Editing Disumbrationism

{{Short description|Hoax art movement (1924–27)}}
'''Disumbrationism''' was a [[hoax]] masquerading as an [[art movement]] that was launched in 1924 by [[Paul Jordan-Smith]], a [[novelist]], [[Latin]] scholar, and authority on [[Robert Burton (scholar)|Robert Burton]] from [[Los Angeles, California]].

Annoyed at the cold reception his wife [[Sarah Bixby Smith]]'s [[Realism (visual arts)|realistic]] [[still life]]s had received from an art exhibition jury, Jordan-Smith sought revenge by styling himself as "Pavel Jerdanowitch" ([[Cyrillic]]: Па́вел Жердaнович), a variation on his own name.  Never having picked up a paint brush in his life, he then painted ''Yes, we have no bananas'', a blurry, badly painted picture of a [[Pacific islands|Pacific islander]] woman holding a banana over her head, having just killed a man and putting his skull on a stick.  In 1925, Smith entered the banana picture under a new title of ''Exaltation'' in New York's "Exhibition" of the Independents at the [[Waldorf-Astoria]]. He made a suitably dark and brooding photograph of himself as Jerdanowitch, and submitted the work to the same group of critics as representative of the new school "Disumbrationism".  He explained ''Exaltation'' as a symbol of "breaking the shackles of womanhood".<ref>Museum of Hoaxes, [http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/the_disumbrationist_school_of_art/ The Disumbrationist School of Art]</ref> To his amusement, if not to his surprise, the Disumbrationist {{Linktext|daub}} won praise from the critics who had belittled his wife's realistic painting.

More Disumbrationist paintings followed: a composition of zig-zag lines and eyeballs he called ''Illumination''; a garish picture of a black woman doing laundry that he called ''Aspiration'', and which a critic praised as "a delightful jumble of [[Gauguin]], [[Pop Hart]] and [[Negro]] [[Minstrel show|minstrelsy]], with a lot of Jerdanowitch individuality";<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bridgeford-Smith |first1=Jan |title=Begged, borrowed, and stolen : true tales of thievery from America's past |date=2021 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=9781493052325 |pages=111 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VRgcEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA111 |access-date=1 February 2022}}</ref>{{rp|111}} ''Gination'', an ugly, lopsided [[portrait]]; and a painting named ''Adoration'', of a woman worshipping an immense [[phallic]] [[cult image|idol]], which was exhibited in 1927.

The same year, Jordan-Smith confessed to the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' that the Disumbrationist paintings were meant as a [[parody|spoof]].<ref name="reveal1">Multiple sources:
*(27 January 1931). [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XzNXAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2EMNAAAAIBAJ&pg=2480,430370&dq=&hl=en Pictures Painted to "Show Up" the Critics Bring Fame to Mythical Modernistic Artist], ''[[Lawrence Journal-World]]'' ([[Associated Press]])
*(14 August 1927). [https://web.archive.org/web/20121105102705/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/369089442.html?dids=369089442:369089442&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Aug+14,+1927&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=INTERNATIONAL+ART+HOAX+BARED+BY+LOS+ANGELES+AUTHOR&pqatl=google INTERNATIONAL ART HOAX BARED BY LOS ANGELES AUTHOR], ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''
*[[Elmo Scott Watson|Watson, Elmo Scott]] (14 October 1937). [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=MhxCAAAAIBAJ&sjid=57gMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1275,5382353&dq=&hl=en Historic Hoaxes], ''Clinton County Times''
*(19 September 1927). [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ysMgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=g2kFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2186,5584292&dq=&hl=en Fine Arts: A Thoroughly Modern Picture], ''[[Lewiston Daily Sun]]''</ref>

==References==
<references/>

== External links ==

* ''[http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/the_disumbrationist_school_of_art/ The Disumbrationist School of Art]'' at the [[Museum of Hoaxes]]
* ''{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20060513233047/http://ecclesiastes911.net/disumbrated_art.html The Disumbrationist School of Painting]}}''

[[Category:Modern art]]
[[Category:Hoaxes in the United States]]
[[Category:1920s hoaxes]]
[[Category:1924 introductions]]
[[Category:1924 in art]]