Tag: The Phillips Collection

Augustus Vincent Tack (1870-1949)

Sunday, April 12th, 2009

This last week, a painter of whom I had never heard was brought up in an indirect conversation (by Ed Ruscha, of all people). Augustus Vincent Tack was born in Pittsburgh, spent a large part of his life in New York City, but maintained a portrait studio in Washington, DC, painting the likenesses of political and military figures from the first half of the 20th century. (Self-portrait below)

What he is less known for are his abstract works that loosely reference the landscapeâ€”Nature, as a leaping off pointâ€”and aspire to spiritual, mystic themes. His abstract works, who some mention as very early examples of Abstract Expressionism, were created almost exclusively for Duncan Phillips, the wealthy steel baron who left The Phillips Collection to posterity (and our benefit). This collection, situated in DC, houses works by other painters and abstractionists including Paul Klee, Georges Bracque, Mark Rothko and James McNeil Whistler.

According to history, Tack’s abstractions were commercially unsuccessful (imagine that!), but he continued to pursue them independent from his commissioned portraits and landscapes which he made in the style of the day. That aspect to the story sounds, in itself, timeless. What paying patrons want to see is rarely what the artist him/herself would like to produce, but the economic realities of life bear down upon us all, regardless of what century we’re talking about. Thankfully, Tack kept exploring his personal work, and thankfully there was one patron for whom the abstractions were powerful, moving, and worthy of collecting.

Tack’s work is mentioned briefly in a chapter titled Nature Symbolized: Painting from Ryder to Hartley, in the book The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting, 1890-1985, published by Abbeville for a massive, sweeping exhibition at LACMA in 1986.