Charles Logasa
Encyclopedia
Early life
Charles Logasa was born in Davenport, Iowa, United States, on July 14, 1883 to Sephardic Jewish parents and Ukrainian immigrants. His father was Seth Moses Logasa. He had two sisters, Jeanie Deana Bogen née Logasa, and Hannah LogasaHannah Logasa
Hannah Logasa is considered the pioneer of school libraries. Logasa is credited with identifying the necessity of libraries in school and worked to achieve strong interaction between the library, students, and teachers at the University of Chicago Laboratory High School.-Early life:Hannah Logasa...
He came with his parents to Omaha, Nebraska between the ages of three and five years old. As a boy he became a pupil of J. Laurie Wallace
J. Laurie Wallace
John Laurie Wallace was an Irish-born American painter.Wallace was born in Garvagh, Ireland. His family immigrated to the United States when he was age 4....
who was a pupil of Thomas Eakins
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator...
. As a young man he studied drafting and engineering and around 1905 was employed as a draftsman for the City of Omaha in the Engineer's Office drawing maps. At the age of 22 he turned to oil painting. About 1910 or 1911 he left Omaha. He entered the service of the United States Geological Survey as a topographic draftsman in Washington D. C. Logasa continued his art education with Messer and Brooke as a part-time student at the Corcoran College of Art and Design
Corcoran College of Art and Design
The Corcoran College of Art and Design, , founded in 1890, is the only professional college of art and design in Washington, DC, located in the Downtown area. The school is a private institution in association with the Corcoran Gallery of Art.The Corcoran Gallery of Art is Washington's first and...
. In 1913 he took a year's leave of absence from his duties as topographic draftsman for the United States Geological Survey and went to Paris where he entered the Acadamie Julien studying under Paul Laurens.
Art Student in Washington, D.C.
He attended art school in Washington, D.C., staying until 1917. While he was a student he rented a studio at 1421 F street where, in 1916, he exhibited a selection of works from the Armory ShowArmory Show
Many exhibitions have been held in the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories, but the Armory Show refers to the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art that was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors...
(1913) that introduced Americans to the new abstraction being made in Europe. The show contained 34 or 35 pictures on loan from Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. It had an immediate impact in Washington: it was very controversial, and Logasa was called a "hopeless degenerate" and expelled from art school. The show featured 34 or 35 works from New York, among them two watercolors by Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
, two drawings and two oils by Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, a drawing and a watercolor by Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
and two Georges Braque
Georges Braque
Georges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
. Corcoran College of Art and Design
Corcoran College of Art and Design
The Corcoran College of Art and Design, , founded in 1890, is the only professional college of art and design in Washington, DC, located in the Downtown area. The school is a private institution in association with the Corcoran Gallery of Art.The Corcoran Gallery of Art is Washington's first and...
, as with most other American art schools before the 1930s, was controlled by academics hostile to the new European Modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
.
Europe & Travels
In 1920 growing recognition enabled Logasa to devote himself full time to his painting. He traveled in Europe during the 1920s, returning to establish a residence in New York City in 1928. When Joaquín Torres GarcíaJoaquín Torres García
Joaquín Torres García , was a Uruguayan plastic artist and art theorist, also known as the founder of Constructive Universalism...
returned to Europe from New York City in 1924 and gave up his art, Logasa was able to convince him to start working again.
A foreword he composed after a Mexican stay in Old Monterrey in 1936 reveals a wry humor not often seen in his painting.
New York City
In 1928 after his return to New York he exhibited with the Salons of Omarica and with the Independents. On April 2, 1930, he was listed on the United States Federal Census as living in a hotel on 7th Avenue and 51st Street51st Street (Manhattan)
51st Street is a long one-way street traveling east to west across Midtown Manhattan.-East 51st Street:*The route officially begins at Beekman Place which is on a hill overlooking FDR Drive...
in Manhattan. He lists himself as an artist having been in that occupation for 6 years. In May, 1931, he was asked to hang a one-man show, his first, at the Contemporary Arts Gallery in New York. The same year he was invited to the Carnegie International. In 1932 he was represented in the Pennsylvania Annual Academy and in the Whitney Museum Biennial of American Art. Logasa was also a director of the Society of Independent Artists
Society of Independent Artists
Society of Independent Artists was an association of American artists founded in 1916 and based in New York.Based on the French Société des Artistes Indépendants, the goal of the society was to hold annual exhibitions by avant-garde artists. Exhibitions were to be open to anyone who wanted to...
, an organization created to organize annual exhibitions by avant-garde artists. Exhibitions were to be open to anyone who wanted to display their work, and shows were without juries or prizes. Founded in 1916, the Society was begun by collectors Walter Arensberg
Walter Arensberg
Walter Conrad Arensberg was an American art collector, critic and poet. His father was part owner and president of a crucible steel company. He majored in English and philosophy at Harvard University...
, and Katherine S. Dreier, along with Modern artists John Covert
John Covert
John Covert was an American painter born in Pittsburgh, USA. He was one of the founders of the Society of Independent Artists and was at the forefront of American Modernism. He died in New York.-External links:*...
, Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
, William J. Glackens, Albert Gleizes
Albert Gleizes
Albert Gleizes , was a French painter. Born Albert Léon Gleizes and raised in Paris, he was the son of a fabric designer who ran a large industrial design workshop...
, John Marin
John Marin
John Marin was an early American modernist artist. He is known for his abstract landscapes and watercolors.-Biography:...
, Walter Pach
Walter Pach
Walter Pach was an artist, critic, lecturer, art adviser, and art historian who wrote extensively about modern art and championed the cause of modern art...
, Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
, John Sloan and Joseph Stella
Joseph Stella
Joseph Stella was an Italian-born, American Futurist painter best known for his depictions of industrial America. He is associated with the American Precisionism movement of the 1910s-1940s....
.
Joslyn Art Museum
Twenty paintings by Charles Logasa were given to the Society of Liberal Arts, Joslyn Art MuseumJoslyn Art Museum
The Joslyn Art Museum is the principal fine arts museum in the state of Nebraska, United States of America. Located in Omaha, it is the only museum in the state with a comprehensive permanent collection...
, Omaha, Nebraska, by his sister, Hannah Logasa
Hannah Logasa
Hannah Logasa is considered the pioneer of school libraries. Logasa is credited with identifying the necessity of libraries in school and worked to achieve strong interaction between the library, students, and teachers at the University of Chicago Laboratory High School.-Early life:Hannah Logasa...
of Chicago. In March, 1939, the complete collection was shown there. On June 25, 1966, another exhibit opened at the Joslyn and included Logasa's paintings and drawings.
Death
He died in New York City on February 23, 1936 at the Hotel Taft (New York Times, 24 Feb. 1936, 17:3).He was interred in Rock Island, Illinois at Chippianook Cemetery.