Celebration
Framed: 38 1/4 × 33 5/16 inches (97.16 × 84.61 cm)
- 220
Fletcher Martin, Los Angeles Museum, December 1–30, 1939, no. 7.
[“Retrospective Group Exhibition”], Midtown Galleries, New York, June–July 1940, no cat.
Fletcher Martin: Exhibition of Paintings, Midtown Galleries, New York, November 11–30, 1940, no. 2.
The One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, January 26–March 2, 1941, no. 378.
Paintings and Drawings by Fletcher Martin, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, MO, September 28–November 2, 1941, no cat.
Tenth Anniversary Loan Exhibition, Midtown Galleries, New York, March 3–21, 1942, no. 10.
American Life, Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, MA, November 22–December 31, 1942, no. 20.
Paintings Loaned by the Friends of Art Collection, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Wichita Art Museum, KS, April 22–May 6, 1956, no cat.
Distinguished Americans, Hackley Art Gallery, Muskegon, MI, September 30–October 28, 1956, no cat.
The Neglected Generation of American Realist Painters: 1930–1948, Wichita Art Museum, KS, May 2–June 14, 1981, unnumbered.
Kansas City Collects KCAI, Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery and Kansas City Art Institute, MO, January 5–26, 1985, unnumbered.
Fletcher Martin was born in Palisade, Colorado, and grew up in Idaho and Washington. His experiences as a migrant farm worker, lumberjack, sailor and boxer inspired his gritty paintings of the 1930s and 1940s that were acclaimed for their bold portrayal of a “surging, vital, often crude and lusty, America.” Celebration, with its emphasis on exaggeration and expressive gesture, typifies Martin’s best compositions. A depiction of isolated overindulgence and lost inhibition, the painting exemplifies the fusion of pathos and humor found in Martin’s art.
In 1941 Martin replaced Thomas Hart Benton on the faculty of the Kansas City Art Institute. The Nelson-Atkins staged a retrospective of his work that year, and Celebration was purchased for the Museum.
To (Midtown Galleries, New York, 1940);
To The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1941.
Alma May Cook, “Fletcher Martin Shows Sign of Changing Style in Newest Exhibition,” Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express, December 9, 1939, B4.
Arthur Millier, “The Art Thrill of the Week,” Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1939, sec. 3, 8.
“Millier Thrilled,” Art Digest 14 (December 15, 1939), 26.
Fletcher Martin, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Museum, 1939), unpaginated.
Howard Devree, “A Reviewer’s Notebook: How the Occident Looks to the Orient—Museum and Gallery Activities,” New York Times, June 9, 1940, X7.
Howard Devree, “Summer Spreads Its Diverse Feast,” New York Times, July 7, 1940, X12.
Ted Cook, “Fletcher Martin,” California Arts and Architecture 57 (September 1940) 17.
Peyton Boswell Jr., “Fletcher Martin: Painter of Memories,” Parnassus 12 (October 6, 1940), 8, 11.
“Ex-Gob Fletcher Martin Goes from Hollywood to Iowa to Paint and Teach,” LIFE, November 11, 1940, 92.
“New York Introduced to Fletcher Martin,” Art Digest 15 (November 15, 1940), 6.
Henry McBride, “Groups and Individuals,” New York Sun, November 16, 1940, 7.
J[eannette] L[owe], “Sure Touch Out of the West: Fletcher Martin,” Art News 39 (November 23, 1940), 12.
Fletcher Martin: Exhibition of Paintings, exh. cat. (New York: Midtown Galleries, 1940), unpaginated.
Peyton Boswell, “The Pennsylvania Annual,” Art Digest 15 (February 1, 1941), 3.
“1-Man Art Show Is Big,” Kansas City Times, September 29, 1941, 8.
“Martin’s Paintings Displayed at Gallery,” Kansas City Star, October 2, 1941, 7.
H[enry] C. H[askell], “Fletcher Martin Takes a Bow on His First Local Exhibit,” Kansas City Star, 3 October 1941, 20.
H[enry] C. H[askell], “New York Gallery-Goer Takes American Painters for a Ride,” Kansas City Star, October 24, 1941, 18.
“Paintings by Fletcher Martin,” Gallery News (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) 8 (October 1941), 1.
“Gift to the Nelson Art Gallery,” Kansas City Star, November 27, 1941, 8.
“News and Notes of Art,” New York Times, December 4, 1941, 30.
“Museums Buy Numerous American Pictures,” Art Digest 16 (December 15, 1941), 6.
“Gift of Fletcher Martin Painting,” Gallery News (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) 8 (December 1941), 8.
List of Paintings, Drawings, and Watercolors Included in One-Man Exhibition of the Works of Fletcher Martin, exh. checklist (Kansas City, Mo.: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), unpaginated.
The One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, exh. cat., 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1941), unpaginated.
“Midtown Galleries Mark Tenth Anniversary with All-Loan Show,” Art Digest 16 (March 1, 1942), 16.
“‘American Life’ Exhibit at Springfield Museum,” Springfield (Mass.) Sunday Union and Republican, November 22, 1942, 6E.
Tenth Anniversary Loan Exhibition, exh. cat. (New York: Midtown Galleries, 1942), unpaginated.
American Life, exh. brochure (Springfield, Mass.: Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, 1942), unpaginated.
“Modern Painters Are Aided by the Friends of Art,” Kansas City Star, April 13, 1947, 9D.
Norman Kent, “Fletcher Martin: A Rugged American Artist,” American Artist 11 (December 1947), 16.
Winifred Shields, “A Special Collection of Works Is Growing at Nelson Gallery,” Kansas City Star, May 19, 1950, 28.
Barbara Ebersole, Fletcher Martin (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1954), x, 12, 45.
Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, Mo.: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 257.
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 253.
Howard E. Wooden, The Neglected Generation of American Realist Painters: 1930–1948, exh. cat. (Wichita, KS: Wichita Art Museum, 1981), 45, 59.
Kansas City Collects KCAI, exh. cat. (Kansas City, Mo.: Kansas City Art Institute, 1985), unpaginated.
Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991), 152–53.
Journal of the American Medical Association 274 (December 27, 1995), 1893, cover.
Margaret C. Conrads, ed. The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: American Paintings to 1945 (Kansas City, Mo.: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), 1: 389–91, 2: 165–66.
