Black Framework of 20th Century

The Long Beach Museum of Art presents a sampler exhibition of some 60 works titled “Exultations: 20th Century Masterworks by African American Artists.” The show’s title suggests ambitions that its substance fails to fulfill; it’s fitful and uneven but still engaging.

The catalogue and most of what’s on display come from an exhibition organized by New York’s Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. Long Beach reshuffled the deck, deleting a few works and adding others. Nonetheless, the ensemble retains a decidedly East Coast flavor, and therein lies its character.

Most of America’s small cadre of acknowledged black Modern master artists are represented by small examples. Henry O. Tanner’s “Nocturnal Landscape” shares in the brooding proto-Expressionist mood of Ryder and Blakelock. Romare Bearden’s “Farm Couple” shows his knack for haunting combinations of collaged images, but it’s in poor shape. Among the best of these diminutive works is Palmer Hayden’s sweet, fresh watercolor “Carousel Wharf” and an untitled photograph by James Van Der Zee. Depicting a fetching young woman draped across a chair showing off her 1940s finery, it speaks to that delicious moment in life when you’re at your best and you know it.

Some of the exhibition’s best moments come in encounters with work by black artists little known here.

Richmond Barthe had his sculptural heyday in the ‘30s. Two of his small bronzes of heroic black males resonate of the period by introducing hints of Art Nouveau into their academic naturalism. In the ‘40s, Hayward Oubre sculpted a powerful head called “Stevedore.” Its style is a melange of Cubist and African carving.

Title notwithstanding, very little of the work here expresses exaltation. Much of it is mantled in a kind of thoughtful reverie, sometimes bordering on the mood of the blues, sometimes edged with muscular irony. This aura may not be linked to the condition of being black in America. All the same, one does do a bit of a double-take at the noticeable increase of buoyancy in a little gallery devoted to African American artists who went to work in Paris.

William H. Johnson’s “Jitterbug” has the lyric lift of an uncaged butterfly. Hale Woodruff’s ‘40s woodcut “Trashy on a Mule” possesses the urbane wit of John Held Jr., and Sargent Johnson’s “Seated Bird” adds sentiment to Paris’ cosmopolitanism.

The exhibition, not surprisingly, mirrors the American black experience in subject matter. It also strongly echoes the shamanistic power of native African art. That great tradition has been so deeply absorbed by mainstream modernism, there’s nothing particularly startling in finding its spirit in the abstract and assemblage works on view. It is a bit bemusing to find its power in some of the figurative and surreal artists.

*

Among the most magical paintings on view is Eldzier Cortor’s “Still-Life: Past Revisited.” It shows a room where one corner is piled to the ceiling with chairs. They seem about to topple onto a delicate glass case of thrift-shop heirlooms. Nearby a dresser is festooned with jazz memorabilia. The scene, like memory itself, seems at once imagined and real.

Much of the same quality invests James Porter’s drawing “Woman With a Fur Collar.” Entirely academic in execution, it nonetheless has an unnerving quality of living presence that recalls African art. There’s a very similar edge in the art of the Los Angeles artist Charles White. Seen here in relatively large proportion, his heroic depictions of stoic black people remain familiar and moving. The surprise is “The Preacher,” a 1940 painting that links him to Depression-era realism.

*

Long Beach beefed up the representation of California artists. Ray Saunders is represented with a black canvas that combines abstract funk with virtuoso draftsmanship. Mel Edwards’ “Double Chain” serves mainly to recall the number of talented people who have left for New York.

Historically, families of artists were once the standard. Today they’re rare, so it’s pleasant to encounter one. Betye Saar took decades to establish herself as an artist of note, working her variation on ‘50s-style L.A. assemblage. The sensitivity of her “Riddle of Reality” combines the mysticism of Joseph Cornell with the Mojo of grass-roots black America.

Her two daughters established turf in the same territory. Lezley Saar enhances old books with paintings in a woolly, heartfelt style that brings back early Charles Garabedian. Allison Saar is represented by two monumental standing figures that meld aspects of Zairian fetish with the Italian neo-Expressionism of the ‘80s.

* Through Aug. 20 at the Long Beach Museum of Art, 2300 E. Ocean Blvd. , Long Beach. Closed Monday-Tuesday. (310) 439-2119.