The art world is rediscovering Marian Spore Bush, a forgotten American artist whose work is being exhibited in her first solo show in nearly 80 years. The exhibition "Marian Spore Bush: Life Afterlife, Works c. 1919-1945" at Karma gallery in Manhattan presents a compelling collection of paintings that feel extraordinarily modern in both style and content. However, critics argue that categorizing her simply as another "visionary woman artist" does a disservice to the complexity and historical context of her work.
Born in Bay City, Michigan in 1878, Spore Bush followed an unconventional path to artistry. She initially studied dentistry at the University of Michigan and became one of the state's first female dentists. Her artistic journey began in 1919 after her mother's death, when she reportedly used a Ouija board to contact deceased artists who urged her to take up painting. By 1920, she had abandoned her dental practice and moved to New York to pursue art and charity work, eventually meeting and marrying millionaire Irving Bush while organizing a soup kitchen.
The current exhibition, curated by Bob Nickas, showcases two distinct phases of her artistic output. The back room features vivid, saturated watercolors of flowers and Christian allegories that balance between naivety and art historical sophistication. The main gallery displays her more haunting later works - large-scale depictions of grim scenes including bodies immersed in water, figures on rafts, and formidable bird creatures that draw heavily on surreal and grotesque imagery.
Spore Bush's story fits neatly into a popular art world narrative that has gained momentum since Hilma af Klint's major Guggenheim retrospective in 2018-19. This narrative celebrates the self-taught, spiritualist woman artist who remains unknown or forgotten until posthumous or late-life discovery. The exhibition essay places Spore Bush alongside af Klint, Agnes Pelton, Emma Kunz, Paulina Peavy, and Gertrude Abercrombie - disparate artists whose main commonalities are their spiritualist beliefs and their gender.
However, art critics suggest this framing raises important questions about who controls artistic narratives and how they're told. While Spore Bush undoubtedly deserves recognition, her late works - mostly rendered in grisaille - thematically align more closely with artists like Francisco Goya, Otto Dix, and Käthe Kollwitz, whose art directly addresses violence, struggle, and salvation. The dates of her major works, spanning from 1933 to 1943, coincide with the Great Depression and World War II, periods rich with themes of suffering and social upheaval.
Her painting "The Gaunt Bird of Famine" from 1933 exemplifies this connection to contemporary social issues. The work features a giant whitish bird rendered in thin, gossamer lines against a solid black sky, looming over what appears to be a village below. The symbolic menace sweeping over the real world suggests commentary on the economic hardships of the Depression era. Similarly, "The Pawn Broker (Three Vultures)" from 1934 depicts two striking black birds against a cloudy gray sky, with a chained figure's face visible above dark water below.
The exhibition's standout piece, "The Avengers" from 1943, presents even more disturbing imagery. A winged figure flies near a dead tree from which three bodies hang, set against dark, undulating ground that resembles both earth and water, contrasting sharply with the oceanic turquoise sky above. These works demonstrate a sophisticated engagement with the political and social realities of her time, moving far beyond simple spiritual channeling.
Spore Bush herself described her art as prophetic and guided by spiritual forces she called "They" or "the People." In a 1943 New York Times review by Edward Alden Jewell, she explained her process: "They move my hand up and down and onward across and sideways in all directions." While this automatic process might echo that of af Klint and other spiritualist artists, critics argue that such comparisons diminish the cultural and historical significance of her work.
More substantive artistic comparisons can be drawn to Goya's "Disasters of War" print cycle (1810-20), particularly works like "The Carnivorous Vulture" and "The Consequences," which feature similar oversized vultures. Her early allegorical paintings, featuring a bearded figure in an amethyst cloak communing with animals, recall the loose, colorful drawings of Oskar Kokoschka and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner that convey Christian or spiritual narratives.
The problematic nature of gendered artistic categorization extends beyond simple aesthetic considerations. Art critics note that conceptual artist categories, including both canonical and outsider designations, are often gendered in ways that perpetuate harmful stereotypes. The correlation between femininity and irrationality persists in cultural contexts where spiritualist practices remain on the fringe, potentially undermining the professional status of women artists.
This issue was evident even during Spore Bush's lifetime. While Jewell acknowledged that her best work was "sharp and disturbing," he questioned whether the work could be fairly reviewed given Bush's claims of otherworldly guidance. This cast doubt on her professional credentials even as he compared her process to the automatic writing techniques celebrated among male Surrealist artists.
The exhibition at Karma represents a welcome reintroduction of Spore Bush to contemporary audiences, and the gallery's presentation effectively showcases her range and skill. Her works demonstrate technical proficiency and thematic sophistication that transcend simple categorization as "visionary" or "outsider" art. The vivid watercolors and haunting larger works reveal an artist deeply engaged with both personal spiritual exploration and broader social commentary.
Curator Bob Nickas writes about "the connective lines flowing between the visionary work of these women, which also allows us to see them distinctly from one another." However, critics argue this approach doesn't truly distinguish these artists but rather lumps them together based primarily on gender and spiritualist interests, distinguishing them from an unspecified mainstream art world.
As the art world continues to recover and reassess overlooked artists, particularly women whose contributions were marginalized or forgotten, the challenge lies in developing more nuanced frameworks for understanding their work. Rather than defaulting to categories that may inadvertently perpetuate the same biases that led to their initial exclusion, scholars and curators have the opportunity to explore richer connections between these artists and their historical contemporaries.
"Marian Spore Bush: Life Afterlife, Works c. 1919-1945" continues at Karma gallery at 188 East 2nd Street in Manhattan's East Village through September 6. The exhibition, curated by Bob Nickas, offers viewers a rare opportunity to encounter the work of an artist whose complex legacy deserves recognition beyond simple categorization. Her paintings stand as testament to both personal spiritual exploration and acute social awareness during one of America's most challenging historical periods.
