The Hyde Collection
February 28 through June 11, 2017
Childe
Hassam’s ‘Geraniums,’ painted in 1888/89, is part of The Hyde’s
permanent collection and one of the work’s featured in its current show.
When Childe Hassam returned to the United States after
living in Paris for three years, he brought with him an American form of
Impressionism. His Hyde House favorite Geraniums
will be exhibited — along with the works of other American artists
who found inspiration overseas — in American
Artists in Europe: Selections from the Permanent Collection, which
opened Tuesday, February 28,
in The Hyde Collection's Whitney-Renz Gallery.
The featured works are drawn from the Museum's permanent
collection, highlighting American artists inspired by their travels.
"Americans go as students or as established artists, but they both come
back with distinctly American versions of movements they encountered in
Europe," said Jonathan Canning, Curator of The Hyde.
Forebodings by Winslow Homer, Hyde Collection
When, for example, Winslow Homer tired of painting Americans, he
traveled overseas in 1881 in search of strong-willed women exuding natural
beauty. The revered painter found his muses on the rough shores of
Cullercoats, England. He came back to the States with the subjects that would
come to dominate his later years, fisherfolk and the power of the sea.
Before the Civil War, America lacked the cultural
equivalents of artists' cafes, salons, and the Bohemian lifestyle that made
Europe the center of Western culture. "Artists traveled wanting to see
Europe's great cities, art collections, and monuments," Canning said.
"It wasn't until after the war that Americans started to develop art
academies and cultural institutions of their own."
American Artists in Europe: Selections from the Permanent
Collection features
works from Hassam; Homer, who traveled to England twice in the mid-1800s;
Frank Duveneck, who traveled and taught extensively in Italy and Germany;
Elihu Vedder, who found inspiration in Italy and eventually lived there permanently;
and Leonard Freed, who traveled in Europe and Africa before settling in Amsterdam to photograph its Jewish community; among others.
Duveneck Frank Florentine Flower Girl
Frank Duveneck, who traveled and taught extensively in Italy and Germany;
Elihu Vedder, who found inspiration in Italy and eventually lived there permanently;
and Leonard Freed, who traveled in Europe and Africa before settling in Amsterdam to photograph its Jewish community; among others.
American
Artists in Europe runs through June 11 in Whitney-Renz Gallery.
