Alice with Black Feather
Artist
Stanley Louis Rosenthal
(American, 1942-2015)
Date1993
MediumWatercolor
DimensionsFrame Size: 60 1/2 × 45 3/4 in. (153.7 × 116.2 cm)
Image Size: 51 × 36 1/2 in. (129.5 × 92.7 cm)
ClassificationsDrawing
Credit LineGift of Kathlyn Rosenthal, 2018
Object numberUAC6656
DescriptionRendered exactingly, utilizing a boldness of pigmentation unexpected from the watercolor medium, “Alice with Black Feather” revisits a favorite trope of Rosenthal through the depiction of a human subject surrounded by a whimsical arrangement of disparate objects. Alice’s lips purse with a severity seemingly unfitting for this South-Western-esque mise en scène. Shadows cross her face and loom prominently throughout the composition lending an air of foreboding to this banal arrangement. Alice’s feathered coif, mimicking the plume grasped in her left fist, works against gravity, likely held up by a solid basecoat of hairspray. This paired with the delicately patterned vest-tee shirt combo precisely define this image as one capturing early 1990s Americana. The backdrop of Alice’s constructed habitat compliments her vest, its pale blues fluidly give way to shades of white, creating a marbling of color that appears like an abstraction of a summer sky seen through the blank spaces of the wooden trellis, interrupted only by a photograph haphazardly tacked to the frame.The stern subject sits before a table outfitted with a tablecloth made of a coarse linen that holds onto the shadows of creases leftover from long periods of safekeeping in some storage closet. Geometric patterns in black and rusty brown lead down to the ornate floorboards, painted with alternating bands of warm chocolate and smokey grey, pronouncing the waves of the wood grain decisively. A curiously crafted sandbox sits atop the table, serving as desert paradise for a pair of pig figurines, lounging in casual swimwear amidst the slopes of the sand pit. Various cacti and petit succulents provided a semblance of shade for our sunbathers in their miniature oasis. A stray pot housing a flourishing plant appears in the foreground, floating by mysteriously as if untethered to the world of the image. Each of these elements alone perhaps seem a bit ordinary and uninspired. But when collaged together, they form the beginnings of a mysterious narrative unfurled only in the individual observer’s imagination. Rosenthal had a penchant for whimsy, implanting humourous, kitschy knick-knacks into his earlier portraits and studies based on direct observations of constructed scenes. This habitual interruption of a more historically solidified practice with elements of the unexpected seen in his earlier watercolors builds throughout his career, eventually giving way almost entirely to phantasmagoric renderings marrying the real to the imagined, the observed present to the remembered past.Cleveland, OH native Stanley Louis Rosenthal left his beloved hometown for Pittsburgh, PA to study at Carnegie Mellon University. After obtaining his BFA, Rosenthal moved to Detroit, MI in 1964, serving as a Graduate Assistant in the Department of Art and Art History at Wayne State University. After earning his Master’s from the department, Rosenthal was hired on as a full time faculty member in Printmaking in 1969, reaching professorial status in 2006. Over his fifty years of engagement with Wayne State’s Art Department, his charismatic nature as caring, genuine individual, devoted not only to his craft but to his student’s education served as inviting and inspirational presence resonating throughout the downtown campus. Throughout his career, Rosenthal has been awarded recognition for both his instructional and artistic efforts. He has received accolades on regional and national levels as a printmaker and a painter from Watercolor USA, State of the Art National Watercolor Invitational, and Michigan Water Color Society’s annual exhibitions. In 2001, Rosenthal received the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, WSU. In addition to his roles as award-winning instructor and artist, Rosenthal served as chair of the Michigan Water Color Society, President of Michigan Association of Printmakers, and artist/advisor to the Graphic Arts Council of the Detroit Institute of Arts over the course of his career. He also served as a juror and speaker at many various locations in Michigan and beyond. Additionally, in 2013 he received WSU’s esteemed Murray E. Jackson Scholar in the Arts Award and subsequently put on a two part exhibition titled Memories: Stanley Louis Rosenthal: part one centered on new works by Rosenthal from the collection Memory Series, the second half involved taking a retrospective look at his older body of work in full. Stanley Louis Rosenthal passed away in late 2015. To honor his memory, WSU’s Department of Art and Art History has since crafted a scholarship in his name.
Written by Kat Goffnett
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