Juanita Guccione’s life long reluctance of modifying her principles and style to fit in alongside contemporary changes in the mainstream art world led the success of her exclusive, uncharacterizable artistic revolution. Although the level of independency she held wasn’t sole to her work as an artist, her reclusive lifestyle played a role in the undermining of her recognition during her century. In this essay I will identify elements, such as her background, experiences, and her decisions as an artist and creative, that I believe are reflective of Juanita’s solitary nature and evident in her work. Considering the perseverance of Juanita’s art into the twenty first century, it is arguable that critics quick dismissal of her work during her lifetime undermined her legacy at all. Through my research, I discovered that despite the lack of recognition by art critics, Juanita remained loyal to her individualistic sense of self. She refused to succumb to the standards of others, primarily influencers in the art world, in defining her style and worth as an artist. Instead, she lived her truth without concern for critics response.
Born in 1904 as Anita Rice, in Chelsea, Massachusetts to parents Hilda Waterman Rice and Emanuel Rice. She was the second of four children (Irene, 1902; Dorothy, 1906; James, 1908). Her family moved around Massachusetts before relocating to Brooklyn, New York, where the youngest sister Dorothy began art studies. Both of her older sisters followed in her footsteps, with Anita beginning her studies at the Pratt Institute and the Art Students League. Taking advantage of her striking beauty, Anita worked as a fashion model and pirate, memorizing and copying the designs of competing agencies for her employer to save money to go to Europe. She was an individual with an undeniable sense of self, independence, courage and creativity. In 1931, she set off for France, visiting classes of Fernand Leger and Amédée Ozenfant. Two famous French painters widely known for their progressive influence and adaptations of Cubism. Due to the high cost of living in France she decided to span out to Italy and Greece, adding to her savings along the way by taking portrait commissions. From Greece she sailed to Egypt, creating an entire portfolio of character studies on sailors, crew members, and attendees on board the ship. She briefly traveled through Egypt, before leaving for Algeria after hearing of the cheap price of living within a colony, and their welcoming of artists. She settled down in 1931 in Bou-Saada, an artists colony in Northeastern Algeria. This colony was known as a gateway to the Sahara desert and the [famous] Ouled Nail Tribe (will-ed nah-eel) which she was affiliated with for 4 years after arriving. I found that the tribe was converted to Islam during the 7th and 8th centuries, although they embodied distinctive characteristics which which set them apart well into the 20th century. Their women practiced their freedom from purdah, which is the practice of women living behind a curtain, or under extreme modesty in order to stay out of the sight of men or strangers. Women of the Ouled Nail were introduced to a life of “harlotry” at adolescence. Going into the cities unescorted by men, they worked as dancers and prostitutes to amass a personal fortune before they settled down. Their women were called nailiyat, due to their remarkable independence from muslim or tribal culture standards. They were never forced to practice dance, although it was more common than not. They enjoyed a freedom unknown by any but the wealthiest, boldest women before the sexual revolution. These women are believed to be a compelling influence in her portrayals of women throughout her work, which I will take a closer look at in the next portion of my essay. During her stay in Algeria, Guccione has a relationship with an Ouled Nail man, Chehaba Ben Aissa Mabrouk, and bore a son, Djelloul. When the relationship ended in 1934 she brought her infant son back to the United States. She took the boys father’s name as her own, anglicizing it slightly to “Marbrook”. Djelloul Marbrook, now in his mid-eighties, is a poet, a guardian of his mother’s legacy and a commentator on her life and work. Back in America she found work designing murals for the Works Progress Administration, during the depths of the Depression. During the later 1930’s she absorbed influences from the cubists, surrealists, and social realist painters. De Chirico, Tanguy, Miro, and LEger ate mentioned to be some of her favorites, along with Hans Hofmann, with whom she studied alongside fo seven years (1937-1944). They studied both in New York and in her home state in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In 1943, she married a taxidermist named Dominick J. Guccione, acquiring the name she would be known by to prosperity.
Guccione differed from her artist peers by devoiding the romanticism and exosticism found in avant-grade portrayal of orientalism. Algeria being the birthplace of orientalism painting just a century earlier played a major role in these connotations she aimed to steer away from. Guccione instead painted the Ouled Nail and their environment in a straightforward, honest matter. Her paintings and drawings from this period are intimate and reflect aspects of friendship and familiarity. Her work from post war became more explicitly feminist, all the while remaining reluctant in identifying with any movement or school of thought. Instead she let her at speak for itself, filling her canvases with images of women with power, resisting objectification and commodification. The traditional tattoos of the women of the Ouled Nail made a big impression on Guccione and are featured prominently in her work from that period on. One of her well-known works which conveys elements of this divine femininity is “She Had Many Faces” (c. 1953) Her mid-career surrealist paintings reveal a magical and whimsical world ruled by women. It is in these paintings that she expresses her lifelong defiance of convention and vogue. She is mentioned in a few articles on behalf of this mystical theme, two of which I’ve used as sources. “In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States” (Aberth, Susan. 2012.) and “Down the Rabbit Hole: An Art of Shamanic Initiations and Mythic Rebirth” (Orenstein, Gloria Feman. 2016) Quoted by Andre Breton in “Down the Rabbit Hole…”, “ The women artists of the surrealist movement can be perceived metaphorically as the Great Transparents,… — beings whose stature and significance is immense but who are overlooked and dismissed as non existent.” (Orenstein, Gloria Feman. Breton, Andre. 2016) Mentioning artists Kay Sage, Remedios Varo, Leonard Carrington, Bridget Tichenor, and Alice Rahon. Speaking on behalf of their influence on spirituality and existence through their surrealist works. Most of Guccione figurative surrealist paintings are on the theme Amazons, which were tribes of women warriors, life in a matriarchal community by the sea, and were prominently inspired by her experiences with a tribe whose culture has much to do with the wonderland she later created in her impressive oeuvre. According to her son Djelloul, the Ouled Nail women “are famous for their beauty and their dancing, which is wild, erotic, and notoriously in your face.” Guccione was connected to these women because of their independence from men and their many skills, both psychic and physical.
In my focus work of Gucciones, “A hole in time” Juanita paints a surreal space filled with an irregularly large leaf to relate to the size of an umbrella sitting promptly underneath. Adjacent to the umbrella a human woman-like figure cradles herself with ropes slung over her lap, as a statue-like head of a horse sits on the opposing side. The statue’s eyes are not open but seem to be gazing over a platform with an orange orb resting on its surface. In between the platform and the human figure a ladder stretches out to a brightly colored moon in the top right corner of the piece. The color contrasts against the deep blue night sky. She paints a vivid red fish in the sky as if to mimic the depths of the ocean. The concept reminds me of the saying “as above so below” which means that things which appear to be very difference actually have attributes that are quite similar, like her play on the ocean as the deep night sky. I enjoy the dream-like structure of the space in the painting. It gave me a sense that there might be subliminal messages in the figuration and scale or deeper meanings in the juxtapositioning. Through her title I infer that the ladder represents a path through which this “hole in time” breaks the paradox of space-time and allows time to be fragmented into these different figurations which reflect some of Juanitas experiences. Of what I know about surrealist work, this is a depiction of a vision or dream she might’ve once had, so the contents derived from her subconscious. I’ve been unable to find any readings on the actual meaning of the work, so my own interpretation is the closest thing I’ve gathered to its true message.
After her return to the United States in 1935, the Brooklyn Museum held an exhibition of works she produced in the early 1930’s during her time in Algeria. One of her earliest run ins with the art world hierarchy attempts at devaluing her work was with the Brooklyn Museum initially requesting that she’d donate her works for the exhibit. The works consisted of portraits of people she’d encountered throughout her travels, to earn her way around. Despite her attempts at avoiding avant-garde themes, especially in these works, when the selection was exhibited the press coverage for the most part indulged in romanticizing and sensationalizing both her work and life in Algeria. After the exhibit, most of the paintings were stored away and remained unseen for decades and malnourished in their care taking. In 2004, the Algerian government acquired 165 of Guccione’s paintings, which are now in the National Museum of Fine Art in Algiers.
In my research, I read numerous times that her reclusive personality prevented enthusiasts attempts in promoting her work. Although there is some truth to it, along with her name changing and the inability to characterize her work, the whole reason she was considered under appreciated during her time was due to Americas active conformity to initially created constructs to artistic movements, such as the connotations (romanticism, exoticism, etc.) widely associated to orientalist themes and artworks. She was undoubtedly devoted entirely to her own style, modifying and her willingness to follow its development wherever that might lead. Her integrity was powerful beyond her time, it is no surprise that a lack of recognition and understanding of her vision generated from a population that was reluctant of deriving from systematic constructs. It is those exact traits that are guiding her legacy through the twenty first century, to a society where free thinking is not only common but encouraged. Her work is fierce enough to stand and speak for itself. It’s vibrancy invites open to interpretation of the viewer.