Elizabeth Bishop at Tibor de Nagy - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Art in America, June, 1997 by Bruce Gagnier

Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) could convey in two dimensions some of the qualities of her poetry. Eighteen of her small watercolors and gouaches were installed together for the first time in New York at Tibor de Nagy. These are pictures by a poet, but they are not merely pictures for poems. Bishop's poetry suggests that her writing involved a self-forgetful concentration. Her pictures convey that same concentration applied to intense looking.

In looking around, mostly during her travels, she found situations that were suggestive. The idea of one who is always peripheral is invoked often. The sensation of looking out from within or in from the outside recurs. Various forms of refuge play major roles in her scenarios. Dualities arranged by nature are found and painted. Simple scenes -- readymades of nature -- narrate abstract content. The rendering of things is charmingly unschooled, a little childlike. But the images stick, taking hold through a clear visual intelligence. Her simple plastic conventions of line and tone are apt, borrowed, but well handled, suggesting that Bishop informed herself naturally about painting. The ability to select from one's experience the poignant moment seems natural for a poet. It is enough to launch these works beyond most amateurism.

In Harris School, Bishop shows us that she can make two ideas present at once. A walkway between two lawns effectively divides the picture in halves. This static foreground is activated by the implied diagonal of a bicycle lying on its side under a tree to our right. Its modest axial force directs us to the two doors of a schoolhouse. The door on the left is closed; the right-hand one is open but dark and ominous. Acting as a visual hinge by occupying the precise center of the composition, the doors divide our vision into two zones of attention. Near the edge of the page rises an authoritative flagless pole. At left, above the roof, appear animated kites, suggesting that school is out.

In Forty One Charles Street, thick vines of ivy seem to inhabit a house as much as grow on it. We imagine this house, in which Bishop lived for a time, to be made of ivy and only strengthened by brick. The sense of refuge is dramatically enhanced by warm, intense color and persuasive contrast. A streetlamp arches protectively over the door in a Puritan Gothic embrace. The house next door, in comparison, is a pale nonentity draped in half tones.

Bishop's straightforward depictive methodology continues throughout the show, usually revealing the surface of nature along with its suggestive nuance. This equation is unexpectedly simplistic in Chandelier, where a prosaic description of the object transforms a little too easily into the spiderlike accompaniment of its shadow. When the dialogue between psychology and forms is not present, as in the still lifes, Bishop's works are only charming.