I stumbled upon the work of Frank Paul Besedick while scouring the archives of the Godwin-Ternbach Museum for the Queens Selects show. Assuming the preferred pronoun he, He has a lot of great work and is a truly under-appreciated artist from the Works Progress Administration days; he has a few entries in the Met’s catalog, as well as GTM, and others. His boathouse (below) is my clear favorite, so I’m glad I got to write about it – and exhibit it on his behalf more than three decades after his passing.

For my extracurricular gig I was asked to select an art from the collection of the Godwin-Ternbach Museum. I chose this etching by the previously unknown-to-me Works Progress Administration artist Frank Paul Besedick, titled ‘Boat House’ (1937-43). I wrote a lil’ something to accompany the exhibit:

The boat in Boat House floats at shore, tethered by one taut rope. Atop the boat stands a figure accompanied by some four-legged creature. The house in Boat House dominates the foreground, but looks like it could fall over at any moment. The figure and creature appear content at sea. One can’t help but wonder is this even their home? Or, if it did fall over and crash into the surrounding earth, would anyone even notice?

arts