Morris Kantor (American, born Minsk, Russian Empire, now Belarus, 1896–1974)
About this artwork
Morris Kantor drew inspiration from the material culture of historical New England—ladder-back chairs, colonial portraiture, marine painting, wallpaper—in this fantastical rendering of a supposedly haunted house in rural Massachusetts. A shadowy figure lurks at the composition’s darkened right edge, an unknown presence encroaching on the comforts of the sitting room. Kantor later recalled that such a setting, with “its peculiar moldy smell, the fading beauty of old plaster discolored by time and living … turned my imagination to the past, to the people who had lived there and gone.” A Russian immigrant, the artist engaged with the stories and objects of American history as catalysts for his Surrealist, dreamlike musings.
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
“‘Odd’ Painting Wins 1st Prize at Show Here,” Chicago Daily News, Month illeg. 29, 1931. Probably Oct.
Eleanor Jewett, “Fine Statues on Display at Art Institute,” Chicago Tribune, Oct. 20, 1931.
Eleanor Jewett, American Exhibition at Institute: Jury Awards First Prize of $2,500 to Morris Kantor for His Canvas, ‘Haunted House,’” Chicago Tribune, Nov. 1, 1931, G4.
“Chicago’s Annual Draws Eyes of Fighters for American Art,” Art Digest 6, 3 (Nov. 1, 1931), 3–4, ill. p. 3.
“Paintings by Morris Kantor,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 25, 9 (December 1931), cover ill., 127.
C. J. Bulliet, “Art Institute of Chicago Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture,” Creative Art 9 (December 1931), 493–5, ill. p. 493.
“The Forty–fourth Annual at Chicago,” American Magazine of Art 23 (Dec. 1931), 487, ill. p. 486.
Daniel Catton Rich, “Fifty Years at Chicago,” Magazine of Art 32, 12 (December 1939), 721.
Morris Kantor, “Ends and Means,” Magazine of Art, 33 (March 1940), ill. p. 143.
Anita Ventura, “The Paintings of Morris Kantor,” Arts 30, 7 (May 1956), 31.
Matthew Baigell, “The Beginnings of ‘The American Wave’ and the Depression,” Art Journal 27, 4 (Summer 1968), 391–92, ill. p. 392.
Matthew Baigell, The American Scene: American Painting of the 1930’s (Praeger Publishers, 1974), 21, ill. 7, 22.
Judith A. Barter, et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2009), 181–82, cat. 80 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Forty–Fourth Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture, Oct. 29–Dec. 13, 1931, cat. 97, pl. 97 (Mr. and Mrs. Frank G. Logan Medal).
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings by Morris Kantor, Dec. 22, 1931–Jan. 17, 1932, no cat.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–Nov. 1, 1933, cat. 573.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–Nov. 1, 1934, cat. 601.
New York, The Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright Art Gallery, Art of Today, Jan. 3–31, 1936. Late loan, not in catalogue but confirmed by archival documentation.
Art Institute of Chicago, Half a Century of American Art, Nov. 16, 1939–Jan. 7, 1940, cat. 88, pl. XLVII.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Romantic Painting in America, Nov. 15, 1943–Feb. 16, 1944, ; Milwaukee Art Institute, Mar. 3–31, 1944; Northampton, Massachusetts, Smith College Museum of Art, Apr. 15–June 20, 1944; San Francisco Museum of Art, Aug. 15–Sept. 17, 1944; Oregon, Portland Art Museum, Oct. 1–29, 1944; Seattle Art Museum, Nov. 10–Dec. 10, 1944; City Museum of St. Louis, Jan. 2–30, 1945; University Gallery, University of Minnesota, Feb. 13–Mar. 13, 1945; St. Paul Gallery and School of Art, Apr. 1–29, 1945, cat. 19, ill.
Ohio, Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Twelve Contemporary Americans, Oct. 4–Nov. 13, 1945, unnumbered checklist.
London, The Tate Gallery, American Painting for the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day, Jun–July 1946, cat. 126.
Iowa, Davenport Municipal Art Gallery, Morris Kantor Retrospective, June 3–27, 1965, cat. 4.
Columbus, Ohio State University, America, Oct. 13–31, 1968, no cat.
Reno, Sierra Nevada Museum of Art, 1931 America: The Artist’s View, Sept. 12–Oct. 30, 1982, San Diego State University, Nov. 20–Dec. 18, 1982, unnumbered checklist.
Art Institute of Chicago, America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s, June 5–Sept. 18, 2016; Paris, Musee de l’Orangerie, Oct. 15, 2016–Jan. 30, 2017; London, Royal Academy, Feb. 25–June 4, 2017, cat. 28.
Toledo, OH, Toledo Museum of Art, Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art, June 12–Sept. 5, 2021; Louisville, KY, Speed Art Museum, Oct. 7, 2021–Jan. 2, 2022; Minneapolis, MN, Minneapolis Insittute of Art, Feb. 19–May 15, 2022.
Morris Kantor (1896–1974), 1930; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1931.
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