 Hello everybody, and welcome to today's edition of Barnes Takeout, your daily serving of art from the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. I'm Bill Perthes, the Bernard C. Watson director of adult education, and today we're going to take a walk on the boardwalk with Bathers on Boardwalk by Angelo Pinto from 1944. If you're familiar with the Barnes Collection and yet this picture doesn't ring a bell, you would be forgiven. It's a small work, it's on the east wall of gallery 23, and it's tucked up here in this left-hand corner. And if you're familiar or not familiar with the Barnes Collection and the name of the artist Angelo Pinto is not familiar to you, again you might be forgiven for that. Angelo Pinto was an instructor at the Barnes Foundation beginning in 1935 and until his retirement in 1992, so well over 50 years. And we see him in a photograph that he himself took, not only was he an artist, but he was also a professional photographer with the art education staff around 1972. And that includes Ms. Villette Dimesia, who was the director of the art education program, Barton Church, here's Angelo Pinto himself, and Harry Safarbi. Remarkably, each of these instructors taught at the Barnes Foundation for more than 50 years. And I have to say that I had the great pleasure of studying with both Barton Church and Harry Safarbi. Angelo Pinto had retired by the time I began taking classes at the Barnes. So going back to our picture, there's some striking aspects of it. First of all, we're looking, we're on the boardwalk and we're looking out across the beach, out to the water. And to our left is a pier. I'll talk about the figures in a moment. But this pier that juts out into the water with flags flying and distinctive arched windows. I suspect that that is this pier, Steeple Chase Pier, in Atlantic City. It was built in 1899. And it was just south of, it was positioned just south of perhaps the more famous Steel Pier. And in Atlantic City was a place that Angelo Pinto and his brothers, Angelo was part of a remarkable family of artists, including his brothers Biazio and Salvador, each of whom are represented in the Barnes Collection. Some in the Permanent Collection, others were in a Barnes's Private Collection, but remain in the Barnes Collection. And they would, I spoke with Angelo's daughter, Jodi Pinto, who is herself a remarkable artist. And she told me that her father and brothers regularly went down to Atlantic City to enjoy the beach, but also to enjoy games of chance. And she passed along an interesting anecdote that they became so accomplished at these games of chance that they could beat the odds and win every time. And they did so until they were discovered and gently told to to move along. So Steeple Chase Pier off to our left. He's also giving us an indication of the time of day. If you're familiar on the East Coast, the we're facing East. And so with these strong trailing shadows, it suggests that the sun is setting in the West behind us and creating these strong shadows. So it's towards the end of the day. And these bathers are perhaps finishing up their time on the beach and perhaps preparing to to stroll the boardwalk and enjoy both the amusements as well as the entertainment that was part of Steeple Chase Pier. It was both for music as well as there was an amusement park there. Another, again, striking aspect of this picture is our vantage point as the viewer. We're situated low and there's this curving line at the top. It's banner, this banner that runs along the top that obscures our view of the the heads and faces of these these women. So they become anonymous. And it's a bit of a curious thing. What exactly is going on here? What is that thing? Here again, we go back to if we go back to this archival photograph. In the foreground, you'll notice this contraption. This is what is called a rolling chair. These were introduced in the latter part of the 19th century on the boardwalk in Atlantic City and elsewhere. They were generally made of wicker. And if you look a little closely, you can see that's the case here. And you have to look very closely to see this. But if you look down at the bottom, you'll see that there are a pair of feet down there. That's because these chairs were and to this day are pushed by vendors that rent out the chairs to individuals and couples. And they'll take you a couple blocks or all the way up and down the boardwalk depending on how much how much money you want to want to spend. And so that's what I read this being, the canopy of one of those rolling chairs. So, Angelo has placed us in one of those rolling chairs, moving along the boardwalk. And we glance out towards Steeplechase Pier and the Atlantic Ocean and catch a glimpse of these two bathers as they wrap up their time on in the beach and prepare perhaps for an evening of entertainment on the boardwalk, what Atlantic City has long been famous for. In addition, there's still another remarkable thing about this picture. And that's its medium, which is not immediately obvious by looking at it. But this is not a painting on canvas or on board, but rather it's painted on glass through a technique called reverse glass painting. And what that means is that the painter paints on the back of a sheet of glass and builds up layers of colors to create the image. And what that means is that the image has to be fairly well thought out ahead of time, because what we see in the foreground is what is painted first. So for instance, if we look at this modeling on this figure here, this dark patch that we read is kind of shadow, this color area would have been put down first, and then the flesh color, and then perhaps the drape that goes over the railing, and then the water, and then the clouds probably at the same time as the modeling, and then the skies, the clouds go on first, and then the sky, sort of the opposite of what one would sort of expect. And this was a technique, reverse glass painting that was very familiar for hundreds of years. But interestingly, it was a medium adopted by many modernist artists in the 20th century. So sort of reviving a sort of almost antiquated way of painting to sort of convert it into this modernist medium. So as I said, this is relatively small work, and here we get another view of Steeplechase Pier. Again, quite an attraction in Atlantic City. And so I hope that the next time you come to the Barnes Foundation that you take an opportunity to visit Gallery 23 and look at some of the works that perhaps do not jump out at you immediately, such as Angelo Pinto's Bathers on Boardwalk. And before I leave, I want to thank Jenny Duncan from the University of Pennsylvania, who did research on this picture and was kind enough to share some of that with me. So we meet again and hopefully that's soon because we are preparing to open the foundation. So you'll be able to come in person and see these works, all of the works that have been discussed for these many months in these takeouts. And we'll be very glad to welcome you back to the collection and have you enjoy these works, these works yourself. So until then, take care.