Wanda Gág’s World

Mar 28–Dec 2024

Black and white etching of a potted plant with large, twisted leaves by a window, casting dramatic shadows.

On view
Floor 7

This exhibition presents a selection of prints by the artist, illustrator, and children’s book author Wanda Gág (1893–1946). These works record the world as Gág experienced it: a place where landscapes move rhythmically and inanimate objects hum with life. Although she also painted, the graphic arts offered her the most effective method for expressing this unique vision.

Born in Minnesota to immigrants from German Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic), Gág arrived in New York in 1917 to study at the Art Students League, where she became a fixture of the city’s modernist art scene. Adhering neither to abstraction nor social realism—the dominant artistic movements at the time—Gág forged her own approach to figuration. Over the course of her career, she found modest success selling her prints and produced several popular children’s books, examples of which are presented in the show. Gág was also a prolific writer about her life and work, and excerpts from her letters and diaries accompany the prints on view.

Drawn entirely from the Whitney’s collection, the works in this exhibition span roughly two decades, ranging from the mid-1920s to the year before Gág's death. Together, these still lifes, landscapes, and interiors illuminate what the artist called “Wanda Gág world,” demonstrating her fervent quest to capture the feeling and movement of life as she saw it.

Wanda Gág’s World is co-curated by Roxanne Smith, Senior Curatorial Assistant, and Scout Hutchinson, Curatorial Fellow.

El mundo de Wanda Gág

Esta exposición presenta una selección de grabados de la artista, ilustradora y autora de libros infantiles Wanda Gág (1893-1946). Estos trabajos registran el mundo tal como lo experimentó Gág: un lugar donde los paisajes se mueven rítmicamente y donde los objetos inanimados rebosan de vida. A pesar de que también pintó, las artes gráficas le ofrecieron el método más efectivo para expresar esta visión única.

Nacida en Minnesota de padres provenientes de la Bohemia alemana (hoy República Checa). Gág llegó a Nueva York en 1917 para estudiar en la Art Students League, donde se convirtió en una figura clave de la escena modernista de la ciudad. Sin adherirse ni a la abstracción ni al realismo social, los movimientos artísticos dominantes de la época, Gág forjó su propio enfoque figurativo. A lo largo de su carrera tuvo un éxito modesto vendiendo sus grabados y produciendo varios libros infantiles que se exhiben en esta exhibición. Gág también fue una escritora prolífica sobre su vida y su trabajo, extractos de sus cartas y diarios acompañan los grabados expuestos aquí.

Seleccionados de la colección del Whitney, los grabados en esta exhibición abarcan casi dos décadas, desde mediados de los años veinte hasta el año que precedió su muerte. Al exhibirse en conjunto, estas naturalezas muertas, paisajes e interiores ilustran lo que la artista llamó “el mundo de Wanda”, evidenciando su febril búsqueda para capturar los sentimientos y movimientos de la vida tal como ella la veía.

El Mundo de Wanda Gág ha sido co-curada por Roxanne Smith, Asistente curatorial sénior junto con Scout Hutchinson, Curatorial fellow.

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Gág wrote of her desire to convey what she called “the principle”—a compositional balance in which a landscape’s forms move both independently and harmoniously. She explained how she grappled with this idea in a 1926 letter to her gallerist Carl Zigrosser:

“I am out on the hills every day now, in pursuit of the old Principle. He still is elusive tho ubiquitous. But I take a grab here and a grab there, and make him yield up a fragment of a secret each day. Yesterday, while trying to catch him . . . I had an exhilarating struggle with him. I was literally limp at the end of it, but came out of it with what I think is a solid drawing. . . . Today the sky is very blue, the trees unbelievably brilliant, and the air is so clear it appears to be brittle. I must eat my lunch and dash out on the hills. Who knows what the Principle may yield up on a day like this!”

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Surreal pencil drawing of distorted figures and objects with flowing lines and contrasting textures.

Wanda Gág
27 works in the collection

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Events

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Sun,
July 14

Artmaking Inspired by Wanda Gág

11 am–3 pm

Audio

Wanda Gág grew up in a household full of music, and it remained a source of inspiration and interest to her throughout her life. This playlist includes examples of the types of German Bohemian folk songs and zither music her family would have played during her childhood, as well as some specific classical songs that she mentioned in her personal writings. Gág’s diaries contain many references to attending concerts and playing music with family and friends; in a 1923 passage she compares the rhythmic quality of her depictions of nature to music:

“Today I played [Schubert’s] ‘Unfinished Symphony’ on the victrola and lost myself contemplating the rhythms that foliage makes. A symphony and a mass of foliage are much the same. In the foliage too, you find your motif and it is amazing how intelligently the lines and masses and forms seem to fall in place after that. There are repetitions of the motif and endless and varied ramifications of it. Lines fall and rise . . . I have also been drawing foliage rhythms this morning.”

This playlist was created in collaboration with Alexander Roth, Curator at the Wanda Gág House in New Ulm, Minnesota.