NAME: Ann Prentice Wagner
OCCUPATION: Curatorial associate, Smithsonian American Art Museum
RESIDENCE: Bethesda
WHAT I WANT TO TELL YOU ABOUT THIS PIECE: Ilya Bolotowsky was a Russian immigrant in New York City. He’s a major modern artist, known for the abstract geometric work that he was doing not very long after this. He was already going in a very abstract, modernist direction at the time, but he knew that for the [Public Works of Art Program], he had to do some something people would enjoy looking at and know what they were seeing. So on his [application] form, he said, “The problem is to show a typical, average, drab barber shop, and at the same time, get a decorative effect through color.”
Although the artist is a modernist, here he’s decided to get quite realistic. You can see things like that the barber is using a straight razor to shave his client. There’s a spittoon on the floor. There are two mirrors opposite each other, so you can see all the bottles on the far wall reflected over and over. You’re looking down into the scene — I think one of the reasons is so the viewer is not in the way of the mirrors. I love the color; the reds and greens and blues, and the way he’s done this dramatic distorted perspective.
Bolotowsky says in his form: “All the four people in this image were carefully selected and are especially suited for it. The barber; a handsome Italian, the customer; a Greek, the next one; a nervous, slim Irishman; the last one, a heavy, tough Irishman, sitting clumsily in a dainty chair.” So he’s gathered these immigrants from around New York. It really sums up the American scene he would have known — I’m sure he was probably in that barber shop all the time. It’s this intimate little corner of New York that would have been just an ordinary, average place.
If you go
‘1934: A New Deal for Artists”
Where: The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Eighth and F streets NW
When: Through Jan. 3, 2010
Info: Free; americanart.si.edu; 202-633-1000
