{"id":8573,"date":"2017-04-25T17:16:43","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T17:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artjournalstg.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=8573"},"modified":"2020-07-28T20:54:48","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T20:54:48","slug":"communing-with-dore-ashton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?p=8573","title":{"rendered":"Communing with Dore Ashton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dore Ashton died on January 30, 2017.<\/p>\n

Art critics and historians recognize her as one of the most energetic, widely published, and politicized American writers on art, and one of the chief proponents of the artists of the New York School (she decried the label Abstract Expressionism).<\/p>\n

Dore\u2019s familiars knew her as a great lover of literature, the visual arts, and an outspoken political activist. I was privileged to know her as a dear friend and a staunch colleague.<\/p>\n

I am grateful for the time I was able to spend with Dore and her family, and especially appreciative that my daughter was also party to her remarkable recollections and able to profit from the example of such an extraordinary human being.<\/p>\n

What follows are a few tokens of that friendship: images and memories that take on a new urgency, burnished by Dore\u2019s passing.<\/p>\n

Corresponding with Dore.<\/strong> Writing to Dore meant sitting down, actually writing a letter, and mailing it. No e-mail because she didn\u2019t use a computer. Dore lived in another world where the act of composing one-half of an imagined conversation with a distant friend remained a sacred ritual unavailable to producers of e-mails, texts, or tweets.<\/p>\n

If lighting up a cigarette, sitting down to the typewriter\u2014drink in hand\u2014and pounding on the keys are for many another country, then Dore\u2019s joy will appear to be some anthropological curiosity deserving of preservation.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t see it quite like that. I picture, instead, a holiday camp where people of a certain age are instructed in the mysteries of such lost arts. It would be like a heritage village, except without the ridiculous historically accurate costumes.<\/p>\n

\"\u201c[Emily]<\/a>
\u201c[Emily] Dickinson, A letter is a pleasure of the Earth\u2014denied to the Gods + Baudelaire or Delacroix (?) speaks of \u2018tr\u00e8s belles heures de l\u2019\u00e2me\u2019.\u201d <\/strong> (photograph \u00a9 Madeline Djerejian)<\/figcaption><\/figure>Dore\u2019s summer bolt-hole was a modest cottage in a prime location not far from that famous cemetery in Springs, Long Island, New York.<\/strong> We were always prepared to do some maintenance work, and that\u2019s what we did: paint the porch, patch up the car, and change a few lightbulbs.<\/p>\n
\"Drawing<\/a>
Drawing of Dore Ashton and friend at their \u201csecret beach\u201d <\/strong> (photograph \u00a9 Madeline Djerejian)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dore<\/a>
Dore Ashton\u2019s desk at her home in Springs, Long Island, New York, summer 2011<\/strong> (photograph \u00a9 Madeline Djerejian)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dore<\/a>
Dore Ashton reading in her garden, Springs, Long Island, New York, summer 2011<\/strong> (photograph \u00a9 Madeline Djerejian)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dore loved to talk about her work and the artists and writers she knew, but not necessarily about herself.<\/strong> Her mantra was \u201cAll freedom in every sense.\u201d In conversation before audiences at the Meadows Museum and the Nasher Sculpture Center (2011), Dore said, \u201cIt has always been difficult for historians to fully grasp the intelligence of painters.\u201d<\/p>\n

The salon, known to many as Dore\u2019s home, on Eleventh Street.<\/strong> Dore\u2019s house in New York City was filled with ghosts. Throughout her life she maintained close relationships with the artists and writers she commented on, among them Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Philip Guston, Franz Kline, Lee Krasner, Octavio Paz, Marcel Duchamp, Antoni T\u00e0pies, and Isamu Noguchi. My daughter took this photo of Dore while sitting in a chair once graced by Alger Hiss. Dore\u2019s house was haunted in this way, and she was the medium through which these spirits spoke.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a>
Dore Ashton at the kitchen table in her home on East Eleventh Street, New York, New York, 2011<\/strong> (photograph \u00a9 Madeline Djerejian)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dore<\/a>
Dore Ashton, July 2015<\/strong> (photograph \u00a9 Polly Bradford-Corris)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Keep reading Dore\u2019s writings.<\/strong> Dore authored or edited thirty books on art and culture, including Noguchi East and West<\/em> (1992), About Rothko<\/em> (1996), American Art since 1945<\/em> (1982), A Fable of Modern Art<\/em> (1980), Yes, But. . .: A Critical Study of Philip Guston<\/em> (1976), A Joseph Cornell Album<\/em> (1974), The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning<\/em> (1971), Picasso on Art: A Selection of Views<\/em> (1972), The Writings of Robert Motherwell<\/em> (2007), A Reading of Modern Art<\/em> (1969), Rauschenberg: XXXIV Drawings for Dante\u2019s Inferno<\/em> (1964), The Unknown Shore: A View of Contemporary Art<\/em> (1962), Abstract Art before Columbus<\/em> (1957), and David Smith: Medals for Dishonor<\/em> (1996). Her writings on art reached international audiences, as they appeared in German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and English publications, such as Studio International<\/em>, Kunstwerke<\/em>, Colloquio Artes<\/em>, XXe Si\u00e8cle<\/em>, and Art International<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Dore also organized important international exhibitions that enlarged our understanding of European postwar art. As the poet and historian Roberto Tejada has pointed out, Ashton\u2019s voice was crucial for intellectuals and poets living in Mexico, Chile, and other countries of Central and South America. Given the enormous preoccupation today with the 1960s and 1970s, Dore\u2019s writings during that period should be read with a fresh view.<\/p>\n

\"Dore<\/a>
Dore Ashton’s files, ca. 2011<\/strong> (photograph \u00a9 Madeline Djerejian)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Don\u2019t ask her not to smoke, ever, anywhere.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Dore<\/a>
Dore Ashton, July 2015<\/strong> (photograph \u00a9 Polly Bradford-Corris)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n