George Tooker retrospective at Pennsylvania Academy (2nd review)

An altogether different sort of painting is now on view in Philadelphia. It is one replete with art historical references— here Bosch, now Botticelli, Bellini, Sasseta, Piero della Francesca, Caravaggio, Magritte and more— yet seamlessly crafted and uniquely the artist's own. In this retrospective exhibition of 60 of George Tooker's works, we first see pictures connoting alienation, existential angst, injustice and mindless conformity then give way to ones featuring moments of peace, serenity and spiritual fulfillment.

Ultimately, life painted according to George Tooker is one that offers hope. Showing us in his paintings just what we human beings are really like, he suggests how we might be transformed by trying to live differently.

George Tooker is a masterful conjurer of visual imagery, yet by no means can we say that he is merely an "eye." His paintings work big themes often left to the realm of literature. Yet these paintings don't tell stories per se but rather evoke feelings— visual suggestions made through references to themes and symbols known to us, embedded in our canon.

For instance, allusions to 13th-Century Italian painting through figural gesture or style in rendering rocks, sky, insects, birds, etc., remind us and underscore that we are dealing with what is timeless in these pictures. The same holds true for Tooker's allusions to the surrealist style of repeating multiple geometrics and vanishing points of a composition.

A master of quick-drying egg tempera

Tooker mastered his egg tempera technique rather early in his career, and then went on to explore content for his paintings. We see no struggle (as we do in, say, Cézanne) to master his medium of paint over time. From his exquisite Self-Portrait as a young man holding a delicately pearlescent shell (yes, that is pearlescent in egg tempera!), painted in 1947, to his most recent self-portraits of the 1990s, Tooker handles the difficult medium of tempera with aplomb.

Adopting this medium while attending the Art Students League in New York, Tooker achieved jewel-like tones by layering glazes of paint. Tempera is quick drying and difficult to alter once applied. Viewers who understand that this medium requires maximum patience and focus to apply can especially appreciate his achievement in rendering light.

Paintings such as The Garden Party (1952), which feature luminous Japanese lanterns recalled from summer evenings of Tooker's youth, and The Artist's Daughter (1955), where light is beautifully dappled on a brick wall behind the figure of a young girl, consummately reveal the artist's skill.

Souls in isolation

The paintings as arranged in the Fisher Brooks Gallery of the Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building do take us on a journey. We can start with the aforementioned Self-Portrait and then proceed to the Bosch-like Children and Spastics (1946), a visual parable of the cruelty of children to children. Then we can travel to works of Tooker's social protest period, including the well-known Subway, revealing the "multiplier effect" of lines and angles conveying the anxiety harbored by individuals in certain public spaces.

Also of this period is Standing Figures (1973), a portrait of glassy-eyed figures perched in repeating rows of coffin-like boxes. I'm reminded of the line from the M. Night Shyamalan movie, The Sixth Sense: "I see dead people everywhere!" These pictures are about souls in isolation, and Tooker declares that people must change in spite of the challenges involved in doing so.

From here we find pictures of figures in open windows and in interior scenes taken from Tooker's observations of life in Brooklyn in the 1950s. Some, like Window 2 (1956), hint at the societal consequences of coupling for men and women of mixed race and ethnicity. Others, like Red Carpet (1953-54) and Jukebox (1953), feature the positivities of life experienced by Hispanic and Italian immigrants in Brooklyn who lived in close proximity to Tooker when they were painted.

The Catholic influence

Paintings such as Lunch (1964, above) and Supper (1963) describe themes of social injustice. Here, the struggles of the African American in society are explored. References to Dr. Martin Luther King and the poetry of Langston Hughes are invoked.

The death of his lifetime partner William Christopher moved Tooker to embrace Catholicism as his faith in 1976. At this point the viewer sees more of a preoccupation with themes that resonate grace, wisdom and the necessity of compassion even though life is the way it is. Pictures such as The Embrace (1979) and Dark Angel (1996) hallmark this period. The seamless blending of tones, the marvelously shaped ovoid forms and mellifluous rhythms of these paintings soothe the viewer into a state of peacefulness.

I found the works in this exhibition extraordinarily rich, both visually and thematically. It is certainly difficult to gulp it all down in just one visit, even when ably assisted by a knowledgeable docent. I therefore suggest visiting at least twice or more.


To read another review by Anne R. Fabbri, click here.