Robert Gwathmey: The Life and Art of a Passionate Observer

A white, Virginia-born social realist painter, Gwathmey produced marvelous pictures of African-American life, mostly in the agrarian South. His characters are not historical emblems but have their own unsentimentalized humanity and quiet dignity. In Gwathmey's distinctive angular style, these figures seem to be outcasts, despised and exploited by white society, yet imbued nonetheless with perseverance, solidarity and hope rather than despair. In this superbly illustrated monograph, Kammen (American Culture, American Tastes, just out from Knopf; see PW Interview, Aug. 2, Forecasts, June 14), a professor of American history and culture at Cornell, gauges the achievement of a man whom the FBI kept under surveillance for 27 years because of his Communist Party affiliations, his strong support for black culture and his outspoken, courageous stance against racial discrimination. Moving to New York in 1942 with his wife, the photographer Rosalie Hook, Gwathmey went on to explore the ironies of race relations during the 1950s, even as abstract expressionism eclipsed his brand of realist commentary. Kammen captures the evolution of the artist's work as it registered the seismic shifts of the civil rights movement and chronicles the self-destructive streak--including alcoholism and an extramarital affair--that may have kept Gwathmey from realizing his full potential. Never quite the equal of his contemporaries Ben Shawn and Jack Levine, Gwathmey (1903-1988) nevertheless proves worthy of this major reappraisal. (Sept.) FYI: An exhibition of Gwathmey's work, co-curated by Kammen and Augustus Freundlich, will travel to five cities beginning in September.