new york world’s fair 1939 – ultrawolvesunderthefullmoon

James Owen Mahoney, “The Etruscans”, Circa 1932, Oil on Canvas, 208.3 x 167.6 cm, Private Collection

Born in Dallas, Texas in October of 1907, James Owen Mahoney was an American artist noted for his canvas paintings and contributions to the revival of mural painting in the United States. He majored in art at Southern Methodist University from which he graduated in 1928. Mahoney continued his education at the Yale University School of Fine Art where he studied under painter Eugene Savage, a muralist who was trained in Early Renaissance techniques. The acquisition of these formal and technical Renaissance practices resulted in Mahoney’s mastery of tonal gradations and figurative modeling.

In 1932, Mahoney’s impressive work earned him the Prix de Rome and fellowship at the American Academy; he occupied a studio at the Academy’s palazzo on the Janiculum Hill in western Rome. This opportunity gave Mahoney direct exposure to the grandeur of Italy’s art, architecture and culture, an experience that remained with him throughout life. After returning to New York in 1936, he made the decision to focus on the genre of mural painting, an art style supported by the Federal Arts Project and favored by the public.

Jesse Owen Mahoney eventually emerged as one of the leading muralists in the country. He received many commissions, among which were several murals to be displayed at the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition, two murals for the New York World’s Fair of 1939, and murals for private residences in New York, Connecticut, and Texas. After winning a national competition, Mahoney painted a third mural for the 1939 World’s Fair: a painting, measured one hundred by thirty-four feet, for the Building of the Government of the United States.

In 1939, Mahoney accepted an invitation from Dean Gilmore Clarke to become a member of Cornell University’s faculty at its College of Architecture. During the next three years, he regularly traveled between his Ithaca studio and his New York City apartment. In 1942, Mahoney joined the U.S. Army Air Corps and was stationed, after an officer training course, with a British military unit where he specialized in interpreting aerial photographs of enemy positions. After the war, Mahoney returned to Cornell University, took residence at the campus Faculty Club, and renewed his teaching responsibilities.

Although he maintained his ideals from Yale University, Jesse Own Mahoney adapted his art teachings on theory and methods to a form of modified surrealism that combined trompe l’oeil elements, i.e. visual illusions, with real found objects, a characteristic of mid-twentieth century American art. Mahoney continued his mural work, albeit on a smaller scale as public favor for grand-scale murals had fallen, as well as his verre églomisé (reverse glass paintings) for sites in Baltimore, Atlanta, Ithaca and other cities. All these works were distinguished by their impeccable craftsmanship, Art Deco opulence, and suitability to the site.

Mahoney served as chairman of Cornell University’s Department of Art, during which he fostered a program that brought contemporary artists to Cornell. These artists presented their views and participated in critiques of student art. An individual with a complex personality, Mahoney was an avid and perceptive reader with strong literary opinions; his interests ranged from aesthetic theory to the latest fiction. Although trained in Renaissance traditions, he had high regard for the bucolic images of Samuel Palmer, the neo-primitive works of Henri Rousseau and the simple small-scale paintings of Giorgio Morandi.

Jesse Owen Mahoney died at the age of eighty on the nineteenth of October in 1987 in Ithaca, New York. He left his library of approximately seven-thousand five-hundred volumes to the Cornell University Libraries, all the paintings in his possession to Cornell University’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum, and his house and furnishings to the Unitarian Church of Ithaca.

Notes: Jesse Owen Mahoney’s “The Etruscans=, painted in 1932 during his tenure in Italy, is a powerful work. Imbued with grandeur, it captured Mahoney’s attention to line, sculptural forms, tonal gradations, and Art Deco flamboyance. Equally conscious to the art of composition, he filled the large-scale canvas with a surprisingly intimate and engaging scene.

Verre églomisé refers to the process of applying both a painted design and gilding onto the rear face of glass. In this process, the artist’s natural methodology is reversed, with highlights applied first and background applied last.

Top Insert Image: Jesse Owen Mahoney, “The Red Bird”, Oil on Canvas, 195.9 x 182.6 cm, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University

Second Insert Image: Jesse Owen Mahoney, “Legend”, Date Unknown, Oil on Canvas, 160 x 2223.5 cm, Private Collection

Third Insert Image: James Owen Mahoney, “Allegorical View of South Texas”, 1936, Mural Oil on Canvas, Hall of State, The State of Texas Building, Dallas, Texas

Bottom Insert Image: Jesse Owen Mahoney, “Sunday Afternoon”, Oil on Canvas Stretched on Hardboard Panel, 121.9 x 152.4 cm, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University

Henry Ernest Schnakenberg, “Indians Trading with the Half Moon”, 1941, One of Four Fresco Murals, Post Office Fort Lee, NewJersey

Born at New Brighton, Staten Island, New York in September of 1892, Henry Ernest Schnakenberg was an American realist painter and etcher known primarily for his renderings of New York’s Central Park and other cityscapes. He began his art studies with evening classes at the Arts Student League in 1913. Schnakenberg’s experience of attending the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art at the city’s 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue, known now as the Armory Show, solidified his desire to be an artist. After that exposure, he began full-time classes at the League, that continued as three years of study under painter and printmaker Kenneth Hayes Miller.

After exhibiting two works at the Society of Independent Artists, Schnakenberg enlisted in the Army Medical Corps in 1917 at America’s entry into World War I. Discharged in 1919, he quickly returned to art, exhibiting alongside Joseph Stella at the Whitney Studio Club. Beginning in 1923, Schnakenberg taught for two years at the Art Students League and, later, became the League’s president in 1932. In addition to his teaching, he wrote essays and reviews throughout his career for art magazines.

Henry Schnakenberg regularly exhibited his work at the Society of Independent Artists as well as museum invitationals, including those at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He participated in the Carnegie International from 1920 to 1949 and exhibited alongside his mentor Kenneth Miller at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Beginning in 1932, Schnakenberg was represented by New York’s C.W. Kraushaar Galleries.

After completing mural commissions from the Treasury Department’s section of Fine Arts for post offices in Amsterdam, New York and Fort Lee, New Jersey, Schnakenberg relocated to Newtown, Connecticut. He would travel from there to paint the summer landscapes of Vermont and New England farmlands. A member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, Henry Ernest Schnakenberg died at the age of seventy-eight in October of 1970 at Newtown. His body in interred at the Moravian Cemetery in New Dorp, New York.

Bottom Insert Image: Henry Ernest Schnakenberg, “Air Plants, Puerto Rico”, 1927, Oil on Canvas, 77.2 x 92.1 cm, Whitney Museum of American Art, new York