Augustus Vincent Tack: Landscape of the Spirit exhibition records

This exhibition and its catalogue document Tack's aesthetic development, unique aspects of his technique and his sources of inspiration. Leslie Furth states in the catalogue that, Tack's artistic direction is thought to have paralleled, but remained independent of, the avant-garde. His "abstract mysticism and technical innovation," his passion for color and decorative surface effects, for Asian art and for parallels between music and art, all paved the way for his abstraction. His religious upbringing and Jesuit education, as well as the “accidents of nature” that he observed in the landscapes of Massachusetts and the American West, informed his art. He also used photography to experiment with fragmentation of form.

John La Farge and Henry Siddons Mowbray were strong influences, as were the aesthetic movement and the idealistic naturalism of the American Renaissance movement. Tack applied methods learned from his exposure to these artists and movements in painting both his murals and his abstractions.

Beginning in 1897, Tack lived in Deerfield, Massachusetts and his early landscapes painted there show the beginnings of his interest in abstraction. It was also in Deerfield that he met Mary and Frances Allen, tonalist photographers who provided a stimulus to Tack in his approach to the local scenery.

Although he did not like New York City, Tack maintained a studio there. He joined the Architectural League and the Century Association and signed a contract with the Kraushaar Galleries. As Leslie Furth states, his work began to move from “perceptual observation of a landscape to more fanciful decorative evocations of nature and the human figure.” Tack stated that he sought to “be able to exert a great power over the mind and the emotions without any resort to literary associations.” Tack's deepening interest in Asian art led him to new concepts of landscape painting. Duncan Phillips, who was drawn to his abstractions, encouraged his progress toward abstractionism.

Tack's shift in style required new techniques and he began to work with unblended pigments and to use heavy impasto. Duncan Phillips described these explorations as “a semi-sculptural mosaic of pure pigments calculated to illuminate dark churches... baffling in its difficulties.” Tack travelled to France during this period, and his technique showed the influence of French impressionism, pointillism, and symbolism.

In his later work, as Ms. Furth wrote, Tack:

"sought a truly abstract language of forms and the removal, or minimizing, of the artist's hand, he borrowed from traditional mural painting methods. He seemed aware that his abstractions never lost touch with nature and its suggestion of divine forces at work. In highly original applications of ancient methods and disparate styles, he united tradition and modernism in a striking manner.”

Tack's visit to the Rocky Mountains in 1920 deeply affected his approach to painting. He told his art dealer “I have been developing some compositions of form and colors based on essential rhythm... they are abstractly decorative at the same time as combining a deep mystical meaning.” In 1924, his western paintings were the focus of Tack's first solo exhibition at The Phillips Collection, inaugurating the lower library (now called the Music Room) for public exhibitions.

Tack's later work continued to build on the imagery of the Music Room works until well into the 1930s and even into the 1940s. The final monumental mural work of his career was the fire curtain he created for George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium, a commission that he won with the assistance of Duncan Phillips. The work was extremely difficult due to its size and location. A near-fatal heart attack caused Tack to return to Massachusetts and leave its completion to his assistant, Carl Lella.

Phillips's collecting of Tack works slowed in the 1930s, but he still supported him, arranging gifts of Tack paintings to other institutions, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1949 Phillips hosted an exhibition of Tack's work that Tack visited shortly before his death. He wrote to Phillips, “I can only make a feeble effort to express to you my appreciation of your recognition... You have been a very great friend.” In bequeathing the paintings remaining in his possession to Phillips, Tack entrusted Phillips with their disposition to other museums and galleries; Phillips placed works at the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and others.

The exhibition opened at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. on May 22, 1993 and continued through August 22, 1993. It then traveled to eight other venues: The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery in Lincoln, Nebraska from November 2, 1993 through January 16, 1994; the Laguna Art Museum in Laguna Beach, California from February 25 through May 8, 1994; Telfair Academy in Savannah, Georgia from May 31 through August 7, 1994; Davenport Museum of Art in Davenport, Iowa from September 4 through November 6, 1994; Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery in Austin, Texas from January 20 through March 5, 1995; the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, Florida from March 17 through April 16, 1995; the Hubert Johnson Museum of Art in Ithaca, New York from August 19 through October 22, 1995; and finally a later exhibition at the Morris Museum in Augusta, Georgia from August 4 through October 26, 1998.

The primary creator of the catalogue and exhibition planning records in this collection was Leslie Furth, guest curator.

The collection consists of the research, catalogue, and exhibition planning files of the curator. These records consist of research materials assembled, as well as catalogue and exhibition planning and execution documents such as legal and financial records, correspondence, loan requests and responses, schedules, and installation design and checklists.