Post-War Realisms
Chapter 4 of the National Academy of Design's 200th Anniversary Timeline. 1942-2000
Charles Kech, Hobart Nichols, and John Taylor Arms (1942)National Academy of Design
1942
The National Academy opens in its new home at 1083 Fifth Avenue, a townhouse gifted to it by philanthropist Archer Huntington. Nearly half a century after the demolition of its East 23rd Street building, the Academy once again had its own home.
Our Heritage (1942)National Academy of Design
1942
The Academy opens its new galleries with "Our Heritage", an exhibition of American art drawn largely from the Academy’s collection that provided a look back at the institution’s illustrious past.
An Exhibition Committee was formed and the Membership Committee was reformed: the Exhibition Committee oversaw the schedule of exhibitions, while the Membership Committee was charged with “stimulating interest in and consideration of nationally recognized artists, and to suggest and propose such artists as candidates for nomination in their respective classes.” Watercolor becomes a separate category of membership.
In the years following WWII, the Academy continued to uphold the figurative tradition and positioned itself as a foil to the programs of the Museum of Modern Art and, a bit later, the Guggenheim Museum, both of which quickly gained agency over the contemporary art world.
As evidence of the growing chasm between the Academy and the New York art world at mid-century, Barnett Newman had his first solo exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1950. The Kootz Gallery presented “New Talent 1950.” The “Irascibles” challenged the exclusion of Abstract Expressionist artists from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition "American Painting Today: 1950," and Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Arshile Gorky were chosen to represent the US at the Venice Biennale.
Meanwhile, Art Digest wrote about the Academy's 1950 Annual: “In an institution progressive enough back in 1887 to house an Impressionist show, it seems strange to find so little evidence of 40-year-old developments which substantially changed the face of the art of our century. True, there are some watered-down reflections of cubism, but the non-objective, the symbolist...and other newer fields leased by the Whitney this season are nowhere around.” The paintings above were included in the show.
In that same year, in an effort to professionalize, the Academy hires its first permanent director, Vernon. C. Porter who would hold the position through 1966.
1950s
The caliber of architects elected increased in this decade due to a succession of architect presidents beginning with Lawrence Grant White in 1950. New architect members include Eero Saarinen, Frank Lloyd Wright, Pietro Belluschi, and Edward Durrell Stone, among many others
The architects elected during these years were innovative and most were at the height of their careers: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, I. M. Pei, Richard Neutra, Louis Kahn, Philip Johnson, and others.
National Academy of Design School at 89th Street (1942)National Academy of Design
1959
Proceeds from the sale of the 109th Street school location were used to erect a new school at East 89th Street. Once operating tuition-free, the school began charging fees.
The Guggenheim Museum in The New Yorker (1959) by The New YorkerNational Academy of Design
1959
The same year that the Academy's new school building opens, Academician Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum opens across the street in October 1959, 6 months after the architect's death.
In another biting criticism, the Academy's 1966 Annual is described as a “refuge from modernism.” The above works were included in that year's exhibition.
Primary Structures installation view (1966)National Academy of Design
1966
In the same year the Academy is fielding this criticism and rejecting new directions in contemporary art, the Jewish Museum opens its seminal Minimalist exhibition, “Primary Structures.”
Despite the predominance of Abstract Expressionism and other post-war modernist trends, the Academy's membership and collection from this time reflect how realism and figuration in their various incarnations remained viable alternatives to American abstraction during these decades and those that followed.
Surreal or metaphysical realism aimed to peel back the surface of appearances;
Self-Portrait (1951) by Ivan Le Lorraine AlbrightNational Academy of Design
Photorealism employed a hyper-precise style to both laud and critique contemporary culture; painterly realism depicted the world in a way that also drew viewers’ attention to the materiality of paint and canvas.
NYC Parking Lot (1969) by Richard EstesNational Academy of Design
Self-Portrait (1945) by Andrew Newell WyethNational Academy of Design
Additionally, a new type of socially conscious realism emerged that not only documented injustice and inequality, as the social realism of the 1930s had done, but also investigated how representations of reality interacted more broadly with issues of power, class, and gender.
Benny Andrews, the Artist, and Big Daddy Paper Doll (1967) by May StevensNational Academy of Design
Mother Courage II (1974) by Charles Wilbert WhiteNational Academy of Design
In 1967, Hughie Lee-Smith became only the second Black artist elected to the Academy—40 years after the first, Henry Ossawa Tanner.
Alice Melrose becomes the first woman Director of the National Academy of Design (1967-77).
Wrestlers (1899)Los Angeles County Museum of Art
1968
Finding itself in difficult financial circumstances, the Academy's Council makes the decision to sell Thomas Eakins’ diploma work, "The Wrestlers," with the intention of using the funds to restore the permanent collection, maintain the Academy's building, and support the school.
The Academy used the funds from the sale to restore works in the collection for the 150th Anniversary Exhibition in 1975. The painting was bought by the Columbus Museum of Art, which later sold it. Today it is in the collection of LACMA.
The 1971 Annual included notable realist artists such as Alfred Leslie, Richard Estes, Alice Neel, Charles White, Philip Pearlstein, and Fairfield Porter, among others. Many of these artists would later become Academicians, while a small number of abstract artists also began to be elected during this period. The works above were featured in the 1971 exhibition.
Among that small group of abstract artists were Richard Mayhew and Reuben Tam, both known for their abstract landscapes, and Balcomb Greene, a founding member of the American Abstract Artists organization, to name a few.
In 1973, the Associate National Academician portrait requirement (first established in 1839) was relaxed, allowing ANAs to submit other examples of their work, rather than portraits of themselves, when elected to this rank.
Donald De Lue, 150th Anniversary Gold Medal (1975)National Academy of Design
1975
On the 150th anniversary of the Academy's founding, the Academy opened "A Century and A Half of American Art" in connection with "Academy, the Academic Tradition in American Art".
The 150th anniversary show was organized by the Smithsonian's National Collection of Fine Arts in D.C. to examine the role played by the National Academy of Design in the larger academic development in America from 1825-1960s.
The Academy's show was meant to highlight individual achievements of Academicians in all the categories of membership–painting, sculpture, engraving, watercolor, and architecture.
The remaining years of the 1980s and into the 1990s saw a marked increase in the caliber of artists and architects elected into the Academy and a much greater openness by the members to abstract styles.
Realist artists continued to be elected, including Chuck Close, Robert Cottingham, and Janet Fish.
Abstract artists and those working in other styles were also elected, such as Jasper Johns, Joan Snyder, Deborah Butterfield, Brice Marden, Bill Jensen, Jennifer Bartlett, and others.
Green Angel (1991) by Jasper JohnsNational Academy of Design
Woman With Two Babies (1988) by Joan SnyderNational Academy of Design
Beginning in 1978, under the Directorship of John Dobkin the Academy transformed itself into a major New York museum, hosting a string of highly popular exhibitions drawn from the Academy's collection and other American and European collections that dramatically increased attendance. And in 1980, the Academy hires its first curator, Abigail Gerdts, who specialized in 19th-century art.
1992
Academy elects its first female President, the painter, Jane Wilson.
In 1994, the Associate membership designation was eliminated, bringing an end to the portrait requirement. As a result, all current ANAs automatically became a full NA.
1994
Again in desperate financial straits, the Academy decided to sell Richard Caton Woodville’s "War News from Mexico", one of the most important American genre paintings of the 19th century. The painting is now in the collection of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
Tenth Street Studio Building (1870) by Richard Morris HuntNational Academy of Design
1997
A highlight at the end of 20th century was the incredibly well-received exhibition, "The Tenth Street Studio Building: Artist Entrepreneurs from the Hudson River School to the American Impressionists".
Curated by the Academy's newly hired Director, Annette Blaugrund, the exhibition documented the first U.S. building designed specifically for artists to create, exhibit, and sell their work.
Designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt, it served as the premier hub for such luminaries and National Academicians as Frederic Church, Albert Bierstadt, and William Merritt Chase.
Former Home of Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington, 1083 Fifth AveNational Academy of Design
An academy, by its nature, is an exclusionary organization, and throughout much of its history, the National Academy has been resistant to change.
Until 1869 the membership was drawn exclusively from the New York City area, and until the turn of the 20th century, Academicians were chosen only from the previous year’s annual exhibition.
During this period, we have highlighted the lack of diversity in the membership and leadership roles over the Academy's first 175 years of existence.
These are instances of institutional racism and sexism, and we do well to call them out, as they are hardly unique to the Academy but symptomatic of America’s broader political landscape.
By the start of the 20th century, the National Academy would dig in its heels, making bold decisions and fundamental changes, some impulsive and reckless, but some necessary and carefully thought out.
End of Chapter 4.
Please check back as subsequent chapters of our anniversary timeline will be added every few months throughout our anniversary year!
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