The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 150

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER H8 www.philly.com Sunday, October 7, 2001 Art By Edward J. Sozanski First view of photography gift to Art Museum to await a book on the subject that English is writing. ') The installation fills every nook and cranny of the Art Alliance, up to a conference room on the third floor. It contains far more work than the building can accommodate comfortably. "Poetics of Clay" is essentially a half-formed museum show, a monument to a heartfelt impulse to recognize innovation in clay art that founders for lack of an adequate display space and an explanatory narrative.

Inadvertently, it points up the failure of the Philadelphia Musei um of Art, in particular among regional institutions, to organize a more coherent survey ot the field. "A Apparently, "Poetics of Clay" is all that Philadelphia, a hotbed of ceramic art, is going to get for now, so on that basis alone it rates a go-see. cades." Well, the show achieves that. Anyone who follows contemporary ceramics, or has for any length of time, will be impressed with the number of major figures included, from Robert Arneson through Bernard Leach to Betty Woodman. The artists are generally represented by prime examples of their work, although one senses that the artists, not the objects, constitute the show's focus.

The vast majority of the artworks were lent by private collectors in the region, which also makes the show a survey of taste and activity. Because it lacks a crisply articulated point of view or didactic premise, or even an installation that helps to distinguish trends and tendencies, "Poetics of Clay" is more accessible to ceramics insiders than to the general public. The individual artists aren't discussed at all; apparently, for meaningful exposition we have The last four decades have produced an explosion of innovation in ceramics, particularly in sculpture. Since she opened her gallery in 1974, English has been both witness and, through her promotion of various artists, participant in that efflorescence. "Poetics of Clay" reprises her experience.

It is a museum-scale show of work made during the last half-century, but mostly over the last three decades, by more than 120 artists from 17 countries. Don't expect functional ware; the works mainly express imaginative extrapolations of traditional clay forms, such as teapots and vases, along with figurative and abstract sculpture. Pieces range in size from Viola Frey's eight-foot-tall Woman With Orange Hand down to a translucent Light Gatherer bowl by Rudolf Staffel, which fits in the palm of the hand. The exhibition functions on several levels. First of all, it's a reminiscence, a roll call of prominent ceramic artists that English has exhibited, represented I.

:0 1 I it "Versailles," an albumen print by Eugene Atget, is one of 362 prints by the French photographer in the Levy Collection. The Philadelphia Museum of Art has received a number of spectacular art gifts to mark its 125th anniversary year, but one of the biggest came out of the blue. Four months ago, the museum acquired the Julien Levy collection of more than 2,000 photographs, by some of the most important photographers of the 20th century, from Levy's widow, Jean Farley Levy. She donated a portion of the collection, and the museum purchased the rest with money given by local philanthropists and photography collectors Lynne and Harold Honickman. Usually, museums pursue collectors, but in this case Mrs.

Levy made the overture. So the museum was able to bolster its photography holdings substantially, with a large body of material that had been out of sight since Levy died 20 years ago. He is remembered as a champion of surrealism and an early advocate of photography as art. He mounted many exhibitions of both at his New York gallery from 1931 to early 1948. The Levy collection is more European than American, and most of the photographs date from the 20th century.

It includes a major group of 362 prints by the French master Eugene Atget, whose thousands of Parisian views constitute an intimate portrait of the city. Eleven of Atget's prints form the foundation of an exhibition the museum has organized to give the public a cross-sectional view of this significant collection. The show consists of 96 photos and three box constructions that include photographs by the American artist Joseph Cornell. Sixty-nine prints have been hung in the ground-floor corridor gallery of the museum's administrative wing, which has been renamed the Levy Gallery. The other 27 prints and the constructions are in Gallery 172, now called the Honickman Gallery, in the wing for modern and contemporary art.

Because it lacks thematic structure, the exhibition is somewhat difficult to characterize and absorb. Katherine Ware, the museum's photography curator, has observed that Levy's collection reflects what he exhibited in his gallery. One further presumes that this selection is reasonably representative of the whole. The show includes pictures by many historically prominent photographers, such as Atget, Andre Kertesz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, and Man Ray, just to name a few. But the Atgets aside, I found myself paying more attention to the relatively obscure Americans people such as William M.

Rittase, Thurman Rotan, Clara Sipprell, Luke Swank, Eliot Elisofon and Wendell Mac-Rae. Photographs by them and contemporaries active in the 1930s Ruth Duckworth's untitled stoneware sculpture from 1 984 appears in the museum-scale show "Poetics of Clay" at the Art Alliance, evoke not only the abstracted sleekness of modernism but the art deco period in particular. A photo of umbrella ribs by Rittase, which he titled The Spider, and a montage of skyscrapers by Rotan typically represent this point of view. So does Sipprell's Barns in If You Go "The Discerning Eye of Julien Levy" continues at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th Street and the Parkway, through Dec. 2.

The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, and to 8:45 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays. Admission is $10 general and $7 for visitors 62 and older, ages 13-18, and students with ID.

Pay what you wish all day Sundays; free after 5 p.m. Friday nights during October. Information: 215-763-8100, 215-684-7500 or www.philamuseum.org. "Poetics of Clay-continues at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, 251 S. 18th through Nov.

11. The gallery is open from 1 1 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays' through Sundays. A $3 donation is requested.

Information: 215-545-4302 or www.philartalliance.org. Winter, in which snow-covered roofs conjoin like cubist planes. Charles Sheeler's view of a white barn and Evans' close-up of a house door impose similar abstracting language on everyday scenes. Levy's collection isn't all modernist; it includes American pic-torialists such as Anne Brigman and Gertrude Kasebier. And it includes all those Atgets views of rooms, buildings, storefronts, statues, even a humble ragpicker's hut.

The Atget prints in the exhibition date from 1910 to 1923. Two are on paper impregnated with arrowroot powder, which produces dark and lush tonalities. These are the choicest Atgets of all, and relatively rare. While this exhibition is basically formless, it suggests many other, more specialized shows that might be drawn from the collection. It will take years to digest the gift; this introduction represents only a tantalizing nibble.

A half-century of ceramic art. The moment I walked into "Poetics of Clay: An International Perspective" at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, I thought it looked as familiar as a fond memory. It should have; I had seen something strikingly similar in 1992. That show celebrating local ceramics collections was staged by gallery owner Helen W. Drutt English for "Clay Philadelphia '92," a citywide program tied to a convention of ceramics educators.

and admired during more than 25 years as one of the country's most prominent dealers in craft art. It's also an attempt to summarize important developments in ceramic art during the second half of the last century. English acknowledges in the exhibition brochure (no catalog) that "the exhibition is in no way intended to be a complete survey of ceramic art during the post-World War II period," because many major artists weren't available. "Rather," she says, "it serves as an entrance into the ideas of three generations of artists and their work from the last five de 9 i it 6 if If V. I 1 1 'i i Edward J.

Sozanski's e-mail address is esozanskiphillynews.com. tr dnc Wi S2 it i. jo? i2j i vVLV- SL -E 7) Th attacks of September 11 have written a painful new chapter in the history of the United States. But they are not the first time America has been severely challenged. The history of the United States is a great teacher in times of crisis.

In response to the attack on America, The Philadelphia Inquirer Newspaper In Education program is offering a new NIE supplement titled "Strength of a Nation What History Teaches Us." This 12-page supplement uses examples from various periods of US. history to show students that the nation has faced disasters, wars, and other challenges before and has rebounded to overcome them. From the Great Depression to Hurricane Andrew, from World War II to the Kennedy assassination, the US. has responded with unity and resolve to bounce back and recover. The lesson of this special section is that history can teach and support us in times of crisis.

The message is one of strength and affirmation. Act now to give your students the "Strength of a t1 1 mm Publication Date: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 Order deadline: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 25copy. Minimum order 30 copies. Ml i Anne Devlin for the School District of Philadelphia, South Jersey and Philadelphia Private and Parochial Schools 800-760-1403 Stan Kucewtcz for Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties and Suburban Private and Parochial Schools 610-935-5765 Stan Kucewicz for the State of Delaware 888-222-3234 For mort information, visit our website at http:cnsingsi1lvnews.cofnNIE The supplement is available only in the special school edition of The Inquirer. If your papers are not delivered by 9 a.m.

on the publication date, please call immediately. 4 3Tb. i i its rrrt I 4- Jnamrr.