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| (1902-1968) |
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Medium/Discipline: Painting
Birthplace: near Baltimore, Maryland
Place of Death: Lambertville, New Jersey
Maryland Affiliation: Born here, Active while in residence
Prominent Theme: Symbolism; Nature; Mysticism; Landscapes; Urban Scenes; Abstraction
Style/Period: Cubism; Post-Impressionism
Gender: Male
Race/Ethnicity: White
Biography: Born in a rural community near Baltimore in 1902, Lee Gatch spent his childhood in the Chesapeake Bay area. His abstract painting style combined elements of Post-Impressionism, Cubism and Symbolism in mystical evocations of nature. His experience with the natural world began "when as a boy he roamed the woods as a hunter and fished in the Chesapeake Bay," and continued with the rural setting where he worked later in life in New Jersey (Perry T. Rathbone, Lee Gatch, The American Federation of Arts, New York, 1960, p. 5). Dorothy Gees Seckler wrote that Gatch wanted his work to be "'abstract but possible,' invented but formed out of the essence of natural existence, shadowy but living in a convincing depth of air and space, compounded of the most personal symbols yet universal in reference." (Seckler, "Lee Gatch," Art in America, Fall 1956).
After attending local Maryland schools, Gatch studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art under John Sloan, who focused on quality and the ultimate purpose of art, and Leon Kroll, who taught design and focused on pictorial structure. In 1924, Gatch won a fellowship in France to the American School in Fontainebleau. He then went to Paris, studying at the Académie Moderne with André Lhote and Moïse Kisling. Gatch was also influenced by the paintings of Andre Derain, Edouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard for their use of spatial effects implied by color and pattern. Gatch returned to America in 1925, working in New York. His work was essentially Cubist in style during this period, becoming more personal and symbolic around 1930, after being inspired by a piece of children's art shown at Cooper Union. He is said to have been influenced both by the power of using a single color accented by a second color, and by its two dimensionality. In 1932, at age 30, Gatch produced his most mature and successful landscape and figural paintings to date, which were abstracted representations of his experiences.
In 1927, J. B. Neumann served as Gatch's first dealer, and held a one-man show for Gatch in that year. The second one-man show was held in 1932. Neumann Gallery was the only gallery in the United States that featured work by Paul Klee. Klee's work prompted Gatch to externalize his subjective experience and to be inspired by nature and mysticism. Both Klee and Gatch used deeply personal religious and philosophical symbolism. Gatch spoke about "the sensuous arabesque existing in nature," which is evident through the use of patterns, design and color in his paintings after 1932. Curator Perry Rathbone wrote that, "Gatch has added to his own art three things: his independent concern with light and with rhythmic movement, his love of dramatic subject and mystic imitation, and finally a palette and a paint texture as unmistakable as his signature." (Rathbone, p. 10) Gatch strove for the ideal in his work. While Gatch spoke about the canvas as his enemy in that it inevitably manifested imperfection, he also wrote of his "one constant hope; the reconciliation between nature and abstraction." (The Ten, Mercury Gallery, Boston, Mass., 1999, p. 16)
In 1935, he married Elsie Diggs, the only active woman Precisionist painter, and moved to rural Lambertville, New Jersey where he lived the rest of his life on a farm called "Coon Path." In 1937, for a brief period, Gatch joined "The Ten" Whitney Dissenters who displayed their abstract work at the Mercury Galleries in 1938 in protest of the representational American Scene painting dominating the walls at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
During the 1940s, Gatch gained renown and caught the eye of Duncan Phillips, who purchased Gatch's Orientals at the Races (1939), which, in 1950, represented America in the Venice Biennale. During the 1940s, large areas of color dominated many pictures Gatch produced, leading, during the 1950s, to an increasingly non-objective approach. During this period, he experimented with a variety of textures, often through the application of thick pigment with a brush or palette knife. Some of his original techniques include floating a turpentine wash over his canvases, producing a spare, grainy texture and creating collaged pieces of canvas and thin slabs of stone.
Gatch produced work slowly and methodically, producing about ten works per year, which sold quickly as they were made when his popularity reached its peak in the late 1940s and 1950s. There are 250 works in Gatch's entire oeuvre. Duncan Phillips and Joseph H. Hirshhorn purchased more than ten works apiece and prominent collector Roy R. Neuberger purchased two for himself and two for museums. Gatch's work resides in about 50 private collections and museums, including the Addison Gallery of American Art; Atlanta University Contemporary Art Collection; The Baltimore Museum of Art; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; City Art Museum of St. Louis; Detroit Institute of Arts; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute; Museum of Modern Art in New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; University of Nebraska; Wadsworth Atheneum; Washington University, St. Louis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Gatch was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
Education/Training: Maryland Institute College of Art, 1920-1924; Académie Moderne, Fontainebleau, France, 1924
Taught By: Leon Kroll; John Sloan; André Lhote; Moïse Kisling
Selected References: Breeskin, Adelyn D. Lee Gatch 1902-1968. Published for the National Collection of Fine Arts by the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971.
Dervaux, Isabelle (foreword). The Ten: Birth of the American Avant-Garde (Boston, Mass.: Mercury Gallery), 1999.
Rathbone, Perry T. Lee Gatch, The American Federation of Arts, New York and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 1960.
Seckler, Dorothy Gees. "Lee Gatch," Art in America (Fall 1956).
Maryland Institutions Holding Artworks: The Baltimore Museum of Art
Single-Artist Exhibitions: partial list:
J. B. Neumann's New Art Circle, NY, NY, 1927, 1932, 1937.
Willard Gallery, NY, 1943.
New Art Circle, NY, 1946, 1949.
Grace Borgenicht Gallery, NY, NY; also shown at the Phillips Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1954.
Phillips Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1956.
Lee Gatch: Recent Paintings, 1954-1958. World House Galleries, New York, New York. May 20-June 14, 1958.
Retrospective Exhibition circulated by The American Federation of Arts opening in New York City at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Febuary 2, 1960.
Lee Gatch: Recent Paintings. Staempfli Gallery, New York City, March 23-April 10, 1965.
Multiple-Artist Exhibitions: partial list:
The Ten: Birth of the American Avant-Garde, Mercury Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, 1999.
Awards:
Winning Design for Mullins, South Carolina Post Office, 48 State Competition, Federal Works Agency, 1939.
One of seven Americans chosen for the Venice Biennale, 1956.
Watson S. Blair Prize, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1957.
Temple Award, 2nd Biennial of American Painting and Sculpture, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1959.
American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City, 1966.
Memorial Exhibition: Lee Gatch, Hans Hoffmann, Edward Hopper, Henry Schnakenerg, Charles Sheeler, Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City, March 4-April 10, 1971.
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