|
Before Aaron Bohrod became an artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1948, he was deeply rooted in Chicago. As a teenager he took Saturday morning classes at the Art Institute, afterwards exploring the upstairs galleries to see the “full-scale world-renowned artists” on display and the Ryerson Library. In high school he made money selling scorecards at the Cubs’ Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park, home of the White Sox. He studied at the School of the Art Institute, played ping pong with artist friend Ivan Albright, and worked from a studio on North Clark Street. Throughout the 1930s, Chicago was his primary muse. Aspects of life particular to the Chicago urban landscape—the old Maxwell Street market, South Side tenements, “El” platforms, and winter in the city, were his subjects. His time studying at the Art Students League in New York from 1929 to 1932 under famous Ashcan school artist John Sloan is reflected in his grittier images of the city. Bohrod later acknowledged this impact, stating, “Though the times were lean, there seemed promise in life for the artist in Chicago. I was determined to do in my own way with my own city what Sloan had done with New York.” For Bohrod, House and Stormy Sky is a transitional work, painted in the 1940s, either just before his deployment to the Pacific with the Army War Art Unit in 1942 or when he returned in 1945 from his subsequent service as a war correspondent in Europe for “Life” magazine. The painting is an American Regionalist landscape in nature. A man walks toward the buildings at right, his dejected silhouette, hands tucked in his pockets, and head down, reminiscent of a downtrodden farmer from a Thomas Hart Benton mural. However, Bohrod’s unique talent lies in his description and specificity, a foreshadowing of his later still life painting. Unlike Benton’s figures, Bohrod’s is not one of caricature, but one of realism. The man appears as an extension of the bare tree at his back—a recurring motif in Bohrod’s work. The tree, stripped of foliage, signifies the season and reflects the stark mood, echoed by the ominous sky. The architectural depiction, with its illusionism, hints at Bohrod’s post-war shift to trompe l’oeil, or “fool the eye,” still life painting, as seen in The Box. Bohrod precisely paints the white bay windows and adjoining building, carefully delineating each brown brick. The artist experiments in his application of paint, applying a thick impasto technique, creating texture and dimension over smooth surfaces, like in the tempestuous clouds and coarse street. The prominent and inauspicious sky is reflected in the building’s facade raising questions about the tumultuous sky and its potential symbolism. House and Stormy Sky presents a transition, where Bohrod has not yet abandoned his Social Realist subjects, but has moved beyond his earlier, more caricatured forms. The artist moves away from less precise strokes toward a more detailed depiction of architecture and scene, a stylistic shift that ultimately culminates in the hyperrealism evident in his later still life paintings.
|
