The Gershwins and multiple talents
I’ve been doing some research about George Gershwin (this is an especially wonderful biography), and I’ve been surprised to learn that, in addition to his formidable musical talent, Gershwin was a major collector of modern art and a credible painter himself. Here’s a self-portrait:
If you want to see a bunch more of Gershwin’s paintings, go here (the site contains all sorts of warnings against reproduction of the images, so I’m linking to the source rather than reproducing them here). They have two characteristics: they are portraits, and they are very fine. He was not a dabbler.
Sometimes geniuses—and Gershwin was most definitely a musical genius—are successful because they have tunnel vision and are quite obsessed with what they do. But sometimes they are multi-talented; Churchill comes to mind; he was also a skilled painter, with his work consisting primarily of landscapes. Although I greatly admire Churchill, I don’t think much of his paintings, which seem far less distinctive than Gershwin’s.
It is not unusual to be multiply-talented in linked fields—such as, for example, music and mathematics. Music and painting are a more unusual duo, and Gershwin was somewhat unique in reaching such a high level in both. What’s more—and of special interest to me—Gershwin had three siblings, all of whom were highly and often multiply-talented, despite the fact that their parents did not seem especially gifted in the arts at all. Nor did the children receive a lot of training in the arts.
Most people who know anything about the Gershwins are already aware that George’s brother Ira was as wonderful a lyricist as George was a composer. They were musical collaborators and very good friends for most of their lives. But Ira was an excellent painter, too. Here’s a self-portrait:
And if you’d like to see how good those portraits are, here is a photo of the duo George and Ira: 
Their baby sister Frances—although far less well-known—sang, composed music, and painted, too. She had quite a life. She was a child performer and dancer, as well as a singer:
Frequently summoned to George’s lair on the fifth floor, she was often the first to sing Gershwin songs that would later be Broadway hits, and when George was in rehearsal for ”Lady Be Good,” brother and sister would try out steps he had learned from the show’s star, Fred Astaire.
Although her husky voice was small by stage standards of the day, George, who loved her interpretations of his sometimes complicated music, particularly the way she kept the rhythm going, made her his personal chanteuse, and the two entertained at countless flapper-era parties in New York and elsewhere.
What’s more, she became a painter and sculptor once she married and moved to Connecticut, and had many exhibits that were well-received. But her performing career wasn’t over, either:
Although painting remained her main artistic outlet, in her later years [Frances] re-emerged as a singer. Her 1975 album, ”Frances Sings for George and Ira,” won wide acclaim, and after a granddaughter suggested she get vocal training, she began a long-deferred professional career, singing Gershwin tunes at the Lambs Club and elsewhere until two years [before she died in 1999].
And what of sibling number four, Arthur? He was a composer too, natch, although his day job was stockbrocker:
He composed the two-act musical A Lady Says Yes (1945) which is set in 1545 and 1945 and takes place in Venice, Washington D.C. and China. It ran on Broadway from Jan 10, 1945 to Mar 25, 1945 at the Broadhurst Theatre and had 87 performances.
His song Invitation to the Blues with lyrics by Doris Fisher, was used in the ï¬lm Tootsie (1982) and has been recorded by Julie London.
Arthur is the sole Gershwin sibling who doesn’t seem to have painted as well—although it’s hard to say, because there isn’t a whole lot of information about him.
From whence comes this sort of talent and achievement? No doubt, as with just about everything else, it’s some complex combination of nature/nurture. The structure of the brain must be part of it, but we still know very little about how this sort of thing happens. Composers are often child prodigies, or at least show an extraordinary interest in music at an early age. Despite George Gershwin’s relative lack of musical education (he did have about five years of lessons as a teenager, but his training was neither especially rigorous or intense), by all reports he was deeply interested in music at an early age, and markedly skilled at improvisation as well. Music just seemed to flow out of him for most of his short life.
Last October in the WSJ, Terry Treachout attempted to analyze the phenomenon of dual-talents, but I can’t say he shed much light on it. Much of his article had to do with people (such as Nat King Cole, or Benjamin Britten) who were talented in two musical fields; or artists such as Degas, who both painted and sculpted. That’s impressive, but not all that impressive, since it’s obvious that such arenas as singing and piano playing might be linked, although certainly not always (Gershwin, for example, who was by all accounts an extraordinary pianist, had a terrible singing voice—although he’s said to have been a terrific dancer).
Painting and music seem to be widely separated modalities. One is visual, the other auditory. If one stretches for links, however, a few can be found. For example, both painting and piano playing require tremendous manual dexterity and fine motor control, although composing does not. And I suppose all of them have something to do with harmony in the most general sense—although doesn’t most art?
[NOTE: The composer Arnold Schoenberg was also an amateur painter, but to my eye his work was markedly inferior.
The Gershwins had a first cousin, Henry Botkin, who was a fairly successful painter. Botkin gave George Gershwin a few art lessons, and that seems to have been the extent of George’s art education.]
I’d say mathematics was linked to languages, music to physics.
AKA “The music of the spheres.”
Leonardo da Vinci was said to be a gifted musician as well as a painter, sculptor, mathematician, and scientist. (there is a 1982 book by Emanuel Winternitz, Leonardo Da Vinci As a Musician).
Jerry Garcia was a talented painter as well as being a master guitarist.
havent you heard? talent is a patriarchal bourgegie concept to justify oppressing people… we now know that there is no such thing as talent as we are all equal, and any success one has above others is a result of the oppression of others.
under this, the Gershwins would be in trouble for disparate impact…
wait.. didnt they flee Europe for simiolar arguments and hatreds? they left just before the glorious revolution of the (correct) people….
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Russia
hey… under SBA 8a the same thing but not directly exists… as does other SOCIAL JUSTICE STUFF
hey! and wasnt the group the decemberists the one that opened for obama playing the “internationale”
ever hear the term “beyond the pale”
ah when more intelligent jews were targeted the poor ones were disenfranchised and preventd from education.
hey! look at the halls of academia now.. even in the “jewish hospital” there is a negation of attendees!!!
the halls are full of foreigners, and women.. and the children of wealthy jewish families who could pay
the poor european males including the jews were disenfranchised for feminism… but it ends up making the same anti education outcomes for jewish and others who perform with TALENT
gershwins left russia…
why?
they wanted self determination
today we have social engineering a la russia, and that has made many of the same rules, and things but by different means. and since our public is ABYSMAL at history..
US students are less proficient in their nation’s history than in any other subject, according to results of a nationwide test released yesterday, with most fourth-graders unable to say why Abraham Lincoln was an important figure, and few high school seniors able to identify China as the North Korean ally that fought US troops in the Korean War.
“History is very much being shortchanged,’’ said Linda K. Salvucci, a history professor in San Antonio who is chairwoman-elect of the National Council for History Education.
Many teacher-education programs, she said, also contribute to the problem by encouraging aspiring teachers to seek certification in social studies rather than in history.
ah… if social studies is history, how can that be?
i figure when war comes… that will be it..
since women now fight, there wont be a genetic reserve held back from the effects…
well…
now i want to leave the US..
why?
same reason so many fled russia, germany, china, etc.
the freedom to define yourself and make your own future has been denied me over and over. and now its time to give up and get out.
sba 8a, 20 appointee orgs in state for womens health and womnens issues and so on… social justice… class hatred on poor white men (which includes poor jewish males), and social enginering. presidential signing statements..
want to know why academia and soviet union and commnunism are things that behave the same limited only by the power they have at the time?
because both are academically design bureaucracies of administration…
so the whole isreal palestine thing has more to do with what country (Again)?
everything is always connected…
I have a theory that these sorts of talents reside in all of us. The trick being to unlearn they aren’t there in a lifespan.
Joni Mitchell is also a talented painter.
the first half wont post..
lets see if the second half will
note:
Savant skills, while not universally present in Asperger’s persons, are very common, and generally include prodigious memory. When they do occur, in my experience, those special abilities in Asperger’s tend to involve numbers, mathematics, mechanical and spatial skills. Many are drawn to science, inventions, complex machines and particularly, now, computers. Some such skills lead to PhD’s in mathematics or other sciences and a goodly number of Asperger persons are gainfully, and highly successfully, employed in computer or related industries because of the natural affinity of Asperger persons to organization, numbers and codes.
but aint no way i can convince those without it that i have something.. been that way all my life…
personally… i give up..
i am hoping for sometning to remove me
there is little hope.. i am tired of being constantly hurt by others and such..
the Movie ADAM…
Adam – trailer (2009) (HD) (HQ)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnoNQa_qUm4
my life is much like adams…
i get attacked as if i have all opportunity, and get great rewards and so on… but i have none of that, as i have no connection. i am completely outside.
want to know why i know so much… what would you do with your time if people were naturally mean to you?
its an incredible insightful movie
i now am in trouble and not allowed to get promotions or raises… in trouble for helping with science studies on my own time using OTHER skills than my job.
i want it all to be over..
i belong no where..
even here, my posts are too long
so i cant be helpful…
just attacked for not being the same…
Asperger’s and Self-Esteem
By Norm Ledgin, Temple Grandin
By the time he was seventeen, when Gershwin’s “Rhapsody” made its debut, … prompts me to match him with six of the DSM-IV criteria for Asperger’s. …
the gershwins were thought to have aspergers qualities…
Most of the people on the following list are speculated to have Asperger’s Syndrome, rather than being confirmed cases of Asperger’s Syndrome.
I love your tangents. And I think you have a good eye, because to my ear, Shoenberg’s compositions are also sadly lacking!
Interesting about the multiple talents. My Mother was one of those types. She was an accredited mathematical genius, who at one time in her life, played violin in the symphony orchestra, won writing awards going back to elementary school and all through her career, and after retirement she took up oil painting and started winning all the blue ribbons at the local art fairs. She always said that music was nothing but excited math.
One thing that I discovered after she had her stroke and lost most of her eyesight and developed a pretty severe case of language aphasia, was that if I asked her to sing her question, she could do it with no problem, to speak it brought out the aphasia.
When I was growing up, she would speak of music as if it were a math chart, explaining different sections, of say a symphony, in math terms, loving the more complicated constructions of some of her favorites. She mostly listened to classical music, but later admitted her first love was always ragtime, with its syncopated beats.
Her art tastes ran to the more modern or impressionistic, yet when she began to paint, she went a much more traditional way, concentrating on landscapes and still lifes. I mentioned this to her one day and she pointed out that she was really concentrating on reflections, off glass, metal, water, etc. I now have several of her paintings on my walls and I see the progression of her talent in capturing those reflections. I can also see the math in her paintings, especially in her use of perspective.
Artfldgr,
I’m on summer vacation, but come late August I’ll be back at elementary school working with kids from a broad range of ‘special needs’. I’ve worked with kids that are classified as Asperger syndrome. I spent a year one on one, 6.5 hours a day, 182 days a school year, with such a kid (5th grade). Last school year I spent 3 hours/day with an Asperger kid (4th grade). In total during the last 6 years I’ve worked with 13 kids fall to varying degrees under that spectrum. So I feel reasonably certain I have some understanding of these kids.
My experience has lead me to this conclusion: know one Asperger kid and you’e known one Asperger kid. They are unique individuals. It is true that many of them have incredible memories, it is true that they tend to have incredible math skills. However, of the kids I have worked with 4 have amazing artistic talents. They are no less individuals that you or I. (I suspect you already know this is true.)
What they all share in common is a handicap when it comes to understanding social interactions. I will not write a multi-paragraph lecture about what I do to help them learn those skills (or fake those skills in order not to stand out). Bottom line, these kids are amazing and deserve full support in the early years to help them learn how to function in society.
Well, from your list, Art, and from Parker’s comment, it seems like people with Asperger’s have had an outsized contribution to the advancement and betterment of humanity.
I don’t know whether I’ve ever met an Asperger person, but it’s probably likely that I have, without realizing it.
It’s a depressing commentary on the human condition that mediocre people will target exceptional people with resentment and try to bring them down to their level. But it’s the truth, and examples abound. That’s the entire attraction for socialism, in my opinion. That may be the single biggest problem that we have today in America: that the mediocre people are now firmly in control of the levers of power, and by gum, they intend to punish anyone who sticks his head up above the rest of the herd.
Art, I’ve never complained about the length of your comments. Sometimes I read them and sometimes I scroll past, depending on my mood and how much time I have at the moment. That’s what the “scroll down” button is for. But mere text doesn’t waste much bandwidth. You don’t hear me griping about it, for what it’s worth.
Parker, I’m glad you realize how important those kids are. It must be exciting (and challenging, and frustrating) to work with them.
Rickl,
It is exciting, challenging, and yes, sometimes frustrating. When I first offered to volunteer in the school district I had no idea I would quickly end up working in the special needs program, but midway through the first year I realized I am fortunate that this experience came my way. When one of those kids spontaneously hugs you after weeks or months of trying to earn their trust you feel like you have received the greatest reward another human being can bestow upon you.
My mother wrote poetry, and my father was an accomplished jazz musician and painter. Both were institutionalized at different points in their lives. Another great composer who wasn’t a composer at first was Borodin. He started out as a chemist, if I’m not mistaken. Tony Bennett is also a painter as well as a singer.
“”That may be the single biggest problem that we have today in America: that the mediocre people are now firmly in control of the levers of power, and by gum, they intend to punish anyone who sticks his head up above the rest of the herd.””
RickL
Isn’t this what unions have become? Salaries based on time served, with individuals breaking away from the herd shunned as a concept…A focus primarily on themselves being entitled to a secure job with customer satisfaction or company health way down on the list of concerns…
Under a pseudonym Churchill entered his paintings in a French art show/competition in the 20s or 30s and they were favorably received.
Len Deighton was an art student but went on to write fine spy thrillers about the Cold War that reached back into the Germany of the early 40s.
I would agree with Neo that Nat King Cole’s dual skills of pianist and vocalist are not in the same realm as Gershwin the composer, pianist, and painter. Not to mention Churchill the author,statesman, and landscape painter.
Sarah Vaughan was known as a singer, but she also was a good pianist. She began music as a piano student, not as a vocalist.
Louis Armstrong was also accomplished as both a jazz vocalist and trumpeter. It could be said that he set the standards for both jazz vocals and trumpet.
What a shame that Gershwin died so young. While his relatively early death deprived us of more masterpieces, we still have his prolific output for his relatively short life. Had Gershwin lived longer, I wonder if he would have suffered the same loss of popularity as did the Standard Songwriters with the advent of rock and roll. Probably so, but Gershwin, Berlin, Hart, and Carmichael songs are still widely performed and appreciated.
One little-known fact which seems to escape these lists of multi-savants is that ventriloquist Paul Winchell was the inventor of the first artificial heart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Winchell
Now there’s a combo.
Thanks, Neo. This is another example of why this is one of the few sites I visit with regularity.
I would contend that your love for politics and artistic expression in its many forms, and the ability to write eloquently about them makes you multiply talented. Maybe this entry was, in essence, a well crafted way of exploring why you are the way you are.
Rob De Witt: I’ve got a much better one–-Hedy Lamarr!
The Judge: why, thank you (blushing)!
Neo,
You’re right, I forgot about Hedy Lamarr. Pretty amazing stuff, all right.
What about the very odd combo skill for arguably one the best vocalist who ever lived…. Karen Carpenter as an accomplished drummer. It was in fact what she considered her foremost talent.
Maybe Asperger’s Syndrome is a feature, not a bug of intelligence. Intelligence is a hungry beast that must be satisfied: too many stop at the easy, at the mediocre; they do not ask questions or seek the next valley or mountain within their discipline. Too many artists find their first voice and stay at that level: I once read an article in the American Scholar (no, I am not Phi Beta Kappa – whatever – I found the journal in a used bookstore) that declared it was difficult to convince intelligent people not to repeat themselves.
The mediocre are afraid of the intelligent – yet I don’t claim to be a genius; just interested in the next question.
I am not being sarcastic
I’m moderately intelligent. My IQ is somewhat above the norm but nothing spectacular.
But I don’t resent or begrudge geniuses. That seems to be an increasingly rare trait nowadays.
Victor Hugo, too, was a painter as well as a writer. He had quite a reputation as an artist – it may be that he would be remembered for his art even if he had not written a word. I’ve only seen a few of his watercolors myself, but I see that one can buy reproductions of his oils even now.
Nietzsche always sounded more like a bi-polar, to me, rather than Asperger’s. Asperger people may be labeled A—ho-es, but they are mostly pretty rational.
Washington, now there’s an interesting question. He wrote for himself a little book of manners and relating. That could have been, maybe, a rational attempt to overcome his natural inability to relate to people. I remain a bit skeptical on that one, however.