On “Precision” in American Art

University of Maryland-Phillips Collection Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Ashley Lazevnick muses on the term “precision” in American art.

Hear more from Dr. Lazevnick at the Phillips on May 9 at 6:30 pm.

Marianne Moore, “Bowls,” Secession, vol. 5 (July 1923): 12.

Fig 1: Marianne Moore, “Bowls,” Secession, vol. 5 (July 1923): 12.

“I learn that we are precisians,” Marianne Moore confessed within the un-metered matrix of her poem “Bowls” in 1923 (Fig. 1). Famous for her strategies of appropriation and compression—which resulted in poems that were palimpsests of literary, artistic, musical, and popular cultural references both well-known and obscure—Moore crafted “Bowls” from a bricolage of associations: a bygone lawn game, Chinese lacquer carving, the ruins of Pompeii, and a magazine questionnaire. My particular interest in this poem began with a change that Moore made in 1951, when she substituted “precisionists” for “precisians.” Ever since, the poet has been tied to an early-20th century artistic movement known as Precisionism.

Charles Sheeler, Skyscrapers, 1922, Oil on canvas, 20 x 13 in., The Phillips Collection, Acquired 1926

Fig 2: Charles Sheeler, Skyscrapers, 1922, Oil on canvas, 20 x 13 in., The Phillips Collection, Acquired 1926

Recognized today for meticulous pictures of deserted factories and skyscrapers, Precisionism is exemplified by several artworks in The Phillips Collection, especially Charles Sheeler’s Skyscrapers (1922, Fig. 2) and Ralston Crawford’s Boat and Grain Elevator no. 2 (1941-2). But this was never a movement in the usual sense. There was no manifesto or exhibition or salon that bound the artists together, and even the term “Precisionist” came later (canonized in 1947 by Wolfgang Born). What makes Moore’s revision so special, I learn that we are precisionists, was her belated allegiance to the group…if by no other means than words alone. With Moore as the catalyst, my research into Precisionism delves into the history and associations of that crucial term: precision. Up until now, the movement has been aligned with mechanization and mass-production, but I am interested in its unexplored connection to precision in poetry and philosophy. What does it mean to create a “precise” work of art? Where did “precision” show up during this period? And what were its meanings?

Advertisement for Kroydon Clubs, New York Times (July 22, 1926): 14.

Fig 3: Advertisement for Kroydon Clubs, New York Times (July 22, 1926): 14.

By the 1920s, precision appeared in articles on warfare, law, sports, and music; consumer products that used it as a catch-word include pens, syringes, scales, gauges, eyeglasses, cameras, tailored suits, gloves, shoes, watches, refrigerators, chairs, sewing machines, pianos, rifles, and radios (Fig. 3). Surprisingly, these ads reveal that precision was never antithetical to craftsmanship. Whether selling fashionable clothing or mechanical instruments, the term could describe the care of a worker’s touch or the expert inspection of a human eye. What’s more, precision had a history long before the Industrial Revolution. Since the 16th century, it has referred to a person’s moral sensibility, once describing the rhetorical prowess of a great orator or the pious behavior of a preacher. My work explores the undiscovered commonalities between Precisionist art and the older senses of precision, which continued to bubble up in unexpected places like Moore’s eccentric and exacting poetry.

Space Modulators

(Left) Joyce Tsai, Photo: Joshua Navarro. (Right) László Moholy-Nagy, B-10 Space Modulator, 1942. Oil on incised and molded Plexiglas, mounted with chromium clamps on painted plywood, Plexiglas: 17 3/4 × 12 inches (45.1 × 30.5 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection 47.1063 © 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

(Left) Joyce Tsai, Photo: Joshua Navarro. (Right) László Moholy-Nagy, B-10 Space Modulator, 1942. Oil on incised and molded Plexiglas, mounted with chromium clamps on painted plywood, Plexiglas: 17 3/4 × 12 inches (45.1 × 30.5 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection 47.1063 © 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

Joyce Tsai will be giving a talk, “Modulating Modernism“, tonight at 6:30 at our Center for the Study of Modern Art.

László Moholy-Nagy’s Space Modulators (a great example at the Guggenheim, right), executed late in his career, are beautiful, but slightly odd painting/sculpture hybrids made in clear plastic. I came across them while I was researching his oeuvre for my book, Painting after Photography, and was drawn to them because they look so radically different from the photography and rigorous, geometrical abstract painting he made at the Bauhaus. These late works on plastic are biomorphic, replete with undulating curves and are difficult to categorize for all sorts of reason. They’re materially fragile, prone to damage, and age unpredictably. The more I worked on these objects, the more I began to see how important they were to the artist, how much they sought to synthesize his life’s work.

Joyce Tsai, 2013-2014 Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Study of Modern Art and the George Washington University

Shedding Light on Katrín Sigurđardóttir

Ísafjörður Series (2009) by Katrín Sigurdardóttir on display in Gallery 115. Photo: Eliza French

Ísafjörður Series (2009) by Katrín Sigurdardóttir on display in Gallery 115. Photo: Eliza French

The Phillips Collection hosted a Nordic Lights themed Phillips after 5 in February to celebrate our Nordic Initiative, a partnership with the embassies of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Along with film, music, and food from the Nordic region, the event featured lamps created by artists and designers from each of the five Nordic countries. The lamps from Iceland were designed by Katrín Sigurđardóttir, an artist who will speak about her work at The Phillips Collection on March 27, 2014 as part our Conversations with Artists series.

Sigurđardóttir, best known for her sculpture and installation pieces, questions our perceptions of space and time in her work. The lamps she designed are works of functional art titled Ísafjörður Series (2009), after Ísafjörður  (“ice fjord” in English), an isolated town in northwest Iceland with a population around 2,600. Sigurđardóttir photographed a series of streetscapes or “village-scapes” of the town and transferred those images to the lasercut birch veneer that wraps around the shades of these lamps. When illuminated, the lamps project photographic images laser cut into birch veneer onto their white vellum outer shades.

Ísafjörður was a captivating subject for the artist because of the unique conditions there. The town is located among steep mountains and, due to its location, the town only sees sunlight for a few hours in the winter. In the summer, the sun never truly sets. With this series of lamps, the artist sought to capture the distinctive sense of time, light, and space experienced in Ísafjörður.

Eliza French, Manager of Center Initiatives

To reserve tickets for Katrín Sigurđardóttir’s upcoming artist talk at the Phillips, visit the event page on our site.