This exhibition results from the opportunity to select paintings for exhibition and sale from the estate of William and Lucy L’Engle, American Modernists and disciples of Cubism.
In studying the couple’s history as artists in Paris, New York, and Provincetown, I realized that I had a unique chance to present the transfer of the Cubist style from Europe to America through the paintings of Willam and Lucy L’Engle. To more fully tell the story of the American response to Cubism, I added to the exhibition examples by other well-known American artists who participated in European Cubism’s transfer and its transformation in America.
William and Lucy (née Brown) L’Engle were pioneer Modernists, part of a generation of artists working abroad in the years immediately following the public debut of Cubism in Paris in 1908. William L’Engle (1884-1957) arrived in Paris in 1909 at the age of 25 with a degree in Naval Architecture from Yale and evening classes at the Art Students League in New York. Among his classmates at the League in 1907-08 were Georgia O’Keeffe and Blanche Lazzell. In Paris William studied first at the Académie Julian and then at the École des Beaux-Arts with Jean-Paul Laurens. Lucy Brown (1889-1978) studied with Charles Hawthorne in Provincetown in 1909 and then for a year in 1911-12 at the Art Students League before going to Paris at the age of 23 to study at the Académie Julian in 1913. The couple met soon after Lucy arrived in Paris and married in 1914.
The sense of adventure and motivation to achieve excellence that the L’Engles developed from their experiences in Europe pushed them to consider new ideas. This allowed them to continue to evolve as artists, changing their art to reflect various aspects of American life and its art styles. The rich environments the L’Engles were a part of in New York and Provincetown kept them abreast of major developments in art and gave them a sophisticated audience for their work. In addition to the paintings of William and Lucy L’Engle, our exhibition includes examples by six prominent American Modernist contemporaries of the L’Engles whose art demonstrates the effect of the American environment on European Cubism. The artists selected are Alfred Maurer, John Marin, Henry Lee McFee, Abraham Walkowitz, Max Weber, and Marguerite Zorach. From each of these contemporaries of the L’Engles, our exhibition includes both a European Cubist inspired and an American Scene influenced work. The variety of approaches to Modernism, the different European Masters each artist selected as an influence, and the adjustments to individual style and content of each artist’s work after an extended time in America can be witnessed in the paintings selected. After an early exposure to European Cubism, these American artists evolved or shifted their style in response to prolonged exposure to American life as fully matured artists commanding nuanced vocabularies of ideas and procedures. No doubt the independence of spirit fostered by the American environment helped each artist to evolve in a way that best suited his art. From an essay by Deedee Wigmore. Full essay at D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc. website.
Image: D. Wigmore Fine Art
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