From the Executive Director 

Dear FIA members,

Art with Attitude

“Don’t take me as an authority. You have to settle all these matters for yourself.”

—Robert Henri

Robert Henri’s advice to his students captures the independent spirit of American artists in the early 20th century. As a working artist and teacher, he influenced many generations of artists, encouraging individuality and subverting the dominant art trends. In the exhibition American Realism: Visions of America 1900–1950, organized by the Flint Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, and the Muskegon Museum of Art, you will be able to see how artists grappled with the need to express themselves personally and also to define a national identity—to try and answer the question: what is American about American art?

In just five decades, a lot happened in the United States, not to mention the world at large. The magnitude of these changes was not lost on artists, and they seized this time to create what would become “American art,” though that term is less about style as much as it is about attitude. By attitude, I mean a point of view, a stance, taking up space in contrast to what came before.

While most American artists in the late 19^th and early 20th century were influenced by European art and its capital of culture, Paris, what they wanted to portray started to evolve. They woke up to what was going on in their own backyard and decided the best way to capture the rapid changes was in the manner of “realism”—showing all aspects of life, from workplaces to domestic life, from fast cars to amusement park rides, from the metropolis to the countryside. They did not flinch to portray both the harsh realities of life (poverty, unemployment, and alienation caused by world wars and the Great Depression) and its lighter, escapist side (the release valves of movies, boxing, circuses, and beaches). These works are not monolithically American, however, and with every attempt to define a national identity, omissions and oversights occur. For this reason, the curators Rehema Barber, Sarah Kohn and Rachael Holstege (co-curators), and Art Martin (respectively from Kalamazoo, Flint, and Muskegon) include sections on African American and women artists as an acknowledgement that not every artist had the same experience, privilege, or opportunity afforded to them by the majority white, male institutions.

This variety of “visions” was made possible by a collaboration of three Michigan museums, pulling together their collections, as well as loans from the Detroit Institute of Arts, Art Bridges, and several Michigan (and Flint) private collections. According to an article by James D. Balestrieri, in the summer issue of Art & Antiques magazine, “… one of the signal achievements of [the exhibition] is that it serves as a reminder of the strength of the collections in Michigan museums.” There would be no strength of collections here without the vision and generosity of collectors and patrons who have donated or provided funds to amass these works. The people who have collected and loved this art over the years bear testimony to the power of art to capture something about ourselves.

Whether the works in this exhibition express an American or individual attitude, I say, in the paraphrased words of Henri, don’t take my word for it, see for yourself.