Albert Pinkham Ryder -- Women and Another Pollock

Albert Pinkham Ryder was known as Pinkie to his friends from childhood until his death at 70 in 1917. He didn't have many friends but those he had were quite loyal, taking care of him in some of his darkest moments. Amy spoke of his friendship with J. Alden Weir yesterday. Weir invited Ryder to spend time at his country estate during at least one of Ryder's many bouts with nervousness. It's nice to know that every generation seems to be beset with stress from "emerging modernity." One scholarly paper provides this insight into 20th century Nervousness.

Nervousness, or "nervous exhaustion," greatly concerned nineteenth-century Americansin part because of the findings of neurologist George Miller Beard (1839-1883). Beard coined the term "neurasthenia" in 1869 to account for a nebulous host of ailments arising from unhealthily strained nervous states. Symptoms of neurasthenia could include headaches, depression, indigestion, anxiety, insomnia, and a number of other general maladies. Likening the condition to a "nervous bankruptcy," Beard explained that it arose from a progressive drain on a patient's supply of nervous energy. "Brain workers" and people of "refined sensibilities," such as business leaders, writers, artists, and others who endured intense mental and emotional stress, were most likely to be afflicted because they were prone to "overdrawing" their supply of nerve-force. Interestingly, Beard also saw neurasthenia as a necessary condition and defining characteristic of America's continued progress and emerging modernity, a sort of unfortunate Darwinian by-product that was "part of the compensation for our progress and refinement."

Ryder's health was already frail having never fully recovered from the after effects of a vaccination during his youth. That same immunization damaged his eyes, making them extremely sensitive to light. As a result of that sensitivity, Ryder spent much of his life taking long walks at night, exploring the moonlit streets of New York and landscapes of the country. He even chose to paint at night on many occasions.

Ryder's relationships to women appear to have been limited to the wives of his friends and neighbors who when he visited would send him home with pots of food for the rest of the week. His one attempt at romance ended almost as quickly as it had started. At one point, Ryder had moved to his own studio and heard the playing of a violin next door. After a number of days listening to the music from the room next door and being a lover of music himself, Ryder, without formal introduction, went for a visit. He is said to have immediately asked this woman to marry him. What she said isn't known. However, what is known is that another of his friends, Daniel Cottier, shortly after the event did take Ryder on a trip to Europe. All of this took place in 1882. Ryder went back to his reclusive habits until his death at a friend's home in Elmhurst, Long Island in 1917.

Pinkie returns to NYC in the 21st century. His time capsule drops him onto the pages of the comic strip, Apartment 3G. One of the Sunday episodes includes a painting by Ryder, as well as a look at the life of a docent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Frank Bolle, the writer of 3G, seems to have had a great deal of empathy for both Ryder and his art.

The color in the painting that Bolle has in the last frame is perhaps a bit more intense than Ryder's usual tonal palette. The green especially reminds me of the vibrant colors Jackson Pollack used in T.P.'s Boat in Menemsha Pond 1934 -- quite the Ryder swirl, just change the palette and it could be a Ryder.
Pollack
   ...  Ryder

Why Portland Art Museum* Has a Set of Rare Ryders

This is an image of Chief Joseph, and a sketch of Chief Joseph by C.E.S. Wood.

As usual, it's all about who you know. "The Equestrian" is Ryder's portrait of his friend,the artist J Alden Weir. Portland Art Museum* co-founder and artist, C.E.S. Wood befriended Weir decades before at West Point academy. When C.E.S. (Charles Erskine Scott) Wood came to Portland, he left Weir and other friends behind, they would become part of the east coast art scene. Weir studied the impressionists and became a portrait artist, he became friends with Ryder, who he would later introduce to Wood.
In November of 1915 in a letter Wood wrote to his friend J Alden Weir, he said "I have had poor luck interesting anybody in the watercolors....the hard and grinding money makers never want any pictures except steel engravings in the shape of bonds. One gentleman said he thought the watercolors were too delicate. You can imagine a watercolor being too delicate."
So you see, C.E.S. Wood was a west coast advocate for his East coast friends, J Alden Weir, Childe Hassam and Albert Pinkham Ryder. To bring it even closer to home, Wood had trained in drawing under J Alden Weir's father, Robert W. Weir. Wood was also a writer, late in his life he would give up his law practice to write exclusively. He is responsible, in part, for the eloquent translation of Chief Joseph's final words in his surrender speech:

"From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

Wood considered Ryder to be one of the best artists of all time. He understood Ryder's poetic vision. at one time there were ten Ryder's in Portland, owned by the Ladd and Wood families for the most-part. None of them are here anymore. There is a feeling to "The Equestrian" that harkens back to a "Chief Joseph" moment in American history, a moment C.E.S. Wood remembered. In acquiring this piece once owned by Winslow Ayer the Portland Art Museum* honored not only Ryder and J Alden Weir, but Wood and the solitary Chief Joseph and any man and woman whose heart has broken and who in that moment seems lost inside a golden darkness.

Albert Pinkham Ryder -- His Brother's Hotel and One of His Poems

The Hotel Albert, named after our man Albert Pinkham Ryder, is shown here in a Life Magazine photo taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt in 1951 . This was, in fact, where Ryder lived for some time thanks to William Ryder, one of his brothers. Albert had three brothers, two of whom served in the Civil War, one in the artillery and one in the infantry.  Albert wrote this poem about the war with Halpine in mind but probably also his two brothers. Ryder wrote any number of poems, some about his paintings, others about life.

Roll the muffled drum
Wail the shrieking fife
Halpine's in his home
Only his remains come...

And we hold the breath
In the presence of death
And we hold the breath
For the men who faced death
Veterans every one.

Now bursts the awful chime
As they pass in line
Shoulder to shoulder
As they sway together
As they vibrate together.

With music weird and strange
As sounds that range
Along the billowy shore
When storm rules the hour
Alas! Alas!
As they pass
As they pass.

Wakes within the brain
Ah so dull a pain
Wake within the frame
Both a chill and pain
Ah so dull a pain

The Hotel Albert is now an apartment building, the buildings around it having changed since Ryder's day and 1951 when the photo was taken. In its day though it not only was home to Ryder but also housed Robert Louis Stevenson's artist studio. In addition, Leo Tolstoy and Thomas Wolfe reportedly stayed at the Hotel.

Pollock, Ryder, Same Sky

This is "Going West" painted in the 1930s, when Pollock's work was influenced by the work of Albert Pinkham Ryder.

This is a seascape by Ryder.

There is a story about Ryder ending up half dead of starvation at his brother's New York hotel. His brother nurses him back to health, and serves him in the restaurant of the hotel, but Albert sits alone and is embarrassed.

Eventually he begins to eat in the back with the wait staff, all at one table. When word gets around that the hotel owner's brother eats with the help Albert's brother is mortified. He demands Albert eat in the restaurant.

Ryder would rather starve. So he goes back to the rathole from whence he came. Is that how you spell whence? Anyway, he goes home.

The thing is, look at the moon and the sky and the clouds. Is that what they look like to you? I've recently heard that Pollock's later pieces have fractal patterns from the Golden Mean. There is no way, knowing his style, that could have been planned, nothing in that style could have been planned. Look at these two pieces, every single brushstroke is a plan.

Albert Pinkham Ryder as Seen by Marsden Hartley

Here's Albert Pinkham Ryder as painted by Marsden Hartley. Hartley met Ryder in New York and as the rest of the country did at the time admired his work. Hartley described him as having ''brown eyes that then seemed blue, skating on the far thin ice of Labradorean visions.'' And further that ''visionaries are nearly always being summoned to the centers of revelation, and Ryder, being among the first citizens of the moon, became at once prince and serf of this exacting kingdom.''

The two paintings this week, Mother and Child and The Equestrian (Portrait of J. Alden Weir), show Ryder's use of language of color, form, and rhythmic movement. The Equestrian is thinly painted but still lets us see Ryder's talent for painting nonobjective shapes and relationships between shapes. When his paintings did include people they weren't articulated but became another shape in the painting. This was despite his having studied under the noted portrait artist William Edgar Marshall prior to taking classes at the National Academy of Design.

Neither of the paintings are dated as was typical of Ryder. Even though Ryder's creativity fell after the turn of the century, his fame grew -- he became one of the most sought after artists of the period. In addition to Marsden Hartley, Jackson Pollack also looked to Ryder as a major influence. Some of Pollock's work in the 1930's seem to be enriched by a brooding, almost mystical quality similar to Ryder's. Pollack once said, "The only American master who interests me is Ryder."

Happy Birthday Albert Pinkham Ryder

Today is Albert Pinkham Ryder’s Birthday. He would be 162 years old, but he died in 1917. I like to think he had a little time to float in the universe's river of spirits before he came back a second time, as a crab ship captain in Alaska. Maybe he was reincarnated in the 50’s and is one of those bristly, sodden characters on a ship right now. Still crazy after all these years.
I say this because the melancholy sea was his main subject, he loved ships in moody darkness.
We happen to have two of his paintings, but most visitors probably don’t know that. The equestrian on the left, and on the right, mother and child.

Ryder was a technical nightmare, meaning he has few remaining paintings due to his use of quick drying paint over slow. He ruined his canvas’ for future viewers, but he may not have cared. He said nature wasn’t perfect, and the idea of painting anything to be perfect only frustrated him. He was not easily satisfied with his work, always trying to get closer to nature’s true representation and feeling a failure he painted over and over again. Now his works are cracked and falling apart. There are more fakes on the market than real.
In his personal life, he lived in a pit of a New York apartment, ate only bread and milk and slept on a rolled out piece of carpet. He needed little of the material world, and thought artists as a lot should sacrifice worldly goods for creative endeavors. He said "The artist needs but a roof, a crust of bread and his easel, and all the rest God gives him in abundance. He must live to paint and not paint to live.”
He wasn’t a bad guy, and so I say Happy Birthday Albert, for you I post my most favorite poem by Edgar Allen Poe, the poet you've been compared to and I can see why.

ANNABELLE LEE

Author: Edgar Allan Poe
It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea;

But we loved with a love that was more than love -

I and my Annabel Lee;

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsman came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulcher

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,

Went envying her and me

Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we

Of many far wiser than we

And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide,

I lie down by the side

Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,

In the sepulcher there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

If we had a podcast I'd read it aloud, as I can hear it in my head on repeat and probably will all day long.