Upon his return to the United States,
Holty played a major role in the
establishment and successful operation of
the American Abstract Artists organization
in New York, a group comprised mainly
of European modernists. He became the
chairman in 1938 and exhibited his work
with them until his departure from the
organization in 1944.
This strong promotion of modern art
brought prominence to vanguard styles
entering the American art scene. And, of
course, Holty’s lobbying for modern art
also helped to establish him as a leading
American Abstract painter.
By the 1950s, when Red Nude was painted,
Holty’s name had become forever linked
to American abstractionism with its large,
soft-edged color forms mixing with or
floating on chromatic stains.
By the 1960s, Holty found himself
immersed in experimentation with the
relationship between space and form
within two-dimensional planes. Using
his technical abilities to combine thinly
layered tones with a subtlety of color,
Holty’s renderings of space challenged the
American art community to see the world
in new and cutting-edge ways.
Holty passed away on March 22, 1973,
after a long and prolific artistic career. His
Red Nude may currently be seen on the
second floor landing of the CMA stairway.
Last and far from least, the CMA’s
longtime and passionate supporter, Miss
Ethel Brody, gave a beautiful piece of
glass by Mary Ann “Toots” Zynsky to the
collection. This work of art is a stunningly
simple shape made from hundreds of
strands of highly colored glass threads. As
the artist herself said, “When I hear music,
it translates into color.”
Above: Carl Holty, American, 1900-1973, Red Nude, c. 1955, acrylic on board. Gift of Anne Wall Thomas,
honoring the long friendship of Carl Holty and Howard Thomas in 2013.
Indeed, artists for centuries have been
fascinated by the relationship between
painting and music and have explored how
the one might mimic the other. Zynsky
attempts to reach musicality by exploiting
free-flowing rhythms even though the glass
is as hard as, well, glass. The brightness of
the colors and their tight juxtaposition feel
like a clear major chord singing out across
an auditorium.
tiny and unusually elegant patterns. So, the
artist in a sense has her artistic cake and
eats it, too: this is an object of sculptural
solidity that suggests the ephemeral quality
of musical notes lilting through the air.
Ethel Brody and all the CMA’s generous
donors keep that music playing inside the
museum, all the time. n
Though a small work of art in the scheme
of things, Zynsky’s glass sounds out clearly
to the viewer, calling attention to itself in a
way that draws the viewer into to its finer,
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