INCREASE ROBINSON

INCREASE ROBINSON

INCREASE ROBINSON was born in Chicago, in 1890, and studied at Wellesley College, the University of Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago and in Woodstock, N. Y. Her outstanding teachers were John Norton, Ernest Thurn and Hans Hofman. She has painted in various parts of the United States, is a member of the Chicago Society of Artists, and has exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and throughout the country, in various circuit exhibitions sent out by the Art Institute of Chicago and the American Federation of Arts. She has had one-artist shows in the Cordon Club and the Chicago Woman's Aid.

By no means could I, or any one, consider the painting I have done thus far a contribution to society. Every canvas has been merely an experiment in space composition, born of a desire to express something that has caught and held my attention. The particular thing that seems of the greatest personal interest to me is composition based upon the movement and rhythm that always exists in nature but which is not perceived by the average spectator. The intense consciousness of this, the love of organizing forms through line, planes and color, and the attempt to satisfy myself with a three-dimensional design on a flat surface these, no doubt, will keep me experimenting forever. Any subject matter, when I sense in it certain subtle or strong relationships, certain forms and colors working together simply and harmoniously, tempts me to cover another picture surface. It happens that my material has been gathered, for the most part, out-of-doors; and I do not look forward to the possibility of losing interest in the natural material that is at hand at any open window. When one realizes how completely form composition rests upon the slightest changes in the mutual relations of forms, and upon the slightest alterations in each individual form, he is bound to admit that there is no limit to an artist's scope and no restrictions except those that are self-imposed. To select from nature whatever seems to me essential to a strong statement of the whole feeling of the landscape, to gain a vigor of movement through the simplification and organization of nature's complexities, is a great day's work at any window. Later, if anyone else enjoys the result of my experiment, I shall have contributed that much to his pleasure. Is that "making a contribution to society?"-a little, perhaps. Increase Robinson.