JULY 27

SET JULY 17

SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM - “SMITHSONIAN”

SS/KC

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Smithsonian American Art Museum has announced the purchase of two major works by postwar artists – “Sollie 17” (1979-1980), a mixed media construction by Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz, and a monumental painting by Alfred Jensen, titled “Honor Pythagoras, Per I -Per VI” (1964).

Edward Kienholz (1927-1994) and his widow, Nancy Reddin Kienholz (b. 1943), are internationally known for their life-size sculptural tableaux. “Sollie 17,” one of four works in their “Spokane Series,” conveys a sense of loneliness and isolation. Incorporating the suggestion of time-lapse images, the scene focuses on an old man’s attempts to fill his time - reading, playing solitaire and staring out the window - in a cramped room made from discarded furnishings the artists collected from a condemned hotel.

The museum will also acquire a related construction, “Drawing for Sollie 17” (1980), as a promised gift. In 1961, Kienholz began making three-dimensional studies he called drawings as alternative versions of themes explored in larger tableaux.

Alfred Jensen (1903-1981) showed his work with the Abstract Expressionists in the 1950s, then forged a highly individual style that brought him international acclaim. The six large panels of “Honor Pythagoras, Per I - Per VI” combine thick strokes of green, yellow, red and blue with mathematical theories and optical patterns. Jensen based the composition on geometry, using numbers and their square roots to form the background grid, while his prominent use of the triangle refers to Pythagora’s famous theorem.

Another significant acquisition, which will come to the museum as a bequest from The Honorable Marilyn Logsdon Mennello and Michael Aloysius Mennello, is “Before the Storm, Fassetts Rocks” (1915), a landscape by John Sloan (1871-1951). Sloan, who was associated with the Ashcan School, spent summers in Gloucester, Mass., from 1914 to 1918. At that time, Sloan experimented with Hardesty Maretta’s color system and with a loose, calligraphic style. This painting, the first representation of the artist’s Gloucester period in the collection, complements his other three paintings in the museum’s collection.

While the three-year renovation of the museum’s main building - the Old Patent Office - continues, American Art offers a full program at its Renwick Gallery (Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street N.W.). For information, 202-357-2700.