Thirties on Their Minds

To those who were old enough to job-hunt then, the Depression '30s were a time nobody loved. But for young Americans today, the period has become a nostalgic treasure trove. Stores from coast to coast are advertising ruffles and the Harlow look; the late show provides a touchstone by rerunning the movie classics; and Bonnie and Clyde is mandatory in all extracurricular undergraduate courses. But as is often the case with trends, artists have been well in the vanguard of popular taste, and some of the most gifted have been on a '30s kick for years (see color opposite).

Fun & Sexy. Wisconsin's Warrington Colescott, 47, who knew the period as a teenager, explored the subject in his Dillinger series, a group of lithographs and color intaglios in his recent one-man show this February at the Milwaukee Art Center. To California-born Colescott, the '30s, for all the hard times, had "a kind of kinship and romance." He sees Bank Robber John Dillinger, Public Enemy No. 1, as the folk hero of the decade, the outlaw at odds with society, who also personified "the general environment of violence that is still very much with us."

Colescott was inspired to begin his Dillinger series after a visit to the old Biograph Theater in Chicago, where Dillinger was ambushed by the FBI. For his version of Dillinger's famed raid on the Mason City, Iowa, bank, Colescott again went to the scene, interviewed Iowans who had been present for the great event. Colescott's version breaks the bank heist into a series of movie stills, evokes Dillinger's gaiety and derring-do with "Fun" lettered in a corner and a half-naked doll, with a star in her navel, strumming a banjo-ukulele. Two naked gun molls accompany the raiders; as Colescott observes, "the Dillinger men took their girls with them wherever they went. I've tried to convey the feeling of the gang: very rowdy, very adolescent, very sexual."

Star Photos. Richard Merkin, 29, is a Brooklyn Miniver Cheevy, born too late to know at first hand the decades between the wars. But he has become an indefatigable researcher into the era, which he sees typified by "an innocence, a lack of maturity, and on the other hand, a marvelous sense of style and elegance." To recapture the past, he surrounds himself with trivia, including old copies of Esquire, FORTUNE and The New Yorker, a collection of Popeye lamps, Old Gold cigarette posters and bound volumes of Superman comics. Merkin adopts the look of the past as well as pasting it together; he owns seven white, plaid or pinstripe suits (all with vest and broad lapels) and 175 ties (mostly pink and lavender), parts his hair like a Van Heusen shirt model, sports a Groucho Marx mustache and smokes Murads.

Still and all, Merkin sees his motley melanges of memorabilia, which go on view this week at Boston's Obelisk gallery, as essentially "statements about today, even though I use the period between the wars as my source." Merkin's Stage Door Johnny's is his way of saying that even the most golden glories tarnish with time. Suggested by a poem by L. E. Sissman, the picture deals with a practice that dates from the heyday of Tin Pan Alley, when the best show-business restaurants lined their walls with autographed photos of stars. Nowadays, many once proud establishments have gone to seed, and the flyspecked photos they boast are signed by has-beens or never-weres--like Alf Wandsworth, author of the non-bestselling Queer Street. Merkin also bridged the gap between past and present by including a portrait of his girl friend, Virginia F. ("Bunny") Fritz. "She's always on my mind," explains Merkin. "She looks like Theda Bara."

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