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Eleanor de Laittre was an early proponent of abstract, cubist-inspired, and largely non-objective art. During a period when representational art was the norm in the United States, she adhered to a style that was based on her study of paintings by Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Paul Klee, and Raoul Dufy.〔 She was a member of American Abstract Artists, a group that flourished during the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s and that included among its members Josef Albers, Ilya Bolotowsky, Werner Drewes, Suzy Frelinghuysen, A.E. Gallatin, Adolph Gottlieb, László Moholy-Nagy, George L.K. Morris, and Ad Reinhardt.〔 In 1939 de Laittre was recognized for her skill in handling the design of a painting she had placed in a group exhibition and was praised in general for her subtle handling of color.〔 Critical appraisal of her work remained positive in the 1940s and early 1950s and toward the end of her career she was honored as one of the best-known artists among those who strove to overcome resistance to abstract art in America.〔〔 ==Early life and education== Following study at a private school in Minneapolis and a boarding school in Washington, D.C., de Laittre entered Smith College as a freshman in 1929.〔〔〔 A year later, having become interested in making art, she left Smith to enroll in life and drawing classes at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In 1932 she moved to New York in order to study with George Luks and, after he died in the fall of 1933, with John Sloan at George Luks's studio.〔 Despite this firm grounding in traditional American realism, de Laittre was drawn to an abstract style and looked to French modernism for inspiration.〔 A reviewer found her first exhibited paintings to "betray a fondness" for the style of Paul Cézanne.〔 In 1989 she told an interviewer she that early in her career she had experimented with form in the style of Modigliani, then looked to paintings by Miró and Klee for help in developing a modernist technique, and finally learned simplicity and calligraphic clarity through study of Raoul Dufy.〔 During the years of the Great Depression, when young artists, particularly female artists, were finding it very difficult to attract the attention of gallery owners, de Laittre was able to show her work frequently in New York galleries. In 1933 she participated in two group shows. The first contained paintings by students of the George Luks studio where de Laittre had studied. A reviewer noted that none of the works on display were blatantly imitative and some showed a distinctive approach and methods.〔 Regarding the second exhibition, at the Midtown Gallery, Howard Devree, art critic of the ''New York Times'', called attention to the quality of her handling of light in a painting of hers called "Aquarium."〔 Regarding a group exhibition in 1934 at the Montross Gallery, that paper's other critic, Edward Alden Jewell, said she "doubtless needs not to be reminded that her work is academic French modernism," which, to him, was not praise.〔 Regarding this show another critic noticed that her work was being repeatedly seen〔 and, indeed, she was included in a second group show that year, this one at the Uptown Gallery. There she was grouped with other young artists including Milton Avery, Oronzo Gasparo, Adolph Gottlieb, Louis Harris, Helen West Heller, Pino Janni, Pietro Lazzari, Mark Rothko, Vincent Spagna, and Geri Pine, as "American expressionists" "who, we are told, have elected to carry on the languishing labors of the École de Paris."〔 In 1934 de Laittre moved to Chicago to marry her first husband, Merrill Shepard. While living there she continued to paint and to participate in annual exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago.〔 Eleanor Jewett, the ''Chicago Tribunes art critic of the time, gave the 1938 show a scathing review. Conforming to a view then common in the United States about the value of abstract art, she gave mock praise to the artists' reckless expressionism and extreme efforts to convey "the intangible" to the viewer. She told her readers, "In the exhibition you will find repeatedly that the pictures are stirring in you the feeling that you can do as well." She singled out de Laittre's "Holiday for Hats" as "completely fantastic."〔 Jewett's point of view was not shared by New York critics who continued to see high quality and a growing maturity in de Laittre's work. In 1939 she was given her first solo exhibition. Reviewing this show, at the Contemporary Arts Gallery, the critic for the ''New York Times'' praised her sense of design and the good taste she showed in her use of simple colors of low key. All the same he said it was an "interesting first show, but somewhat tentative in character."〔 The painting, "Portrait of a Young Girl," exhibits qualities cited by the critic. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Eleanor de Laittre」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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