Time capsule of Seattle art

None of William Ivey’s paintings have a title. All of Howard Kottler’s sculptures do. They’re either jokes or explication, the latter because he was a teacher.

William Ivey (1919-1992)
Untitled, 1976
Oil on canvas
Howard Kottler (1930-1989)
Portrait Vase, 1988
Ceramic with whitewash and luster

Ivey painted not what he saw but what he felt about what he
saw: windows, waters, hills and dales, bridges, tables,
ledges and restless passages of sky as they poured themselves out through the window in his
studio.
Like Joan Mitchell, he continued to explore the premises that first inspired him. He wanted to push
representation to the edge, hammer the hard contours of the world into
submission and infuse their shadowy forms with blunt yet atmospheric
radiance. He never became what Lester Young called a
“repeater pencil,” producing Iveys by the truckload.

Like the Bay Area’s Robert Arneson, Kottler believed in the
aesthetics of bad taste. Cheap consumer goods ignited flames in the fake fireplace of his imagination. Marbled contact paper stirred him more than marble, and simulated wood grain meant more than wood. He was part of a generation that dispensed with the high/low divide, which meant, in his case, that art history also drew his magpie eye. Portrait Vase is a tribute to Italian futurists, especially Umberto Boccioni. The fractures that were life and death for Boccioni became party favors for Kottler.  During his lifetime, some saw Kottler as trifling, which did not disturb him. When challenging the high/low divide, protests from its adherents are expected. At least he wasn’t barking mad like the  futurists. (Yeats: The best lack all conviction, while the worst
/Are full of passionate intensity.)

Because Ivey and Kottler are always high points, that’s what they are in
A Corporate Legacy – A Continuing Cultural Gift
at the Wright
Exhibition Space, curated by Beth Sellars.

Aside from the coma-inducing title, the exhibit is a fine time capsule for a certain kind of NW art: strong in painting, ceramics and glass, barely there in photography and nonexistent in video, installation and anything that rests uneasily in a specific medium.

The collection tends toward the conservative, bringing to mind Wallace Stevens‘ reflections on his neighborhood.

Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock

The houses are haunted

By white night-gowns.

None are green,

Or purple with green rings,

Or green with yellow rings,

Or yellow with blue rings.

None of them are strange,

With socks of lace

And beaded ceintures.

People are not going

To dream of baboons and periwinkles.

Only, here and there, an old sailor,

Drunk and asleep in his boots,

Catches tigers
In red weather.

Another thing about that neighborhood: Stevens lived there. Days, he worked in a managerial capacity for an insurance company. Nights, he reinvented the language.  Conservative is not a synonym for irrelevant. 

The collection from which the exhibit is drawn came from Safeco Insurance. The company began to acquire art in 1973 and did so with a regional focus. By the time Liberty Mutual acquired Safeco in 2008, its glory days in aesthetics were past, but as a final goodwill gesture the corporation donated 840 of the strongest works to the Washington State Art Consortium, a support group for seven art museums in the state.

Once abundant, corporate collections are now a rarity. Safeco’s rewarded artists, art at its source. In the 1980s, it was easy to take it for granted. Now, it appears to represent a better time.

(Show list after the jump.)

Juan Alonso (b.1956)
Temptation, 1996
Acrylic on paper

Guy Anderson (1906-1998)
Summer Wind I, 1980
Oil on paper

Anne Appleby (b.1954)
Western Cedar, 1998
Oil on canvas

Sonja Blomdahl (b.1952)
Untitled (SP5387), 1987
Hand-blown glass

Sonja Blomdahl (b.1952)
Yellow/Orange/Plum, 1992
Hand-blown glass

Wendell Brazeau (1910-1974)
Still Life, La Tavola, 1957
Oil on panel 1984.002


Michael Brophy (b. 1960)
Small Curtain, 1999
Oil on canvas

Louis Bunce (1907-1983)
Images of the Afternoon, 1942
Color silkscreen on paper

Mark Calderon (b.1955)
Crena, 1996
Steel over cement

Kenneth Callahan (1905-1986)
The Meeting, 1965
Tempera on board

Diem Chau (b.1979)
Women, 2008
Porcelain cup, silk, and thread

Diem Chau (b.1979)
Union, 2008
Porcelain cup, silk, and thread

Dale Chihuly (1941)
#146 Black Set, 1980
Hand-blown glass

Dale Chihuly (1941)
Cylinder, 1978
Hand-blown glass

Claire Cowie (b.1975)
Spring Village, 2008
Softground spitbite aquatint etching

William Cummings (b.1917)
Cutting the Cow, 1981
Tempera on board

Michael Dailey (1938-2009)
Sandy Cove, 1977
Oil on canvas

Margaret Ford (b.1941)
Moth, 1980
Ceramic

T. Michael Gardiner (1946)
Parlor with Fish Table, 1984
Gouache

Justin Gibbens (b.1975)
Bird of Paradise VIII: Rock Wren with Appendage, 2008
Watercolor, graphite, gouache, oolong on paper

Ford Gilbreath
Near Duwamish Head, 1998
Hand painted silver gelatin print

Richard Gilkey (1925-1997)
La Connor Landscape, 1980
Oil on linen

William Givler (1908-2000)
Window Washers, 1935
Oil on canvas

Joseph Goldberg (b.1947)
Siren, 1995
Encaustic on linen

Boyer Gonzales (1909-1987)
Composition, 1966-70
Oil on canvas


Morris Graves (1910-2001)
Resilient Young Pine, 1944
Tempera on laminated paper


Gaylen Hansen (b.1921)
Bison and Tulip, 1994
Oil on canvas


Alfred Harris (b.1953)
Functionary Project #880 and #896, 1993
Mixed media (ink on tea stained vellum on panel)

Randy Hayes
(b.1944)
Tapestry Chair, 2005
Oil on photographs with pushpins

Blake Haygood (b.1966)
Hitch and Tickle, 2000
Color drypoint etching

Paul Heald (1936)
Sleeper, 1982
Acrylic on linen

Anne Hirondelle (1944)
Chorister Triptych, 1992
Stoneware

Paul Horiuchi (1906-1999)
Thoughts in Color #10, and
Collage

Calvin Hunt (b.1956)
Kolus (Thunderbird) Transformation Mask, 1988
Red cedar, acrylic, twine

Walter Isaacs (1886-1964)
Horse in Paddock, 1945
Oil on Board 1979.020
William Ivey (1919-1992)
Untitled, 1976
Oil on canvas

George Johanson (b.1928)
Night Games #5, 1996
Etching

Fay Jones (b.1936)
Lotus-Eaters, 1993
Aquatint

Helmi Juvonen (1903-1985)


Mark Tobey 1955
Tempera on paper

Ken Kelly (b.1955)
Birdland, 1996
Oil and acrylic on wood

Lee Kelly (b.1932)
Yucatan Nose Rack, 1985
Steel

Leo Kenney (1925-2001)
December Hours, 1980
Gouache on paper

Gwen Knight (1913-2005)
Interior, 1941
Gouache on paper

Carolyn Krieg (1953)
Fountainhead #5 HH, 1996
Altered chromogenic print

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000)
Builders, 1980
Gouache on paper

Norman Lundin (1938)
Studio Floor:Two Jugs, 1981
Charcoal, pastel, dry pigment on paper

Dante Marioni (1964)
Set of Three Whopper Vases, 1988
Hand-blown glass

Sherry Markovitz (1947)
Donkey Profile, 1993
Gouache on paper

Alden Mason (1919)
Handy Pink, nd
Oil on canvas

Phil McCracken (1928)
Mother and Young, 1971
Bronze on walnut base

Nancy Mee
Encased in Their Beliefs, 1990
Glass, wood, and steel

Peter Millett (1949)
Eight, 1989
Painted wood

Jeffry Mitchell (1958)
Constellation II, 1998


William Morris (b.1957)
11.1.82.B, 1981
Hand-blown glass

Spencer Moseley (1925-1998)
Coda Con Comedo, 1965
Acrylic on canvas

Frank Okada (1931-2000)
Swing Line II, 1989
Oil on canvas

Mary Randlett (b.1924)
Emerging City, Seattle, 1993
Gelatin silver print

Michele Russo (1909-2004)
Hello, Hello, 1988
Acrylic on canvas

David Schwarz (b.1952)
Z.A.O.F. 12/16/91, 1991
Hand-blown glass

Frances Senska (1914-2009)
Brickyard, 1952
Lithograph on paper

Roger Shimomura (1939)
Diary January 1, 1943, 1983
Acrylic on canvas

Michael Spafford (1935)
The Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs V, 1991
Oil on paper

Robert Sperry (1927-2008)
Plate #781, 1987
Ceramic

Lino Tagliapietra (1934)
Untitled, 1990
Hand-blown glass

John Takehara (1929-2009)
Sound of Earth, 1989
Ceramic with rawhide ties

Whiting Tennis (b.1959)
Survey with Blue Flower, 1995
Oil on canvas on board

Barbara Thomas (b.1948)
Man Cleaning His Fish II, 2006
Wood block

Mark Tobey (1890-1976)
Les Signes, 1962
Tempera on paper

George Tsutakawa (1910-1997)
Juan De Fuca, nd
Sumi ink on rice paper 1997.024

Jamie Walker (b.1958)
Untitled, 1995
Porcelain

Patti Warashina (1940)
Rome Series Portait #8, 2004
Whiteware ceramic

James Washington Jr. (1909-2000)
Grosbeak Hatching, 1978
Granite on wood base

Wesley Wehr (1929-2004)
Alberni, 1991
Oil on paper

Myra Albert Wiggins (1869-1956)
Unloading the Catch, 1898
Gelatin silver print