Layers of meaning hidden in The Westmoreland's 'magic realist' painting

Sep. 26—Early in his career, Jeremiah William McCarthy was told by a mentor, "Until you lay your hand and eye on all the objects in the collection, you can't call yourself a curator."

When he came to The Westmoreland Museum of American Art in April as chief curator, he set out to earn his curatorial bona fides.

"I said, I'll start with paintings, then I'll do decorative arts and work my way through the different media," McCarthy said. "This was the painting, when I pulled out the rack, that I said, 'This is absurd and wonderful and magical and seductive and everything I want from painting.' "

The painting is "Integuments (or) Peacock," by Priscilla Warren Roberts, who created precise paintings of still lifes that she described as "arch-realist" but that are usually assigned by the art world to the school of "magic realism."

That term was coined in 1925 by German photographer, art critic and historian Franz Roh to describe artworks that merge elements of realism with others that are fantastical, mythological, dreamlike and even disturbing.

Created around 1970, "Integuments" depicts a peacock on a perch in a dimly lit room, flanked by a chair with a garment draped across its seat and a small table holding a golden apple.

The 31-by-25-inch oil was a 1974 gift to the Greensburg museum by Dr. John J. McDonough of Youngstown, Ohio, who commissioned the painting from the artist.

"It sent me down a kind of rabbit hole about Priscilla Roberts," McCarthy said. "I vaguely knew her work, but I never spent any time with it."

Roberts (1916-2001) grew up in New York City and studied at Radcliffe College, Yale School of Art and the National Academy of Design. She was influenced by the work of Dutch artist Jan Vermeer.

She first worked as a commercial painter in New York, but then moved to Connecticut to pursue her own art.

"It took her approximately 14 months to make a single painting," McCarthy said. "It's a small body of work; but once you start to research her work, you see she's got paintings everywhere, but they're in storage."

Museums owning Roberts' work include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art and The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown.

A study of jealousy

In 1984, the Westmoreland hosted a retrospective of her work, which also traveled to several other museums. The museum has in its files two letters Roberts wrote about "Integuments."

"She talks about buying a taxidermied peacock at an antique shop in New York, and she had it in her attic. The mice got to it," McCarthy said. "The way she found out is that she found a nest made of peacock eyes.

"She felt fascinated by the idea of jealousy, because the mice had a lot of things at their disposal. Why did they take this for their nest?" he said. "She said, 'With that painting, I was working through the idea of jealousy.' "

A human presence is implied in the painting by the garment on the chair.

"The one amazing thing about all of her paintings is that she gives you just enough information so that you're not lost, but she allows you to fill in the blanks," McCarthy said. "At the same time she gives, she takes away. And that's what I think is really fascinating."

Peacocks and golden apples have their own symbolism, he added.

"There's all the trappings of iconography, when you start to read into it. What I think is really interesting is that the painting reads you as much as you read the painting," he said. "You have to bring your whole self to bear on the painting, like there's a story and you write it."

Along with contemporaries like painters Paul Cadmus and Jared French, Roberts is getting renewed interest these days from the art world.

Part of what is driving the new look at Roberts' work, McCarthy said, is "the contemporary interest in 'Stranger Things,' alternate worlds and alternate realities. These kind of paintings are, to me, what's great about painting, because they trick you into believing in them.

"Once you start to look at her whole body of work, there's a lot going on," he said. "They're all about surfaces, but there's a lot of depth. They're layered. That's the kind of tension that animates all of her paintings."

The title, "Integuments," adds more to the mystery of the painting, he added.

"Integument is the protective coating of the body, the skin, the hair follicles, the integumentary system," he said. "That adds another layer to it — the question of what is that protective coating?"

Shirley McMarlin is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Shirley by email at smcmarlin@triblive.com or via Twitter .