Forces of Modernism in the Work of Glenn O. Coleman

Glenn O. Coleman (1887-1932) was an American artist born in the Midwest and relocated to New York City to pursue a career as an illustrator of urban modernity and, subsequently, as a modernist painter. He is best known for his anecdotal drawings of various enclaves of Lower Manhattan begun in 1905, which he later transcribed into lithographs in 1928. Today, Coleman's graphic renderings of the Bowery, the Lower East Side, and Chinatown stand as endearing documents of people and places of a bygone era. His mentor Robert Henri (1865-1929) declared: " (Coleman's work) is the record of a certain life drama going on about us here in New York ... (his) material is ... a page of life."$\sp1$ Indeed, Coleman is still cited for his expressive verism of New York City's urban genre, and such is his work that typifies the broader appeal of those artists known collectively as the Ashcan School--the second generation of New York Realists inspired by the teaching of Henri and influenced by the activities of America's first independent artists, the Eight. While Coleman's graphic work as well as his place in the Ashcan School are acknowledged in numerous sources, his modernist paintings, done within the last five years of his life, have yet to be discussed from a critical point of view. Scant references only infer the causes that led Coleman to a more formal artistic language beginning in 1925 and, consequently, his exploration of abstract tendencies beginning in 1927. This paper discusses specific events and individuals in Coleman's life that informed his aesthetic sensibility toward an art moderne in America, and the subsequent forces of modernism that influenced his modernist painting. Whereas the dynamics of New York City's populace and the influence of Henri and the New York Realists fueled Coleman's desire to illustrate modernity, his general camaraderie with America's more progressive artists and his participation in various independent exhibitions established him as a modernist painter. Presented for the first time is an examination of distinct circumstances that led to Coleman's engagement with a more formal and abstract idiom that he imposed upon his work during the final years of his life. Focusing on select paintings from this time period, it will be seen that the artist's life-long relationship with Stuart Davis (1894-1964), his ongoing participation in exhibitions of modernist art, as well as New York City's changing physicality were forces of modernism central to Coleman becoming a modernist painter. While this paper does not propose a full account of Coleman's oeuvre--much of which remains in private and unknown collections--it does represent the most comprehensive study to date on the development of Coleman's modernist work and his contribution to early twentieth-century American modernism.