Charmion Von Wiegand
(American, 1896-1983)
The Dream Form, c. 1945-47
oil on canvas
signed Charmion Wiegand and titled (verso)
19 7/8 x 25 inches.
Property belonging to the JFM Foundation Collection, Denver, Colorado
Lot note:
Charmion von Wiegand is best known as a leading American practitioner of neoplasticism, an abstract style developed by Dutch avant-garde painter Piet Mondrian. Born in Chicago, von Wiegand worked as a journalist in New York and as a foreign correspondent in Moscow in the 1920s and 1930s. After returning to New York in 1932, she wrote art criticism for New Masses, Federal Art Project, and ARTnews, and acted as editor for Art Front. Her work as a journalist allowed her to interview Mondrian in 1941, after his immigration to New York. The two subsequently formed a close relationship. Von Wiegand translated key texts on neoplasticism into English for Mondrian, making it more accessible to the American population.
Von Wiegand initially found Mondrian’s grid-like compositions cold and sterile, but she eventually embraced his spiritual approach to abstraction. She originally began to paint in 1926, impelled by intense visual memories she experienced while under psychoanalysis and painted expressionist-style landscapes after she re-settled in New York. Mondrian introduced von Wiegand to the concept that abstract painting could be a pathway to a “higher consciousness.” The older artist was seeking compositions that crystallized the invisible harmonies of the spirit. Already drawn to Theosophy and its hybrid of Asian and ancient Middle Eastern religions, von Wiegand came to share this fascination.
However, von Wiegand did not strictly adhere to the constraints of neoplasticism. Her experimental sensibility led her to create an oeuvre that is a hybrid of geometric abstraction and multiple European avant-garde movements, such as suprematism and surrealism. Especially during the mid- to late 1940s, von Wiegand explored her own personal style of abstract art. In a letter from Alice Trumbull Mason to sculptor Ibram Lassaw, while he was serving in the armed forces during World War II, Mason recounts “...’discussing biamorphic [sic] forms’ with Charmion von Wiegand or perhaps, Mason corrects herself, with Balcomb and Gertrude Greene. Mason is puzzled. The dictionary yields nothing ‘except the word amorphous, which means without form. . . Does the bi have the sense of double? The Greek root bio means life, but there a new confusion enters. Is the word spelled biomorphic? In which case it would mean life forms. Charmion did say she felt biomorphic meant the true body rhythms, as distinct from obviously sexual forms’” (
The Onward of Art: American Abstract Artists 80th Anniversary Exhibition, p. 11).
The Dream Form likely dates from this period of biomorphic experimentation. Von Wiegand once stated, “The curve belongs to organic and natural life and rests us.” The curved and sinuous shapes, executed in contrasting blues and yellows, whites and black against a bold red field, reveal the artist’s concerns with the interaction of positive and negative space and the resulting tensions. She appears to have created several works featuring amoebic-like shapes from 1945-47, including
Ominous Form, 1946 (Seattle Art Museum),
The Nuptial Form, 1946-47 (Michael Rosenfeld Art, New York), and
Telescopic Forms, 1945 (Kraushaar Galleries, New York). All feature the artist’s clean, smooth style and careful, methodical application and layering of oil paint, which reflect the continuing influence of Mondrian. However, the vibrating, organic forms are unlike anything Mondrian might have done and reveals von Wiegand’s search for her own artistic mode.
Von Wiegand’s profound understanding of European avant-garde styles can be seen in the present work, with its understanding of the formal and visual principles as well as the concepts and theories of these movements. Yet her unique strain of abstraction, which gradually incorporated an increasing use of Buddhist forms and intentions with the aesthetic purity of neoplasticism, reflects the complexities of the many varieties of abstract art that emerged in early 20th century United States. This is what makes her work from this period so captivating and opens a window into the development of the many iterations of American abstraction in the post-war era.
