By chance, just after I posted on magic realism (in literature and art), there came the news of George Tooker’s death (“George Tooker, Painter Capturing Modern Anxieties, Dies at 90” on-line on the 29th, “George Tooker Dies at 90; Painter of Modern Anxiety” in my print copy on the 30th; story by William Grimes). Tooker’s uncanny, often disturbing, paintings have been labeled as magic realist (and social realist), though he didn’t like the label himself. Grimes on definitions:
“Symbolism can be limiting and dangerous, but I don’t care for art without it, Mr. Tooker told the cultural critic Selden Rodman in 1957.
… At the same time, he fended off attempts to define him as a surrealist or magic realist. “I am after reality — painting impressed on the mind so hard that it recurs as a dream,” he said, “but I am not after dreams as such, or fantasy.”
A famous canvas, “The Subway”, from 1950:
Tooker was influenced by Paul Cadmus (see my previous posting) and by social realist artist Reginald Marsh, though his style was recognizably his own. From Grimes’s obit:
Mr. Cadmus’s exuberant use of homosexual themes in his work also encouraged Mr. Tooker to address that aspect of his identity in paintings like the terrifying, Brueghel-esque “Children and Spastics” (1946), in which a group of leering sadists torment three frail, effeminate men:
Here’s a Tunnel of Love painting by Marsh to compare with Cadmus and Tooker:
(Marsh’s women tend to be bosomy, with thick, muscular legs.)
Marsh gained a wide audience (including me at the age of 10 or so) through his illustrations for John Dos Passos’s trilogy U.S.A. (The 42nd Parallel, 1919, The Big Money), though these illustrations are sadly missing from the Library of America edition of the trilogy.
March 31, 2011 at 8:42 am |
[…] Arnold Zwicky's Blog A blog mostly about language « George Tooker […]
March 31, 2011 at 10:10 am |
From Christopher Walker on Facebook:
April 2, 2011 at 12:08 pm |
wow
April 21, 2011 at 6:24 am |
[…] long after the death of magic realist painter George Tooker comes the death of another major painter in this school. From the NYT yesterday, by William Grimes: […]
July 16, 2011 at 9:46 am |
[…] in literature and in Edward Hopper, Paul Cadmus, and Jack Frankfurter, here; in George Tooker, here; and in Robert Vickrey, […]
July 19, 2011 at 2:03 pm |
Does anyone know if there is a collection of his work? I do some work with the Ogunquit Art Museum, in Maine, and would love to see his work shown.
July 20, 2011 at 8:56 am |
Promising-looking on-line reference here.
July 21, 2011 at 6:35 am
Thanks …I want to approach the Ogunquit Museum’s director with some information …this will help. I met George, who was a friend of a friend of ours in Reading, VT. I spoke with him at a dinner there and then later found his hardcover book, which was really beautiful.
Thanks again for your help!
Mike
August 7, 2012 at 8:10 am |
[…] books), Saul Steinberg is classified as “cartoonist and illustrator”, and Reginald Marsh is both artist (by virtue of his paintings) and illustrator. Illustrators of children’s books […]
January 11, 2013 at 10:21 am |
[…] realism on this blog: a posting on Jack Frankfurter, Edward Hopper, and Paul Cadmus; one on George Tooker, with mention of Cadmus and Reginald Marsh; another on Tooker, paired with […]
March 22, 2013 at 8:07 am |
[…] example of his work), which combines realist composition allied to surrealist content, and then in a posting on George Tooker (who was influenced by Cadmus), and also in a posting on cartoonist Bill […]