and the Whitney. In a 1910 magazine article, Coleman said: “My pictures may not be exactly like New York life really is—photographically speaking. Who really knows how New York life really is? I have my vision of it, my thoughts, my ideas of it….So these masks of men and women—these disguises of men and women, these curious shapes and forms, these shadows and masses of buildings are images always on my mind and out of these images my pictures are made because they are wonderfully absorbing to me, and because they have this terrible energy of New York life.”

Creator:

Glenn O. Coleman (1887 - 1932, American)

Creation Year:

1928

Dimensions:

Height: 12.13 in (30.82 cm)Width: 15.94 in (40.49 cm)

Medium:

Lithograph

Movement & Style:

Ashcan School

Period:

1920-1929