James Gill

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James Gill 2008

James Francis Gill (* 1934 in Tahoka, Lynn County , Texas ) is an American painter of pop art .

As early as 1962, the New York Museum of Modern Art added his three-panel painting “Marilyn Triptych” to its permanent collection. At the height of his career, Gill then retired, only to return to the art scene after around 30 years.

Life

Early work

Gill was born in Tahoka, Texas in 1934. He grew up in San Angelo , Texas. His mother, an interior designer, encouraged his artistic talent even in his childhood. In high school, Gill started a rodeo club with friends to pursue his dream of becoming a cowboy. During his military service, Gill worked as a draftsman and designed posters. Back in Texas, he continued his education at San Angelo College and worked for an architecture firm.

In 1959 he studied in Austin at the University of Texas and later worked in the field of architecture design in Odessa . Only then did he concentrate on his artistic career.

Left part of Marylin Tryptich (1962)

In 1962 he moved to Los Angeles . Numerous works of art in his luggage, including “Women in Cars”, which he presented in the Felix Landau Gallery. In November 1962, Gill achieved international recognition when the Museum of Modern Art in New York added his three-part Marilyn Monroe picture "Marilyn Triptych" to its collection as a gift from John de Ménil and Dominique de Ménil . His drawing “Laughing Women in Car and Close-up” was shown by the Museum of Modern Art between drawings by Picasso and Odilon Redon .

In 1965, Gill taught painting at the University of Idaho . During these years his works were often depressing and gloomy in color and mood. The main theme of his work was current social and political events such as B. the Vietnam War . The result was a series of anti-war images that dealt with civilian and military leaders. The writer William Inge commented: "Gill depicts people of high public fame who are currently in a shameful decision-making process and are about to destroy their political or professional reputation."

The Machines (1965)

An anti-war image that emerged from this series is the work "The Machines". The composition formally connects the media coverage of the United States with the combat conditions in Vietnam . Gill earned a reputation as a draftsman for his treatment of contemporary subjects through photographic images. The combination of his expressionistic technique and his graphite pencil went against the trend of the time. The writer William Inge responded to his gloomy graphite pencil compositions : "His paintings capture a moment of truth that is of regrettable beauty and makes one memorable." With this, Gill goes even further than the often apolitical intention of the early pop art movements: By dealing with his pictures, for example with the Vietnam War, his works gain an additional socio-critical dimension that spans a much wider range than the mere and ostensibly often unintended criticism of Pop Art of consumer society.

In 1967 the “São Paulo 9 - Environment USA: 1957–1967” in Brazil showed Gill's works of art together with artists such as Andy Warhol and Edward Hopper . This exhibition led to Gill's breakthrough in the international art world. His works of art have been included in the collections of major museums.

In the same year Time Magazine commissioned him to portray the Russian Alexander Solzhenitsyn , who had just escaped from a Russian labor camp. Gill produced the picture in the form of a four-part altarpiece. The figure transforms from a faceless man into a smiling man who has regained his freedom. Gill: “Everyone is a political prisoner. A prisoner of a system into which he was born. "

Political Prisoner (1968)

The work then hung in the lobby of the Time & Life building for around five years. Gill's sources always came from the present. His recognition as an artist was based not only on the portraits of famous personalities such as John F. Kennedy , Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles , but to a large extent on his works, which challenged the political power apparatus and the war itself. Political Prisoner is an important work from this period . The series shows the silhouette of a pregnant woman. Your body is the symbol for the longevity of the people and for the possibility of a new beginning for each generation, freed from the mistakes of the parents' generation. But at the same time, Gill seems to suggest that unborn life is already trapped: Born in the cauldron of an atomic family, the young generation could become the unfortunate heirs of the world that they did not shape themselves but through which they were themselves.

In 1969, Gill taught at the University of California at Irvine .

In 1970 he was offered a visiting professorship at the University of Oregon in Eugene . Now Gill was at the height of his career and very popular on the pop art scene. But many contemporaries saw a profound and complex meaning in his works, more than Pop Art intended to express. "... Gill is a prominent Pop Art artist, although he is too much a painter and deals with his subjects in a very emotionally charged way to be considered just a Pop Art artist ..." wrote the Los Angeles Times Art Editor Henry J Seldis in the November 8, 1965 issue.

Withdrawal from the art scene

In 1972, Gill surprisingly withdrew into self-imposed exile, believing he could maintain some sort of long-distance relationship with the art scene. He wanted to develop his artistic expression further without being subjected to the constraints of the material world.

“In those days I was bogged down with the fame and dilemma of the 'Political Prisoner'. I had personal problems and when I drove along California's coast I was totally impressed by the beauty. "

- Gill

After the apprenticeship semester in Oregon, he then sold his house, numerous pictures and drawings in order to buy land and a house in Whale Gulch in the Californian border country.

Rediscovery

Behind the shadow , restudy (2003)

In parallel to his work as an architectural designer in Northern California, James Gill began painting again in the mid-1980s. He returns to Texas and continues to develop his art without going public.

However, his life changes suddenly when about ten years later the American Art magazine of the Smithsonian American Art Museum calls him and asks for an interview. This marks the beginning of his rediscovery, as a result of which numerous gallery owners and museums become aware of him again.

Around 1987, Gill began working with the tools of computer design and "using the computer and printer as drawing tools".

In 2005, a retrospective took place for the first time in his hometown of San Angelo at the Museum of Fine Arts .

Late work

MM a Critique of Mass Iconology - Serigraphy (2013)

From around 2010, Gill's late creative phase began, in which - in contrast to the political motifs that dominated in the early work - he concentrated again on depicting classic Pop Art icons such as John Wayne , Paul Newman or Marilyn Monroe. The result is numerous works by the American film actress , who has had an unbroken fascination for him since his early success with the work Marilyn Triptych (which was included in the Museum of Modern Art's collection before Andy Warhol's works) and the central one The lynchpin of his late work.

Through personal acquaintances with Tony Curtis , Kirk Douglas , John Wayne, Jim Morrison , Martin Luther King and Marlon Brando , Gill has become an artist of an entire generation. These personalities also shaped the content of Gill's work, which he tries to convey through various techniques and compositions.

James Gill's art today is a fusion of realism and abstraction. Photos are still the basis of his works of art. He now determines the composition of his paintings on the computer and consciously works with montage effects, which he calls “metamage” or “mixed media”.

Solo exhibitions (selection)

Works in public collections

  • Marilyn Triptych (1962), Museum of Modern Art, New York
  • Nude on a Red Sofa (1962), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
  • Woman in Striped Dress (1962), Museum of Modern Art, New York
  • Standing Nude with Open Robe (1962), San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts , San Angelo, Texas
  • Woman Entering a Car (1962), UCI Institute and Museum of California Art (IMCA), Irvine, California
  • Woman in Brown Car # 1, bronze (1963), Whitney Museum of American Art , New York
  • Self Portrait (1963), UCI Institute and Museum of California Art (IMCA), Irvine, California
  • Green General (ca.1963–1965), UCI Institute and Museum of California Art (IMCA), Irvine, California
  • Multiple Image Nude on a Blue Pillow (1964), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
  • Laughing Woman and Close-Up (1964), Museum of Modern Art, New York
  • Nude on Chaise (1964), San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, Texas
  • Man in Striped Tie (1964), UCI Institute and Museum of California Art (IMCA), Irvine, California
  • Paul Wonner in his studio (1965), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
  • It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them (1966), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
  • Woman in Car and Close-up (1965), Berkeley Art Museum, University of California , Berkeley , California
  • Standing Nude with Dog (1965), Stanford University Center for Visual Arts, Stanford , California
  • Pregnant Woman (1966), San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, Texas
  • Pope and Bomb (1967), San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, Texas
  • John Wayne Diptych (1967), Art Institute of Chicago , Chicago , Illinois
  • Succubus D (1968), Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig , Vienna
  • Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1968), National Portrait Gallery , Washington, DC
  • Sincerely Disturbed (1967), National Museum of the United States Navy , Washington, DC
  • Art in America "Turbo" (1987), UCI Institute and Museum of California Art (IMCA), Irvine, California
  • Brush Stroke Painting 21 (2001), Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton , Florida
  • No Peace, No Security Yet (2016), serigraph , University of Texas of the Permian Basin , Odessa, Texas
  • Uncommon Places: Locked Lips (2016), serigraph, University of Texas of the Permian Basin, Odessa, Texas
  • The Release Happening (2016), serigraph, University of Texas of the Permian Basin, Odessa, Texas
  • John (2016), serigraph, MAC - Museum Art & Cars , Singen
  • Marilyn Ecstasy (2016), serigraph, MAC - Museum Art & Cars, Singen
  • Woman with Red Dress and Blue Car (2020), Serigraphie, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana , Venice
  • Woman in Blue Car (2020), screenprint, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice
  • Man Leaving Car (2020), screenprint, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice
  • Man in Car (2020), screenprint, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice
  • Woman in Red Car (2020), screenprint, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice
  • Woman Leaving Red Car (2020), screenprint, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice
  • Woman in Blue Dress (2020), screenprint, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice

honors and awards

  • Art fellowship, University of Texas, 1959.
  • Awarded Purchase Prize, Sixty-seventh Annual American Exhibition, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1964.
  • Special Purchase, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City
  • New Aquisitions Museum of Modern Art, New York City, 1965.
  • Art Across America , with Knoedler and Company, New York an Tour, San Francisco Art Institute Annual, 1965.
  • The Painter and the Photograph , Rose Art Museum, Brandels University and Tour, JB Speed ​​Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, 1965.
  • Recent Drawing Acquisitions , Museum of Modern Art, New York 1966, A large color painting Laughing Woman in Car , exhibited for two years in the museum's New drawing room between a work by the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso and one by Odilon Redon
  • Annual exhibition, Whitney Museum of Modern Art, New York 1967.
  • The Container Corporation of America and Time Magazine's Great Ideas series is now on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Fine Art
  • Young California: Painting in the 1960’s Tampa Bay Art Center and Tour, 1968.
  • The new Vein , National Collection of Fine Arts Touring Exhibition, 1968, Europe 1969.
  • Recorded in Who's Who in America; Who's Who in American Art

literature

  • Alfred H. Barr: Painting and Sculpture in the Museum of Modern Art. Museum of Modern Art, 1977.
  • John IH Baur: Dictionary of Contemporary American Artists. 5th edition. Whitney Museum of American Art Catalog of the Collection. Cummings, Paul (1987) 1974.
  • Kimberly S. Bushby: James Gill: The Power of Pop Icons in the Age of Stars , in: James Francis Gill: Catalog Raisonné of Original Prints (Vol. 1.), 2017.
  • Carroll & Graf Publishers, New York (Eds.): Erotic Art , 1993.
  • van Deren Coke: The Painter and the Photograph: From Delacroix to Warhol. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1964.
  • Lonnie Pierson Dunbier (Ed.): The Artists Bluebook 34,000 North American Artists to March 2005 , 2005.
  • Michael Duncan: Gill. LA RAW. Pasadena Museum of California Art, 2005.
  • Jim Edwards, William Emboden, David McCarthy: The Unusual: The Art of James Francis Gill , 2005.
  • Peter Hastings Falk (ed.): Who Was Who in American Art. 1564–1975, 1999.
  • Jaques Cattell Harris: Who's Who in American Art , 1976.
  • Neil Harris, Martina R Norelli: Art, Design and the Modern Corporation , 1985.
  • David McCarthy: Movements in Modern Art: Pop Art , 2000.
  • David McCarthy: Sincerely Disturbed: James Gill and Vietnam , 2005.
  • Premium Modern Art (Ed.): James Francis Gill - The Absence of Color , 2018.
  • Henry J. Seldis: James Gill In: Los Angeles Times , Nov. 8, 1965.
  • Peter Selz: Art Across America , 1965.
  • Smithsonian Institution: National Portrait Gallery Collection Illustrated Checklist , 1985.
  • Tampa Bay Art Center: 40 Now California Painters , 1968.
  • University of Oklahoma: East Coast-West Coast Paintings , 1968.

Web links

Individual evidence

Commons : James Gill (artist)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
  1. ^ A b Sophia Fischer: Westlake art show draws fans of James Gill . April 10, 2008.
  2. ^ "LIFE January 25, 1963" books.google.com August 22, 2011
  3. ^ Museum of Modern Art
  4. ^ Inge William: Glimpses of Truth: The Paintings of James Gill. 1965, p. 2.
  5. ↑ Jim Edwards, William Emboden, David McCarthy: The Unusual: The Art of James Francis Gill. 2005, p. 209.
  6. ↑ Dto., P. 35.
  7. ↑ Dto., P. 36.
  8. ↑ Kimberly S. Bushby: James Gill: The Power of Pop Icons in the Age of Stars, in: James Francis Gill: Catalog Raisonné of Original Prints (Vol. 1.) 2017, p. 17.
  9. ↑ James Gill Full Circle - Official Nomination for Best Short Documentary, AOF Film Festival Pasadena CA, July 29th. PRWEB, July 17, 2008, accessed May 23, 2012 .
  10. ↑ Jim Edwards, William Emboden, David McCarthy: The Unusual: The Art of James Francis Gill. 2005, p. 184.
  11. ↑ Dto., P. 44.
  12. ↑ Dto., P. 46.
  13. ↑ Dto., P. 44.
  14. ↑ Dto., P. 212.
  15. ^ Inge William .: Glimpses of Truth: The Paintings of James Gill , 1965, p. 2.
  16. ↑ Jim Edwards, William Emboden, David McCarthy: The Unusual: The Art of James Francis Gill. 2005, p. 36.
  17. ↑ Dto., P. 53.
  18. ↑ Wochenspiegel Trier of September 10, 2014, p. 2.
  19. ↑ Jim Edwards, William Emboden, David McCarthy: The Unusual: The Art of James Francis Gill. 2005, p. 64.
personal data
SURNAME Gill, James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gill, James Francis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American painter
DATE OF BIRTH 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Tahoka , Lynn County, Texas