Lecture 5: George Sotter and American Industry: Industrial Pittsburgh v. Rural Bucks County

George Sotter's early contemporaries included Robert Henri and John Sloan who came to be associated with the "Ashcan School" and relocated from Philadelphia to New York City early in the 20th century. These artists believed their work should engage with the contemporary realities, all aspects of modern life. They painted a transforming cityscape that included elevated trains, ghettoes and scenes from daily life. Their gritty realism, however, soon became challenged by modern photography. By the end of World War I, during the boom of the 1920s, a more optimistic mood prevailed and painted images of New York by Ernest Lawson, Georgia O'Keeffe and Edward Hopper portray a very different tone and style than those of the previous generation. Nonetheless, this mood gave way to the Depression and World War II. When we look at Sotter's painting of the Blast Furnace we must consider competing narratives of artists who depicted the Great Migration, the hard edges of industrialism, and the nostalgia of Norman Rockwell as a frame for his 1942 painting.

Suggested Reading:

Frances K. Pohl. Framing America: A Social History of American Art. Third Edition. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2012.

William B. Scott and Peter M. Rutkoff. New York Modern: The Arts and the City. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

Lecture 4: Who is George Sotter?

While we have discussed George Sotter in terms of his painting and its relationship to the American landscape tradition, the interest in light and color of the Impressionists, and the development of art colonies such as Cos Cob and New Hope, we have yet to really delve into who Sotter was. This week we will look at his personal and artistic biography.  Sotter identified as an artist as a very young man and married another artist, Alice Bennett, who became his partner in life and industry. Our focus on biography leads to the specific professional importance of stained glass in the development of his career, which only receives minor attention in the museum exhibition. Sotter was a devoted Catholic and the windows relate to specific principles of good liturgical design advocated by the Church after 1912 and in the mainstream by the 1920s. This medieval style also relates to a second revival of interest in medieval arts, of which John D. Rockefeller's construction of The Cloisters, which opened to the public in 1938. The lens of his artisanal production affords an interesting angle for consideration of his painting subjects, which we will consider both during his early years and his mature work. Sotter's artistic subjects and styles, as well as his preeminence in the juries of the Phillips Mill exhibitions, aligns him with the conservative faction of the Pennsylvania Academy after World War I.

Suggested reading:

Farnsworth, Jean M., Carmen R. Croce and Joseph F. Chorpenning. Stained Glass in Catholic Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Saint Joseph's University Press, 2002.

Leeds, Valerie Ann. George Sotter: Light and Shadow. Doylestown: James A. Michener Art Museum, 2017. Exhibition catalogue.

Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation. “George W. Sotter (1879-1953), Pittsburgh.” (March 21, 2008). http://phlf.org/2008/03/21/george-w-sotter-1879-1953-pittsburgh/.

Pitz, Marylynne. “Snowy city landscape by George Sotter up for auction.”Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (28 October 2015). http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/art-architecture/2015/10/28/Snowy-city-landscape-by-George-Sotter-up-for-auction/stories/201510260191.

Smith, Stephen J. “Stained Glass Windows for Mausoleums were Big Business for Rudy Bros. Co.” (16 October 2015). http://www.yorkblog.com/yorkspast/2015/10/16/stained-glass-windows-for-mausoleums-were-big-business-for-rudy-bros-co/

Sydney, Patricia Tanis. "The Visual Arts." In The Genius Belt: The Story of the Arts in Bucks County. Edited by George S. Bush. Introduction by James A. Michener. Doylestown: James A. Michener Art Museum in association with The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996. 111-150.

Lecture 3: American Impressionism Art Colonies; Cos Cob and New Hope

George Sotter is linked to the Bucks County Impressionists in Light and Shadow at the Michener Museum both in venue and through associated artists. The artists who gathered around the Phillips Inn in New Hope around 1900 participated in a trend of establishing rural colonies that were easily accessible to cities, generally near a water source, and where like-minded individuals provided socialization, discourse and encouraged practice as professionals. In this lecture we consider the differences between a colony that emerged in Cos Cob, Connecticut, with John Twachtman at the center, and the one that developed in New Hope, where William Lathrop and Edward Redfield were the leading luminaries. Redfield drew Sotter into the community and the younger artist purchased a house in the area in 1920, 22 years after the colony first formed, and as Impressionism had begun to ebb in popularity.

Gerdts, William H. American Impressionism. 2nd ed. New York: Abbeville Press, 2001.

Larkin, Susan G. The Cos Cob Art Colony: The Impressionists on the Connecticut Shore. New York: National Academy of Design, 2001.

Peterson, Brian H., ed. Pennsylvania Impressionism. Philadelphia and Doylestown: James A. Michener Art Museum and University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. Exhibition catalog.

George Sotter, Moonlight Bucks County, c. 1935

George Sotter Events at the Michener

George Sotter: Painter, Glassmaker, Storyteller

“George Sotter: Painter, Glassman, Storyteller; The Spectacular, Gothic, Stained Glass Windows of Sacred Heart Church in Pittsburgh, PA

$10 member / $20 non-member / $5 student with valid ID, includes Museum admission.
Advance registration required.
Galleries are open until 4:30 pm.
By John Kelly, stained glass artist and restoration expert”

Lecture 2: American Impressionism via Paris and Giverny

The Impressionist movement is identified with an independent initiative by the Private Company of Artists, Painters, Sculptors, Engravers, etc., who organized eight group shows between 1874 and 1886, bypassing France's official Salon system. The critic and painter Louis Leroy (1812-1885) used the term "Impressionist" disparagingly, mocking the lack of finish in works like Claude Monet (1840-1926) Impressionism, Sunrise (1872), but also condemning the insolence of the young artists who exhibited. American artists who are called Impressionists do have some connections to Monet and the members of the Private Company of Artists. Landscape painters such as the much younger Bucks County painter Edward Redfield (1869-1965) painted en plein-air, observing directly from nature, a practice associated with Monet and the Impressionists. American artists such as Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts [PAFA] faculty member, Robert Vonnoh, gathered at international colonies like Grez-sur-Loing, near Fontainebleau, and brought back to the United States the experimental radical artistic ideas of the French Impressionists. The small village of Giverny, home of Monet after 1883, became a center of American Impressionism closely connected to his landscapes and color ideas, which was frequented by Theodore Robinson (1852-1896) and Lilla Cabot Perry (1848-1933). Paris studios, the colonies at Grez-sur-Loing and Giverny, support for American Impressionism at PAFA, fostered a rich network that reached its heydey between the 1890s and the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition.

Suggested reading:

Bourguingnon, Katherine M., ed. Impressionist Giverny: A Colony of Artists, 1885-1915. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Exhibition catalog.

Gerdts, William H. American Impressionism. 2nd ed. New York: Abbeville Press, 2001.

Peterson, Brian H., ed. Pennsylvania Impressionism. Philadelphia and Doylestown: James A. Michener Art Museum and University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. Exhibition catalog.

Weinberg, H. Barbara. “American Impressionism.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aimp/hd_aimp.htm (October 2004)

Theodore Robinson, Low Tide, Riverside Yacht Club, 1894--Image belongs to Metropolitan Museum of Art. http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/19523