By Daniel Garza Usabiaga
Upon graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago, William Fett traveled to Mexico in 1941 for the first time through a scholarship, allowing him to pay for his stay there. The new graduate did not settle in Mexico City, as one could assume, but instead in the formerly remote community of Erongaricuaro, located in the lakeside area of Patzcuaro, Michoacan. From that moment on, his production experienced a dramatic definition. His predilection for watercolor, his interest in landscapes, and his foreshadowing of ambiguous shapes with a tendency towards anthropomorphism are some of the aspects and concerns of his work in the early 1940s, impacting the rest of his production until he died at the beginning of the XXI Century.
Fett always portrayed the clear impact of Michoacan’s geography in his production, from its lakes to the outbreak of a new volcano: The eruption of the Paricutin in 1943. Besides this new experience with nature as a dynamic and powerful entity (reflected in his landscapes), the young painter met other artists who also settled or frequently visited Erongaricuaro at the time. The most notorious member of this group was the English painter Gordon Onslow Ford, who, along with Jacqueline Johnson, created a community of exiled surrealists amidst Patzcuaro’s lake.1 This is how Fett became acquainted with the Onslow Ford-Johnson couple and also with Wolfgang Paalen, Roberto Matta, and Esteban Frances —all of them young exponents of the most recent surrealistic trends in the 1940s, according to Andre Breton. This new painting trend favored the reconsideration of plastic automatism, non-figurative painting, and the work of some surrealists like Joan Miro or Yves Tanguy.2 There is no doubt that all these factors were the background of Fett’s original plastic creations from the beginning of his career.
Two of the early works of Fett in 1942 show his interest in developing his landscape painting proposal through Michoacan’s geography. Towards the end of his life, he remembered this scene: “The Mexican landscape of Michoacan is magnificent, the most beautiful in the world! I was truly into landscapes from the beginning.”3 One of his works of Michoacan’s Landscape (1942) shows the lakeside fields of Patzcuaro, represented through one of the typical features of his early production, the use of patches and areas of color which, due to the application of watercolor, have a particular expressiveness, play with feathering lights, or give way to provoking shapes – sometimes evoking images from a Rorschach test. To some extent, something about the application of paint could suggest an automatic process. In this image of the lake in 1942, specific biomorphic shapes stand out as they seem to float throughout the landscape and the sky. His solution, which reminds us of an organic and microscopic world, could be reminiscent of the production of surrealist artists such as Miro and Tanguy -both key figures for younger painters who supported the group led by Andre Breton.
Apparently, Fett and Onslow Ford settled in Erongaricuaro almost simultaneously, although the American artist arrived first. The same person probably guided them: Countess Lena Belloni, who already knew the community established by the lakeside of Patzcuaro. There is no doubt that both painters became close right away. Several documents prove it, including photographs where they appear together, alone, or with Jacqueline Johnson at social events. There are also images at the couple’s home, known as El Molino, with paintings of Fett hanging on the walls, along with some works of the English artist.4 Besides, Onslow Ford showed his new friend’s work to his surrealist colleagues; for instance, he mentioned him to Breton more than once. In a letter written in 1942, he introduced his new friend Bill as “a unique and pleasant character” who “has developed an unusual imagination” in the fields of Michoacan. “His technique reminds me of Renoir (in his wildest stage).”5
Furthermore, Fett’s works in 1942 allow us to explore a creative dialogue between both authors, favored by their common strong interest in creating spaces through landscaping. As for Onslow Ford, his understanding of space included a non-Euclidean analysis represented by overlapping layers as a reference to multiple space-time dimensions and the presence of ambiguous shapes that seem to float, simulating a series of particles. His proposal intended to represent a vision beyond the common perception of the human being, speculating on a visibility realm based on quantum physics. Fett has a similar view, but it is closer to nature through landscaping. An Untitled piece (1942 Kemper) seems to have an open dialogue with the type of physical laws present in the landscapes of Gordon Onslow Ford. In this work, the landscape is not defined by a horizon; instead, the entire natural world seems to float, losing its materiality, creating an ambiguous space with no gravity, axes, or specific coordinates.
Many of Fett’s works in 1943 show a significant production change compared with 1942. Onslow Ford also perceived this and mentioned it to Breton in a letter written in 1943: “His progress is outstanding; he has found a completely personal world.”6 Some works, such as What the Rain Left (1943) and The Brilliance That Follows (1943), prove this radical change, which implied technical issues in the application of watercolors and his new landscaping solutions. Regarding the first one, a review published in 1950 by Art Digest described his watercolor application technique as “thickly layer on layer, until an opaque almost waxy effect is achived”7 Likewise, he also reached a new chromatic intensity. In Martica Sawin’s opinion, Onslow Ford also started working with watercolors and gouache with a more colorful and intense palette.8 The landscape works of 1943 show a redefinition where Fett continued investigating an ambiguous and appealing space in a clearly personal manner based on nature. Both works leave behind references to quantum imagery, focusing on representing the natural world. What the Rain Left suggests is a washout, while The Brilliance That Follows evokes an igneous, radiant, assertive landscape, most definitely as a response to the eruption of the Paricutin. Both scenarios have provoking organic shapes, evoking strange beings tending to anthropomorphic figures. In the works created in 1943, Fett defines an understanding of landscape painting by trying to highlight the vitality of the natural world, and he even redefines his elements to represent human experience.9 His landscapes were described as a “series of glazed watercolor paintings densely painted with a semi-abstract language of symbolic interlaced shapes.”10
It was also at the beginning of the 1940s when Fett consolidated another line of work where the foreshadowing of provoking beings or shapes in his landscapes were better defined and prominent. The last edition of DYN magazine, edited by Wolfgang Paalen in Mexico between 1942 and 1944, included two of these works.11 In this project, the Austrian painter presented a dissenting version of surrealism interested, among other things, in reconciling artistic production with certain theoretical and scientific speculations.12 The works of Fett printed in DYN 6 are two pencil drawings showing, first, an Untitled landscape (1944) with peculiar hybrid characters and, secondly, an ambiguous image (The Light Woman, 1944), where it isn’t easy to detect the division between the entities and their environment. According to a statement by Dawn Ades, the presence of these beings from another dimension could remind us of the ideas of the philosopher Peter D. Ouspensky, who was popular among European surrealists back then.13 Based on this reference, or others, personalities such as Breton or Paalen speculated and represented other entities with names like the Great Transparents or the Cosmogones.
Fett’s proposal included integrating human features with the landscape and anthropomorphic figures with the physiognomy of other living or organic beings. These drawings are also helpful to show Fett’s mastery in this field, reason why he was awarded a permanent teaching position at the Fine Arts School of Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, that same year. The Light Woman, for instance, shows a solution that seems to evoke the specific tradition of drawing and also the innovative experimentation of images at the time, such as several photographic investigations like the rayograms. In 1944, Fett also created a couple of memorable lithography works with a similar solution to the one used in The Light Woman: The Secret Passage and Study of Figure in a Landscape.
In the fifth edition of DYN at the end of 1944, the magazine was no longer the limited printing and distribution product initially presented by Paalen. That year, its print run and distribution increased considerably, and DYN became a point of reference for several young artists throughout the US. Edition number 5 was, to some extent, an initial showcase for many of them, such as Robert Motherwell, William Baziotes, Jeanne Reynal, and Jackson Pollock, whose work The Moon Woman Cuts the Circle (1943) shares a page with one of Fett’s drawings.14 This may reflect his work’s visibility and acknowledgment during the first half of the 1940s. Almost immediately, important institutions began collecting and showing his early works, like the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others. This intense circulation and acquisition of his work occurred during that decade and never again. This was due to the conscious decision of the artist to devote himself to teaching art and rejecting commercial channels. Fett’s definition of himself as a “romantic, surrealist, and outsider” makes sense when considering this decision.
Fett’s production as a whole is complex, and it definitely transformed throughout the years. Nevertheless, his early production years when he lived in Erongaricuaro were definitive and he focused on the landscape as a plastic experimental space. His images reveal nature with a certain vitality and potential to capture the imagination.
The above is achieved through the materials and his technique, as well as his distinctive solutions with a tendency towards ambiguity or suggestion, which can be appreciated in the works from the late forties, such as Untitled (1948), to his landscapes in the eighties and nineties, like a Different Sunrise (1990).15 Similarly, during the first half of the 1940s, he foreshadowed other entities intended to highlight the interconnection and complex systems of existing relationships between human beings and the rest of the living beings and organic entities. These intense imagination exercises were not limited to an early stage of his production and became constant, as shown by two Untitled works created in 1982-84 and 1986.
In this review of Fett’s early work, we have discussed the impact of surrealism in the definition of his production, and we have tried to acknowledge personalities such as Onslow Ford, Jacqueline Johnson, Esteban Frances, or Wolfgang Paalen. However, Fett’s dialogues and relationship with these artists should be discussed in more detail. Back in the forties, Erongaricuaro was part of a transnational network of cities that gathered national artists, artists from American countries and exiled Europeans who identified with surrealism and continued with this endeavor and legacy in different ways. Regarding the group who lived and frequently met on the lakeside of Patzcuaro, of which Fett was a member, their insights were paramount for developing non-figurative painting in Mexico and the USA.
[1] See, among others, Martica Sawin. Surrealism in Exile and the Beginning of the New York School. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997, pp. 249-287
[2] Andre Breton. “The Most Recent Tendencies in Surrealist Painting.” In Surrealism and Painting. Boston: MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, 2002, pp. 145-150
[3] Armando Ponce, “Ningun pintor como Orozco: William Fett.” Proceso, No. 1553, August 6, 2006, pp. 76-78
[4] These photographs appear in Gordon Onslow Ford. A Man on a Green Island, edited by Fariba Bogzara: Inverness, Lucid Art Foundation, 2019, pp. 98, 124.
[5] Letter of Gordon Onslow Ford to André Breton, August 7, 1942. Printed in Gordon Onslow Ford. A Man on a Green Island, p. 100
[6] Letter of Gordon Onslow Ford to André Breton, March 24, 1943. Printed in Gordon Onslow Ford. A Man on a Green Island, p. 126
[7] J. F. “William Fett,” The Art Digest, November 1, 1950, Volume 25, No 1.
[8] Martica Sawin, “Gordon Onslow Ford. Paintings and Works on Paper: Paris, New York, Mexico, and California 1939-1951”. In Gordon Onslow Ford. Paintings and Works on Paper 1939-1951. Inverness: Lucid Art Foundation, 2010, p. 16. We could say something similar about the work of Esteban Frances.
[9] S.L.C “William Fett,” Art News, November 1950, Volume 49, No 6
[10] This concept could remind us of the work of the US philosopher John Dewey, who, as Tere Arcq pointed out, was also in the interest of Gordon Onslow Ford. See Tere Arcq, “In Search of a New Myth: Gordon Onslow Ford in Mexico.” In Gordon Onslow Ford. A Man on a Green Island. p. 111-114. Fett probably introduced him to Dewey’s work. At that time, Paalen was also interested in the ideas of the philosopher and author of Art as Experience (1934).
[11] This was the 6th edition of DYN, November 1944, ilustraciones pp. 16-17
[12] There is a facsimile of DYN, edited by Christian Kloyber: Wolfgang Paalen’s dyn: The Complete Reprint (Viena: Springer-Verlag, 2000). Regarding DYN, see Farewell to Surrealism: Wolfgang Paalen and the DYN Circle in Mexico, edited by Annette Leddy and Donna Conwell (Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute, 2012), as well as my book El gran malentendido. Wolfgang Paalen en Mexico y el surrealismo disidente de la revista DYN. Mexico: INBA-MACG, 2018.
[13] Dawn Ades “Gordon Onslow Ford: Surrealism, Automatism, and Science.” In Gordon Onslow Ford. A Man on a Green Island, p. 43. In his book La cuarta dimension (1910), P. D. Ouspensky stated, among other things, the existence of other dimensions beyond our tridimensional world.
[14] See Amy Winter, Wolfgang Paalen: Artist and Theorist of the Avant-Garde (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2003).
[15] Fett dedicated his landscape Untitled of 1948 to Lena Belloni.