Brooklyn native George Tooker became interested in the uses of art
as a tool for social change while majoring in English literature at
Harvard University. There he became an admirer of the Mexican muralists
David Sequerios and Jose Orozco.
In 1943 he began taking classes at the Art Students League in New York,
where he studied with Reginald Marsh and Kenneth Hayes Miller. Around
that time he began painting in the early Renaissance medium of egg tempera.
He was soon identified with Andrew Wyeth, Edward Hopper, his friends
Jared French and Paul Cadmus, and other realists who produced disquieting,
sometimes surrealistic scenes evoking the spiritual malaise, alienation,
and uncertainty of the Cold-War era. Nightmarish visions depicting the
mindnumbing isolation and anonymity of urban life, such as Subway
(1950; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York) andGovernment
Bureau (1956; Metropolitan Museum of Art), are Tooker's most famous
works.
Although he was raised in a religious family, Tooker stopped attending
church when he began art school. Nevertheless, the religious art of
the past affected him deeply and has remained a major influence throughout
his career. Speaking of Bird Watchers, he explained: "I
wanted to paint a positive picture, a religious picture without religious
subject matter. I thought watching birds was a good subject which could
get close to a religious picture, but I was not yet ready to make a
painting with a religious subject."
Based on quattrocento Italian prototypes, Bird Watchers suggests
the Crucifixion, with the figures of Mary, Mary Magdalene, and the apostles
and soldiers at the foot of the cross, which is represented by the tree
to the right. The panel itself, with its arched top, refers to Renaissance
altarpieces.
The painting is most likely set in Manhattan's Central Park. Although
the figures are clearly from the late 1940s, Tooker removed all excess
detail from their clothing in order to evoke a more timeless simplicity.
For instance, the topcoat of the main figure has no buttons or buttonholes
and becomes a loose robe of indeterminate style. The figures are monumental
and stiffly posed, the composition stable and static, the faces, modeled
for the most part on Tooker himself, his friends, and his family, standardized
and repetitious. The use of primary colors enhances the painting's calmness
and stability while also evoking Italian paintings. Moreover, the arched
stone bridges and rocky outcroppings, while characteristic of Central
Park, are simplified and stylized in the manner of Giotto and his contemporaries.
Greta Berman and Jeffrey Wechsler, Realism and Realities: The Other
Side of American Painting, 1940-1960 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers
University Art Gallery, 1982)
Thomas H. Garver, George Tooker (New York: Clarkson N. Potter,
1985)
top
This essay has been condensed from a
larger manuscript written by Kathleen Kienholz for the museum's collection
catalogue.
