Fastovsky, Isaac (1889-1980)

Born in Chernobyl, Russia, Fastovsky studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Kiev before immigrating to the US in 1913 and becoming a citizen in 1921. He showed his work at Municipal Art Galleries, New York, in 1938. Fastovsky legally changed his name to Isaac Foster in 1946 and by 1955 was living in Tucson, AZ, showing his paintings at local sites and restoring old canvases. Looking back upon his work for various federal art projects, he estimated that he had created 40-50 paintings during this period: “Someday I’m going to visit various state and federal buildings throughout the country and see if I can locate the pictures. I don’t have any idea where they’re hanging now” (Arizona Daily Star 16 Oct. 1955: 24). 9 more images at FAP.


Works in the New Deal Collection at GVCA by Isaac Fastovsky:

Featured
Autumn
Autumn

A deft hand with tonal color renders Fastovsky's autumnal landscape somewhat different from what we expect in paintings of that season. We look down upon a valley whose brightest colors are literally marginalized—as borders between agricultural fields—except for blazing oranges at middle right. Houses and roads leading down a precipitous hillside, along with a mountain rising on the valley's other side, allow for an unusually large area for such a compact composition.

Desuetude
Desuetude

Loosely translating as a “state of disuse,” Fastovsky's title certainly applies to this rural scene. We see what appears to be a boarded-up chicken coop and other farm outbuildings inside a walled enclosure—although the abandonment seems recent given visible footpaths and a lack of overgrowth. Relatively high-key colors sidestep the dark tragedy of family farmers no longer present. In trial law, “desuetude” refers to statutes so long unenforced that they have become obsolete; perhaps in this case the intent is to link a particular farm to longer-term, systemic neglect that has resulted in many other farm abandonments.

Summer Afternoon
Summer Afternoon

Three boys are deeply absorbed in the work of childhood, in this case perhaps the aquatic life beneath a stream's shimmering surface. Fastovsky's composition encloses the boys, unaware, beneath the arch of a viaduct yet with rolling parkland and trees in the distance. The effect is Arcadian; a lack of facial features and even clothing renders the scene a fragile space of timelessness amidst an industrial world. We're beholding not a particular summer afternoon but a mythical one.

Tunnel by the Hudson
Tunnel by the Hudson

Against a cool background of blue-grays and white, we see a hillside of innumerable colors flowing downhill in nearly a molten state. In contrast to Fastovsky’s general blending technique are several smaller clusters of intensely pointilized colors—at lower left, for example. Even a telephone pole draws upon this for its green insulators. The specific location of the two tunnels hasn’t been identified, but the dreamy fluidity of landscape, house, and rail infrastructure is attractive.

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