Fishing Boats in Drydock (1945-46 ink on paper, 8 1/2 x 10 7/8”)
by Rebecca M. Alvin
Dan Sagalyn already knew his mother, Avital was an artist when he discovered a trove of artworks never previously seen and certainly never exhibited. She had talked about studying at the prestigious Cooper Union art school in New York, about meeting Pablo Picasso, sculptor Constantin Brâncuși, and other major artists, and about studying painting as a Fulbright scholar in Paris. He also knew she had left all of that behind to be a wife and mother. And while she continued to create art at home without exhibiting anywhere, he knew it was never just a hobby.
In fact, he had encouraged her to develop an online presence as an artist, and they were working together to create a website. Other than growing up watching his mother paint, draw, and create in various mediums, he had no particular artistic training. When he found this cache of paintings and drawings, it was his instincts as a journalist working in public broadcasting for many years that kicked in, and he knew there was a bigger story there.
The work that he found was in great need of repair, having not been conserved properly, only stored away without a thought to future exhibition. And amongst it were works that she did in Provincetown in the summers of 1945 and 1946 while studying with Hans Hofmann, some of which are now on view in simultaneous exhibitions at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) and Berta Walker Gallery.
In the show at PAAM, which has been up since early June, there are various works that revisit the same theme. This is evident in her many paintings and drawings of Notre-Dame Cathedral of Paris, of Provincetown Harbor and dune scenes, and of lobsters. In the video Meet Avital the Artist, which Dan and Avital made together for her website, former director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, Hugh Davies, who met Avital when she was on the committee that hired him as the founding director of the University Gallery at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, reflects on the series of paintings and drawings she made of Notre-Dame, saying, “she’s not just portraying it, as we see it as architecture, but absorbing the complete effect of being in the space around the cathedral, incorporating not only the light but also the sound of the water, the river, just, as she puts it, ‘getting the full effect.’”
Avital’s first solo exhibition was at the University Museum of Contemporary Art in Amherst, Mass., in 2019, after decades of obscurity. She died not long after the show. Why would someone who clearly took her own work so seriously, who had achieved so much in terms of academic training, being in the right places at the right times, meeting the right people—why would someone like that not want to exhibit? The reason was to have a family, ostensibly, but was this decision due to the stricter gender roles placed upon us in that time period where women were supposed to give up anything they were passionate about in order to be passionate about their husbands and children, and their household? Or was there something else to it?
It’s understandable for an artist to simply want to paint for her own enjoyment, but most artists have that push and pull between wanting to creatively express something about themselves and also wanting people to respond to it. It seems that Avital didn’t necessarily want anyone to respond to it; she only wanted the expressive part. But isn’t it a fundamental component of expression for there to be a receiver of what you express?
In fact, as Betsy Siersma, who worked with Avital on the acquisitions committee at what was then called the University Gallery at at UMASS in Amherstand is the curator of the current show at PAAM says, even after working with her for quite some time, Avital never once mentioned that she was a painter. And even after that, Siersma says they never discussed it.
“I didn’t know she was an artist; she never told any of us, but it was very clear that she was a modernist and knew a lot about art,” Siersma recalls.
Like many female artists, such as painter Frida Kahlo, photographer Vivian Maier, and filmmaker Maya Deren, being attached to a movement wasn’t important to Avital. And in fact, showing the work not only wasn’t important to her, she found it to be an unacceptable interruption to her process. In Avital’s own words on one of the many videos her son made with her that are now available on her website, “Many [other painters] would have an exhibit whether they were ready or not. And I absolutely didn’t want to do that because I felt that I don’t want to be under any obligation. And I don’t want to have a deadline when I paint, you know… If somebody thinks the painting is beautiful, and the agent would say, ‘Oh, just leave it like that.’ I would say, ‘No, I’m not going to leave it, because I think it’s not good enough. I don’t think it’s finished.’”
It wasn’t enough to get the literal reality right, she needed her work to evoke something more, and so she worked at it, often making multiple pieces in search of what she felt was missing. In that same video, Davies explains, “She would continue to repaint Notre-Dame different times of day, different times of year, different light conditions, as she says, not repeating herself, but re-imaging it until she captured its essence.” And during her time in Provincetown, she did the same, painting, drawing, re-painting scenes from what was then a largely Portuguese fishing town, with few tourists and many artists. The two exhibits of her work offer a rare opportunity to discover an artist whose familiar subject matter is depicted in her own way, not compromised by any motivation beyond expressing what she saw and what she felt.
Avital Sagalyn: Mid-Century Provincetown is now on view at PAAM, 460 Commercial St., through August 2. There will be a reception for the exhibition on Friday, June 26, 6 p.m., attended by Dan Sagalyn. Avital Sagalyn’s work is also on view at Berta Walker Gallery, 208 Bradford St., Provincetown, June 26 – July 18, with a reception on Friday, June 26, 5 p.m. For more information about Avital visit avitalsagalyn.com. For more on the PAAM show, call 508.487.1750 or visit paam.org; for the Berta Walker show call 508.487.6411 or visit bertawalkergallery.com.
