Talk:Lena Gurr

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A fact from Lena Gurr appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 15 January 2016 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that a reviewer of a solo exhibition by Lena Gurr said that the American artist "painted with the gusto of a Goya"?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2016/January. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Lena Gurr.

Wikipedia

Lead[edit]

Thanks, Andrew Davidson, for the photo. I found nothing in my sources that said Gurr had a homely style. Where did this descriptor come from? Similarly, she was not a naturalist painter in the way that people ordinarily use that term so far as I can tell. What were your reasons for putting "Jewish-American" and "Lena Gurr Biel" in the article summary at top? While Gurr was definitely Jewish, she didn't make works of art that had Jewish content. It's hard for me to see why her Jewish upbringing is sufficiently important to appear in the first paragraph. Also, I found only one source in which she was called by her married name. I believe that gives too little warrant to use that name in lead. -- Delabrede (talk) 21:35, 7 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I came to the article when the DYK hook caught my eye. I found that the article did not give me a good feel for the person, as a person. There was a {{lead too short}} tag and so I tried to fill this gap. The photograph does most of this work, being worth a thousand words, and was deliberately chosen to show her full body and setting, rather than a mug shot, such as her passport photo, which conveys much less. The additions to the lead were based upon the article and browsing the sources. The particular word "homely" appears in Devree's comment "transmuting homely scenes and incidents of every day life into pictures tinged with a kind of romantic realism". I would liken this to the work of Norman Rockwell, myself. The article uses the link representative but I don't find that helpful. Realism or naturalism as the depiction of ordinary, everyday subjects might be better and there's also Naturalism. I find that the Tabla Rasa source identifies this early period with the Ashcan School so we should consider whether this is a good genre label to summarise her work.

Most sources seem to mention her husband in their brief profiles and we should say something of this in the lead in case there is confusion about her married name. Her family background – Russian Jewish immigrants – is perhaps commonplace in Brooklyn but seems worth stating too. She appears in works such as Jewish Artists in America and we should not leave the reader to guess at such details. Andrew D. (talk) 09:15, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Andrew Davidson, for the quick response. I agree that the lede should have done more to capture the main points about Gurr as an artist. To me, Devree's comment does not mean that she made homely pictures. He's saying she took something ordinary and commonplace and made of it something tinged with romanticism. I object to naturalism as a descriptor because I believe it's associated with a hierarchical academic (in the art history sense) tradition which Gurr did not follow. As to Jewish-American, I suspect that would apply to so many artists that it loses significance as a characteristic worth pointing to up top. Since the article makes her husband's name plain, I don't see why it's useful to highlight it in the lede. Many artists married other artists and I suspect few Wikipedia articles on them highlight this fact in the lede. -- Delabrede (talk) 13:43, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The mention of art history prompts me to ping Johnbod who specialises in this field. Perhaps he can help, please. Myself, I'm not especially attached to word "homely". I'm liking the Ashcan term more now and see some limited support for this: "paintings by female American "Ashcan" artist Lena Gurr with Joseph Biel..." Andrew D. (talk) 14:10, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd avoid "homely" for the paintings. Realism/naturalism are indeed terms so widely and variably used that most meaning is lost - but used as adjectives they are rather better, & worth contrasting with Cubism. But on the whole they are opposed to Academic painting. Hope that helps. Johnbod (talk) 14:24, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Johnbod for the helpful comment. -- Delabrede (talk) 14:37, 11 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Andrew D.: How about this as a replacement lede. I will add references if you agree with text. I don't like the "one critic"/"another critic" parenthetic statements but apparently Wikipedia rules require them. -- Delabrede (talk) 14:37, 11 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Lena Gurr was an American artist who made paintings, prints, and drawings showing, as one critic said, "the joys and sorrows of everyday life." Her still-lifes, city scenes, and depictions of vacation locales were imbued, as another critic noted, with "quite humor," while her pictures of slum-dwellers and the victims of warfare revealed a "ready sympathy" for victims of social injustice at home and of warfare abroad. During the course of her career her work retained an emotional content while it evolved from a naturalistic approach to a semi-abstract cubist one. Discussing this trend, she once told an interviewer that as her style tended toward increasing abstraction, she believed it nonetheless "must have some kind of human depth to it." Born into a Russian-Jewish immigrant family, she was the wife of Joseph Biel, also Russian-Jewish and an artist of similar genre and sensibility.

I believe this reads a little more smoothly. -- Delabrede (talk) 14:59, 11 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Lena Gurr was an American artist who made paintings, prints, and drawings showing, as one critic said, "the joys and sorrows of everyday life." Another critic noted that her still lifes, city scenes, and depictions of vacation locales were imbued, with "quite humor," while her portrayal of slum-dwellers and the victims of warfare revealed a "ready sympathy" for victims of social injustice at home and of warfare abroad. During the course of her career Gurr's compositions retained an emotional content while they evolved from a naturalistic to a semi-abstract cubist style. Discussing this trend, she once told an interviewer that as her work tended toward increasing abstraction she believed it nonetheless "must have some kind of human depth to it." Born into a Russian-Jewish immigrant family, she was the wife of Joseph Biel, also Russian-Jewish and an artist of similar genre and sensibility.

Andrew D.: I know you're busy. Although it's against my usual inclinations, I'll take silence for consent and post this replacement text tomorrow, unless you say don't do it. -- Delabrede (talk) 13:44, 15 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Lena Gurr was an American artist who made paintings, prints, and drawings showing, as one critic said, "the joys and sorrows of everyday life." Another critic noted that her still lifes, city scenes, and depictions of vacation locales were imbued, with "quite humor," while her portrayal of slum-dwellers and the victims of warfare revealed a "ready sympathy" for victims of social injustice at home and of warfare abroad. During the course of her career Gurr's compositions retained an emotional content while they evolved from a naturalistic to a semi-abstract cubist style. Discussing this trend, she once told an interviewer that as her work tended toward increasing abstraction she believed it nonetheless "must have some kind of human depth to it." Born into a Russian-Jewish immigrant family, she was the wife of Joseph Biel, also Russian-Jewish and an artist of similar genre and sensibility.

Please go ahead. I'd have some more commas, myself, but that's a minor matter which shouldn't hold us back. Andrew D. (talk) 14:04, 15 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Further reading section[edit]

Lead[edit]