Clyde Singer

Among Clyde Singer's gifts is his irrepressible sympathy for the human condition, for its peculiarly American expressions, and for the artists who have brought those expressions to life. His heroes are John Sloan, George Luks, and their successors George Bellows, Reginald Marsh, John Steuart Curry, Thomas Hart Benton, and especially his teacher and friend, Kenneth Hayes Miller-all of whom were keen observers of the American scene.

Born in Malvern, Ohio, after graduating from high school Singer decided to apprentice himself to a sign painter. With his savings from that job, he was able to enroll, first, in the Columbus Museum of Art School, and then as a scholarship student at the Art Students League, where he studied with Benton, Curry, and Miller, among others. He has since sought to capture, as they had, what he calls the "juice of life," everyday incidents and personalities candidly recorded in all their victories and flaws. Although his style is that of a realist, he has brought to it a gently satirical eye that heightens movement and color to focus our attention on his subjects' small selfrevelations-the body language by which we tell more than we want, or sometimes should, about ourselves.

When he is not painting scenes of contemporary urban life, Singer enjoys quoting his favorite artists of the past. McSorley's Bar in New York City-the Ashcan School painters' home away from home-is one of the subjects to which he has frequently turned, sometimes "accompanied" by Sloan and Luks and their own paintings' characters. An Incident in the Life of David Blythe is another such work, created by Singer especially for an exhibition, The First 100 Years of Pittsburgh History, that was held at the Western Pennsylvania Historical Society in 1955.

An Incident in the Life of David Blythe portrays Wood Street in Pittsburgh as it might have been when Blythe was working there in 1860. The street is crowded with people, most of them gathered around the windows of the art dealer, J. J. Gillespie & Co., to catch a glimpse of Blythe's most recent exhibition. Although it is now closed, at the time Singer painted this work Gillespie7s was the oldest art gallery in continuous operation in the United States, founded in 1832 and a center of Pittsburgh art life (as well as a glass, mirror, and frame shop) throughout the nineteenth century. To the spectator's delight, three of Blythe's paintings have been hung in Gillespie's windows-but at least five other Blythe paintings are quoted in the figures that appear on the street. Among these figures is Blythe himself, the lanky, unkempt man (borrowed from Blythes self-portrait) who is standing on the left side of Singer's painting, leaning against a stack of boxes. Next to him is a friend, the sculptor Isaac Broome, and behind them both, Gillespie, above whose head the shop's address is identified.

Along the curb are a number of street urchins, all of them borrowed from known Blythe works, including a group at the extreme right that is a direct quote of the Butler institute's painting of that title, The crush of people in the middle of the painting, dominated by the billowing dress of the lady pushing her way towards the window, is even more obviously a Blythe quotation, since the painting they mimic, The Post Office (c. 1862-66, Carnegie Institute Museum of Art, Pittsburgh), is the centerpiece of Gillespie's display.