Vincent Castagnacci, Then and Now
By Joy Buell, with Chris Munkholm
Photo © C. Munkholm.
When I first heard that Cape Ann Museum was staging a major exhibition for Vincent Castagnacci, I was more than intrigued. I once knew Vincent when we were both students at the Boston Museum School. He was from Rhode Island, had studied architecture for a bit, and was passionate about symphonic conductors. Especially Toscanini. We both admired Eleanor Barry, a beloved design teacher and serious birder.
The artist in his studio.
Vincent and I went on to Yale University, earning our Master of Fine Arts degrees, but at different times. At Yale, Vincent studied in a program shaped by Josef Albers, the former head of the University’s department of design. Albers reigned for decades in the world of design and color. Not only a former Bauhaus teacher, he was also the first living artist to be given a solo show at MoMa.
Eventually Vincent blended a life of the academic professor with the working artist. He joined the University of Michigan (UM) department of art in 1973, retiring in 2009, and now works full time as an artist, primarily at his studio in Pinckney, Michigan, fairly near UM’s Ann Arbor hub. Vincent also has a studio in Gloucester, and I would often hear from him when he was on Cape Ann. His brother Edmund lives in Folly Cove, and I saw him around town too.
The Show Opens
On July 23 the day arrived for the opening of Vincent’s Cape Ann Museum show, and I planned my arrival to coincide with the late afternoon reception. I also brought my granddaughter Catherine, who was happy to accompany me. She is having some serious thoughts about art school after she graduates from Gloucester High School next year.
We arrived before Vincent was on the scene and had time to slowly walk around the exhibit. The large show occupies Cape Ann Museum’s prestige third floor gallery, a desired destination for any working artist.
Halibut Point Variation #10, 2016.
Light at Hancock’s Pit, 2018.
I saw immediately that Vincent’s work is in the Minimalist School. Minimalism is associated with geometric abstraction and was considered a reaction to the chaos of the times and expressionism. I could also see the Albers’ influence. The Museum’s promotional image for the show uses a painting which is very much a color lesson from Albers. One can also perceive the quarry’s simplified lines.
Vincent’s sketchbooks which are shown in the exhibition are key to his process. These preliminary sketches look like the distant, abbreviated contours of quarries, as if seen by a seagull flying over the terrain. The paintings which follow the sketches further distill and simplify the drawings into an ultimate statement. This is the destiny of Vincent’s Joy Ride. A place of extreme contouring. A complexity reduced to purity.
When Vincent arrived at the reception, his off-white suit, white hair, and eyewear formed another controlled composition. He had an entourage, well, at least his brother and a driver. But he also brought a dignified air of someone in full command of his materials.
We chatted as old friends do, catching up on the whereabouts of our friends from the Museum School. Who is still doing artwork…always the question that comes up first. Vincent said that his own process now feels like working in a quarry, where he is “mining for something”.
Teachers of Vision
Joseph Albers, Homage to the Square.
The news of Cape Ann Museum’s new exhibition got back to Michigan. The COSMOS office heard from a subscriber who once studied with Vincent Castagnacci at UM. The alum recollected how he and other students complained about Castagnacci being one tough professor. They probably thought they had signed up for an easy art course pass. This former student also commented in his email, “But, he's really the only teacher I learned anything from!”
Vincent’s pedagogic style may have been another Albers’ influence, who was known to take his teaching responsibilities very seriously. Albers’ focus was on process, the vision of seeing. “Although their relationship was often tense, and sometimes, even combative, Robert Rauschenberg later identified Albers as his most important teacher.”(1)
Halibut Point #3, 2015.
Joy Buell inspects the Castagnacci sketch books. Photo © Bing McGilvray.
Joy Buell with granddaughter, Catherine Sargent.
1. Christopher Knight (May 14, 2008), “Robert Rauschenberg, 1925-2008: He led the way to Pop Art,” Los Angeles Times.
To experience a lesson in the mode of Castagnacci, with possibly a little bit of Albers influence, Vincent will give a talk at Cape Ann Museum, Tuesday, August 30, 2pm.
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