Michael G. Kammen
Michael Kammen has taught American history and culture at Cornell University since
1965. He received the Pulitzer Prize for People of Paradox (1973), and the
Francis Parkman Prize and the Henry Adams Prize for A Machine That Would Go of
Itself: The Constitution in American Culture (1987). Readers may know Kammen as
a prominent historian of colonial America, but his interests and writing have progressed,
and his nineteenth book, American Culture, American Tastes
(Knopf 1999), reflects his changing interests.
Robert Gwathmey is Kammen's twentieth book. Gwathmey
became a focus for Kammen after he ran across one of Gwathmey's pieces in
Manhattan while researching another book. Kammen now owns a number of canvases and prints by
Gwathmey and is co-curating a Gwathmey retrospective to open at The Butler Institute of
American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, in September.
Gwathmey is perhaps best remembered as the first white American painter to depict
African Americans in an unromanticized, respectful manner. Using a unique style that
combined a deliberate two-dimensionality with deep and vivid colors, Gwathmey
illuminated the inherent dignity of the tenant farmers and sharecroppers who were his
subjects.
Kammen had the full cooperation of Gwathmey's widow, son, and former
lover while
conducting research for the book. Kammen conducted candid interviews with many
people who knew the artist and collected his art. Because of the cooperation by those who
knew Gwathmey, Kammen was able to capture the narrative of Gwathmey's
life and career as a Social Realist painter, including his political activism and his love affairs.
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