Saturday, May 01, 2010

MAURICE KISH, PAINTER

Writing about Raplh's pictures (previous post) got me to thinking about other favorite painters of New York City, including the much-neglected Maurice Kish. That's Kish's masterpiece above, the unromantically named "East Waterfront." It's a dark and moody picture, so you might have turn up the brightness to see it.

The beta Blogger program cut off the rest of this article, which you might be able to read by clicking "Read More" below. The new Blogger templates are great, but putting up posts























  

The beta program I'm using wouldn't let me make a paragraph unless I topped it it with a line...sorry about that. Anyway, Kish was a Russian immigrant and like so many urban Russian artists he tended to reposition his buildings and objects into cute little clusters, as if they were mushrooms or toadstools.  It gives some of his pictures a charming, Golden Book feel, even when the subject matter is gritty and gloomy as it is here. .









More Kish cuteness (above), applied to laborers, cold nights, and dirty industrial buildings.  Kish was clearly put off by the gloomy surroundings people were forced to work in, but he paints the scene in a way that makes us wish we were there.

I love this ability that the best painters have of finding beauty and reason to hope, even in the most depressing circumstances. Kish was a socialist and maybe he thought the ugly reality was mitigated by the nobility of the workers. 
Most of Kish's pictures on the net are reproduced tiny like the one above.  Evidently his estate is concerned about theft.
I tried blowing up one of the thumbnails (above), but it didn't work very well.

FOOTNOTE: It took me forever to put up this simple, straightforward post. While I was typing, para graphs dropped out, font sizes and paragraph alignments changed, pictures vanished, words cut off in awkward places at the ends of lines....Aaaaargh! The new Blogger templates are terrific, but putting up posts to those templates (or at least the one I'm using) is hell! This beta version needs a LOT of fixing before its ready for prime time. If I'd known this I would have stuck with my old format.

I just lost the whole beginning and part of the middle of this post, pictures and text. I haven't got the heart to reconstruct the middle, but I'll take another stab at the beginning. I hope this posts okay.

17 comments:

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

From Eddie: I'm heartbroken! This beta version of Blogger is so buggy that I'm amazed that they released it. The graphic templates are great, but the posting to them is a nightmare. If I'd known this I would have stuck with my old format.

Steven M. said...

Whoa. Good thing I didn't get the beta version.

As for the pictures, I LOVE the dark and gritty atmoshpere in Kish's paintings. Expertly well done.

Anonymous said...

I love how all of these Kish paintings have so much humanity in them. Nothing is watered down. It's exactly how the artist saw the buildings and the people around him. That's what cartoons need to be again, rather than relying on clichés and formulas and filtering out the dark and gritty stuff though some fake, imitation style. I think SpongeBob is one of the few cartoons on TV that actually tries to have some humanity in it still. Just my humble opinion.

Sorry about how Blogger is still giving you a lot of crap, like how it deleted all the comments. Hang on there.

robward said...

It's all silhouettes - sorta, like the contrast is turned all the way up. Edge-y. There's no blurring of boundaries, every thing is clearly deliniated, but still sits properly in a three dimensional landscape. Very.

Alex said...

Something about that style reminds me a lot of other New Deal era paintings. There's a similar one in style in a Post Office up the road.

Off topic, but those federal buildings built in the 30's and 40's were SOLID. Brick and stone built buildings and tons of real wood inside. Kind of makes me wonder how most public buildings went to
such a flat concrete style so quickly in the 50's and 60's.

----> http://www.wpamurals.com/index.htm
This is a interesting site.

Severin said...

Sorry to hear about the blogger troubles!

Kish's paintings remind me of the Ashcan School for art. I think he would have been painting contemporary to them, but I can't dig up enough info on Kish to see if he actually rubbed elbows with any Ashcan artists.

Anonymous said...

The site looks great, Eddie!

talkingtj said...

sometimes i look at old photos and paintings of new york and wonder "what world is this?"-iam a life long new yorker and i sometimes feel like i dont know this city at all.its like going to bed with one woman then waking up with another, not that i mind,its just you never really got to know the first one.look at ralph bashki's new york(1940-1970)then compare it mine(1970-present)very little in common.a lot of visitors just dont get it when they ask you questions about new york and you dont know the answer.shes an ever changing mysterious mistress indeed!

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Ale: Interesting! If you live in L.A., check out the murals in the Central Library.

Unknown said...

Have an original Kish oil painting
It is called Sunset On tthe Farm. I can send you a scan file if you would like just let me know how.


Tony

Anonymous said...

My daughter has a wonderful Maurice Kish painting called "Death of a Horse."Ever heard of it?
On the back it says return to Maurice Kish.She wonders if it's real.
She lives in Kerrville,Texas.
What's the best search site for her?

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Tony: "Death of a Horse?" "Sunset on the Farm?" Hmmm. I don't remember those. At the time I wrote this post I had a book devoted to Kish in front of me, but I no longer have access to that.

Why not post pictures of them on a free Google documents page and send us a link?

Anonymous said...

Hello. Thank you for the suggestion of uploading my Maurice Kish photograph to the google images site. I am inexperienced so I hope this link will take anyone there interested in viewing the "Death of a Horse" Photograph I have. I posted several pictures including the writing on the back that I hope to find to be Maurice Kish's actual handwriting. Thank you for your help!
https://docs.google.com/#owned-by-me
Monique Smith

Anonymous said...

https://docs.google.com/#owned-by-me

I am an inexperienced computer user though Thank you for your suggestion to post a link to view the photograph of Maurice Kish and what I believe to be titled," Death of a Horse." I also have pictures of the backside of the photograph which I am hoping to be of Maurice Kish handwriting. This is an amazing photo I cannot believe I cannot locate it anywhere on the internet!

Anonymous said...

Did Kish ever paint southwestern landscapes? Found a painting but just has artist signature, "kish" Thanks for any help!

Anonymous said...

Maurice Kish was our beloved cousin. thank you for appreciating his art and who he was. Blessings

Karen M said...

Maurice Kish was my mother's cousin and he gave her a painting for a wedding present, 1947. It is of an elderly man and young child walking in a field. It is the same style as his others but the subject matter is not the city scapes he is generally associated with. He also has a note on the back of this one to return to him at the NY address. This painting is done on masonite board/