dward Hopper and the Urban Realists” exhibit is on tour from the Whitney Museum of American Arts. It is one of the largest art shows for the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) this year. Salt Lake City is the fourth of six stops the national tour will make. The show runs from May 17 through Aug. 24.

The title “Edward Hopper and the Urban Realists” suggests Edward Hopper is the main focus. It should have been named “If You Can Define Realism, I’ll Give You Twenty Bucks.”

The exhibit does make specific references to Hopper, however, the pieces on display, dating roughly from 1900 to 1940, span across many sub-genres of what is ambiguously referred to as Realism.

Hopper’s work barely outnumbers the other artists and it is by no means his best work. The other artists’ material is outstanding and may help you discover your next favorite artist.

Edward Hopper's "Summer Interior" reflects the RED staff's everyday lives.

The Ashcan Artists, a group to which Hopper belonged, attempted to paint mundane, real- life scenes. The Fourteenth Street Artists was a group of Social Realists whose work reflected a special regard for the people and their plight. The Precisionists were preoccupied with steel structures and made no attempted to comment on society, and although they aimed at avoiding references to the time period, they inevitably did.

Hopper is best associated with the Ashcan School, which gets its name from the everyday scenes in life. These artists were not interested in painting grandiose scenes; a painting of an ash can (a garbage-can-like ashtray) would suffice.

Robert Henri mentored the Ashcan movement. His spirited teaching required his students to become parts of their society. According to Henri, “Those who produce the most satisfactory art are those who are absorbed in the civilization in which they are living.”

“In my day, you had to go to Paris. Now you can go to Hoboken; it’s just as good,” Hopper once explained, prior to his death in 1967. Both Henri and Hopper made several visits to study in Europe—France in particular. On exhibit are some of Hopper’s Parisian works.

Of the eight original Ashcan Artists, the big names on exhibit are John Sloan, George Luks, George Bellows and Guy Pène du Bois.

The Social Realists, sometimes referred to as the Fourteenth Street School, with the exception of George Grosz, focused on the workers, the unemployed or even the female shoppers—a group that obeyed what was said to be the patriotic duty to consume.

“This is the art that is not meant to be put in bedrooms or boudoirs,” explained UMFA docent Pam Weilenmann. “It is not made to be pretty.”

“Soyer’s ‘Employment Agency’ expresses the pathos of disillusioned, dejected, weary people who had little choice but to endure the humiliation of endless waits for a job opportunity that usually did not materialize,” said Mary Francey, curator of Modern American art at the UMFA.

Francey explains how these artists are dealing with the mechanization of consumer- oriented goods, immigration, migration (primarily from the south), unemployment and the heavy flirtation with socialism in publications and public art.

You can expect to see many artists at the exhibit who fit into this category. George Grosz, a German-naturalized American with a political style not unlike that of the New Yorker’s cartoons and the Soyer brothers are some of the exhibit’s must-see artists.

Precisionism often paints the steel factories as flat and geometric as possible. Charles Sheeler, with a strange reverence for the factory, said, “every picture should have a steel structure.”

Through the angular movement of the Precisionist pieces, nothing seems alive. There is no smoke floating up from the coal machines, no impurities or dirt grimey blemishes on the factory walls or people exhausted from working their dead-end jobs.

Realism is a broad category to choke down, from the works of human emotion to material that seems utterly devoid of any sensitivity. The exhibit gives a bit of everything a person may need to start making sense of early 20th century art in New York. I wish you the best of luck, let the docents guide you.

The UMFA creates an exhibit that caters to everyone. The audio guide is especially useful. So if you are a student and already get in for free, pay the extra $2 and learn something.

Children are welcome and a children’s activity book, created by UMFA, is also available. “Some lines are as though they would like to run off the canvas,” Robert Henri said. It is no longer a rigid necessity to color within those restrictive lines.

A free symposium open to the public will take place this Friday, May 30 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the UMFA auditorium. Also held at the UMFA will be an Urban Realist film series starting at 1 p.m. on Wednesday.

Immerse yourself in old New York through the artwork created during one of its most turbulent times. You will be graced with a little more intelligence.
stephanie@red-mag.com