I just received a scanned article in .pdf form from one of my uncles. It is, in large part, about my paternal grandfather, Lester Longman. My understanding is that it is not particularly flattering, but I have not read it, yet. Lester Longman was an art professor at the University of Iowa, and later at the University of California-Los Angeles. In the 1930’s, during his time in Iowa City, he had a legendary (in some circles) disagreement with Grant Wood of American Gothic fame. Anyway, I am going to read it now, and I invite you to do the same if you are interested.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think he came off too badly.
A family of troublemakers. 😉
Actually, it seems that he spurred on many now-celebrated acquisitions.
I guess that the most troubling parts are contained in the footnotes.
Anyway, I am glad to introduce my grandfather to a painter like yourself.
A fascinating history of one of the important centers of regional art in America. Regionalism, a certain brand of nationalism, and folklore were huge in the 1930s. As the article stated, the regionalist style was the government WPA style. I had never seen it characterized as Nazi as so much of it fed the imagery of the labor movement.
Thanks for putting this up. Interesting and complicated histories are part of all of our families.
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Quite impressive!
Speaking as an artist and lover of Grant Wood’s work, I think Lester Longman was kind of a zealot. I understand that the arts were undergoing an upheaval and there was a dichotomy in modernism vs traditionalism, but he was bitterly against Wood’s work from the start, and got pretty harsh about it.
I had a college art history professor who was of the same mind. He railed against “commercial” or representational artists like Andrew Wyeth and refused to include work of that nature in our lectures. I can understand someone’s feelings about certain styles of art, but not censorship of it.
Very interesting and informative!
I enjoyed the article quite a bit. A lot of the conflicts within the art world are discussed in this more specific context. I also think you can be quite proud of your grandfather for his contributions to beefing up Iowa collections. The traditionalist vs. modern conflict he was embroiled in made a lot of people choose sides.
My father was from Cedar Rapids – Grant Wood’s hometown, and 30 miles from Iowa City – and he was inordinately proud of his family’s (somewhat tenuous) acquaintance with Wood. He wasn’t atypical – there was an enormous amount of local pride in Wood, sort of when like your local high school star becomes a big league star. It must have taken a lot of courage while he was at U of I for your grandfather to be so vocally critical. That alone says a lot about him.