Halsey-McCallum Foundation

Chapter 2

In 1939, William Halsey met Hudson D. Walker, a prominent New York gallery owner who agreed to represent his work. It was a promising introduction to the art market, for at the time, Walker represented other leading artists such as Marsden Hartley, Will Barnet, and Alfred Maurer, all of whom were attracting attention from the art trade. As Halsey left Boston for Mexico in September of 1939, he appeared on the verge of recognition in the competitive New York art scene. Yet, Halsey's two-year study in Mexico, though invaluable to his later work, was the first instance of the artist's geographic isolation--a pattern that would be repeated in his later career. By removing himself from the center of developing art movements and distancing himself from the art market, influential gallery owners and wealthy benefactors, Halsey may have missed opportunities during a critical period in American art history.

Yet, Halsey's years in Mexico were undeniably influential and important for his career. As he traveled throughout Mexico, gathering subject matter for paintings and inspiration for work, he developed a personal palette and style that he would keep and develop throughout his lifetime. These years of isolation, away from teachers and exhibitions, encouraged Halsey to follow his own artistic instincts. When he returned to the States, he faced an empty market for art teachers and painters in the South, but his experience and prolific work in Mexico laid a foundation of inspirations, colors and textures he would draw upon throughout his career.

In 1946, when Halsey returned to Charleston from Savannah and began to paint again, he used the techniques, patterns, and palettes he learned in Mexico to address new subjects and themes. By the late 1940s, Halsey began painting anew and became anxious to exhibit his work in broader venues. He submitted works to competitions and annual shows at major museums, and in September of 1947, his work was selected for the annual Paintings of the Year exhibition, sponsored by Pepsi Cola at the National Academy of Design. Halsey's painting, Back Street Charleston, (Fig. 17) was one of 159 paintings included in the show, which filled the galleries of the National Academy and housed works by recognized artists Max Weber, Louis Bosa, Edward Chavez, and Andrew Wyeth (31)

Although the Paintings of the Year exhibit received mixed reviews, the show was an important event for Halsey as it marked his reemergence into the New York art market. The artist's previous representation at the Hudson D. Walker Gallery had terminated when the gallery closed in 1941. Although no records exist to suggest Walker ever granted Halsey a one-man show, it seems that their association led to Halsey's later exhibitions in New York. According to Corrie McCallum, sometime in the mid-1940s, Walker introduced Halsey to Bertha Schaefer, an interior designer and owner of the Bertha Schaefer Gallery. Schaefer had begun to represent many of Walker's former artist-clients, and accordingly, she agreed to show Halsey's work. She first included one of his paintings as part of a group show entitled Fact and Fantasy in July of 1948. This exhibit, located in the heart of the New York gallery market at 32 East 57th Street, also included fellow artists Milton Avery, Will Barnet, Ben Zion, Alexander Bing, Adolph Gottlieb, Marsden Hartley, Alfred Maurer, and many others.(32) Each artist contributed one work to the show, which traveled after opening in New York. Halsey's entry, Night Houses (Fig. 16), attracted immediate critical acclaim. Comparing Halsey's work to that of better-known artists of the show, Alanzo Lansford of Art Digest entitled his review of the exhibit, Newcomers Outshine Veterans:

The group show at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery includes new works by artists previously seen at this gallery and also introduces several artists new to 57th Street. By a good margin, the outstanding painting of the show is from the brush of a newcomer, William Halsey. All sorts of superlative adjectives could be invoked to describe his Night Houses, a crisp, knowing semi-abstraction with the suavest of color relationships.(33)

This review appeared just one week after the Container Corporation of America used a reproduction of Halsey's painting, for the company's full-page color advertisements in Time, Fortune, Business Week, and Newsweek magazines (Fig. 18).(34) The ad read, "SOUTH CAROLINA--annual purchases: $2 billion--mostly packaged." To publicize the company's products, the Container Corporation had begun a progressive advertising campaign in 1937 that used art by modern artists from different states and countries.(35) Ben Shahn, Man Ray, Fernand Leger, Henry Moore, Willem de Kooning and Arshille Gorky were among the artists commissioned to complete paintings, drawings or designs for the project. These artists, along with hundreds of their contemporaries, contributed to the campaign in an effort to use industry and advertising to publicize modern art. Fernand Leger, writing on the "relationship between modern art and contemporary industry" for the forward of the exhibition, Modern Art in Advertising 1949, explained why he and other artists welcomed the opportunity to exhibit their art in industrial advertising:

More and more industrialists are seeking to obtain the contribution of creative artists of their time. This is very significant and important from various points of view. First of all, because of this fact, our work can penetrate into a sphere which, in general, is not very accessible to our plastic creations. . . There still exists an almost complete break between popular taste, which is full of good intentions in its desire to understand, and our modern work which s appreciated only by a minority of people. In turning to us for help, industry will enable us to establish a connection between the collective masses and the art of their time.(36)

Although Halsey's painting, which portrays a low country cabin, was not directly commissioned by the Container Corporation, it was used to show the art of an up-and-coming contemporary Southern painter who had not yet been recognized by the New York art trade. Therefore, its publication did relate to Leger's concept of the relationship between industry, advertisements, and art: "collective masses" who might never see a Halsey could view and interpret his modern work from afar.

Just months after Halsey's work circulated throughout the country in prominent magazines, he also gained national recognition at the Fifth Annual Pepsi Cola Art Competition at the National Academy.(37) Roland McKinney, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and juror of the exhibition, awarded Halsey one of four $1500 regional fellowships designed to fund "promising but needy talent." Applying for the grant, Halsey wrote honestly, disclosing that he did not need the money to study in a foreign country or fund a change of scenery--he needed financial security that could enable him to do his own work while living with his family, interpreting his own home town. Upon receiving the fellowship, Halsey maintained his proposal. He worked diligently, completing paintings of city-scapes and row houses in Charleston and consequently accumulated an array of works for future exhibitions and competitions (Figs. 19 and 20).

In 1949, Schaefer included Halsey's work in a second annual group show entitled The Modern House Comes Alive. This exhibit, now part of the permanent collection at Cornell University, was designed to show viewers how painting, sculpture, and ceramic pieces could be used in home decor. Along with Halsey's painting, Schaefer included furniture by Wharton Escherick, ceramics by Key-Oberg, paintings by Lee Krasner, Marsden Hartley, Ben Zion, Will Barnet, and Siv Holme, and sculpture by Fred Farr and Lekakis.(38) Designed as part of Schaefer's interior decorating projects, the exhibit promoted her interest in introducing modern art to creative home decorating schemes.(39) A graduate of Mississippi State College for Women and Parson's School of Design, Schaefer worked primarily as an interior decorator. She designed furniture and fabric patterns, and used her gallery as a site to promote talented artists whose work could be bought at reasonable prices and displayed in the home.

Schaefer's personal interest in pattern and design may have attracted her to Halsey's early work, which combined strong colors, geometric figures, and varied textures. She urged Halsey to move to New York in the 1950s so she could introduce him to clients and take buyers to his studio. Halsey refused, but Schaefer continued to include his work in solo and group exhibitions for over ten years. During that time, she displayed his work alongside paintings by well-known artists, Marsden Hartley, Alfred Maurer, Ben Zion, Cameron Booth, Will Barnet, Hale Woodruff, Lee Krasner, Balcombe Greene, Sue Fuller, and Worden Day. Schaefer clearly believed Halsey's work warranted respect in the art world. Initially, the press agreed.

His paintings received positive reviews and notable attention, particularly in the early 1950s, when Schaefer granted Halsey his first one man show in New York from May 21-June 9, 1951. The show ran in correlation with another group Fact and Fantasy exhibition, to which he contributed Facades (40) Although the group show received little attention, Halsey's eighteen casein and oil paintings attracted positive responses from the press.(41) Many of the well-known critics of the period wrote encouraging reviews of the works, agreeing that "semi abstract paintings, nicely balanced in design," marked an "auspicious debut by a promising artist."(42)

In the New York Times review on May 25, Aline B. Louchheim wrote under the title, "Five Art Displays in Galleries Here":

William Halsey brings casein and oil paintings to Bertha Schaefer Gallery which are distinguished by sensitive handling and informing sentiment. Most of these paintings are based on the world of appearance. Ruins, houses in the night, rock forms, aquariums and carnivals come under the artist's scrutiny. But what the young artist sees serves only as a starting point for refreshingly simple and rather poetic semi-abstract images. Mr. Halsey, who was born in Charleston, has had some experience with mural painting. His murals appear at the Dock Street theater and the tabernacle Building of the Beth Elohim Synagogue in Charleston as well as in the Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Mass. It is perhaps this training that accounts for the firm, disciplined structure of his work and his use of pleasing, romantic color for architectonic as well as mood-evoking effects.(43) Further support came from Carlyle Burrows of the Herald Tribune, who entitled his review Poetic Color on May 27:

William Halsey's work at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery is a pleasant reminder of the worth of reality to an artist who has the gift to enliven it with feeling. Many of his paintings are of effects, in themselves poetically enjoyable--such as the shimmer of life in an aquarium, or the suggested moon glow upon building facades. This artist affects no more or less than a studied simplification of his material, passing over complexity in order to achieve a direct and disciplined abstracting. But what he communicates is distinguished by a sensitive approach to painting itself and by effects of pleasing and imaginative color.(44)

In the summer issue, the critic for ArtNews addressed Halsey's hometown inspirations, and commented on both the Southern and Mexican influences on his work. Undoubtedly, the critics found the artist's responses to these personal locales sincere, and recognized the strength of Halsey's subject and style. One wrote:

William Halsey, whose paintings in oil and casein are seen for the first time in New York, has responded to his native South--he paints and teaches in Charleston--with a feeling for its lyrical atmospheres. Especially in his large caseins he has developed impressions of small town facades into fluid overlapping patterns. Transcending this consistent decorative interest, however, are several oils in which severe planal transparencies are used incisively to imply space with surprising effect, as in Mexican Landscape, or to underscore human interest, as in Southern Sunset and Onlookers.(45) (Fig. 20)

In the June issue of Art Digest, Margaret Breuning noted inconsistencies in Halsey's work, but praised individual paintings and complimented his use of color. Breuning offered a sharp critical analysis, suggesting Halsey's variety of form and medium presented aesthetic confusion:

Paintings by William Halsey seem to indicate he is going in different directions at one and the same time. Southern Sunset, just edging objectivity, is carefully brushed into gleaming surfaces, while the grouping of rhomboids and square in Mexican Landscape is executed in heavy impasto. Semi-abstractions and non-objective canvases are both included. Some of the most successful paintings are Flight, in which bird forms appear through a heavily woven tapestry of acutely related planes; Aquarium II, vague, yet affording an impression of forms floating in water behind imprisoning glass; Dream Shape, with its heavy bars of green and thrusting rectangles held into effective pattern. In all the work, the artist's color is an important asset, accentuating design lending vitality to the canvases.(46) (Fig. 21) Robert M. Coates, another well-known critic for The New Yorker, added another positive critique:
At the Bertha Schaefer, there's the first local one-man exhibition of paintings by William Halsey. These are mostly landscapes, possibly slight in concept but done in a style whose emphasis on flat-pattern, two-dimensional development gives the artist a good chance to deploy his feeling for vivid color and effective design. I especially admired View from a Train Window, with its effort to convey a sense of the buildings wheeling past; Night Houses, with its moonlit facades; and the well-organized Winter Light.(47)

Halsey's first exhibit was well-received. Yet, despite encouraging critical acclaim, the artist was unsatisfied with his work. He later said: "When I looked at all this stuff and everything was more or less based on geometric shapes, triangles, etc.. . .and everything was cut out, I thought, 'Why can't you do anything that's open, irregular, or indefinite." and that's when I started trying to do things with irregular shapes or ragged edges."(48) Halsey began working more abstractly, using collage and thick textures, but as he developed these new styles and techniques for painting, he also began employing his old skills as a mural painter. In 1951, he accepted a commission to complete a 370 square foot mural in the foyer of the new Baltimore Hebrew Congregation Temple, designed by architect Percival Goodman. Halsey's mural consisted of three scenes, derived from passages in Exodus 3 which describe "the wandering of Moses with the sheep, the burning bush, the angel of God rising from within the flames, and the retreat of Moses (Figs. 22 and 23)."(49) Although the architect's brother, Paul Goodman, a well-known poet and intellectual, assembled the thematic material for the mural, Halsey designed and painted the panels alone. He depicted flat, simplified figures, assembled upon a predominantly blue and green framework of linear, geometrical designs. The composition, unified by a decorative web of strong lines linking together planes of color, the burning bush, the tree, the Tablet of the Law and the figures, presents an abstract and symbolic scene.(50)

The Baltimore mural is another example of Halsey's work in mural and fresco media, but it also presents an important illustration of Halsey's influences from the modern art trade. Details of his studies for the composition show that Halsey experimented with dripping and splattering paint at this time, employing action painting techniques to create background compositions (Fig 24). Furthermore, this commission also marks a notable event from Halsey's period of participation within the established Abstract Expressionist movement. In completing his mural, he joined a number of other artists who also introduced modern art into contemporary synagogues and Jewish community buildings of the time:

During the 1950s and 1960s, approximately one thousand new synagogues were consecrated in the United States, a significant number of which directly commissioned work by Abstract Expressionist artists. The synagogue projects provided the opportunity for many abstract artists to work on large scale and important commismissions. Such noted sculptors as Herbert Ferber, Ibram Lassaw, David Hare, and Seymour Lipton and such painters as Robert Motherwell and Adolf Gottlieb collaborated with architects on synagogue projects at this time.(51)

Halsey was probably aware of the murals and tapestries Gottlieb and Motherwell had created for B'nai Israel, a synagogue designed by Percival Goodman in Milburn, New Jersey in 1951. Here, Motherwell created a sixteen-by-eighteen foot mural in the foyer of the synagogue, illustrating the Twelve Tribes of Israel, the Diaspora, the Ark, and Jacob's Ladder. Gottlieb designed the Ark curtain, later sewn by the women of the congregation (Figs. 25 and 26). This "pioneering collaboration between modern architect and the modern artist" at B'nai Israel "was considered such a success that Goodman was encouraged to undertake similar collaborations."(52) His next project was the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation Temple, where he worked with Halsey, Arnold Bergier, and Amalie Rothschild to design the art and architecture of the synagogue. Sculptor Arnold Bergier designed the Hannukah Menorah and the decor around the Torak Ark. Amalie Rothschild, a local weaver, designed the tapestries for the Ark.

The artists' and architect's studies and plans for the Baltimore temple were collectively exhibited from February 19 through March 17 in a show entitled, Synagogue Art, at the Jewish Museum in New York.(53) Although the exhibition was small, the work did attract the critics' attention. A reviewer for Art Digest, commented, "Halsey's mural consists of strongly colored, stylized figures which resemble those of Byzantine and early mediaeval art, and illustrate the crucial and meaningful events of ancient Jewish history."(54) Another critic for ArtNews noted: "Masquetes for a mural by William Halsey, now in process in the temple lobby, show a pictorial visualization of "Moses and the Burning Bush and The Promised Land". Flatly treated, the willowy figures stand or move across a wall space rather arbitrarily segmented by diagonally divided areas of bright, decorative color."(55)

Halsey spoke on a panel at the opening of the Synagogue Art exhibition in February, and his painting, Aquarium, was included in the Third Annual American Watercolors, Drawings and Prints exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in October and November; however, for most of 1952, Halsey remained in Charleston, teaching art classes at the Gibbes Art Gallery. In October, he applied again for a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He proposed plans to study mural painting in Italy and France, and included a six- page summary of his objectives for using the fellowship. In the application, he described his previous experiences teaching, curating, portrait painting, and completing, "assorted jobs necessary for living and supporting a family." He acknowledged the benefits of teaching and painting on commission, but he also relayed his needs to explore new worlds and find new inspirations: "From teaching art, and from related work often in itself uninspiring, a painter can learn a great deal in the way of discipline and control, both mental and technical. . . but there comes a time in the process of any creative worker, a stage when a period of freedom is necessary for consolidation of ideas and for renewed thought and study."(56)

The Guggenheim Foundation did not grant Halsey's fellowship request, but Halsey's 1952 application provides insight into the artist's mind set, when in the early 1950s, amid positive reviews and pressures from art patrons, he decided to remain in Charleston. Halsey wrote:

I was born in Charleston and I came back here because I felt strongly that there were too many artists in a few areas and too few artists in small cities and towns and that I could be vastly more useful in my native state than any place else. If there was a more general distribution of creative artists working in smaller communities, there would be a wider interest in and understanding of contemporary art in this country. I plan to continue my work and teaching here and the growth of my own painting and thinking will have more than an individual meaning, since it will make my influence and instruction of greater value.(57)

Despite the persistent recommendations of Gertrude Rosenthal, Roland McKinney, Percival Goodman, Karl Zerbe, G.H. Edgel, Bertha Schaefer, Hudson Walker, and James Johnson Sweeney, Halsey chose to continue living in South Carolina.(58) But the deliberation and confusion surrounding his career interests and regional location undoubtedly affected his painting during this time. As he began to work in more abstract compositions, Halsey started to employ thick, impasto techniques, but his results were sometimes inconsistent and overworked. Between 1952 and 1954, Halsey worked to eliminate representational images in his paintings, and slowly, his compositions became color studies of space and shape.

Employing his new painting techniques with casein on Japanese paper, Halsey created Idols (1953), an energetic composition of soft, semi-opaque layers of yellow, browns and grey-blues, defined by gestural outlines (Fig. 27). About the same time, he also experimented with different uses of texture, combining nets and string into his layers of paint. In Incantation (1952), Halsey used flat, pink netted patterns over underlaying shapes of green, orange and black (Fig. 28). These abstract compositions, markedly different from his earlier scenes of row houses and cityscapes, were influenced by the new images of Abstract Expressionism that were emerging in New York at the time. Responding to Pollock's whimsical brush strokes and Rothko's soft, undulating color studies, Halsey developed a new abstract style.

In 1953, Schaefer exhibited his new work in another one-man exhibition. The show included twenty-two paintings employing Halsey's old and new techniques.(59) The critics neither praised nor scorned them. Instead, they dispassionately acknowledged Halsey's skill and technical proficiency without registering genuine reactions to his work. Stuart Preston, critiquing for the "New York Times" wrote a complimentary, but simple analysis of Halsey's techniques. "William Halsey's abstract paintings and monotypes indicate that he is possessed of a pleasing decorative sense, expressed chiefly though color and that he knows how to manipulate texture."

Similarly, Robert Goodnough, writing for ArtNews, addressed Halsey's textures and techniques, but refrained from praising his style or compositions:

William Halsey's latest oils and gouaches approach abstraction and semi-abstraction in a variety of ways. Some depend on heavy, straight lines crossing and intercrossing as they extend across the canvas, with color layers underneath; others are similar but deal with interlocking curves; still others exist through flat areas of color with little use of line. Within these structures, landscapes and figures are recognizable and some through repeated overpainting have acquired heavy textures. "Moon and Nets" in blues and lavenders, because of the texture and heavy curving lines, appears like a stained glass window--the nets acting more as abstract shapes than as recognizable objects. In another picture strings and mesh have been layered into wet pigment, then painted different colors.(60)

Dore Ashton, of ArtDigest, also provided a mixed review. She criticized Halsey for over-working his paintings, but acknowledged his ability to produce balanced and creative compositions:

Having discovered texture, Halsey concentrates on integrating string, mesh, and netting in abstract gouaches and oils. Though competently handled, these paintings frequently strike one as labored and groping. Recognizable textures arbitrarily introduced, heavy overlays of color and form, seem to weigh down these compositions. However, when Halsey is good, he is very good. Several gouache abstractions here reflect his complete understanding of compositional principles.(61)

Despite lackluster reviews from the critics, jurors of the major annual exhibits continued to select Halsey's entries in their 1953 shows. His paintings were chosen for the Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Sculpture, Watercolors and Drawings at the Whitney Museum of American Art from April 9 to May 29, and for the Seventeenth Biennial International Watercolor Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum from May 13 to June 21. He was also included in regional exhibitions, including the Eighth Southeastern Annual Exhibition at the High Museum in Atlanta and the Seventh Annual South Carolina State Exhibition at the Gibbes Art Gallery in Charleston.

In 1954, Halsey worked in Charleston completing a 96-foot long mural for the local Sears, Roebuck and Company store on Calhoun Street. The mural, presented by Sears as The Charleston Story, consisted of four panels and contained images from the history of Charleston. The panels were created on canvas and stretched over plywood set into the wall. Each section was approximately 5' x 25' and contained overlapping images of Charleston's historical trade markets (Figs. 29 and 30).62 Halsey entitled the panorama of murals, Trade Builds a City, basing his images and scenes on the production and exchange of Charleston's historic commodities. A loyal native of Charleston and a descendent of families who had lived in Charleston since the 1700s, Halsey was an obvious choice for the commission. He researched the history of the city and compiled many images of local trade through the centuries, to complete a final product which presented a rich and inclusive consolidation of creative images in an accurate chronology of past events.

This mural provided shoppers with a rhythmical visual interpretation of their local history, but the final product did not benefit Halsey. Creating this mural undoubtedly distracted him from completing his own work developing abstract interests. Executed in a flat, geometric and more realistic style, the mural recalls Halsey's earlier paintings of row houses and city-scapes, not the geometric, free-form abstractions of his mid-1950s work. Clearly, Halsey's hiatus from progressive development and exploration in abstract expressionism affected the quality of his work during this time, despite his continuous involvement and production for the New York gallery scene in these years.

Upon completing the murals, Halsey returned to New York in September of 1955 for the opening of his third major exhibition at the Bertha Schaefer gallery. This two-man exhibit, which also included Manolo Pascual's sculptures, attracted little public attention from the press. One critic, writing for the Sunday Art Exhibition Notes section of the New York Times, assessed Halsey's work: "On the other hand William Halsey's abstract caseins at Bertha Schaefer's yield images. These are vague, diffuse and distorted, it is true, but they are found in nature, whether in the swaying greens of woodland or in the hallucination."(63)

Another critic for the same newspaper wrote a more apathetic review:

To the returning art season Bertha Schaefer gives recognition by presenting together the works of two artists, William Halsey, whose abstract paintings are shown, and Manolo Pascual, whose metallic forms are exhibited. Both these artists are well up with the times. Halsey's work, which stems from the cubist-abstract organization in his Ideograph or city scene, also takes its idea, as in Sierra from modern expressionist art which stems from natural experience. There is much fluency in these works and considerable texture, but the moods are not electric or richly fascinating.(64) Commenting later on the negative reviews of his mid-1950s work, Halsey explained the inconsistencies and confusion that attracted later criticism in the press:

I was down. I got thrown off base because I was too impressionable. I started looking around and everybody was doing abstract paintings, abstract expressionist paintings and I had to try to be with it. All of a sudden, I was trying to turn out a lot of stuff. . .Bertha Schaefer was basically an interior decorator and I listened to her at times when I shouldn't have. The 1953 and 1955 shows weren't really as good and they weren't as honest as the first one. In the long run though, it did me a lot of good.(65)

In the late 1950's, Schaefer continued to include Halsey's work in her annual Fact and Fantasy exhibits, which regularly included Will Barnet, Cameron Booth, Sue Fuller, Balcomb Greene, Gertrude Greene, Hale Woodruff, and Fred Farr.(66) In 1958, she gave him his last small gallery show in New York. 3 Painters and 3 Sculptors, which also included artists Alexander Bing, Joseph Konzal, Jorge de Oteiza, Nicholas Marsciano, and Raymond Rocklin, was exhibited at Bertha Schaefer's gallery from October 7 through 25. Stuart Preston, reviewing the for the "New York Times," wrote a brief synopsis of the show: "Three painters and three sculptors are participating in the group show at Bertha Schaefer's, 32 East Fifty-seventh Street. In the nonobjective painting trip, Marsciano's forceful expressiveness and Halsey's richly colored geometric endeavors make a stronger impression than Bing's densely clotted miniatures."(67)

This final review marked the end of Halsey's critical reception in New York. Although he continued to submit works to annual exhibits and shows, he soon focused his time only on his work, family, and students in Charleston. However, in retrospect, Halsey did pursue an active career in New York during an exciting period of Twentieth-Century American art, and although his position and contribution to the movement may not appear significant to general art historical accounts, his Southern perspective and subject matter does present an interesting interpretation of American abstract art.

(31) Jo Gibbs, "Pepsi Cola Opens 4th Annual--Long on Prizes, Short on Competence," Art Digest 22, 1 October 1947: 9-11. The show continued through November 2 at the National Academy, then traveled to the Rochester Memorial Art Gallery (Nov. 21-Dec. 21), the Cordoran Gallery (Jan.15-Feb. 22) and the Toledo Museum (Mar. 14-Apr. 18).

(32) This show (June 6-July 30) also included works by Messie Boris, Peter Busa, Bernice Cross, Worden Day, Lillian Dubin, Joshua Epstein, Siv Holme, Chet la More, Ary Stillman, N. Vasileff, and Ione Walker.

(33) Alanzo Lansford, "Newcomers Outshine Veterans; Fifty Seventh Street in Review," The Art Digest 22, 1 July 1948: 19.

(34) The ad appeared on page 70 of Time Magazine's June 21, 1948 issue; on page 92 of Business Week and Newsweek June 21; and page 117 of Fortune Magazine, July.

(35) "Modern Art in Advertising; exhibited by the Container Corporation of America," Bulletin of the Portland Museum of Art, v 9, November 1947: 1.

(36) "Modern Art in Advertising: designs for the Container Corporation of America," J.B. Speed Art Museum catalogue, 4. Compiled by Egbert Jacobson of the CCA and Katherine Chandler. Exhibition designed by Herbert Bayer. Exhibition included 102 designs for the Container Corporation.

(37) Art Digest 23, 1 October 1948: 9-11; according to Jo Gibbs' report, this exhibition received positive reviews. Other artists included were Karl Zerbe, Isabel Bishop, and Andrew Wyeth. After leaving the National Academy on October 31, the show traveled to the Milwaukee Art Institute form November 19 to December 26; the Des Moines Art center form January 15 to February 15, and the Butler Art Institute from March 15 to April 17.

(38) According to Schaefer's gallery records, located at the Archives of American Art in Washington, DC, the exhibition dates were Sept. 20-Oct. 16. The show also included architectural design by Carl F. Brauer; Reisner and Urbahn; Elder, Raymond and Breck; and Edward D. Stone. Landscape design by Evelyn Poehler and James Rose. Interior design by Bertha Schaefer. Furniture Design by Harold Bartos, Devon Bennett, Wharton Escherick, Jens Risom, Alexander Styne. Ceramics by Grover Cole, Key-Oberg, Helen C. Phillips, weavings by Emily S. Belding, Abbie J. Blum, Grete Franke, Baroness Galotti, Estelle Heller, Maria Mundell, David D. Tauber. Paintings by Will Barnet, Ben Zion, Bernice Cross, Worden Day, Lillian Dubin, William Halsey, Marsden Hartley, Siv Holme, Lee Krasner, Chet La More, Dwight Marfield, Alfred Maurer, and Vasileff. Sculptures by Wolfgang Behl, Fred Farr, Lekakis, and Hilda Morris.

(39) "Modern House Comes Alive," Architectural Forum 89, October 1948:10.

(40) Fact and Fantasy exhibit included artists Will Barnet, Ben-Zion, Alexander M. Bing, Cameron Booth, Peter Busa, Bernice Cross, Norman Daly, Worden Day, Lillian Ubin, Fred Farr, Sue Fuller, Balcomb Greene, William Halsey, Marsden Hartley, Siv Holme, Linda Lindeburg, A.H. Maurer, Wallace Mitchell, Isaac L. Muse, Ary Stillman.

(41) Halsey Exhibition included Clown, Rock Forms, Onlookers, Southern Sunset, Night Houses, Structures, Mexican Landscapes (lent by the Baltimore Museum), View From a Train Window (lent by Ball state Teachers College), Dream Shape, Aquarium I, Aquarium II, Flight, Carnival, Facades, Nocturne, Ruins, Winter Light, Crab.

(42) "Goings on About Town," New Yorker, 16 June 1951: 11.

(43) Aline B. Louchheim, "Five Art Displays in Galleries Here," New York Times 25 May 1951: 25.

(44) Carlyle Burrows, "Art Review," Herald Tribune 27 May 1951: 59.

(45) D.S., Art News 50, June-July-August 1951: 51.

(46) Margaret Breuning, "Exhibition, Bertha Schaefer Gallery," Art Digest 25, 1 June 1951: 18.

(47) Robert M. Coates, "The Art Galleries," The New Yorker. 2 June 1951: 8.

(48) Morris interview, 1972.

(49) Avram Kampf, Contemporary Synagogue Art: Developments in the United States, 1945-1965 (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1966) 130-31.

(50) Kampf, 132.

(51) Janay Jadine Wong, "Synagogue Art of the 1950s: A New Context for Abstraction." Art Journal 53, Winter 1994: 37-43.

(52) Wong, 36-37.

(53) Art Digest 26, 15 March 1952: 21. Exhibition Dates: February 17-March 17.

(54) Art Digest 26, 21.

(55) Art News 51, March 1952: 57.

(56) Art News 51: 28.

(57) Morris, 29.

(58) Rosenthal was the general curator at the Baltimore Museum of Art; McKinney, the consultant of American Art at the Metropolitan and curator of the Pepsi Art Competition; Goodman, architect of many Jewish synagogues in the 1950s, Zerbe, painting instructor at the Boston museum school and prominent exhibiting artist, Schaefer and Walker, gallery owners, and Sweeney, director of the Guggenheim.

(59)Exhibition included: Circus, Hieroglyph, August Windowshade, Idols, Incantation, Icarus, Tropic, Celestial, Strata, Depths, Fire Dance, Wraiths, Textures, And Moses Covered His Eyes, Angel of Death, Red Lines, Black on Yellow, Conflagration, Moon and Nets, To the Lighthouse, Trawlers, and Volcanoes. Exhibition dates: January 5-24.

(60) Robert Goodnough, ArtNews 51, January 1953: 45.

(61) Dore Ashton, Art Digest 27, 1 January 1953: 22.

(62) The Charleston Story was moved to the Charleston Museum in 1972 when Sears closed the Calhoun Street branch. The panels were destroyed in a fire at the museum in 1980.

(63) Stuart Preston, "New Shows With Wide Variety." New York Times, 25 September 1955: 10x.

(64) "Art Exhibition Notes." New York Herald Tribune, 24 September 1955: 57.

(65) Morris interview, 1972.

(66) The dates of these exhibits were: Fact and Fantasy 1955: May 23-August 26; Fact and Fantasy 1956: May 28-August 24; Fact and Fantasy 1957: May 27 through August 23; Fact and Fantasy 1958: May 26-August 22.

(67) Stuart Preston, New York Times, 10 October 1958: 12x.