(HOST) From Art in the Park to paintings on exhibit at the local fair, commentator Tom Slayton says that summer is a good time to sample the fine arts of our region. And this summer one particular show is personal.
(SLAYTON) The friendship between my father, Ronald Slayton, and Francis Colburn lasted a half-century and only ended when Colburn died in 1984. It was a friendship that gave both men great pleasure, and that also, I am sure, benefited their work as artists and teachers.
Now an exhibition at the University of Vermont’s Fleming Museum celebrates the work of these two artists 100 years after their birth. It’s an interesting and enjoyable show – and not only because Ronald Slayton happened to be my father!
The Fleming Museum show is fascinating because it shows how the work of these two artists changed and matured over their lifetimes. And, perhaps more importantly, because the paintings and prints produced by Slayton and Colburn offer an interesting look back at some of the important themes and trends of 20th Century art in Vermont.
The two men were among the first Vermont artists to paint in a distinctly modernist manner – that is, they very consciously turned away from the placid and decorative themes of Victorian-Era art and instead embraced their own time and its challenges. They began their artistic careers in the 1930s in Burlington, and at first both painted in an earthy, muscular version of the prevailing style – Social Realism.
In later years, as their lives followed different paths, their styles diverged and each artist’s work became more personal. Yet they both continued to be strongly influenced by 20th Century modernism throughout their lives.
One of the strong points of this exhibit is that it brings to public light many paintings from the Fleming’s treasure trove of Vermont artworks that haven’t been shown for 30 or more years. It also very subtly and intelligently points up similar themes expressed in both men’s art and the influences from other, earlier painters that contributed to their understanding and growth as artists.
And yet, throughout, there are interesting differences in their paintings. We are, after all, dealing with the creative output of two very different men!
While both men celebrated the world of work and the building of a new, strong, and populist America in their New Deal-era paintings, Colburn, in his working portrait of "Charlie Smith and His Barn" clearly was depicting a particular man on a particular Craftsbury Farm. By contrast, Slayton’s two large oils entitled "Men at Work" and "Men at Rest" took pains to make the muscular figures anonymous, hiding their faces, and turning their bodies into sinewy, dreamlike compositions.
In later years, Colburn’s work took an inward turn, and he explored his own family memories in a series of paintings that included portraits of family members and friends, depictions of old photographs, and bare surrealist landscapes. Slayton left oil painting altogether and began exploring the possibilities inherent in watercolors – a difficult medium that gave him the quick composition and intense color that suited his personality.
All of these themes and more are on display in the current exhibit, "A Centennial Celebration: The Work of Francis Colburn and Ronald Slayton," which will continue at the Fleming Museum in Burlington through August 29.