John Dos Passos and His World September 26 to December 7, 2003 Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond Museums On September 26, 2003, the Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond Museums, will open John Dos Passos and His World. One of America’s most innovative writers, John Dos Passos (1896-1970) also completed more than four hundred paintings and drawings that chronicle his life’s journeys. Included in this exhibition are over 50 watercolor paintings, drawings, and book illustrations by Dos Passos. Also featured are seven artworks created for or given to the author by his friends and colleagues, such as Fernand Léger, Wood Gaylor, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and Waldo Peirce. In fifty years, Dos Passos wrote forty-two literary works, and his novels Manhattan Transfer (1925) and the trilogy U.S.A. (published together in 1938) provide a panoramic social history of the first three decades of the twentieth century. Similarly, his paintings addressed the world around him, his friends, and his travels. Included in this exhibition are landscapes from Manhattan, Mexico, and North Africa, portraits of friends and figure studies, and illustrations from plays and novels. This exhibition highlights the works that portray Dos Passos’ desire to capture the spirit and times in which he lived. He aimed to reveal what he called “the creative tidal wave that spread over the world, from the Paris of before the last European war” (cited from the foreword to his translation of Blaise Cendrars’ Panama, or the Adventures of My Seven Uncles (1931), which Dos Passos also illustrated). The colorful, striking landscapes and insightful portraits by Dos Passos provide rare pictorial commentary into this exciting era.
Dos Passos felt it was his obligation as an artist to depict both the objective and subjective realities of specific moments in the most contemporary styles of the period. Most important, his works reflect his belief that the artist’s creative process must originate from within his or her own inventive passion. The brilliant tones and interpretive, abstract images of his art demonstrate this philosophy as well as his love for painting. The intellectual and artistic development of Dos Passos was first nourished through his acquaintances with Picasso, Léger, and the Russian émigré Natalia Gontcharova. In the summer of 1922, Dos Passos studied with Robert Laurent at Hamilton Easter Field’s art colony in Ogunquit, Maine. He later exhibited his works in New York City at the National Arts Club in 1922; at the Whitney Studio Club in 1923; at group exhibitions of the Salons of America mounted at the Ander Galleries in 1924 (twice, at exhibitions that included works by Picasso and Matisse), 1925, 1927, 1928; and at the R.C.A. Building in Rockefeller Center in 1934. John Dos Passos and His World incorporates many of the works from The Art of John Dos Passos, an exhibition originally organized and circulated by International Arts & Artists in conjunction with Lucy Dos Passos Coggin, the artist’s daughter. Curators for the exhibition’s presentation at the Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond Museums, are Lucy Dos Passos Coggin and Welford Dunaway Taylor, James A. Bostwick Professor of English, University of Richmond, with assistance from N. Elizabeth Schlatter, Assistant Director, University Museums. At the Marsh Art Gallery, University Museums, the exhibition is made possible in part with the generous support of the University’s Cultural Affairs Committee.