Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh (No. 2)

Alternate TitlePaul, Marcella and Van Gogh

Artist Paul Raphael Meltsner (American, 1905 - 1966)

Dateca. 1937

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 36 1/16 × 30 inches (91.6 × 76.2 cm)
Framed: 47 3/16 × 41 3/8 × 3 inches (119.86 × 105.09 × 7.62 cm)

Credit LineGift of Oscar Serlin

Object number40-2/2

SignedSigned lower right: paul meltsner.

On View

Not on view

Collections

American Art

Terms

Exhibition History

1937 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, November 10–December 12, 1937, no. 113;

Paul Meltsner, Midtown Galleries, New York, May 24–June 10, 1938, no. 6 (as Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh).

Office of the Governor, Missouri State Office Building. May 3, 1984-January 4, 198(?).

Gallery Label

This self-portrait by New Yorker Paul Meltsner features not only likenesses of his stately wife and charming wirehaired terrier, Van Gogh, but also a view of one of the artist's industrial scenes, which brought him considerable fame in the 1930s. Holding a hammer instead of a typical brush and palette, Meltsner expresses identification with workers like the one included in the painting behind him. The composition's smooth and volumetric forms, which appear like products of an assembly line, tie Melstner more subtly to proletarianism, a celebration of workers' culture that attracted many American artists throughout the period. Melstner's style translated easily and successfully into the widely accessible medium of printmaking, a pursuit that further strengthened his affiliation with 1930s proletarianism.

Provenance

Oscar Serlin, New York, by 1940;

His gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1940.

Published References

1937 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, exh. cat. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1937), unpaginated.

possibly Leonard Lyons, “Its Closest Competitor Is First to Applaud Critics’ Prize Play,” Washington Post, April 24, 1938, TT2 (as Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh).

J[eannette] L[owe], “New Exhibitions of the Week: Farm Scenes Replace Urban Subjects in Recent Paintings of Meltsner,” Art News 36 (May 28, 1938), 15–16 (as Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh).

M. U., “New Art Group Holds Display: Meltsner and Others Also Seen in Exhibitions,” New York Sun, May 28, 1938, 9 (as Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh).

Paul Meltsner, exh. cat. (New York: Midtown Galleries, 1938), unpaginated (as Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh).

“A Gift to the Nelson Gallery,” Kansas City Star, January 19, 1940, 5 (as Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh).

“Meltsner for K.C.,” Art Digest 14 (February 15, 1940), 8.

“Gifts to the Collection,” Gallery News (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) 6 (February 1940), 6 (as Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh).

clipping, c. 1940, NAMA curatorial files (as Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh).

“Canine Art Critic and Model,” Boston Traveler, May 10, 1946, 30.

Winifred Shields, “A Special Collection of Works Is Growing at Nelson Gallery,” Kansas City Star, May 19, 1950, 28 (as Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh).

Ned Emerson, “Artist to Restore Basilio’s World Crown for All Time,” Herald-Journal (Syracuse, N.Y.), May 28, 1956, 2.

Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, Mo.: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 257 (as Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh).

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, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 253 (as Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh, No. 2).

Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991), 154.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collections. 6^th ed. (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 249.

Journal of the American Medical Association 275 (May 1, 1996), 4, 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: 22, 385-88 (repro.), 2: 163-64 (repro.).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 181 (repro.).

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