The Westmoreland's 'Alone Together' explores living in difficult times

“Alone Together: Encounters in American Realism,” opening Sunday at The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, brings together works of art separated by almost a century but connected through the shared experience of living and working in difficult times.

“The show broadly responds to the social conditions surrounding the pandemic,” said guest curator Alex Taylor, assistant professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. “I didn’t want to create a show that was historically specific to the moment we were in the midst of, but to think more broadly about the ways painters have responded to difficult times now and in the past.

“In thinking about staging encounters between historical and contemporary works, I wanted to draw out historical resonances in the images artists have made forever, responding to the worlds in which they live,” Taylor said.

The exhibition includes major magic realist and American scene painting from the collection of art dealer and consultant Jason Schoen, one of the most important privately owned holdings of such work. Other works are loaned from institutions including Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., and some selections come from The Westmoreland’s permanent collection.

Works by five contemporary artists join the historical paintings and prints, made predominantly from the 1930s through 1950s.

Featured artists include Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, Henry Koerner, Hughie Lee-Smith, Leonard Everett Fisher, Paul Cadmus, George Tooker, Jared French and Pavel Tchelitchew, and also includes William DeBernardi of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia-based painter Mary Henderson; among others.

Dealing with trauma

“As curator, I wanted to deal with some of the traumas of the past couple of years, but do it in a gentle, slightly oblique way,” Taylor said. “The show is not a thesis-driven show; it’s driven by the perspectives of artists. I’m interested to see what happens by bringing in different artist perspectives, and how that creates space for us to reflect upon our own experiences.”

While the exhibition title is “Alone Together,” it was the word “Encounters” in the subtitle that particularly resonated with Taylor.

“Most of the paintings show encounters, but I’m really excited about the encounters people will have within the gallery, with the works and with each other,” he said. “The prospect of being together in an exhibition space is its own kind of weirdly new experience again. The title came out of idea of what it means to come together in an exhibition space again.”

Several of the works present images of civil unrest unfolding in the shadow of monuments, or capture violent struggles in public spaces. Others address the traumas of war, economic depression and other societal upheavals, although the themes are not always apparent at first glance.

“The works in the show tend to address difficult topics, not by representing them as their subject but by often showing human interaction as it unfolds around them,” Taylor said. “Sometimes it’s not clear that you’re looking at a painting that is about a union strike and police violence and a picket line, as is the case with the key image for the exhibition. You wouldn’t look at that and see immediately what it’s about.

“That’s what really interests me too. It asks people to really pause with these works and spend time to unlock the stories they contain.”

Another group of works shows people at the beach.

“This seems like a fairly unlikely topic, but in many instances, it became clear to me that these paintings were about people escaping from social trauma,” Taylor said. “If you look at the date of these works, they’re from smack in the middle of World War II. I was interested in how these paintings are images of self-care and trying to find escape from what’s going on in the world.”

“The concept for this exhibition was conceived during the pandemic, and it presents us all with images that now resonate in different ways, having collectively experienced the past two years,” said Anne Kraybill, the Westmoreland’s Richard M. Scaife Director/CEO. “I think our visitors will particularly find the encounters Dr. Taylor has created between the historical works and those by the contemporary artists in the exhibition to be compelling and thought-provoking.”

“Alone Together” will be on view at the Greensburg museum through Sept. 25. Public programming related to the exhibition will include a panel discussion, artist talk, film screening and a closing night “Alone Together Dinner,” a culinary experience inspired by the exhibition and catered by Black Radish Kitchen of Pittsburgh.

The exhibition is supported by The Heinz Endowments and the Hillman Exhibition Fund of The Westmoreland Museum of American Art.

For more information, visit thewestmoreland.org.