White House Caves

UPDATE: ArtNews' Robin Cembalest first broke this story with some simple, old-fashioned journalism work...she compared the lists: "there had been another quiet cultural move in the White House. Watusi (Hard Edge), which had been the only painting listed for the East Wing-and reportedly destined for Michelle Obama's office-was no longer on the list."
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Even though they're insisting that it simply didn't fit, and that the decision had nothing to do with the wingnuts' epic ignorance about Alma Thomas' work, it's hard to believe that the White House is sending this particular painting back because there is nowhere in the entire First Family's home that this 47 5/8" x 44 1/4" work can be installed. I mean, I can understand not letting petty distractions get in the way of moving the country forward (educational opportunities apparently being as sacrificial as spinal columns), but at least call it that. Artinfo.com explains:

The White House generated discussion and debate last month when it released the list of works it borrowed from public collections to hang in its residential space. Alma Thomas’s Watusi (Hard Edge), in particular, received attention from some conservative critics, who insisted it was a crass rip-off of a classic Matisse cutout entitled The Snail. Now it is reported that the work won’t be hung after all.

The first lady’s office confirmed reports that the painting not been hung on the walls of the East Wing, though a spokesperson denied that the controversy had anything to do with the decision. “The reason why it was moved was because it didn't fit the space right,” Semonti Stephens, the first lady's deputy press secretary, told the Washington Post. Stephens went on to emphasize that the Obama’s continue to appreciate the work of Alma Thomas, noting that the artist’s Sky Light painting continues to hang in the White House.

Thomas’s presence on the list of works included in the White House piqued the interest of many art critics. New York Times critic Holland Cotter, for example, championed the selection, arguing that the work was pivotal to Thomas’s development as an artist. “[T]hrough copying Matisse,” Mr. Cotter wrote, “she began to work out a format she would use again and again.”

Of course, as we know, every such setback also represents a larger opportunity. Greg Allen nails this one (and gets in a little snark as well):

So now that the White House has returned Alma Thomas's 1968 painting, Watusi (Hard Edge) to the Hirshhorn amid a flurry of interest in its making and in the artist herself, I assume the museum will quickly put it on public view. Probably with a bit of explanatory text about how and why the aged, arthritic Thomas appropriated her composition from The Snail, one of last works Matisse managed to create before he died.

Maybe they'd even put it alongside some Matisse paintings, which demonstrate the early modernists' bold innovation of appropriating motifs and forms from African art.

Or maybe they could go all out and borrow The Snail from the Tate, so it could hang alongside Thomas's painting, allowing a careful examination of what she saw, but also of what she changed.

I'll be waiting by my inbox for that press release.

Again, I understand removing the petty distractions the wingnuts seem reduced to sniffing out in this winter of their irrelevance, but the White House should also issue a statement explaining why those making the charges of "crass rip-off" are embarrassing the rest of the nation.