AMERICAN ABSTRACT ARTISTS 1939
George L. K. Morris [essay]
[American Abstract Artists] George L. K. Morris [essay]: AMERICAN ABSTRACT ARTISTS 1939. New York: Metropolitan Printers, Inc. for American Abstract Artists, 1939. First edition. Quarto. Blue card covers decorated in red and black. Red plastic binding. [100] pp. 42 collotype plates representing work by forty-two artists, with biographical notes opposite each plate. Introductory essay. Exhibition list. Covers uniformly rubbed and sunned to edges. Several leaves neatly detached and laid in. A very good copy of this fragile and elaborate production. Scarce.
7.5 x 10 plastic-bound yearbook with 42 full-page collotype plates representing work by forty-two artists, with biographical notes opposite each plate. Introductory essay by George L.K. Morris; list of AAA exhibitions, 1937-1939.
Contains 42 full-page collotypes from Josef Albers, Rosalind Bengelsdorf, Ilya Bolotowsky, H. Bowden, Byron Browne, Giorgio Cavallon, A. N. Christie, [?] Cohen, Werner Drewes, John Ferren, Susie Frelinghuysen, A. E. Gallatin, Fritz Glarner, Durnell Grant, Balcomb Greene, Gertrude Greene, Haaniah Harari, Carl Robert Holty, Harry Holtzman, Dorothy Joralemon, Ray B. Kaiser, G. Kamrowski, Frederick Kann, Paul Kelpe, Ibram Lassaw, Alice Trumbull Mason, George I. McNeil, George L. K. Morris, I. Rice Pereira, A. D. F. Reinhardt, Ralph M. Rosenborg, Louis Schranker, Charles G. Shaw, Esphyr Slobodkina, David Smith, Albert Swiden, Rupert Davidson Turnbull, Vaclav Vytlacil, Warren Wheelock, Harry I. Wildenberg, Robert Jay Wolff, and Wilfrid Zogbaum.
AAA Officers for 1939: Balcomb Greene, Chairman; Albert Swiden, Secretary; and Paul Kelpe, Treasurer.
American Abstract Artists was founded in 1936 in New York City, at a time when abstract art was met with strong critical resistance. During the 1930s and early 1940s, AAA provided exhibition opportunities when few existed. Its publishing, panels and lectures provided a forum for discussion and gave abstract art theoretical support in the United States. AAA was a predecessor to the New York School and Abstract Expressionism, and contributed to the development and acceptance of abstract art in the United States. American Abstract Artists is one of the few artists’ organizations to survive from the Great Depression and continue into the 21st century.
Here is the Editorial Statement from American Abstract Artists 1938 Yearbook:
By the fact of their active existence and production, the American Abstract Artists express the authenticity and autonomy of the modern art movement in the United States. The word abstract is incorporated into our title as a provisional gesture so that we can be identified as a particular group in our effort to clarify growing and actively significant concepts of art.
Abstract, like so many other words, is too often used as an idiosyncratic suggestion, rather than as a concept which defines particular values. To understand abstract art is, in reality, no more a problem than understanding any and all art. And this depends upon the ability of the individual to perceive essentials, to perceive that which is called universally significant, and to evaluate the unity and relationship that is contained in any work.
As the first and only comprehensive organization of its type in the United States, we are faced with the familiar problem of a largely unsympathetic and biased criticism, a criticism which merely negates, condemns, or ridicules. There is, however, a more encouraging response to our exhibitions and lectures, a response that could be especially experienced only by the form and action of a representative and authentic organization. Individuals working and studying against the odds of isolation can now be articulate and related to others working in similar directions.
The membership of this group is homogeneous to the extent of its recognition of the mutual problems and limitations, and in its willingness to cooperate in the presentation and solution of these problems. We are, as in any group, heterogeneous and diverse in our concepts.
To place artistic, or any cultural effort on the level of a competition is to negate the method and meaning of knowledge. American Abstract Artists dedicates itself to the problems of the artist and student, presented in the terms of method and activity that define the artist; and limits itself accordingly for the purpose of clarification. As to the question of which aspects of life affect the artist in his effort, this is demonstrated by the character and efficacy of his activity and production; for this we present the individual artist.
No educated intelligence can draw the so-called line of national culture as an ambition and objective, without discerning its ambiguity. Beside being impossible, such a misconception is a negation of the very essence of cultural effort; the general heightening and application of knowledge. To make this negation may be politically expedient but it serves only to preserve and sway ignorance. While knowledge belongs to no nationality, particular nations do exist, and each nation has, and is, a peculiar and limited cultural development.
Considering the tempo of present political history and the importance of the various fields of knowledge in relationship to it, we can do nothing better than emphasize tha the contemporary must respect the interpretation and concatenation of all culture. True culture is recognizable when established from the standpoint of scientific thought and effort. For us it is established through the freedom to develop facilities and to maintain their proportional distribution, as civilized achievements, toward the enlivenment of existence—an unequivocal application toward the physical and psychic benefit of all humanity.
For these reasons, American Abstract Artists was formed in November of 1936. It has now attained a national scope and is more active in 1938. —The Editors