A commonplace book
Three more shots from the Outliers show at the National Gallery of Art, one of the most thought-provoking exhibits there in years. More captions to come when I do my repeat visit (and with my real camera, sorry for the lousy resolution).
One of the interesting byproducts of my visit to the Outliers show at the National Gallery was learning about the “Index of American Design.” This was a Works Progress Administration project to document objects. It was accomplished by sending watercolorists all over the country to find design examples and create images. (Photography might seem a better medium for this kind of work, but in fact, the watercolors, with their detail and color, probably did more than photography could have offered in the 30s and 40s. And there is the practical possibility that more painters, rather than photographers, were the ones out of work. Certainly the results are beautiful.)
Here are a handful of images from the Index. More at this link.
And here’s a bite from a documentary on the Index.
Would be wonderful to have them all digitized sometime, although there are 20,000 so would be a formidable undertaking.
Took in the first day of a new show at the National Gallery of Art, Outliers and American Vanguard Art–outliers being a term broader than outsider art, and bridging a vast range of styles and people, Horace Pippin to Martín Ramírez, and Sister Gertrude Morgan to Zoe Leonard (who was there, and answered questions from curator Lynne Cooke in a fascinating Q&A).
It is fascinating, intriguingly curated show. Fosters lots of pondering of what an outlier is–which boundaries are being crossed, and the relationship of this show to the museum overall. You don’t always get a sense of adventure (sometimes a confounding adventure) in NGA shows, but you certainly do with this one.
A few shots from my visit.
A Few Reasonable Words 