Honoré Desmond Sharrer
Encyclopedia
Honoré Desmond Sharrer was a noted American artist first received public acclaim in 1950 for her Tribute to the American Working People. It was painted as a five-image polyptych echoing a Renaissance altarpiece, except its central figure is a factory worker not a saint. Flanking this central figure are smaller scenes of ordinary people—at a picnic, in a parlor, on a farm and in the schoolroom. Meticulously painted in oil on composition board in a style and color palette reminiscent of the Flemish masters, the finished work is more than six feet long and a three feet high and took her five years to complete. It recently was the subject of a 2007 retrospective at the Smithsonian.
She first received public notice when her work Workers and Paintings (1943) was included in the legendary 1946 "Fourteen Americans" show at the Museum of Modern Art
in New York, curated by Dorothy Canning Miller
. This show featured a selection of up and coming artists including Robert Motherwell
, Isamu Noguchi
(sculpture), and Saul Steinberg
. The "Fourteen Americans" show at MOMA, while often thought to proclaim the arrival of abstract expressionism did not do so unambiguously since it included those like Sharrer and George Tooker
who are not modernists based on the litmus test of abstraction.
Unlike many of her New York contemporaries including Motherwell, Jackson Pollock
and Mark Rothko
, Sharrer did not take the turn to abstract expressionism and continued to paint in a figurative and academic style, although the content of her work was often mordantly witty. The term Magic Realism
applied to other American painters including Paul Cadmus
and George Tooker is often used to describe her later work.
there. Her mother, the former Madeleine Sachs, was also a painter. Ms. Sharrer was reared in the Philippines, Paris and in several American cities before graduating from high school in La Jolla, California.
At 18, she was chosen out 230,000 applicants to win a national graphic arts Youth Forum prize sponsored by The American Magazine. Subsequently she attended Yale University School of Art and the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute
. During World War II
, she worked as a welder in shipyards in California and New Jersey.
After an earlier marriage that ended in divorce, in 1947 Ms. Sharrer married Perez Zagorin
, a prominent historian of Europe. They lived and worked in New York, Amherst, Montreal, London, Rochester, NY and Charlottesville, VA. They had one son, Adam Zagorin, born 1953.
While often included in group shows in those intervening periods, and although she worked continuously and diligently on her art, she was often overlooked as "modern art" came to be seen as synonymous with abstract expressionism. So powerful was this association that MoMA had to name its show in 2000 (in which Sharrer was included) as "Modern Art despite Modernism," as if the latter were synonymous with the former.
Despite her meticulous technique, luminous color palette, and eye for telling detail reminiscent of Flemish painters, she was a modernist in sensibility and subject. A painting like Resurrection of a Waitress (1984), displays a sly humor in its choice of subject matter that hearkens back to her Tribute, but also shares with the latter a modernist's assumption that the life of a waitress or working man is as deserving of our attention as any saint. The waitress is carried heavenwards (?)--held aloft means of an eggbeater caught in her hair—by a partially nude angel, whose method of propulsion is a whirlygig rather than wings.
Equally enigmatic is another of her late paintings, A Dream of Monticello (1996) in which a female nude wearing headphones reclines with one red pump on and one off. Thomas Jefferson
, and presumably one of his sons with Sally Hemmings are standing just behind. In the background are two triumphal obilisks flanking an almost Dali-esque clock, presumably the clock at Monticello. In the foreground is a beautifully rendered silver ewer, a known Monticello objét.
This combination of careful observation, juxtaposition, fantastical elements, often nude woman portrayed in scenes with clothed men, triumphal arches are all rendered in a curiously flat, highly charged and exquisitely colored dreamscape-like settings are like glimpses of a private world, rendered for us by the artist to make of them what we will.
1971: Childe Hassam Purchase Prize, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, NY
1978: Childe Hassam Purchase Prize, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, NY
1981: Lillian Fairchild Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts, University of Rochester, NY
1984: Gladys Emerson Cook Prize, National Academy of Design, NY
1987: Award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Arts, National Women's Caucus for Art
2000: Prize for Outstanding Accomplishment in Painting, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, NY
Estate of Lincoln Kirstein
Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Museum of Modern Art, NY
Newark Museum, NJ
San Diego Museum of Art, CA
Sarah Roby Foundation
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
University of Rochester, NY
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
University of Virginia Art Museum
She first received public notice when her work Workers and Paintings (1943) was included in the legendary 1946 "Fourteen Americans" show at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York, curated by Dorothy Canning Miller
Dorothy Canning Miller
Dorothy Canning Miller was an American art curator and one of the most influential people in American modern art for more than half of the 20th century...
. This show featured a selection of up and coming artists including Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell American painter, printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School , which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston....
, Isamu Noguchi
Isamu Noguchi
was a prominent Japanese American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public works, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces,...
(sculpture), and Saul Steinberg
Saul Steinberg
Saul Steinberg was a Romanian-born American cartoonist and illustrator, best known for his work for The New Yorker.-Biography:...
. The "Fourteen Americans" show at MOMA, while often thought to proclaim the arrival of abstract expressionism did not do so unambiguously since it included those like Sharrer and George Tooker
George Tooker
George Clair Tooker, Jr. was a figurative painter whose works are associated with the Magic realism and Social realism movements...
who are not modernists based on the litmus test of abstraction.
Unlike many of her New York contemporaries including Motherwell, Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
and Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
, Sharrer did not take the turn to abstract expressionism and continued to paint in a figurative and academic style, although the content of her work was often mordantly witty. The term Magic Realism
Magic realism
Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...
applied to other American painters including Paul Cadmus
Paul Cadmus
Paul Cadmus was an American artist. He is best known for his paintings and drawings of nude male figures. His works combined elements of eroticism and social critique to produce a style often called magic realism...
and George Tooker is often used to describe her later work.
Life and education
Honoré Desmond Sharrer was born at West Point, N.Y. Her father, Robert Allen Sharrer, was an Army officer attached to the United States Military AcademyUnited States Military Academy
The United States Military Academy at West Point is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located at West Point, New York. The academy sits on scenic high ground overlooking the Hudson River, north of New York City...
there. Her mother, the former Madeleine Sachs, was also a painter. Ms. Sharrer was reared in the Philippines, Paris and in several American cities before graduating from high school in La Jolla, California.
At 18, she was chosen out 230,000 applicants to win a national graphic arts Youth Forum prize sponsored by The American Magazine. Subsequently she attended Yale University School of Art and the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...
. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, she worked as a welder in shipyards in California and New Jersey.
After an earlier marriage that ended in divorce, in 1947 Ms. Sharrer married Perez Zagorin
Perez Zagorin
Perez Zagorin was an American historian who specialized in 16th and 17th century English and British history and political thought, early modern European history, and related areas in literature and philosophy. From 1965 to 1990, he taught at the University of Rochester, New York, retiring as the...
, a prominent historian of Europe. They lived and worked in New York, Amherst, Montreal, London, Rochester, NY and Charlottesville, VA. They had one son, Adam Zagorin, born 1953.
Art
After a solo exhibition of her paintings in Boston in 1951, Ms. Sharrer did not have another solo show until 1969. After another eighteen years she had a 1987 solo exhibition that traveled from New York City to the Memorial Gallery (Rochester, NY) and the Danforth Museum (Framingham, MA).While often included in group shows in those intervening periods, and although she worked continuously and diligently on her art, she was often overlooked as "modern art" came to be seen as synonymous with abstract expressionism. So powerful was this association that MoMA had to name its show in 2000 (in which Sharrer was included) as "Modern Art despite Modernism," as if the latter were synonymous with the former.
Despite her meticulous technique, luminous color palette, and eye for telling detail reminiscent of Flemish painters, she was a modernist in sensibility and subject. A painting like Resurrection of a Waitress (1984), displays a sly humor in its choice of subject matter that hearkens back to her Tribute, but also shares with the latter a modernist's assumption that the life of a waitress or working man is as deserving of our attention as any saint. The waitress is carried heavenwards (?)--held aloft means of an eggbeater caught in her hair—by a partially nude angel, whose method of propulsion is a whirlygig rather than wings.
Equally enigmatic is another of her late paintings, A Dream of Monticello (1996) in which a female nude wearing headphones reclines with one red pump on and one off. Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
, and presumably one of his sons with Sally Hemmings are standing just behind. In the background are two triumphal obilisks flanking an almost Dali-esque clock, presumably the clock at Monticello. In the foreground is a beautifully rendered silver ewer, a known Monticello objét.
This combination of careful observation, juxtaposition, fantastical elements, often nude woman portrayed in scenes with clothed men, triumphal arches are all rendered in a curiously flat, highly charged and exquisitely colored dreamscape-like settings are like glimpses of a private world, rendered for us by the artist to make of them what we will.
Awards
1951: Norman Waite Harris Medal and Prize, Art Institute of Chicago1971: Childe Hassam Purchase Prize, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, NY
1978: Childe Hassam Purchase Prize, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, NY
1981: Lillian Fairchild Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts, University of Rochester, NY
1984: Gladys Emerson Cook Prize, National Academy of Design, NY
1987: Award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Arts, National Women's Caucus for Art
2000: Prize for Outstanding Accomplishment in Painting, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, NY
Collections
Danforth Museum, Framingham, MAEstate of Lincoln Kirstein
Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Museum of Modern Art, NY
Newark Museum, NJ
San Diego Museum of Art, CA
Sarah Roby Foundation
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
University of Rochester, NY
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
University of Virginia Art Museum