By Annie Holub
Arizona Daily Wildcat
February 26, 1998

Past Modern

The University of Arizona Museum of Art's newest exhibition is "Tucson's Early Moderns: 1945-1965," a showcase of exceptional work by some of Tucson's more influential modernists of the recent past.

The work ranges from the traditional impressionistic portraits of Ted DeGrazia to the Miro-esque abstractions of John Maul, both members of a group of Tucson artists (including Harold Friedly, Stanley Fabe, Harrison Moore and Frank Page) who made Tucson their stomping grounds in the years after World War II.

"The show is a way of reflecting upon that time," says sculptor Maurice Grossman, curator of the exhibit, whose work is also included in the show.

"It's honoring (the artists), remembering who they were 50 years later so they won't be forgotten."

For the average Tucson art enthusiast, it's fascinating to see the work of people so close to home utilizing the trends of their time to such an extent.

The artists who make up "Tucson's Early Moderns" were "pioneers in a way," says Grossman, "they were bringing in an aesthetic" that was different from what Tucson was used to.

"Most of (the conventional Tucson artists) were painters of landscapes, cowboys or portraits," remembers Grossman.

So, when the modernists came to Tucson from larger cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, they brought with them influences from abstract impressionism. Their style was different from the serenity of landscapes and cowboys - the foundation for the bulk of today's local arts landscape.

"(The early modernists in Tucson) were the guys who dared to do it, who danced the dance and walked the walk," says Grossman, who will be holding a free gallery talk March 11 at the museum.

It was these artists who held the first exhibits and started the Tucson Fine Arts Association - which later become the Tucson Museum of Art - in 1948. They could be found along Ash Alley, the original downtown arts district, which was lined with stores, galleries and studios.

And at the heart of it all was the artwork itself. The technique and talent behind the work of Moore, Friedly, Grossman, painter Eugene Mackaben, Maul and painter Mac Schwietzer is right in line with the well-known modernists of the '40s, '50s and '60s, names like Franz Kline and Robert Rauschenberger. They simultaneously mixed the modern urban art movements with the Southwestern influences to create that unique, specific Tucson Modern movement, immortalized by the UAMA's exhibit.

"Nowhere in this country does the past walk arm in arm with the present in greater rhythm than it does in the Southwest. Here at once are the oldest and the newest . . . Here is history fading and history bursting into view," reads an anonymous introduction to a catalog from the first Tucson Festival of Arts from March 1951.

"It was time that we honor these people," says Grossman. "The more we know about the past, the more we can live with the future."

"Tucson's Early Moderns: 1945-1965" runs through April 1. Also on display at the UAMA is "Ed Cokler: Five Decades in Print," and "Tucson Artists: Selections from UAMA Permanent Collection."