John Covert

John Raphael Covert (* 1882 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, † 1960 in New York City ) was an American painter, founding member of the Society of Independent Artists and the pioneer of American modernism.

Life

John Covert took in 1902 to study at the Pittsburgh School of Design together with painter Martin Leisser and developed a conservative, academic style. At the age of 26 years Covert received a scholarship from the German government and traveled to Munich, where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts from 1909 to 1912.

From Munich, he moved to Paris and remained there for three years, where he ignored the modernist influences around him and instead nudes and portraits painted in the style of realism.

However, coverts style changed dramatically in February 1915 after his return to the United States. Covert settled in New York where he regularly took part in 1915-1921 at meetings of American and European artists, intellectuals and writers who met in the apartment of coverts cousin Walter Arensberg and his wife Louise in the 67th Street ( West), since the Arensbergs were committed patron of modern art. The result was that Covert had his academic style behind. First, he created cubist paintings and later he was also associated with unusual materials in his work with a.

Between 1915 and 1918 Covert was especially close friends with Marcel Duchamp. Together with a group of like-minded they called 1916, the Society of Independent Artists in life, whose Managing Covert was. He was also instrumental in 1917 in organizing the first joint exhibition of the Society.

Although Covert was represented by de Zayas Gallery, learned coverts paintings only little recognition, so that he financially could not keep above water. Therefore, it was established in 1923 to agents on the Vesuvius Crucible Company. Although he had retired from the avant-garde of the art world, Covert continued to pursue interests that he shared with Walter Arensberg and other friends of his New York circle - especially cryptography, math and word games. Like its cousin believed Covert fact that he could solve the Shakespeare - Bacon controversy with the help of cryptography - a theory of Walter Arensberg and its research institute, the Francis Bacon Foundation. Covert spent years experimenting with complex numbers and word puzzles, in which he fell back on magic squares, anagrams and acrostics to prove that Sir Francis Bacon was the true author of the plays of William Shakespeare. After the Arensbergs in 1921 to Hollywood, California, drawn, Covert visited the couple at least once to work with Walter Arensberg in his studies. Covert also used codes for entries in his cash book, which he led as a representative.

Covert never seemed to quite get used to his new career. Whenever he was in New York, it was particularly important to him to visit galleries and always hinted again that he wanted to paint again, but what he never put it into action.

He suffered from many health problems, in 1945 two major surgeries had to undergo and eventually died in 1960.

His work can be found today in the collections of the Yale University Art Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art, the Seattle Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art as well as in several private collections.