Artists respond to coal ad painting

Fountain Gallery's newest exhibition coalesces around a single painting.

It's a painting with a story, one that sits at the crossroads of politics, advertising and workers' rights.

In April, Purdue Galleries director Craig Martin invited 17 local and national artists to respond to American Realist artist Rockwell Kent's "Generator of Jobs," a highlight of the university's collection that was originally part of a mid-1940s coal advertising campaign.

The artists' task? To create works that took some aspect of Kent's painting and spin it out, thereby building a visual dialogue in the gallery space.

"All of these people committed their time and effort to come up with something new, something that was their own particular take on this," Martin said.

Fortunately for the artists, "Generator of Jobs," a 1946 oil on canvas, offers no shortage of material. The painting depicts a majestic godlike man, a gentle, benevolent smile creasing his face, holding up a piece of coal that illuminates a type of plant in the distance. A group of eager men and women makes its way toward it, inspired by coal's promise of jobs.

The Bituminous Coal Institute — the public relations department of the National Coal Association — commissioned Kent to paint a series of works to be used as advertisements promoting the coal industry. The association was a Washington lobbyist group for mine owners and operators.

Although he was known for his landscape art, Kent had produced other advertising work, according to an article by art historian Eric Schruers in a 1998 issue of Southeastern College Art Conference Review. Comments he wrote during his life showed it wasn't necessarily his favorite thing to do.

As Kent worked on the project, the painter's messages to his ad executive correspondent at the Benton & Bowles agency showed frustration, the article stated. In his autobiography, Kent wrote about his "progressive irritation at the imposition of what by advertising men are termed 'ideas,'" according to Schruers.

The series was meant to include 12 ads, but it was never finished, Schruers wrote. The cancelation coincided with the 1946 coal strike, the historian stated, but no reasons for the series' ending were given in the artist's correspondence. Kent himself was an avowed advocate for workers' rights and an eventual target of Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the Cold War.

Artists' responses

The 17 artists who contributed work to this show focus on many aspects of "Generator of Jobs" through painting, sculpture, intaglio prints, photography and more.

Some respond to its form, echoing Kent's use of color, and take on coal's impact on the environment. Workers' rights, a focus on new energy models and the use of propaganda are central to others' art.

Sarojini Johnson, a professor of art at Ball State University, said she reflected literally on Kent's painting and its title, thinking about her own balance of work, creativity and family throughout her life. Her set of four intaglio prints depicts dress forms and knit pieces that still are in the process of being made. Intaglio techniques include engraving and etching, among others.

Johnson said she had created the prints previously and found they fit the show's theme after Martin asked her to be part of it.

Her prints bring in the knitting and crochet she began learning as a child and then mastered, emphasizing the meticulousness and skill of the hand-crafted activities. The artistry in those crafts eventually led her to intaglio printmaking and her career, she said.

The prints also offer a feminist contrast to the masculinity of Kent's painting, she said. Johnson dealt with crafts that many women across cultures practice — and use to cope with worry — in order to talk about women's issues in a more universal way, she said.

"Putting those pieces in, I was really making a statement that an artist can also be a female, and the work can also be quiet and soft, and it can also embody the things that women deal with," Johnson said.

Local artist Temre Stanchfield took an environmental approach. She said she was struck by the incorrect title — "Endless Energy for Limitless Living" — that was affixed to Kent's painting.

"I'm kind of spinning off of something that's not really the real title of this painting, but it's on the piece we're responding to, and it really intrigued me," Stanchfield said.

It led her to contemplate sustainable energy sources and hopefulness for the future, using a color palette inspired by the one in "Generator of Jobs."

A fully bloomed fuschia rose is the central point in her oil painting. Surrounding that are vines and leaves in a circular placement that include local native plants and olive branches that symbolize peace and wisdom.

The circles in the painting, she said, point to the natural cycle of production, flowering and waste that's used as fertilizer for the process to repeat. An infinity symbol also is incorporated.

"The process was really great to be part of, and it was a stretch because it was a little bit like an assignment, you know — responding to something I don't usually respond to," Stanchfield said.

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