THE MAVERICK HORSE
Art Historian Katherine Rangoon Doyle to Speak on John B. Flannagan, Sculptor of the Maverick Horse
Date: Saturday, October 3, 2:30 p.m.
Location: Historical Society of Woodstock, 20 Comeau Dr., Woodstock NY 12498
Admission: Free
On Saturday October 3 at 2:30 p.m., the Historical Society of Woodstock will present a talk by art historian Katherine Rangoon Doyle on sculptor John B. Flannagan, sculptor of the statue of the horse at the Maverick Concert Hall in Woodstock. Admission to the event is free.
John B. Flannagan (1895-1942) worked in the 1920s and 1930s using direct carving, a demanding method in which a sculptor cuts directly into stone or wood without first making a model. His animal sculptures were his best-known works, and he won praise during his lifetime and for decades after his death in 1942. Yet, says Rangoon Doyle, his name is now disappearing from the art historical record. Despite this, he was one of the most important early 20th-century American direct carvers, a group of artists who rejected older academic traditions that relied on preliminary models, assistants, or bronze casting specialists. Direct carvers sought a closer relationship with their materials. For Flannagan, the stone itself was central to the meaning of the work. He conceived of stone as a repository for shared memory.
Katherine Rangoon Doyle is an art historian specializing in twentieth-century art. After graduating from Hamilton College with a degree in Comparative Literature, she began a career in publishing, later also deciding to pursue a doctorate in Art History. At Harry N. Abrams, she found herself compiling textbook revisions for a survey of modern art. Flannagan had been eliminated from the selection of artists, but her curiosity was piqued and she chose to make him the subject of her dissertation. After receiving her PhD in 2004, Rangoon Doyle continued to work on Flannagan, and her biography, John B. Flannagan: A Salvation in Stone, is the culmination of her further research. She is also a long-time instructor, teaching classes in drawing and art history—twentieth-century art, Mesoamerican art, and Art History Survey, among others.
(Note: Due to limited parking, if able, please park in the Lower Comeau parking lot and take the path at the end of the lot to the Historical Society. Accessible parking is available at the museum.)