Peter Selz (36 page)

Examining the range of Selz's “retirement” projects, we are reminded that his interests and loyalties remain attached to his own roots—in Germany but, more important, with German Expressionism as well as
Neue Sachlichkeit
painting. Over the years, Peter has returned periodically to his old interests, many of them attached to his early work on German art. In 1969 at Berkeley he presented a Richard Lindner retrospective, the first in the United States, which traveled to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Peter's 1973 Ferdinand Hodler exhibition at Berkeley was the first in this country, and it traveled to the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard. Peter loves to draw the connections he sees between artists like Hodler and German American Lyonel Feininger. And then in 1978 he presented
German and Austrian Expressionism: Art in a Turbulent Era
, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and then shown in Minneapolis.

Peter's 2002 appointment to the board of Neue Galerie in New York is one reminder of the pioneering role he has played in connection with German and Austrian art. He is one of the few American scholars whose name almost automatically appears on such a list. Yet the memory of his contributions seems to be dimming as younger curators wrestle to establish primary positions in the highly competitive art history and museum fields. In that competition, the key contributions of their predecessors occasionally—and perhaps inadvertently—go unacknowledged.

Such a problem arose with the catalogue for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's 2006–7 show
Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s
.
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The exhibition was an eye opener and a public success for the museum, the relatively esoteric subject matter notwithstanding. However—and here is the problem—in 1980 a thematically quite similar exhibition,
German Realism of the Twenties: The Artist as Social Critic
, opened at the
Minneapolis Institute of Arts and then traveled to Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. Peter was chairman of the exhibition committee of four.
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For both catalogues, the cover illustration is the same Christian Schad painting,
Count St. Genois d'Anneaucourt
(Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris), though the Met's catalogue uses a detail of the transvestite standing to the right in the full composition. Nowhere in the grander 2006 publication is mention made of the 1980 show or catalogue, or of its curators. Peter, who in the first publication wrote a chapter titled “Artist as Social Critic,” was unhappy that the Metropolitan Museum of Art failed to acknowledge such an important predecessor and encouraged an investigation of the oversight. My polite inquiry initiated a civil, even pleasant, phone and e-mail exchange with the curator and editor of the book, with assurances that in the next printing Selz would be acknowledged.
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He looks forward to the fourth printing, should it ever occur. For now, it is unfortunate that the art historian who introduced the subject to America—as Selz would like to be seen— has no presence in this recent venture.

Here is how critic Robert Hughes opened his review of the exhibition that Peter and his colleagues put together in 1980: “The show . . . deals with an aspect of modernism that 15 years ago was thought hardly worth discussing. What could be further from the concerns of Matisse and Braque than the images to which German intellectuals gave the name
Neue Sachlichkeit
—‘new objectivity'? There, in contrast to the French tradition of measure, delectation and ordered feeling—of art ‘above' politics—was a cold, laconic, even squalid-looking art that wanted to contribute its voice to the tormented political theater of the Weimar Republic.”
⁶²

Peter Selz really is returning full circle to his German roots and the art and artists with whom he began his long journey. Scholarship does indeed move forward, providing more information along with new insights and understandings based on serious research. The reward, even the inherent pleasure, in scholarly writing and other means of communicating new ideas turns out to be providing this foundation on which others may incrementally build. Selz is understandably disappointed by the lapse associated with
Glitter and Doom
. But what we really learn from Peter's
momentary annoyance is that for him, his publications and exhibitions are his identity. Like most of us, he wants to be liked, but he also wants to be admired.

So, for Peter,
Glitter and Doom
represents a small rip in the fabric of an unusually independent and largely successful career—the same career that was honored just a few years ago by Selz's College Art Association colleagues on that February day in New York. One would hope that
Art of Engagement
(winner of CAA's award for best art book of 2006)—along with
German Expressionist Painting, New Images of Man, Art in Our Times, Art in a Turbulent Era, The Work of Jean Dubuffet, Alberto Giacometti, Max Beckmann
(also
Beckmann: The Self-Portraits
),
Sam Francis, Chillida, Nathan Oliveira
, and
Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art
(with a major nod to collaborator Kristine Stiles)—would compensate for this single slight. Peter proudly points out that his writing has been translated into fourteen languages, including Basque and, most recently, Finnish.

•    •    •

This study of a life has relied heavily on the subject's own oral history accounts—his memories—filled in and elaborated, and sometimes contradicted, by the observations of over forty individuals whose lives intersected Peter's in meaningful and revealing ways over nine decades. Although this is a limited sample, most of the important events, accomplishments, and people in Peter's life do appear. It is not the case that in this series of “sketches” no stone was left unturned, but that is probably just as well. We have been guided in this biographical quest by important constants that go back to Munich: Peter's love of art; his problematic relationships, especially with women; and the political life that must grow out of his early involvement in the
Werkleute
. These themes do not entirely explain his life, but they do carry heavy importance and provide useful touchstones.

Peter's reputation lies in the early prominence he achieved as a voice for and about modernist art in Europe and America. In that respect, his assimilation into life in the United States was thorough and complete. His innovative publications and provocative exhibitions have secured
his position as an important presence and voice in his chosen field. This achievement is in part the result, as he is the first to point out, of being in the right place at the right time. In the 1960s, first in New York and then at Berkeley, he became as close to a celebrity as ordinary (which Peter is not) art historians could be. Peter certainly relished the attention and took full advantage of the benefits, social and professional, that that status conferred. In 2008, Peter was honored by a mayoral proclamation from Berkeley's mayor Tom Bates declaring March 25 Peter Selz Day. He was surrounded by his family and friends as he accepted the recognition for his contributions to his adopted city. And it seemed entirely appropriate that, there in city council chamber, he stood facing the 1973 Romare Bearden mural whose commission he had advocated as a civic arts commissioner more than thirty years earlier. Peter cannot complain about being a prophet without honor in his hometown. Nor was this the first such honor he received. Perhaps the most meaningful was the Order of Merit, First Class, awarded by the Federal Republic of Germany on 18 September 1963 for his “interest in twentieth-century German art.” The award document was signed in Bonn by Dr. Heinrich Lübke, president of the Federal Republic, and presented at a ceremony in New York.

Ariel Parkinson was among the close friends and family who attended the ceremony at Berkeley's city hall. Ariel lives in the Berkeley hills a few blocks from Peter and Carole.
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She is almost Peter's age, and the two of them have made a practice of walking through their residential neighborhood several times a week. They are obviously very fond of each other. Ariel is an artist with an interest in scenic design and theater, and as such her art would not seem to appeal to Peter's tastes. Nonetheless, because he likes her, he came to like her art. In 2009–10, in a show he co-curated in a commercial gallery on Bancroft Avenue, directly across from the UC Berkeley campus, he featured, among other works, several of Ariel's life-size stuffed-cloth nude male figures. The exhibition as a whole revisited his 1959
New Images of Man
show at MoMA. Bearing the same title but with the addition of “and Woman,” it aspired to update that controversial and influential exhibition.
⁶⁴
Among the women included in the exhibition, Ariel stands out for her independent and eccentric vision—definitely producing new images of man—by a woman.

On
their walks, Ariel and Peter forged a friendship with, in her words, “a tonic element of disagreement.” Ariel, who admires Peter, nonetheless does not allow herself to be submerged by his authority:

 

My friendship with Peter had three levels. As an aspiring painter and designer, I was inevitably impressed by his position and power in the art world. I had used, and continue to use, many of his books and articles as source material. I appreciate his scholarship and command of the field, knowing everybody by name, their life histories, what their work looks like and means. But we find grounds for difference on almost everything. I not only differ—I can be to some extent an untutored beast, [challenging him] on such eminences as Carl André and Christo, de Kooning and Guston, David Smith and Serra—along with Flemish portraits, Renaissance drawings, and equestrian bronzes.

Ariel said she thinks Peter tends to “acknowledge, perhaps too generously, the currents of style,” but that though they find grounds for difference, they “share certain basic aesthetic tastes.” Ariel sticks to her guns, as became evident in our discussion of
New Images of Man
, the exhibition of Selz's that she most respects: “He took two very young—they were in school, mind you—artists from this area, Stephen De Staebler and Nathan Oliveira. These two, then totally unknown, are among the few great artists the United States has produced. I would say Leonard Baskin [another Selz favorite] was one, De Staebler was two, and Oliveira was three.” When asked who was number four or five, she paused. I suggested Richard Diebenkorn, whom Selz admires. “No, definitely not Diebenkorn.” She explained: “A group of experts programmed a computer for elements of style to see if they could make a painting by so and so. And the only artist they had any success with was Diebenkorn. He had a formula.”
⁶⁵

But Ariel's affection for Peter trumps her reservations even about his support for artists she found unworthy. Her description of her friend is a tribute, and a somewhat romantic one at that: “Peter has remained a real human being. He loves and appreciates food and drink. He likes dogs and cows. And . . . it's very nice to have Peter as a friend, a real friend that you love. But it's more an affection, for I think of him as a
little boy sometimes. I can see a little boy, with bright eyes, very wide apart under dark eyebrows, loving things himself, responding to the old master paintings in his grandfather's gallery. To the green meadows that they went walking in on Sundays. And girls—endless girls. One girl after another.”
⁶⁶

Peter thrives on attention. And his persistently youthful enthusiasm is what attracts many people, especially students. For many, too, this patented Selz “passion” excuses perceived shortcomings and character flaws. His daughter Gabrielle is only one of many who point to the “creative life force” that has provided the fuel for him to pursue the art life into his early nineties.
⁶⁷
He is widely admired as a phenomenon of durability, and this quality is what artists point to as separating Peter from the pack of other art historians.

Painters Kevan Jenson and Ursula O'Farrell are among the up-and-coming artists of whom Peter is so fond. Jenson recently moved from Los Angeles to Berkeley, partly owing to his contact with Peter, who organized and wrote the catalogue essay for his recent one-man show at San Francisco's Meridian Gallery. A close personal connection has developed between the two, very much as between Peter and Tobi Kahn in New York. Jenson is effusive in his appreciation of his friend: “Peter Selz has gone out of his way to help me and others with our careers, but his reminder that you, the artist, are connected to the long tradition of art making provides the deepest inspiration. I once overheard him say that ‘painting has been around since Lascaux, and I don't think it's going anywhere.' I knew then I couldn't stop painting.”
⁶⁸

O'Farrell, whom Peter included in the recent show at the Alphonse Berber Gallery in Berkeley, has this to say: “After graduating from college, I was granted a foreign study scholarship to travel to Germany and Austria to explore my personal fascination with Expressionism. . . . I was quite fortunate to run across several paperback books [in English] in a few German stores—all written by Dr. Peter Selz. His writings guided me and helped me to better appreciate the art I was enthralled with . . . to understand the nature and context of these forceful paintings.”
⁶⁹

Book editor Lorna Price (now Dittmer) came into Peter's life and career during his time at Pomona College, where as an undergraduate
she showed his lecture slides. Then—remarkably, in her view—he hired her to do the preliminary editing of
German Expressionist Painting
, which was being prepared for the University of California Press. Lorna followed Peter as one of his main editors for years, including several based at UC Press. Along with Kristine Stiles, Lorna may be the most intimately involved with Peter's publications.