Barbara Smukler
Middle Sound
1975
Oil on canvas
8 ft. x 6 ft.
Gift of Norton T. Dodge
Barbara Smukler (1932-2014) was an abstract expressionist artist from Cleveland Ohio, who made her work primarily in the 60’s and 70’s. She did not originally pursue art as her main interest; she had dreams of becoming a ballerina, and practiced dancing diligently until the age of 16, when she began to have physical problems with her feet and had to quit.1 Only one year later, she met her husband Victor, whom she would be married to for almost 59 years until his death. She did not enter the art world until after the birth of her three children; in 1967, she earned a B.F.A from the Cleveland Institute of Art, and throughout the next 20 years her work was exhibited in galleries in Chicago, Washington D.C., and in New York. She was also very passionate about civil rights, and volunteered for Planned Parenthood until two years before her death. She was part of the modernism movement, which was reflected in most of her paintings, as they were primarily very flat, rhythmic and simple.2
Smukler’s painting in the collection of the College, Middle Sound, created in 1975, is an example of one of her larger paintings, and consists of colorful ribbons of paint flowing from top left to the bottom right of the canvas. Rectangular in shape, with its pastel greens, pinks, yellows, and blues, it is split up into six segments by thin, nonintrusive vertical lines. The brightest blue shades are concentrated at the top of the work, and seem to follow no particular color pattern or order. Smuckler has said that her work focuses on the individual and the struggle to find oneself in the order of things; to “transcend and resolve” as she put it.3 This painting’s smooth, repetitive motions, calming earth tones and pastel color scheme are an exercise in this idea, and are a testament to Smukler’s own journey to find herself and her place in the world. Smukler managed to overcome physical injury, raise a family and become a successful artist all while being an extremely active member of her community; she is truly a role model for young women artists today.
1. “Barbara M. Smukler Obituary,” Legacy.com, last modified on February 3, 2015, http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?pid=174034877 ↩
2. Christopher L. Richards, “Into the Canvas: Post Painterly Abstraction in Cleveland,” CAN Journal. Last modified March 25, 2016, http://canjournal.org/2015/11/into-the-canvas-post-painterly-abstraction-in-cleveland/ ↩
3. “Barbara M. Smukler Obituary” ↩
-Natalie Krissoff