Andrew Wyeth's Friend Christina Olson

Born May 3, 1894, Christina Olson and her brother Alvaro lived on their farm in Cushing, ME. She had a degenerative muscular disorder known as Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease, but she disliked using crutches and a wheelchair. Andrew Wyeth befriended the siblings and did many paintings of them--especially Christina--and their farm. Although Wyeth used his wife Betsy's body for the figure, he used Christina's head and thin arms as she crawled along the ground, the way she preferred to get around. "Christina's World" (1948) is the most famous of his Olson paintings--perhaps of his entire oeuvre. Here are several photos of Christina and other Wyeth paintings. Andrew and Betsy are buried close to the Olsons in the Cushing cemetery. 

 

Kent State Anniversary

On May 4, 1970, three days after nationwide May Day demonstrations, a rally took place at Kent State University, a protest about the expansion of American military into Cambodia. At 12:24 PM, twenty-eight National Guard soldiers fired about 67 rounds toward students, killing four and wounding nine. None of the students was armed, although lies were reported that the demonstrating students were violent and that there was a sniper. Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller were part of the rally, while Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder were simply watching the rally between their classes. A young woman who was not a student, 14-year-old runaway Mary Ann Vecchio, was photographed wailing over the body of Jeffrey Miller. The photo became the most famous of the tragedy and won a Pulitzer. 

Here's an article about Ohio Gov. Jim Rhodes' legacy in the shooting.  

The Jewish community at Kent took the lead in commemorating the event on campus on its anniversary. Krause, Miller, and Scheuer were Jewish but the Jewish response honored all four students and remembered those who were injured. See this article. 

On May 14, ten days after the Kent State shootings, police fired upon students at the historically black college, Jackson State College in Jackson, MS. Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green were killed and 12 others were wounded.  

An earlier massacre occurred on February 8, 1968, at the campus of South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, SC. A crowd of African American students were protesting racial segregation at a local bowling alley. One city police officer and nine highway patrolmen fired into the crowd, injuring twenty-eight, and killing three: Samuel Ephesians Hammond, Delano Herman Middleton, and Henry Ezekial Smith. The Orangeburg tragedy received less media coverage than the two in 1970. 

Soon after the Kent State shootings, Neil Young quickly wrote the song "Ohio." Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young recorded it by May 21, and the song was released in June.  

Happy 200th Birthday, Frederic Edwin Church

It's the 200th birthday of a favorite artist! Frederic Edwin Church was born May 4, 1826. Here are a few of his paintings: "The Heart of the Andes" (1859), "Cotopaxi" (1862), "The Icebergs" (1861), and "West Rock, New Haven" (1849). Stephen Jay Gould wrote an article about that "Andes" painting and its scientific significance. Church had painted it in tribute to German scientist Alexander von Humboldt, who was the first European to attempt to climb the ice-covered mountain in the picture, Chimborazo in Ecuador. Church was even going to ship the large painting (5-1/2 feet by 10 feet) to Humboldt in Berlin, so he could see it, but Humboldt died before those arrangements could be made. Today, the painting is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in the same room as Emanuel Leutze's famous "Washington Crossing the Delaware."

There is a brand-new biography of church by Victoria Johnson, "Glorious Country: How the Artist Frederic Church Brought the World to America and America to the World." 

 

Happy Birthday, Warner Sallman, Artist of "Head of Christ"

What a fascinating bit of research this was! American artist Warner Sallman was born in Chicago on April 30, 1892. In 1924, he made a charcoal sketch of his image of Jesus, entitled "The Son of Man". It appeared on the cover of his denomination's youth magazine, The Covenant Companion". His sketch was popular, so in 1940 he made an oil painting, now calling it "Head of Christ". He sold the rights to the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) publishing house. https://covchurch.org/2016/02/08/a-head-of-his-time/ 

During World War II the painting became even more popular and was displayed in churches, hospitals, and the like. It has continuing appeal among denominations of widely different theological standpoints. Warner also painted versions, like "Christ at Heart's Door", and others. (Here are some for sale by Warner Press, which owns the copyrights:  https://www.warnerpress.org/churchsupplies/warner-sallman-art-collection.html) 

This next article discusses how hard it is for some of us to be objective about the picture: Jesus is a blue-eyed white man, and that whiteness has unfortunately been influential in people's thinking about what Jesus may have looked like. But so many millions of us have seen the picture since we were little! His caring expression has moved so many millions of hearts. http://sacredartpilgrim.com/collection/view/34 That same article discusses a rival, full-face and darker-complected painting of Jesus by Richard Hook. That picture came out in 1964 and is also displayed in many places. Of course, there are many paintings of Jesus and also of Mary that depicted them as African, Asian, Hispanic, and other ethnicities, diversifying God's presence that Christians believe is found in Jesus. 

Another article that I found concludes: "[Sallman] is frequently described as the most reproduced artist in history, a claim supported by the sheer volume of copies and the breadth of their distribution. While other artists may rival him in fame or influence, few can match the scale at which his work entered everyday life. Sallman’s legacy challenges traditional definitions of artistic success. He was not a gallery artist, nor a central figure in avant-garde movements. Instead, he operated in a space between commerce, religion, and mass media. And in that space, he achieved something extraordinary.... Through Head of Christ, he created a visual language that resonated across cultures, generations, and social contexts." https://homeandartmagazine.com/warner-sallman-the-artist-who-put-christ-in-millions-of-homes/

Happy Birthday, New Haven

New Haven, CT, where I spent some time as a student, was first the lands of the Quinnipiack tribe. On April 24, 1638, 500 English Puritans led by Rev. John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton  arrived in the harbor. The Quinnipiacks secured the Puritans' support against rival tribes. New Haven was one of the first planned cities in America. The town was laid out on a grid, with a central block (the Green). Eventually, three of the major streets out of downtown--Dixwell, Goffe, and Whalley--were named for three judges hiding in New England for signing the death warrant of Charles I, while another major street, Whitney, was named for the inventor of the cotton gin who had business roots in New Haven. In the 1670s, frustrated Native tribes attacked many colonial villages, but New Haven missed the worst of the violence; the horrible massacre of the Pequot tribe in nearby Mystic in the 1630s had lessened English-Native tensions in southern Connecticut. New Haven and Hartford were co-capitals in 1701-1873. Collegiate School, which had begun in 1701, moved to New Haven from Old Saybrook in 1718 and changed its name to Yale College.

Here are some of my own photos from around campus, plus my humongous 1879 history of Yale College. 

   

                  

Happy Birthday, Samuel F. B. Morse

Born April 27 1791, Samuel F. B. Morse began his career as a portrait painter. For a while he was one of the first photographers in America. Later, he contributed toward the invention of a single-wire telegraph system. He co-developed the Morse Code used in telegraph transmission. Here he is in the 1850s; in his 1812 self-portrait; Morse's portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette; an unknown young man, in the only known photograph from Morse's daguerreotype studio (1840); and Morse's first telegraph.

Copied under fair use principles. 

Happy Birthday, Sun of York

The Wars of the Roses (1455-1487) was called that because the two factions in conflict, the House of Lancaster and the House of York, had as their royal emblems a red rose and a white rose, respectively. Edward IV of the House of York first ruled England in 1461-1470. He was forced to flee the kingdom in the face of a Lancastrian army, but he regained the throne the following year and reigned until 1483.  As Shakespeare's play "Richard III" begins, Edward's brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, mocks the fact that Edward had regained the throne ("Now is the winter of our discontent/ Made glorious summer by this sun of York..."), for he himself longed for power. When Edward died in 1483, he was briefly succeeded by his young son Edward V, until Gloucester seized the throne and became Richard III. But in two years, Richard was killed in battle between York and Lancaster forces in 1485. He was succeeded by Henry VII of Lancaster--whose victory and subsequent marriage to Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth of York ended the War of the Roses. Henry was the first Tudor monarch. Did you get all that? whew!.... And now for the reason for this long post, LOL: Edward IV was born on April 28, 1442.