Smithsonian.com

Artist Morris Louis (1912-1962) produced 600 paintings in just eight years before succumbing to lung cancer at age 49. His method–to use acrylic paints to stain a canvas that hadn’t been primed so that the color seeped into the material–was an innovation that inspired a generation of artists. Tomorrow, a retrospective that includes 28 of his major works goes on view at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

In a gallery this morning, members of the press gathered before his 8 foot by 11 foot Point of Tranquility (1959-60) and the equally large Where (1960). Adjacent was Para III (1959), which was recently purchased by Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, where the show originated. On the opposite wall was the 8.5 foot by nearly 12 foot Number 99 (1959-1960). The four huge paintings popped with a wonderful, vibrant energy against the museum’s stark white walls.

“This room is an explosion of color,” says Smithsonian curator Valerie Fletcher, “when you put [these works] together they talk to each other.”

There’s certainly an expressive dialogue going on in that gallery, and the observer comes away a richer soul for having been witness to it.

(Courtesy of the Hirshhorn: Para III, 1959, Acrylic resin [Magna] on canvas, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Gift of Marcella Louis Brenner.)

The name didn’t ring any bells.

The scholars and collectors attending the opening of “Earl Cunningham’s America” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum all knew of this artist and his work. But for us Ordinary Joes, this guy’s body of work was a major discovery.

Or perhaps we were all just suffering the end-of-vacation blues. Because to admire a Cunningham is to fall for coastal scenes of nostalgic idylls and fanciful visions. The brightly colored paintings are embellished with Viking ships and 19th-century schooners, all looking as naturally a part of the surrounds as a robin in the garden at springtime.

“Wishful memories,” is how curator Virginia Mecklenburg characterized the 50 folk art paintings on view. Cunningham made them over a lifetime of travels along the Eastern seaboard from Edgecomb, Maine, where he was born in 1893 to St. Augustine, Florida, where he tragically took his own life in 1977.

His name is new to us now largely because he hated to sell his works. He called them “his brothers and his sisters.” He ran a curio shop on St. George Street in St. Augustine and anyone even broaching the subject of purchasing one of his paintings was likely to have been tossed from the shop.

One stubborn admirer, Marilyn Mennello from Winter Park, Florida, managed to convince Cunningham to sell just one work. And after his death, Mennello spent decades finding, collecting and assembling a body of his works–the core of the exhibition now on view at SAAM.

For admirers following now in Mennello’s footsteps, take heart, there may be more of them out there. A quick check on eBay, though, and the only Earl Cunningham there is a Reggae artist. Not the same guy.

(Courtesy of the collection of Mr. Ross L. Silverbach)