DESIGN / AMONG THE AVANT GARDE, 1933

An Overdue Revision 

By Thomas Shess, Founder of PillartoPost.org Daily Online Magazine 

Yes, they were all men in this photo. But that was the 1920s. Women, a century later would not be absent from such a photograph. Progress with more progress to come. 

And yes, a woman: Anna Riwkin-Brick, a Russian born Swedish photographer took the photo (above). 

WHO ARE THESE MEN?

Tristan Tzara made his name as a founder and chief provocateur of Dada, using absurdist poetry and manifestos to challenge conventional art and bourgeois culture. 

 Paul Éluard became famous as a leading Surrealist poet whose emotionally direct verse joined dream imagery, love and political resistance. 

 André Breton defined and led Surrealism, establishing its principles of dreams, automatism and the liberated unconscious in his 1924 Surrealist Manifesto. 

 Hans Arp helped shape both Dada and Surrealism through biomorphic sculpture, collage and compositions governed partly by chance. 

 Salvador Dalí became Surrealism’s most recognizable painter by rendering dreams, paranoia and impossible scenes with meticulous, almost photographic realism. 

 Yves Tanguy created haunting Surrealist landscapes populated by strange organic forms that seemed to belong to an undiscovered dream world. 

 Max Ernst expanded the possibilities of modern art through experimental techniques such as frottage, collage and grattage, creating uncanny images from chance textures. 

 René Crevel was a gifted Surrealist writer whose novels and essays brought psychological intensity, social rebellion and personal anguish to the movement. 

 Man Ray transformed photography into a major modern-art medium through experimental portraits, solarization and his camera-less “Rayographs.” Front row, left to right: Tristan Tzara, Andre Breton, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Man Ray. Back row, L-R: Paul Eluard, Hans Arp, Yves Tanguy, Rene Crevel. 

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Front row, left to right: Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, Tamara de Lempicka, Käthe Kollwitz and Sylvia Beach; Top row, left to right: Anna Riwkin-Brick, Sonia Delaunay, Hannah Höch, Dora Maar and Méret Oppenheim. At the tripod camera: Lee Miller. Illustration circa 1933: Janus et al, Chatgpt.com

AH, WOMEN: 

If we imagine a comparably historic photograph of women from the international avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s—chosen for their achievement, originality and personal magnetism—the editors of PillartoPost.org would select the following eleven: 

Georgia O’Keeffe — The American modernist who transformed flowers, bones and Southwestern landscapes into monumental expressions of color, form and sensuality. 

Frida Kahlo — The Mexican painter who converted physical suffering, national identity and an uncompromising self-image into intensely personal symbolic art. 

Sonia Delaunay — The Ukrainian-born French artist who carried modernism’s dynamic color into painting, fashion, textiles, theater and everyday design. 

Tamara de Lempicka — The Polish-born painter whose sleek, erotic portraits became the glamorous visual signature of the Art Deco era. 

Hannah Höch — The German Dadaist who pioneered photomontage and used its fractured imagery to attack politics, gender conventions and mass culture. 

Käthe Kollwitz — The German artist became famous for emotionally powerful prints and sculptures portraying poverty, war, grief and the dignity of working people. 

Anna Riwkin-Brick — The Russian-born Swedish photographer became famous for expressive portraits, pioneering photojournalism and humane photographic books that documented the lives of women and children around the world. 

Dora Maar — The French-Croatian photographer and painter whose experimental pictures, political awareness and commanding personality made her a major Surrealist presence. 

Méret Oppenheim — The Swiss artist who became a Surrealist icon by turning familiar domestic objects into witty, sensual and unsettling works of art. 

Sylvia Beach — The American bookseller made literary history by establishing Shakespeare and Company in Paris and courageously publishing James Joyce’s Ulysses in 1922. 

Note: No such photo exists of all of the above women posing for one photograph. But if we could give that assignment to one name it would have been Lee Miller's. 

YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW / THE VOICE THAT CARRIED A MOVEMENT

 

Mavis Staples possesses one of those voices identifiable before she completes her first line. Deep, grainy and remarkably warm, it can carry sorrow, humor, faith and defiance within the same few notes. 

This summer at 87, she remains a working singer with a new album, Sad and Beautiful World, and concert dates on her calendar. 

Staples is often described as a contralto. In formal terms, a contralto is the lowest natural female singing voice—the female counterpart, roughly speaking, to a male baritone. Contraltos sing comfortably in the lower register, where the sound becomes dark, full and resonant. True contraltos are comparatively rare. 

That explains the range of Staples’ voice, but not its effect. 

Hers carries the rough texture of gospel without losing its tenderness. She can lean into a note until it sounds weathered, then soften the next phrase into something intimate. There is always a pulse beneath it, a feeling that the song existed before the musicians arrived and will continue after they leave.

 She was born in Chicago on July 10, 1939, and began singing professionally as a child with her father, Roebuck “Pops” Staples, and her siblings Cleotha, Yvonne and Pervis. 

Pops played a spare, tremolo-laden guitar while the family voices moved around Mavis’ extraordinary lower register. When 16-year-old Mavis sang lead on “Uncloudy Day,” listeners heard a voice that seemed to belong to someone who had already lived a long and difficult life. 

The Staple Singers carried gospel beyond the church without abandoning it. After Pops became close to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the family joined the struggle for civil rights. Their repertoire expanded from traditional spirituals to songs of dignity, protest and racial justice. “Respect Yourself,” “If You’re Ready (Come Go with Me)” and “I’ll Take You There” became popular records, but they also served as invitations: stand up, come along, and do not surrender your humanity. 

Bob Dylan recognized the power of the Staple Singers early. The family recorded several of his songs, including “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and “Masters of War.” Dylan’s admiration for Mavis was musical and personal. The two courted during the early 1960s, exchanged letters and, according to Mavis, did some “smooching.” 

Dylan even told Pops Staples that he wanted to marry her. The marriage never happened, but their friendship endured. Dylan’s admiration is easily understood. Both singers value truth above polish. Neither has a conventionally pretty voice, and neither requires one. 

Dylan heard in Mavis what he sought in his own singing: conviction. Her voice could make a lyric sound witnessed rather than merely performed. Mavis later worked with Curtis Mayfield, Prince, Ry Cooder and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, among many others. 

Yet producers and fashions never managed to disguise her. The essential Mavis remained: the church-trained contralto, the civil-rights veteran, the woman whose laughter is nearly as recognizable as her singing. 

Seven decades after “Uncloudy Day,” age has added wear to the voice, but little weakness. The lower notes have grown earthier, and she uses them with the judgment of someone who knows she need not shout to be heard. Mavis Staples has spent her life singing about a better world while keeping both feet planted in the one we have. That is why her voice lasts. It carries history, but it is still moving forward.