Art: Artists are kin, art is unrelated

Louise Fishman thought it would be a splendid idea to exhibit her work in her native Philadelphia alongside that of her mother, Gertrude Fisher-Fishman, and her late aunt, Razel Kapustin.

Her wish, expressed in a letter to William R. Valerio, director of Woodmere Art Museum, has come to pass. The resulting exhibition, "Generations," juxtaposes more than 90 paintings and works on paper by the three women.

What to make of such a show? Of the three, Fishman has the largest reputation, not only as an abstract painter but as a prominent feminist, especially during the 1970s. She has lived in New York since 1965 and has exhibited regularly there and elsewhere.

Her mother and her aunt, who died in 1968, are and were Philadelphians. (Kapustin, born in Russia, came to the city as a child.)

As artists they are known mostly here, although during the 1940s Kapustin appeared in group shows at museums elsewhere, such as the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio; the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C.; and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Fishman had her first solo show in 1965, at the Philadelphia Art Alliance. Kapustin also showed there. Both she and her sister-in-law studied at the Barnes Foundation and at the Graphic Sketch Club before it became the Fleisher Art Memorial.

Those are the formal links, but they don't tell us much about influences, if any exist beyond the fact that the older women might have been role models for Fishman.

The art of mother and daughter overlapped at one point when Fishman took some collograph plates that Fisher-Fishman didn't intend to use again and recycled them as a group of small prints serially titled Gertrude and Louise.

Otherwise, one doesn't form the impression that the women interacted creatively. They are, in fact, distinctly different artists.

Fishman's paintings are resolutely abstract expressionist; while vigorously gestural, they also communicate a sense of structure. Fisher-Fishman is both figurative and abstract; some of her works, particularly a group of collages made from common-pin packaging, are innovatively experimental.

Kapustin is the most individualistic of the three. Her work is figurative, symbolic, intensely emotional, and technically intricate. Although she has only half as many pieces on view as her relations, she is for me the most intriguing, the one I'd like to see in greater depth.

What we have, then, aside from the sentimental associaton, is three solo shows stitched together. With Fisher-Fishman and Kapustin, viewers meet artists being resurrected from obscurity, always an enlightening experience.

Fisher-Fishman represents a familiar type, a strongly motivated female artist who put her career aside to attend to her husband and children. Her formal training was minimal, yet in a self-portrait drawing and a painting called Joe in Yellow Pajamas she displays professional-level talent.

Fisher-Fishman is an innovative and adventurous artist, which we can see in her collages and in small painted abstractions such as Blues in the Night. What's missing in this show is a major statement that represents a fully developed mature voice.

Kapustin was far more engaged politically, as we see in paintings such as The Beasts of War of 1946 and Fourth Plague: Wild Beasts of 1966. These are impassioned polemics, painted in a ragged, expressionist style suggestive of dreams or neolithic cave art.

In View From Studio she was more detailed and controlled. This picture, like others, is fractured by a network of spidery lines, as is the strange, ghostly figure called Electrical Storm Over Albuquerque.

The 73-year-old Fishman is known primarily as an abstract painter, although her tactics have changed over the years. She began with grids, seen in the colored drawing of 1970 called Thin to Fat Grid, which is precise, delicate, and restrained.

More recent paintings such as Geography, Night Shining White and Within and Without are bolder, gestural, and assertive. Her brushwork recalls classic abstract expressionism - wide, layered strokes that create structure while suppressing light behind a dark scrim.

Fishman might have intended a valentine to her elders, but "Generations" turns out to be more than family history; it's a reminder that Philadelphia's artistic legacy has many layers yet to be exposed.

Revival in Wilmington. The Delaware Art Museum began holding annual exhibitions in 1912, the year it was founded as the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts. The shows continued, first as annuals, then as biennials, through 2000, when the series was suspended while the museum underwent an extensive expansion.

To celebrate its centennial, the museum has revived the format with a show of works by 97 artists chosen by juror John B. Ravenal, curator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

As in the past, this kind of exhibition inevitably produces an eclectic mix of seasoned professionals and artists who still seem to be developing. In this case, nearly 40 percent of them live in or near Philadelphia.

It's difficult for a single artist to stand out, yet some do, either because their work is demonstrably above average (Philadelphia painter Moe Brooker, Wilmington sculptor Dennis Beach) or because it's eccentrically quirky, such as an animal figure made from the hair of more than 250 slaughtered horses by Baltimore artist Keith W. Bentley.

Although Ravenal considered submissions in a variety of media, the show is almost all painting, drawing, and sculpture; photography, video and traditional craft media are scarce.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 8:45 p.m. Fridays, 10 to 6 Saturdays, and 10 to 5 Sundays. (The exhibition is closed from 3 to 4:30 p.m. during Sunday afternoon classical music concerts.)

Admission: $10 general and $7 for visitors 55 and older. Information: 215-247-0476, www.woodmereartmuseum.org.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and noon to 4 Sundays.

Admission: $12 general, $10 for those 60 and older and $6 for students with ID and visitors 7-18. Free Sundays. Information: 302-571-9590, www.delart.org.

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