A Maverick Modernist Comes to the Parrish

[caption id="attachment_63818" align="alignleft" width="399"] John Graham. Head of a Woman, 1954.[/caption]

By Michelle Trauring

For those who know John Graham’s name, he is a larger than life figure — one whose life has snared more of the spotlight than his art.

He was a “mystic, poet, writer, fabulist, raconteur, art dealer, art advisor, and cavalry officer, attracted to astronomy, as well as astrology and other arts of divination, and thus has been deified as an avatar,” according to art historian William C. Agee.

“To varying degrees these were all aspects of Graham’s life,” he continued. “It is little wonder, then, that Graham could say: ‘The interesting thing about the artist is not what he produces, but what he is himself.’”

But for those who are genuinely interested in the art, that statement is false, he said. And for those who do not know John Graham’s name, they can finally experience the man and the artist as one, from beginning to end, in a retrospective that is the first of its kind in 30 years —on view starting May 7 at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill.

[caption id="attachment_63819" align="aligncenter" width="475"] John Graham, "Two Soldiers."[/caption]

Featuring 60 paintings and five works on paper, “John Graham: Maverick Modernist” clearly illustrates the development of his four-decade-long career, from cubist-influenced still lifes, nudes, portraits and landscapes of the 1920s that shifted to more abstract in the 1930s, to a radical change by the early 1940s that steered away from abstraction, instead influenced by the Renaissance and 19th-century French artists—making these the works for which he is most known, as are his later pieces that allude to mysticism.

Yet, still, there is consistency across each of his phases, according to Alicia G. Longwell, the Parrish’s Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman chief curator, who organized the exhibition and wrote her dissertation on Graham’s work of the 1920s and 1930s, which remains the single study of his work in that period.

[caption id="attachment_63822" align="alignright" width="374"] John Graham, "Celia."[/caption]

“Graham is an artist for whom there is not a catalogue raisonne or biography, and one thing I will warn you about is it’s hard not to get totally entranced by the biography. It’s extremely colorful and that’s always kind of an issue,” Ms. Longwell said. “Someone like Picasso is extremely colorful as well, but in Graham, it’s hard not to get a little sidetracked with that. By all accounts, he’s a fascinating person.”

In the whirlwind that was Graham’s life, even something as simple as his birthday is contested—not just because of discrepancies between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, but because the artist would often change it when telling tales of his birth.

For all intensive purposes, he was born sometime around 1886 in Kiev, Ukraine. He would go on to study law and trained as a cadet, as well, later serving in the army. He always prided himself on his writing and thinking, and escaped the Bolshevik Revolution by fleeing to New York in 1920.

“He decided he had trouble finding work in his field, not surprisingly, even though he spoke English, French, Russian, many languages,” Ms. Longwell said. “He finally decided he would do what, he wrote, ‘would have been unthinkable in my native land,’ and enrolled in the Art Students League and studied to become a painter. We have an early 1923 self portrait, which was one of his first paintings that he made.”

[caption id="attachment_63829" align="aligncenter" width="438"] John Graham, "Coffee Cup."[/caption]

He learned from his older colleagues and friends, and was very much a working artist who would go on to shape the minds of those coming up in the art world.

“He did not appear full-blown as a son of Jupiter, as he liked to claim, but rather grew as most artists do,” wrote Mr. Agee in the exhibition catalogue.

Graham travelled extensively, bringing back Parisian journals and giving American artists a glimpse of the European artistic landscape. He is credited with influencing an entire generation of New York artists, including Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock.

[caption id="attachment_63830" align="alignleft" width="420"] John Graham, "Mascara."[/caption]

In fact, according to Robert Motherwell, Pollock carried around a copy of Graham’s article “Primitive Art and Picasso” in his back pocket “for the longest time,” Ms. Longwell said.

“There was a real friendship there. Graham lived on the East End for eight years,” she said. “De Kooning wrote about him, when he would visit his studio in Springs. It was amusing because de Kooning said he wouldn't really look at the painting. Graham really was not able to, himself, become an abstract expressionist, but he was almost incapable of seeing it in a way. He would come and sit and they’d have a lovely chat, but he’d always sit with his back to the painting.

“De Kooning said he would get up and leave and he’d say, ‘But Graham, you never really looked at the painting.’ And Graham would say, ‘Bill, I know it’s good. I don’t need to look.’” I think he was a really important connection for these younger painters, with what was going on in the world. He had these many lives.”

Graham’s work would go on to evolve until his death in 1961, leaving behind a prolific collection and a colony of artists forever touched by his teachings, advice and, of course, his work.

“When I talk to my friends that are contemporary artists, they know him. They really do,” Ms. Longwell said. “I had long talks with several and they were very aware of him, very aware of what his career meant in the history of 20th century art.”

“John Graham: Maverick Modernist” will open with a reception and talk on Sunday, May 7, at 11 a.m. at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill. The retrospective will remain on view through July 30. For more information, call (631) 283-2118, or visit parrishart.org.