Inspired Residence: The Early Artists Who Flocked To Long Island
Pollock. de Kooning. Krasner. Ernst. It’s no secret the Hamptons has long been a source of artistic inspiration. In fact, decades before the glitz and glamor arrived, the bucolic region drew a bevy of groundbreaking artists who, since the 1870s, descended on its seaside milieu to work and recharge. Lured by the golden dunes, ocean breezes and stellar quality light, it’s no wonder early impressionists like William Merritt Chase, Gaines Ruger Donoho, Nicolai Cikovsky and Winslow Homer were among the first to translate the landscape.
Decades later, longing to escape the aftermath of World War II, a seminal group of European surrealists and American expats arrived in the 1930s and 40s: Gerald and Sara Murphy (who served as the inspiration for Dick and Nicole Diver in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night) brought their fashionable friends from the French Riviera to East Hampton. Legendary benefactor and collector Peggy Guggenheim also set up shop and alongside her new husband, the artist Max Ernst, encouraged other artists to decamp nearby.
In fact, Guggenheim loaned the artist Jackson Pollock and his wife Lee Krasner the funds to buy their modest, 19th-century rural farmhouse in the Springs (near East Hampton). Pollock, most notably, created his famed drip-covered paintings, including his 1950’s series: Blue Poles, Convergence and Autumn Rhythm. After Pollock’s death, a grieving Krasner worked on her large-scale Earth series paintings. Today, visitors will find the artists’ personal effects on display (and exactly as they left them): Kranser’s necklaces, well-worn books and LPs; and on the wooden floor, remaining drips from Pollock’s iconic paintings.
Around the same time, the artist Robert Motherwall–who coined the term ‘New York School’ took residence in a nearby Pierre Chareau-designed abode and claimed to have done his “best work” in the area; including Elegy to the Spanish Republic. That’s not all. Other notable writers like Jean Stafford and John Steinbeck also visited. And, in 1954, thanks to an uptick of summering creatives, an annual Artists & Writers softball game teamed up a diverse roster including Pollock, Williem de Kooning and Joan Mitchell against the film director Elia Kazan, actor Eli Wallach and sculptor Philip Pavia. (Today the game is played as a fundraising event).
From his front porch, de Kooning was known to work on his famed Woman series and, inspired by its windswept landscape, created both Montauk Highway (1958) and Clam Diggers (1963) respectively. After watching children playing on the beach, Italian-born Sculptor Costantino Nivola revived his sand casting technique (he and his wife Ruth also hosted Le Corbusier, who painted a mural in their house).
Away from her husband, Elaine de Kooning, who was part of the “first generation” of female Abstract Expressionists painters, took solo residence in East Hampton, where she created her monumental series Cave Walls and Cave Paintings (1985-1988). Today, the artist’s former home is a designated National Historical Landmark and is used as a visiting artist's residency. The creative influx would continue into the 1960s and ‘70s, when pop artists James Rosenquist, Roy Liechtenstein and Andy Warhol came to the region alongside the likes of Chuck Close, Cindy Sherman, Eric Fischl and David Salle.
Visiting the region this summer? Komos on the Road visits a stellar visual lineup.
LITTLE BLACK BOOK
55 Alewive Brook Road
830 Springs-Fireplace Road East Hampton
FURTHER READING
Hamptons Bohemia: Two Centuries of Artists and Writers on the Beach by Helen Harrison