Artopolis 2008 - The Cincinnati Painters

Robert Herrmann (1922-1966)



The Artopolis shows at the Chicago Merchandise Mart
are getting larger -- as they are also getting worse.

Which meant, for me,
that I had to walk more
to find less.

But one of my happy moments was
the Cincinnati Art Galleries booth,
which introduced me to three
hometown painters
I'd never seen before.

I especially enjoyed these
urban landscapes by Robert Herrmann.

And I like his story.

He got a degree in Art History
(about the time I was born)
and wrote a dissertation on
Charles Demuth
but then, instead of
spending his life writing about art,
he spent his life making it

(or, actually, he only spent weekends painting,
and there doesn't seem to be any information
about his work-a-day career)

When he died, his sister took
a few paintings to a dealer,
and now, like Eva Cassidy
in the world of music,
he's had a distinguished posthumous career.







I'm sure that every American city
offers these kinds of views,
but these paintings feel
just like
Cincinnati to me,
a city big enough to really be urban,
and small enough to feel quaint.

(With that bright, clean
Teutonic sense of order
also found in Milwaukee)




Dixie Selden

seems to have been a swinging young Cincy socialite
who traveled around the world
making paintings a hundred years ago.

Above is a view of Tokyo.










Louis Vogt

(along with Dixie,
was also a student of Cincinnati's art hero,
Frank Duveneck.)


My This Old Palette
project has gotten me immersed
in Chicago painting c. 1900-1940,
but I'm kind of liking these Cincinnati painters a bit more.


They seem to have a lighter touch.