The Human Condition: The Stephen and Pamela Hootkin Collection Sept. 2014 | Page 31
Arneson came back with a new, tougher body of work that
dealt with more potent issues: the threat of nuclear holocaust,
the dangers of the military industrial complex, and racial
discrimination. This allowed his humor, which remained, to
turn grotesque and blackly sardonic.
We see this in a superb preparatory drawing in the
The artist was short and stocky, built like a peasant
collection, Joint (study for Sarcophagus) (1984), done
potato-picker. Her slightly coarse features and her
for a major work Sarcophagus (1985). It portrays the
uniform of a denim smock and clay-stained boots
Joint Chiefs of Staff presiding over a massacre. This
added to that appearance, however, one could not
and another drawing Joint Chiefs (1985), carry gory
encounter a more sophisticated artist. Her knowledge
details drawn from Matthias Grünewald’s sixteenth-
of art history was encyclopedic, her critiques of art
century Isenheim Altarpiece, which Arneson saw on
(including popular culture) were brilliant, insightful,
a trip to Europe. The pose of Joint Chiefs was inspired
and always surprisingly original. Frey was a master
by a magazine photograph of three generals from the
of color science, which she taught at her school,
Vietnam War with inappropriately happy smiles.
then called California College of Arts and Crafts.
Arneson’s approach to glaze paint and a bright, low-
From this piece onwards the figures grew larger and
fire palette is similar to that of his friend Viola Frey from
larger until they topped eight feet. As this trend began,
the Bay Area. Their styles, however, are different both
I asked her what was driving the growth spurt. “I grew
in form and in painting. While there are exceptions
up on a winery and the vines were always taller than
on both sides, Arneson veered closer to realism and
me. I could never see beyond that,” she said. “I suppose
precise painting that had an illustrative intent.
my figures are made to look beyond the vines.”
Frey’s forms are more abstract. Facial details, for
She had another characteristically pragmatic answer when
instance, are rudely formed, the detailing coming
I asked in 1978 why she had not yet made many horizontal
from painting and with little interest in realism. She
figures. “I am not yet important enough,” she replied. “It’s
uses color in a more expressionistic mode and often
a matter of taking up space in an art collector’s real estate.
very thickly on the surface, creating texture.
It does not matter how tall a figure is, it still takes up a
Frey’s grandmother figures are without argument
the most-exhibited works by the artist. The series is
relatively small footprint. But a horizontal figure takes up
three to four times that space. I am not market-ready yet.”
an exceptional part of her oeuvre and is what really
Clearly by the time she made Man and His World
caused her career to go viral and to increase in
(1994) she was ready. Indeed, her huge figures were
scale. Grandmother Figure (1978–1980) is modest
very much in demand. The sculpture is eight feet
in size, six-feet-two inches, but certainly large for a
long and nearly four feet wide, occupying thirty-two
grandmother, particularly Frey’s. Maybe they were
square feet, tangible evidence that Frey had arrived.
doppelgangers, but the face is clearly Viola’s.
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