ife magazine ’ s issue of September 28 , 1953 , contained an article that surprised those who thought New York City was the only soil in the United States where avant-garde art grew . On the opposite coast , a little closer to the Canadian border , lived four remarkable artists who were just as significant as Jackson Pollock and Helen Frankenthaler . Their names were Mark Tobey ( 1890-1976 ), Kenneth Callahan ( 1905-1986 ), Guy Anderson ( 1906-1998 ), and Morris Graves ( 1910-2001 ).
The article was entitled “ Mystic Painters of the Northwest ,” and they have been called “ mystics ” ever since . At least one of them chafed at the label of “ mystic .” That was Callahan , whose gritty semi-abstract paintings recalled William Blake ’ s watercolors and Michelangelo ’ s gravity-defying fresco of “ The Last Judgment .” Like the others , Callahan traveled extensively , mostly during his years with the Merchant Marine . But his travels took him to Europe , Australia , and , most significantly , Mexico , while the others spent time in China and Japan . Tobey , who used Chinese calligraphy as the basis for his “ white writing ” style , became a Baháʼí , and Graves a Zen Buddhist , while Callahan had little interest in Eastern religion . To him , the Christian imagery of Blake and Michelangelo was just as profound .
Nor was he especially drawn to East Asian imagery , as the others were . Callahan ’ s first influences were European . As a youth in San Francisco , he met a German woman who introduced him to Lyonel Feininger , Paul Klee , Wassily Kandinsky , and Alexej von Jawlensky . He didn ’ t care for their work at first , thinking they looked more like cartoons than paintings , but gradually he realized that “ One thing that I really wanted was to have an identity of my own like them — to make forms that would have a convincing existence and come from me only . From then on , I was never concerned with the degree of realism , of projecting naturalistic readable images .”
His other major influence was the Mexican muralists of the early 20th century , Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco . Between the two , he preferred Orozco ; he detested the work of their famous colleague David Alfaro Siqueiros . But the Mexican artist he admired the most was Rufino Tamayo , whom Callahan met in Mexico City . Like the other Mexican artists , Tamayo ’ s work was aggressively political , condemning the military-industrial complex and promoting the empowerment of the working classes . Callahan wanted to create political murals at home , so he bought 19 sheets of drywall , which in those days came in four by 12-foot sheets , and painted a huge mural celebrating logging in the Northwest . The mural was not commissioned , was not subsidized by anyone but Anderson , and had no intended destination . Its whereabouts is unknown today . He also did commissioned public art in Washington State , significantly in the
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