August 16 – December 8, 2019
Panoramas: The Big Picture explores the history and continued impact of panoramas from the 17th to the 21st century, as they were used to create spatial illusions, map places, and tell stories. Highlights include John Trumbull’s sweeping double vistas of Niagara Falls (1808), sections of Richard Haas’ nearly 200-foot long trompe l’oeil panorama of Manhattan (1982), and Eadweard Muybridge’s 17-foot photographic panorama of San Francisco before the city’s devastating 1906 earthquake (1878). The exhibition examines and reveals the impact that these and other panoramas had on everything from mass entertainment to nationalism to imperial expansion. (Curated by Wendy Ikemoto, associate curator of American Art).
John Trumbull (1756–1843), Niagara Falls, from Two Miles Below Chippawa, 1808 [detail]
Oil on canvas
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Alexander Eddy Hosack, 1868.6.
John Frederick Kensett (1816–1872), View from Cozzens’ Hotel, near West Point, N.Y., 1863 [detail]
Oil on canvas
Robert L. Stuart Collection, the gift of his widow Mrs. Mary Stuart, S-189.
Leigh Behnke (b. 1946), Chrysler Building, 1996
Watercolor on two pieces of heavy watercolor paper with deckled edges
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Lawrence L. Di Carlo, 2006.29.
Watercolor on two pieces of heavy watercolor paper with deckled edges
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Lawrence L. Di Carlo, 2006.29.
