“Crafting the Dream,” Initiatives in Art and Culture’s 29th annual American Art Conference, takes place May 8 through 10 at Heritage Auctions in New York City. Drawing an impressive roster of scholars, curators and artists, it is at the forefront of critical inquiry in the field.

This year’s conference considers American art through the twin lenses of “dream” and “craft,” acknowledging an incontrovertible connection between the two, informed by the conviction that, just as there is no art without craft, there is no craft without art.

Sargent Claude Johnson (1888-1967), Head of a Boy, ca. 1928. Glazed terracotta, 7½ x 4¾ x 6 in. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, purchased with funds from the Art Collectors’ Council and the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation Acquisition Fund for American Art.

 

All art, it can be argued, begins with a dream, whether of subject, stylistic approach, medium, message, or of all of these. No one more overtly recognized the role of the dream in artistic production than the surrealists, and the conference will focus in part on the movement’s impact on and reverberations within American art.

Critic, art historian, professor and author Mary Ann Caws will discuss her relationships with, and her writings on, some of the most compelling figures in surrealism, from French painter Jacqueline Lamba to Breton. Marie Difilippantonio, director of the Jean and Julien Levy Foundation, and co-author of Julien Levy: The Man, His Gallery, His Legacy (2023), will consider Levy’s legacy and the women artists whose work was exhibited in his gallery. One such artist was first-generation New York School artist Jeanne Reynal whose largely abstract mosaics challenged expectations of the medium. Reynal will be the focus of a talk by curator and writer Jennifer Samet. Katherine Skolnik, co-author of The Art Deco Murals of Hildreth Meière (2014), will explore Meière’s mosaics and murals which employ a “moderne” style while often celestial, astrological, or mythological in subject.

Julius LeBlanc Stewart (1855-1919), The Hunt Supper, 1889. Oil on canvas, 47 x 73 in. Private collection.

 

In keeping with the observation, generally ascribed to Oscar Wilde, that art renders the useful useless, Larry List, who has written about Dada and surrealism and is author of the forthcoming Permanent Attraction: Man Ray & Chess, and Eugene Hecht, lead author of the definitive George Ohr: The Greatest Art Potter on Earth (2013), will bring their perspectives to the distinctive work of the Mississippi ceramicist whose twisted and crumpled bowls and vases were essentially “useless” from a practical perspective.

Erika Doss, author of Spiritual Moderns: Twentieth-Century American Artists and Religion (2023), will reflect on the work of Joseph Cornell, relating it to that of other American modernists who worked with varied media, such as Arthur Dove and to that of Hannelore Baron.

Arthur Dove (1880-1946), The Critic, 1925. Assemblage of paper, newspaper, fabric, cord, broken glass, watercolor and graphite pencil on board, 19½ x 13 x 2¼ in. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Historic Art Association of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Mr. and Mrs. Morton L. Janklow, the Howard and Jean Lipman Foundation, Inc., and Hannelore Schulhof; 76.9.

 

Katie Jentleson, curator at the High Museum of Art, will discuss the drawing practice of Minnie Evans, a Southern artist drew inspiration from the unconscious and from her sleeping and waking dreams. Robert Cozzolino, a contributor to Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art (2021), will consider the depiction of other worlds in the work of magic realist Ivan Albright.

The contemporary artist Stephen W. Hannock is renowned for his large-scale, imaginary landscapes, often bearing textual messages, work in clear homage to that of Thomas Cole and other artists of the Hudson River School. Hannock will discuss his signature “luminosity” and the relationship between the artist’s original dream and the work that springs from it.

Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), A Parrot for Juan Gris, 1953-54. Box construction, 7¾ x 123⁄16 x 45⁄8 in. The National Gallery, Collection of Robert and Aimee Lehrman, Washington, D.C., in honor of Aimee Lehrman; 2023.124.1. Image courtesy The New York Times.

 

Public works programs, including the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps, were part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, an effort in part to restore the American Dream. Scholar and curator John P. Murphy will discuss his forthcoming book New Deal Art: Culture and Crisis in the Great Depression and the legacy of the artists who made up the New Deal art programs and the art, often found in public spaces, they left behind.

Sargent Claude Johnson, a Black modernist who, in varied media, presented his figures with dignity will be discussed by Jacqueline Francis, curator of a recent exhibition about the artist. These works contrast with those of Gilded Age expatriate artist, Julius LeBlanc Stewart. The subject of a new book Sweet Life: Julius Leblanc Stewart and Painting the Belle Epoque (2024), Stewart’s life and oeuvre will be the focus of a panel of contributors to the volume, among them Jacqueline Francis, Valerie Ann Leeds and James W. Tottis.

George E. Ohr (1857-1918), Vase, 1900. Earthenware, 117⁄16 x 63⁄8 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of Robert A. Ellison Jr., 2017; 2017.357.11.

 

Yet another way of understanding a dream is as the manifestation of a particular vision. Thus, a panel discussion will explore the vision fundamental to any reinstallation of artwork. Among the panelists are Robert Cozzolino and Stephanie Sparling Williams. Williams’ recent re-installation of the Brooklyn Museum’s American art collection poses important questions about inclusivity in the story of American art.

Lastly, speakers will consider how the picture frame can shape expression of an artist’s dream. Frame authority Tracy Gill will explore the transformative power of the frame; while Jennifer Thompson, curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, will delve into the re-framing of Mary Cassatt’s painting Woman in a Loge from a French gilded style frame to a modern interpretation of its original. Joining the discussion is Suzanne Smeaton, a pioneer in the study and scholarship of America period frames.

Tracy Gill (left) and Marty O’Brien (center) pictured with Lisa Koenigsberg, founder and president of Initiatives in Art and Culture, at the 2024 American Art Conference, “Multiple Modernities.” 

 

The conference will continually return to the twin lenses of “craft” and “dream.” By looking closely through these separate yet confocal lenses, the goal is to derive a deeper, more nuanced understanding of American art in its many dimensions. Visit www.artinitiatives.com to register. —

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