An exhibition at the Michener Museum shows both sides of Charles Rosen.
By: Jessica Loughery
It’s almost as if the name "Charles Rosen" belongs to two different people in America’s rich art history. There’s Charles Rosen of New Hope, Pa., the successful Impressionist landscape painter who lived alongside the Delaware River with his family. And then there’s Charles Rosen of Woodstock, N.Y., the modernist painter of townscapes and other structures who taught at a local art school to make a living as he struggled with his artwork.
How does one man achieve two totally different artistic careers in one lifetime? And why would he want to? The James A. Michener Art Museum’s New Hope location explores these questions with its current retrospective exhibition, Form Radiating Life: The Art of Charles Rosen, on view at the museum’s Della Penna Gallery through Jan. 28.
"(Mr. Rosen) started out in a very traditional landscape mode and then rather suddenly made this really radical switch," says senior curator Brian Peterson. "It’s like his life was separated into two distinct parts. In New Hope, the Woodstock work is almost completely unknown and thought of as this deranged work. For the Woodstock people, the landscape work kind of exists in this far off yesteryear that nobody is really aware of. What I wanted to do was try and look at him as a single person, figure out what he did and why he did what he did."
Charles Rosen was born in 1878 in Reagantown, Pa., on the western side of the state. He moved to New Hope in 1903, after he and his wife, Mildred Holden, honeymooned there some months before. By 1916, he was more than settled with a lucrative career as one of the many successful Bucks County Impressionist painters.
The paintings from this period are vibrant landscapes, primarily of the Bucks County area. Mr. Rosen loved the Delaware River and painted it from various angles at different points in the year. Many of these riverscapes, like "Delaware Thawing," dated 1906, portray an ice- and snow-covered river with blues and grays, while others contrast the sharp blue of the water with the green of the rolling hills beyond in summer or spring.
In time, Mr. Rosen built a house on the Delaware for his family, which expanded to include two daughters: Katharine, born in 1905, and Mary, born in 1910. His friends consisted of famous and influential Bucks County artists such as William Lathrop and John Folinsbee. By his late 30s, he had made it as an artist.
But, according to Mr. Peterson, something inside Mr. Rosen wasn’t exactly complete. "If you look at the landscapes," Mr. Peterson says, "it’s clear that he never really settled into one singular way of working as a landscape painter." Mr. Peterson calls some of the works "moody" and "poetic," while others show a French Impressionistic influence. Still others are experimental and even display a bit of a Japanese influence.
"Even though he was very, very good at landscape," Mr. Peterson says, "nothing quite took… something internal to him wasn’t satisfied."
There may even have been a breaking point for Mr. Rosen. Tom Wolf, professor of art history at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., has studied the well-known and influential art colony of Woodstock in great depth, including the life and work of Charles Rosen.
"It is often said that a retrospective exhibition is traumatic for an artist," he writes. "Rosen’s move to a modernist style was preceded by an exhibition of his impressionist works in 1917 that traveled to five cities and coincided with his being elected a full Academician at the National Academy of Design, the stronghold of artistic conservatism." It’s possible that well-established success itself caused Mr. Rosen to turn inward, re-evaluate his own style and, eventually, reinvent himself.
Furthermore, "(Mr. Rosen) was aware that modernism was happening," Mr. Wolf says. "He wanted to be a part of it."
Extensive research on Mr. Peterson’s part turned up very few clues regarding Mr. Rosen’s thought process during the time his artwork was changing, around 1917 to 1918. There are no journals, no experimental sketches, no pondering notes. It’s almost as if he deliberately covered his trail, Mr. Peterson muses.
In 1920, at age 42, Mr. Rosen moved his family from New Hope to Woodstock, leaving his house, his career and his art completely behind to start anew. As a fledgling modernist artist stretching his wings in a brand-new field, he was compelled to teach at the Art Students League summer school in Woodstock to bring in money for the family. Eventually, he got himself in with the new crowd, befriending fellow artists George Bellows and Eugene Speicher and becoming known in that area for his unique modernist works.
The art from this second period represents a very striking departure from the naturalistic landscapes. While most of the paintings are of recognizable, everyday objects and manmade structures, they are often semi-abstract. Geometric shapes pull together to form boats and buildings. "He’s playing with interactions between line and curve almost the way a composer plays with music rhythm," Mr. Peterson says.
In Form Radiating Life: The Paintings of Charles Rosen (University of Pennsylvania Press, $45), the publication accompanying the exhibition and featuring essays by both Mr. Peterson and Mr. Wolf, Mr. Peterson writes that the Woodstock work was "based on a passionate exploration of form as a living, organic phenomenon." He points out that, "Rosen himself described this as ‘form that radiates life’ and spoke of the ‘effort to achieve this in paint.’" After having read words like these, Mr. Peterson can’t help but think the later work is "where (Mr. Rosen’s) heart lay," and therein lies the motivation behind the exhibition’s title.
For Mr. Peterson, Mr. Rosen demonstrated a personal and professional courage that’s rarely apparent among both historical and modern artists in his decision to abandon the financial security the impressionist landscape paintings afforded him. He wanted to explore a different world of art; the money simply wasn’t important.
"There’s an integrity about the guy I really respect," Mr. Peterson says. "He made the decision not based on market forces. It was something he felt he really needed to do for himself."
Form Radiating Life: The Paintings of Charles Rosen will be on view at the
Michener Museum, Union Square, Bridge Street, New Hope, Pa., through Jan. 28.
Gallery hours: Tues-Sun. 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; galleries are closed Tues. Jan. 2-March
31. Admission costs $5, $4 seniors, $2 ages 6-18, free members/under 6. Brian
Peterson will lead a curator’s talk Jan. 10, 2-3 p.m. Programs cost $10, $5 members.
Registration is required. Call (215) 340-9800 to register. For information, call
(215) 862-7633. On the Web: www.michenerartmuseum.org