Helen Bruton and "Art in Action"
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| Esther Bruton’s drawing of Art in Action from the cover of the San Francisco Art Association Newsletter, August 1940. Timothy Pflueger (with wings) is in the top left corner. Esther signed the work “Ecky,” which was her nickname. |
The Golden Gate International Exposition ran from February through October of 1939. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the Fair before it opened to the public, he proclaimed that “the year 1939 would go down in history… [as] a year of worldwide rejoicing if it could also mark definite steps toward permanent world peace.”[1] Ironically, the Exposition in San Francisco was celebrating international peace and harmony just as war was brewing elsewhere in the world. As Hitler’s troops marched into Poland, it was uncertain whether the Fair would open again, especially since its first year had not made a profit. After much deliberation, the Fair reopened for a second season on May 25, 1940 with a new theme: “Fun in Forty.” The Exposition had transitioned from a celebration of world peace and cooperation to a nationalistic emphasis on “America’s role as a peacemaker in a world harried by war.”[2]
During the second season of the Fair, the Brutons again collaborated with Timothy Pflueger, this time on a new and inventive program for the Exposition’s Fine Arts Palace. The “palace,” which was actually one of the permanent hangar buildings on Treasure Island, housed an extensive and diverse exhibition of art from across the globe. Botticelli’s Birth of Venus was on display, as well as works by Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt, and El Greco. The exhibition also featured contemporary painting and sculpture, textiles, ceramics, furniture, costumes, jewelry, miniature rooms, bookbinding, metalwork, and “arts of the Pacific peoples.” The photography exhibit was organized by Ansel Adams. Yet many of the important works of art had been shipped back to Europe after the Fair’s first season, leaving a vacant section in the Fine Arts building. Pflueger’s solution to fill the empty space was to implement an innovative program called Art in Action, and he asked Helen Bruton to organize the event. A headline in the Oakland Tribune proclaimed, “Miss Bruton in Charge.”[3] As she explained to the press, “We expect it to be quite a circus, and yet we are in no way compromising with the beauty of arrangements that is essential in the showing of fine things.”[4]
[11]Interview, 26 Feb. 1975, p. 2.
During the second season of the Fair, the Brutons again collaborated with Timothy Pflueger, this time on a new and inventive program for the Exposition’s Fine Arts Palace. The “palace,” which was actually one of the permanent hangar buildings on Treasure Island, housed an extensive and diverse exhibition of art from across the globe. Botticelli’s Birth of Venus was on display, as well as works by Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt, and El Greco. The exhibition also featured contemporary painting and sculpture, textiles, ceramics, furniture, costumes, jewelry, miniature rooms, bookbinding, metalwork, and “arts of the Pacific peoples.” The photography exhibit was organized by Ansel Adams. Yet many of the important works of art had been shipped back to Europe after the Fair’s first season, leaving a vacant section in the Fine Arts building. Pflueger’s solution to fill the empty space was to implement an innovative program called Art in Action, and he asked Helen Bruton to organize the event. A headline in the Oakland Tribune proclaimed, “Miss Bruton in Charge.”[3] As she explained to the press, “We expect it to be quite a circus, and yet we are in no way compromising with the beauty of arrangements that is essential in the showing of fine things.”[4]
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| Photograph of the “Active Arts Section” that appeared in Life Magazine, 1940 |
The seemingly simple concept behind Art in Action was to put artists on display so that Fair visitors could view them while they worked. Yet at the time, this innovative program was deemed “unprecedented in the history of art display.”[5] Organizing this four month “live” exhibition of artists must have been an enormous task for Helen, yet in her typical humble fashion, she downplayed her importance to the project, claiming that she “ended up with the job of sort of running it but I wasn’t really running it… I never had more fun in my lifetime.”[6] Helen encouraged all her artist friends to participate, especially women artists like Helen Forbes, who demonstrated tempera painting; Ruth Cravath, who sculpted a horse’s head from stone; and Carmel artist Maxine Albro who painted in oils. Albro was especially close to the Bruton sisters; later in life she enthused “we’re just crazy about the Bruton girls.” Albro described Helen as a “marvelous person. She is so exuberant and so frank.”[7]
After a press event at the Fine Arts Palace just before the opening of the Fair, the Oakland Tribune reported that “Helen Bruton, one of the able workers, suggested that women do all the work and added that it was hard to overestimate what was going on in the Palace of Fine Arts in the interest of art .”[8] Although it is unclear exactly what Helen meant when she said “women do all the work,” her comment seems to indicate that in her view, women artists were largely responsible for the success of the Art in Action program.
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| Esther Bruton working on a mosaic bird bath. Petaluma Argus-Courier, 30 Aug. 1940, p. 14. |
Helen, of course, expected her sisters to participate in her project, and they dutifully complied. Margaret Bruton demonstrated the “construction of murals” when the San Francisco Society of Women Artists took over the Art in Action pit on 18 September 1940.[9] Esther Bruton also joined in, constructing a mosaic bird fountain she called The Early Bird; the Oakland Tribune reported that “we like Miss Bruton’s bird bath because it is well done… the colors and design are both charming.”[10] A photograph of Esther working on her bird bath before a rapt group of spectators appeared in national newspapers, but she was not identified as the artist. Esther also made several drawings of the bustling activity of the Active Arts Section. One of her illustrations, which appeared on the cover of the April 1940 San Francisco Art Association newsletter, depicts artists working on their various projects, spectators viewing the art, figures standing on scaffolding as they work on a mural, and a caricature of Timothy Pflueger with angel wings, floating above the chaos.
A parade of artists came and went from the Active Arts Section of the Palace of Fine Arts. Glen Lukens produced ceramics, Dudley Carter created wood sculptures using an ax, Antonio Sotomayor drew caricatures, and Maja Albee demonstrated weaving. Robert Howard’s Galaxy mobile rotated above the space. Since there was no money to pay the artists, they received a $1 stipend per day, presumably to pay for their lunch. But Helen remarked that “they had such a good time… it was just like a circus going on.”[11]
Next week: The Bruton Sisters and Diego Rivera
[1]Jack James and Earle Weller. Treasure Island: “The Magic City”, 1939-1940. San Francisco: Pisani Printing and Publishing, 1941, p. 56.
[2]James and Weller, p. 269.
[3]Oakland Tribune, 28 Apr. 1940, p. B-7.
[4]San Francisco Art Association Newsletter, Aug. 1940, p. 2.
[5]Honolulu Star Bulletin, 25 May 1940, p. 11.
[6]Interview, 26 Feb. 1975, p. 2.
[7]Interview, 23 Sept. 1965.
[8]H.L. Dungan. Oakland Tribune, 19 May 1940, p. B-7.
[9]San Francisco Examiner, 18 Sept. 1940, p. 16.
[10]H.L. Dungan. Oakland Tribune, 21 July 1940, p. B-7.
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