AN AMERICAN IN LONDON: WHISTLER AND THE THAMES

The Addison Gallery of American Art, located on the campus of Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., opens its winter exhibition season February 1 with a trio of new shows. An American in London: Whistler and the Thames, which runs through April 13, headlines the winter season, accompanied by two permanent collection exhibitions, Industrial Strength: Selections from the Collection and Eye on the Collection: Artful Poses.



An American in London is the first major exhibition to focus on Whistler’s time in London, during which the artist explored a radical new aesthetic approach to the subject of the city and the river, challenging the art establishment of the time. Born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1834, James Abbott McNeill Whistler trained in art both in the United States and throughout Europe. After settling in London in 1859, Whistler immersed himself in the life of the city, with a particular focus on the bridges that crossed the Thames as it flowed through the center of London. Taken with the bustling industrial neighborhoods, he depicted the workers and women who frequented the riverside wharves and pubs, the barges that navigated the perilous passage under the bridges, and the steamboats and wherries crowded with daytrippers that paddled up and down Battersea Reach.



Wapping, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

An American in London brings together more than 70 paintings, prints, and drawings from this pivotal period in Whistler’s career, providing a detailed examination of his approach to composition, subject, and technique. Throughout the exhibition, historical photographs and portraits of Whistler and his patrons complement Whistler’s work, bringing to life the neighborhood and people of his world and adding depth to the stories he depicted during this time.

Susan Faxon, Interim Director of the Addison, notes, “Although Whistler has been the subject of many exhibitions, An American in London provides the first focused examination of this important period in his career. We are delighted that the Addison’s



Brown and Silver: Old Battersea Bridge,

which was one of the first paintings Whistler completed after moving to London, will be shown in the context of his other extraordinary work exploring life along the Thames in the Victorian era.”

An American in London, curated by Margaret MacDonald, Professor Emerita of Art History, and Dr. Patricia de Montfort, both from the University of Glasgow, is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.

The exhibition, first shown at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, will also travel to the

Freer Gallery of Art | Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (May 2–August 14).

Key lenders to the exhibition include the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Metropolitan Museum of Art; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Musée d’Orsay; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the British Museum.



James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Whistler with a Hat (1859). Etching © The Trustees of the British Museum

An American in London is organized by the Addison Gallery of American Art, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, and the Freer Gallery of Art | Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

Links to more images and information

From a review: (some images added)



A portrait of The Adam and Eve is a chance to witness remnants of Old Chelsea around the inn as a central subject, as well as a demonstration of Whistler’s evolving specialism.

Horizons are clear and strong, then disappear altogether behind spooky mists. The contrast between the densely-stilted details of



The Last of Old Westminster, from 1862,

and Blue and Gold, the gloom-smothered oil of barely discernible features which provoked such disdain from Ruskin, represents two remarkable views of the river’s past.



Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge, James Abbott McNeill Whistler ©Tate, London 2012

The former painting was shown at the Royal Academy to acclaim. Whistler would draw Battersea Bridge – a difficult one to navigate, and a place where drownings were not uncommon – from the shore and boats.

He described his nocturnes, which are almost uniformly grey and gold, or dark green on a warm summer night, as his attempts to solve puzzles within paintings, and would have first been inspired by Japanese paintings during the late 1850s, the country having been closed to trade before then.

As a complement to An American in London, the exhibition Industrial Strength: Selections from the Collection, on view through April 13, gathers works from the Addison’s permanent collection by artists, who like Whistler, have found inspiration in the industrial landscape. The work in the exhibition explores all aspects of the industrial scene, including laborers, factories, transportation, and infrastructure, through both series of works and individual pieces. Including a range of media and time periods, as well as abstract works that play with hard-edged forms and industrial materials, Industrial Strength features artists as diverse as Edward Hopper, Walker Evans, Margaret Bourke-White, O. Winston Link, Peter Vanderwarker, and Siah Armajani.

The exhibition Eye on the Collection: Artful Poses rounds out the Addison’s winter shows and runs through March 30. Featuring works from the 18th through 21st centuries, Artful Poses explores the many ways that portraits both capture the presence of an individual and reveal the shifting social and artistic contexts in which the works have been created. The gaze, garments, furnishings, and well-placed accoutrements—a flower held by a young girl, an open book, a ship in the background—all attest to the status, ambitions, and aspirations of the 18th-century sitter. Portraits from the 19th century, such as Henry Inman’s rosy-faced newsboy and Winslow Homer’s country school teacher, are set in a framework of time and place in scenes that transcend the physical attributes of the sitter. In the 20th century the primacy of photography freed artists in all media to use the portrait for artistic and social purposes. Diane Arbus’s awkward boy with a toy hand grenade and Roy DeCarava’s white-gowned graduate in the gritty urban backyard are tough, touching commentaries on the complexities of American life. Recent self-portraits by Chuck Close and Red Grooms that are both two- and three-dimensional use the idea of portraiture to create intriguing and playful works.


About the Addison Gallery of American Art

Devoted exclusively to American art, the mission of the Addison Gallery of American Art is to acquire, preserve, interpret, and exhibit works of art for the education and enjoyment of all. Opened in 1931, the Addison Gallery has one of the most important collections of American art in the country that includes more than 17,000 works by prominent American artists such as George Bellows, John Singleton Copley, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Jackson Pollock, as well as photographers Eadweard Muybridge, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and many more. The Addison Gallery, located on the campus of Phillips Academy in Andover, offers a continually rotating series of exhibitions and programs, all of which are free and open to the public. For more information, call 978-749-4015, or visit the website at www.addisongallery.org.

Beckmann & America

Also see: MAX BECKMANN

With more than 110 exhibits, including fifty paintings as well as numerous drawings, watercolors, printed graphic works, and sculptures, the show “Beckmann & America” (Frankfurt’s Städel Museum October 7, 2011 – January 8, 2012) offered a comprehensive survey of the fascinating last creative period of Max Beckmann (1884–1950).

After living and teaching in St. Louis from 1947 on, Beckmann finally moved to New York where he also accepted a teaching position and where he died walking through the city in 1950. From the point of view of the artist’s evolution, these years on American soil were decisive: marking a new beginning for and a further development in his work, they will be the subject of a monographic exhibition for the first time.

For Frankfurt am Main, where Beckmann lived, worked, and taught at the Städel School from 1915 to 1933, this project is of special importance: the Städel Museum boasts a rich collection of paintings, drawings, printed graphic works, and sculptures by the artist and has presented a series of exhibitions on specific aspects and periods of his oeuvre. A comprehensive exhibition dedicated to Beckmann was shown as early as 1947. Subsequent shows included, among others, exhibitions focusing on his triptychs (1981), his early paintings (1983), his Frankfurt years (1984), a retrospective (1990/91), as well as presentations of his printed graphic work (2001 and 2006).

The exhibition highlighting the artist’s American years thus concluded the sequence of shows exploring the individual stages of Beckmann’s career.

Max Beckmann lived and taught in the United States from the late summer of 1947 on. It was only after his ten-year exile in Amsterdam that the artist was able to realize his long-cherished plan to emigrate to the United States in 1947. He spent the last and extremely productive years of his life far from Europe. The new continent held numerous encounters with other people, journeys, and impressions in store for the painter. St. Louis, Missouri became his first home in America; he stayed for two years and held a guest professorship at the city’s Washington University.

In the fall of 1949, he moved to New York, where he taught at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. Frequent shorter and longer journeys took him to the Midwest, to Chicago, to New Orleans, to Boulder, Colorado, but also to California and the West Coast, for example. The spatial expanses of the foreign continent – its coasts and the atmosphere of its “wild” landscapes, as well as the cosmos of its metropolises – were a new physical experience for Beckmann which became a perceivable source of inspiration for his art. In the midst of his new life, Max Beckmann suffered a heart attack and died on a street corner near New York City’s Central Park.

Three thematically independent exhibitions – “Beckmann & America” in the Städel Museum (October 7, 2011 – January 8, 2012), “Max Beckmann. Face to Face” in the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig (September 17, 2011 – January 22, 2012), and “Max Beckmann. The Landscapes” in the Kunstmuseum Basel (September 4, 2011 – January 22, 2012) – offered the unique opportunity to explore Max Beckmann’s manifold oeuvre in a profound manner.

Curator: Dr. Jutta Schütt (Städel Museum) Assistant: Dr. des. Karoline Feulner (Städel Museum)

From a review (some images added):

Beckmann died suddenly in New York in 1950. About half of the 85 paintings he made during his productive last three years are in this exhibition. Like many of his earlier pieces, they often concentrate on brightly coloured, elongated and sometimes cartoonish human figures, frequently drawn from mythology, history or religion.



Max Beckmann Argonaute 1949-50 205,8 x 122 cm

One of the stars of the show is Beckmann's last triptych, “The Argonauts” (1949-50, pictured), a play on a Greek myth that had intrigued him since he was an exile in Amsterdam.

But there are also earlier works on show, many of which anticipate his arrival in America, the land of his dreams, while also reflecting his traumatic time in Germany and his loneliness in Amsterdam.



“The Liberated One”, a self-portrait painted in Amsterdam in 1937, shows a distressed Beckmann, with the word “Amerika” just decipherable in the bottom left-hand corner. What a contrast to the 1947



“Self-portrait with Cigarette”

in which the painter's fine clothing and the cigarette in his left hand exude self-confidence, despite his rather grim expression.





Max Beckmann Departure, triptych. from the MoMA 2.15 x 3.15 m



The same expression can be seen in a photograph, taken in 1947, of Beckmann in front of his triptych “Departure” (1932-1935). It was the earliest of nine triptychs he painted during his career, and was acquired by New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1942. As soon as he got to New York five years later he visited the painting. In his diary on September 11th 1947 he wrote, “Tomorrow I am supposed to get photographed. Nonetheless I have a rather dark look into the future.” Having lived through the horrors of Hitler's Germany—the left and right panels of the triptych show figures being tortured—and the traumas of exile, his face in the photograph is tight-mouthed, like an Easter-island sculpture, facing the world and waiting for the challenges to come.

More Images



The Descent from the Cross (1917)

was the first of Beckmann’s paintings to enter the collection of the Städtische Galerie at the Städel, having been purchased by former Städel director Georg Swarzenski directly from the artist’s studio in 1919. It was confiscated by the Nazis in 1937 and presented in the exhibition “Degenerate Art.” Today, it is part of the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.



Max Beckmann (1884-1950), Backstage, 1950. Oil on canvas, 101 x 127 cm. Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011.



Max Beckmann (1884-1950) The Town. City Night, 1950 Öl auf Leinwand, 164,5 x 190,5 cm Saint Louis Art Museum, Bequest of Morton D. May © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011




Max Beckmann Cabin 1948 140,5 x 190,5 cm



Max Beckmann San Francisco 1950 102 x 140 cm



Max Beckmann (1884-1950), The Beginning, 1946-49, Oil on canvas, central panel: 175 x 150 cm; left and right panel: 165 x 85 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Photo: © bpk | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011.

More images here

Catalogue:



A substantial catalogue with approximately 280 pages and 220 color and 55 black-and white illustrations will be published by Hatje Cantz to accompany the exhibition. Edited by Jutta Schütt, the catalogue will comprise an introduction by Max Hollein and texts by David Anfam, Karoline Feulner, Ursula Harter, Lynette Roth, Stefana Sabin, Jutta Schütt, and Christiane Zeiller. German and English editions.

American Folk Art Exhibitions - Updated

Uncommon Folk: Traditions in American Art

January 31–May 4, 2014 at the Milwaukee Art Museum

Nearly six hundred objects of folk and self-taught art, from duck decoys and quilts to the work of Grandma Moses, will be on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum in Uncommon Folk: Traditions in American Art. Opening January 31, 2014, the exhibition will present a whimsical installation of American paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, textiles, furniture, and decorative arts, drawn from its celebrated collection.

“The exhibition highlights the breadth and depth of the Museum’s world-class collection of American folk and self-taught art, from paintings and photographs to walking sticks and quilts,” said Daniel Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “This eclectic grouping of American folk and self-taught art is a demonstration of the Museum’s long history of collecting works by untrained creators.”

The Museum’s commitment to the work of folk and self-taught artists began as early as 1951 with the gift of two paintings by Wisconsin artist Anna Louisa Miller. During the 1960s and 1970s, when very few American museums were acquiring non-academic art, the Museum’s collection was appreciably expanded with the purchase of a number of important works, including a major group of Shaker furniture. In 1989, acquisition of the Michael and Julie Hall Collection of American Folk Art positioned the Museum as a leader in the folk and self-taught field, a position further established with the more recent gifts of the Anthony Petullo Collection and the Lanford Wilson Collection.

Significant works from the collections of Ruth and Robert Vogele, Colonel Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbish, Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr., Robert Bishop, and Lewis and Jean Greenblatt again enriched the Museum’s holdings.

Among the artists represented in Uncommon Folk are Grandma Moses, Edgar Tolson, Felipe Archuleta, Howard Finster, Sister Gertrude Morgan, and Morris Hirshfield. The exhibition will additionally highlight several Wisconsin artists including Prophet Blackmon, Josephus Farmer, Michael Lenk, Simon Sparrow, Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, and Albert Zahn.

“Some of the works included were created within the cultural traditions of a particular geographic area in the United States. Other traditions are rooted in the function of an object, such as duck decoys and walking sticks, and are represented by both historical and contemporary examples,” said Margaret Andera, exhibition curator. “The authentically American artistic expression identified in the work of folk and self-taught artists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries gave American art its own voice separate from the classical European style that dominated the art world at the time. These artists, operating outside the art establishment, created work that was influenced by their communities and cultural traditions, rather than by art historical movements.”

“Thanks to the Museum’s rich holdings, Uncommon Folk: Traditions in American Art is able to overview the far-reaching variety in folk and self-taught art through a lively and visually compelling installation that has something for all ages,” said Keegan.


American Primitive Paintings from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch

Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art May 9 – July 11, 1954

More than 100 portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and genre paintings came from the Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch collection of early American paintings. Since 1944, Colonel and Mrs. Garbisch had assembled the largest private collection of American naive art, more than 1,800 examples, from the early 18th to the late 19th century. Their intention was that the collection would eventually be made available to the public through gifts and loans to museums here and abroad. This first exhibition of paintings was drawn from their first gift of 300 paintings and 200 miniatures. It was coordinated by William P. Campbell.



Robert Peckham, The Hobby Horse, c. 1840. Oil on canvas, 103.5 x 101.6 cm (40 3/4 x 40 in.). National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch.



Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl, Family Portrait, 1804, oil on canvas, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1953.5.8

Catalog: American Primitive Paintings from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, Part I. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1954.


One Hundred Eleven Masterpieces of American Naive Painting from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch

111 paintings from the Garbisch collection were shown. For 25 years Colonel and Mrs. Garbisch had assembled a collection of 2,600 early American paintings for their country estate, "Pokety," in Cambridge, Maryland. 34 of the paintings that were exhibited had been given to the National Gallery, including



Linton Park, Flax Scutching Bee, 1885, oil on bed ticking, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1953.5.26



General Washington on A White Charger,



and The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks.

The exhibition was organized and circulated by the American Federation of Arts.



Catalog: American Naive Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries: 111 Masterpieces from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, preface by Lloyd Goodrich, introduction by Albert Ten Eyck Gardner. New York: American Federation of Arts, 1969.


Venues:

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, June 12 – September 1, 1969
Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, February 16–April 18, 1968
Amerika House, Berlin, May 3–June 10, 1968
Palazzo Collicola, Festival of the Two Worlds, Spoleto, June 28–July 14, 1968
Royal Academy of Arts, London, September 6–October 20, 1968
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, November 7–December 29, 1968
Cason del Buen Ritiro, Madrid, January 15–February 16, 1969
Palacio de la Virreina, Barcelona, February 21–March 16, 1969
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, March 24–April 27, 1969
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, June 12–September 1, 1969
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 16, 1969–January 4, 1970
United States Military Academy Library, West Point, January 22–February 15, 1970


American Naive Paintings from the National Gallery of Art

Venues

Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut, January 17 through May 31, 1998.

From a review of the Old Lyme show (including images):

These lively and engaging paintings from the late eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries include portraits, landscapes, history paintings, and scenes of daily life. Such well-known artists as Edward Hicks and Erastus Salisbury Field are represented as well as many painters whose names are not known. These works by largely self-taught artists demonstrate strong design in pleasing colors with a sense of vitality that is just as appealing today as when the works were created.



Farmhouse in Mahantango Valley, American 19th century

While their style has also been called "folk" or "primitive," these artists came from diverse backgrounds and demonstrated varying degrees of sophistication in their art. There were those who had some experience studying with academic painters or working with established studios such as Currier & Ives. Many were amateurs, drawing inspiration from instruction manuals or prints of the day. Several worked simultaneously as artisans in other fields. Others were successful itinerants, traveling through the rapidly growing towns, and countryside working predominantly in established population centers of the northeast.



Boy with Toy Horse and Wagon, William Matthew Prior

During the nineteenth century, the growing wealth and comfort of the American middle class created an expanding market of patrons interested in documenting their images for posterity. Before the spread of photography, they turned to such successful portrait painters as Joshua Johnson, Ammi Phillips, and William Matthew Prior. Many anonymous artists also produced records of family members, and a number of pictures in the exhibition relate to the history of Connecticut including a portrait of an early Stonington family by Denison Limner.



Elizabeth Denison, Denison Limner

While portraits represent the most popular and important segment of naive art, a variety of other themes are displayed in this exhibition including marine, still life, and genre paintings. In the aftermath of the Civil War, artists outside the academic tradition also interpreted historical and biblical events with fresh, expressive visions. Among those presented in the show are



Edward Hick's idyllic Penn's Treaty with the Indians (c. 1840-44).


American Folk Art from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Venues

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, March 2, 1999 - January 2, 2000

New York State Museum, Albany, Feb. 11 to April 23, 2000

The biggest names in American folk art -- Rufus Hathaway, Edward Hicks, Joshua Johnson and Ammi Phillips -- were featured in American Folk Art from The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The more than 50 works from The Metropolitan Museum's distinguished collection of American folk art include portraits, landscapes and historical and religious scenes. Featured are such canonical works as

Lady with her Pets (1790) by Rufus Hathaway,



Peaceable Kingdom (ca. 1830-32) by Edward Hicks,

Falls of Niagara (1825) by Hicks

and Mrs. Mayer and Daughter (1835-1840) by Ammi Phillips.

The precise nature of folk art has long been the subject of debate among art historians, critics, folklorists and collectors. The artists may have acquired their skills through apprenticeship, observation or informal learning. Their work adheres to the aesthetic standards of the communities in which they worked.

This exhibition was organized by Carrie Rebora Barratt, Associate Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture and Manager of The Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

From a review of the New York City show (including images):

Rufus Hathaway (1770-1822) was only twenty years old when he painted Lady with her Pets (Molly Wales Forbes), one of the best-known portraits by an American country painter. There is no record of Hathaway having had any artistic training and his work shows very little stylistic development over time. Nonetheless, his oeuvre is memorable for its charm, a bold use of color, and mastery of two-dimensional design.

Paintings by Hathaway are rare after 1795, when he forsook this occupation to become a doctor. In Lady with her Pets - Hathaway's earliest known work - the attitude of the sitter, her herisson (or hedgehog-style coiffure), and the almost emblematic arrangement of her pets mimic contemporary French trends in fashion and portraiture, which Hathaway could have known through prints.

Orphaned at a very early age, Edward Hicks (1780-1849) was taken in by a family that raised him in the Quaker tradition. He was apprenticed to a coach maker and showed an early aptitude for painting, which led to employment as a painter of decorations on coaches and of street, shop, and tavern signs. Upon being accepted as a Quaker preacher - contemporary accounts note his extraordinary gifts in this regard - he felt compelled to give up these lucrative and worldly pursuits. He tried farming, but his debts mounted, his health declined, and he still had a family to support. Hicks resolved this dilemma by returning to painting, but focused solely on subject matter of a religious nature.



The Falls of Niagara, ca. 1825
Edward Hicks (American, 1780–1849)
Oil on canvas; 31 1/2 x 38 in. (80 x 96.5 cm)
Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1962 (62.256.3)

Hicks's 1825 painting of The Falls of Niagara shows the cataract from the Canadian side, along with the moose, beaver, rattlesnake, and eagle that have traditionally been used as emblems of North America. Inscribed around the border is an excerpt from Alexander Wilson's poem, "The Foresters." The painting, a sort of visual sermon, can be interpreted as a commemoration of Hicks's missionary work among Native American tribes in upstate New York.



Joshua Johnson (active ca. 1796-1824), Edward and Sarah Rutter, ca. 1805, Oil on canvas, 36 x 32 in. (91.4 x 81.3 cm), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1965 (65.254.3)

Joshua Johnson (active 1796-1824) is the earliest African-American painter in the United States with a recognized body of work. Johnson (whose name is sometimes spelled Johnston) was brought to Baltimore in the 1790s as a slave for a family that was related to Charles Willson Peale, the celebrated portrait painter. Within a decade Johnson became a "freeman of color" and was earning his living as a portrait painter. Although early works show Peale's influence, Johnson soon developed a more personal and less academic style, in which facial features were idealized, while details such as fine lace overlaying another fabric received a very literal treatment. Johnson's affinity for bright, strong colors and precise details can be seen in the portrait of Edward and Sarah Rutter, whose air of stillness gives it an unreal, almost magical feeling.



Mrs. Mayer and Daughter, 1835–40
Ammi Phillips (American, 1788–1865)
Oil on canvas; 37 7/8 x 34 1/4 in. (96.2 x 87 cm)
Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1962 (62.256.2)

Ammi Phillips (1788-1865) was an itinerant portrait painter who settled in one community and then another along the Massachusetts-Connecticut border before moving on in search of commissions. In a career that spanned many years and underwent several stages of evolution and response to the influence of various artists, Phillips facilitated his work (by developing a formulaic approach to portraiture) at the same time that he personalized it (by imaginatively individualizing each one). The portrait of Mrs. Mayer and Daughter shows Phillips's combination of radically simple, elegant outlines with an assured coloristic refinement that borders on the urbane.

Works of art by nearly five dozen other named artists, as well as numerous pieces by unidentified makers, are also on view. Highlights include 27 scenes of city life by the tinsmith William P. Chappel (ca. 1800-1880), a work commemorating the first naval battle in the War of 1812 by Thomas Chambers (1808-after 1866), two religious paintings based on Biblical scenes and a portrait by Erastus Salisbury Field (1805-1900), a patriotic image of George Washington by Frederick Kemmelmeyer (ca. 1755-1821), and a watercolor portrait that was executed jointly by Ruth Whittler Shute (1803-?), who drew the likeness, and her husband Samuel Addison Shute (1803-1836), who painted it in.

Ambrose Andrews (ca. 1801-1877), The Children of Nathan Starr, 1835, Oil on canvas, 28 3/8 x 36 1/2 in. (72.1 x 92.7 cm), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Partial Anonymous Gift, in memory of Nathan Comfort Starr (1896-1981), 1987 (1987.404)



John Bradley (active 1832-1847), Emma Homan, ca. 1844, Oil on canvas, 34 x 27 1/8 in. (86.4 x 68.9 cm), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1966 (66.242.23);



Unidentified artist, Boy with Blond Hair, ca. 1840-50, Oil on canvas, 34 1/2 x 29 1/2 in. (87.6 x 75 cm), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1973 (1973.323.5)


A Shared Legacy: FOLK ART IN AMERICA

Venues

American Folk Art Museum (New York, NY) December 13, 2014 - March 8, 2015
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO) March 28 - July 5
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (Memphis, TN) November 7, 2015 - February 28, 2016
Westmoreland Museum of American Art (Greensburg, PA) July 10 2016 - October 2 2016
Denver Art Museum (Denver, CO) October 27, 2016 - January 22, 2017
Society of the Four Arts (Palm Beach, FL) February 11 2017 - March 30 2017
Cincinnati Art Museum (Cincinnati, OH) June 10 2017- September 3 2017

"A Shared Legacy: FOLK ART IN AMERICA" highlights art created by artists in rural areas in New England, the Midwest, and the South between 1800 and 1925 - artists who did not always adhere to the academic models that established artistic taste in urban centers of the East Coast. Included are portraits; vivid still life, landscape, and allegorical paintings; commercial and highly personal sculpture; and distinctice examples of furniture from the German-American community. More than 60 works, including paintings on canvas, panel, and paper by some of the most admired 19th-century American painters; sculpture; and examples of American furniture and other household objects, exemplify the breadth of American creative expression during a period of enormous political, social, and cultural change in the United States.

Rooted in the family as well as the preservation of personal and cultural identity, art was one means by which Americans living far from their places of origin maintained a bond to the lives they had known. As communities were established and became prosperous, many people sought tangible evidence of their success. In Eastern cities, the well-to-do patronized trained artists who had studied at home or abroad. However, to meet the demand of customers who were living far from urban centers, self-taught or minimally-trained artists arose to create art for customers or for their own pleasure. A need for art in outlying areas fostered the emergence of several generations of artists who were responsible for a pivotal development in the history of American art.




"Ammi Phillips, James Mairs Salisbury, oil on canvas, c. 1840"



"Daniel McDowell, Still Life with Watermelons, c.1860, oil on canvas"




"Edward Hicks, The Peaceable Kingdom with the Leopard of Serenity, oil on canvas, 1846-48"

Becoming Van Gogh

Becoming Van Gogh, an in-depth exploration of Vincent van Gogh’s unconventional path to becoming one of the world’s most recognizable artists, was presented at the Denver Art Museum (DAM) from October 21, 2012 through January 20, 2013.




Vincent van Gogh, Vue de l Asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Remy

The exhibition examined critical steps in the largely self-taught artist’s evolution through more than 70 paintings and drawings by Van Gogh, along with works by artists to whom he responded. Organized by the DAM and curated by Timothy J. Standring, Gates Foundation Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the DAM, and Louis van Tilborgh, Senior Researcher of Paintings at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, Becoming Van Gogh brings together loans from more than 60 public and private collections throughout Europe and North America to tell the story of a number of key formative periods throughout the artist’s career.




Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Straw Hat, Summer 1887. Oil on canvas. The Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

By focusing on the various stages of Van Gogh’s artistic development, Becoming Van Gogh illustrates the artist’s initial foray into mastering draftsmanship, understanding the limitations and challenges of materials and techniques, learning to incorporate color theory and folding a myriad of influences, including the work of other artists, into his artistic vocabulary. No other exhibition has focused so intensely on Van Gogh’s personal growth and progression as he developed his own personal style.



Vincent van Gogh, “Canal with Women Washing”

Becoming Van Gogh took visitors on a journey through the artist’s stylistic development via his dramatic paintings and drawings. Divided into three main sections, the exhibition began with a focus on how Van Gogh imbued his early works with energy and verve as he strove to master drawing with graphite, ink and washes; how he began to understand color with watercolor paintings; and how he began to test his skill with oils on canvas. Van Gogh turned all of his creative energies towards mastering the tools that would enable him to render the visual world as he saw it by learning as much as he could about the formal elements of art, color theory, painting techniques, compositional methods and more.



Vincent van Gogh, A Pair of Boots, 1887. Oil on canvas; 12-7/8 x 16-1/4 in. The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection, formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland. Photography by: Mitro Hood.

By the time he arrived in Paris—which constituted the largest section of the exhibition—visitors will see Van Gogh’s further maturation as an artist. His Parisian period, from 1886 to 1888, represents a crucial phase of his professional career, when his focus shifted from social subject matter to works driven largely by aesthetic and artistic concerns. This, the heart of the exhibition, is the period when he strove to attain a considerable degree of artistic self-confidence by responding to the stylistic and ideological shifts underway in the Parisian art world at the time.



Vincent van Gogh, Grass and Butterflies, 1887

During this eventful two-year period, Impressionism hosted its eighth (and last) official group exhibition, Seurat startled the world at the Salon des Indépendants with his divisionism in Un Dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte, Signac and Pissarro followed his example with a softened variant known as pointillism, Bernard launched a salvo of synthetism and Toulouse-Lautrec recorded the bohemian culture of Montmartre.



Vincent van Gogh, Wheatfield with Sheaves, 1888. Oil on canvas. Honolulu Academy of Arts, gift of Mrs. Richard A. Cooke and Family in memory of Richard A. Cooke.

Acutely aware of these avant-garde trends and working closely with artists such as Émile Bernard and Paul Signac, Van Gogh both experimented with and eventually transformed these styles into something wholly personal and unique. During this time Van Gogh personally met and interacted with many of these artists, all of whom are represented by significant works in the exhibition.

From a nice background article about the show: (images added)

It took three visits to the Staatliche Museen in Berlin to secure a loan of



"Road Workers," a drawing van Gogh completed in 1882, (also known as Torn-Up Street with Diggers)

and three more to Oslo to obtain



the 1888 drawing "View of Arles from Montmajour" (also known as View of Arles from a Hill)

from Norway's museum of art.

The Art Institute of Chicago turned down seven loan requests before agreeing to send the 1887 oil painting



"Grapes, Lemons, Pears, and Apples."

From an excellent review of the show (including images):

Vincent van Gogh, Head of Gordina de Groot, 1885. Oil on canvas; 16-1/8 x 13-3/4 inches (41 x 34.5 cm). Private collection, image courtesy of Eykyn Maclean

The show begins with a side of Van Gogh that may seem foreign to most of us. For one thing, the vibrant colors most commonly associated with the artist are largely absent from the works. Instead, the viewer is greeted with muted tones of blue, gray and black. Sketching images of peasant workers and ordinary objects such as tattered shoes, the pieces provide a seemingly rustic air.




Vincent van Gogh, Autumn Landscape, 1885. Oil on canvas laid down on panel; 25-1/4 x 34-1/4 inches (64 x 87 cm). © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Moving into the next space, the works maintain the same muted palette that characterizes the artist’s earliest pieces. However, it is here that Van Gogh begins to experiment with color. Abandoning drawing for painting, the artist focuses his effort on mastering color and color theory. This is particularly evident in his piece “Autumn Landscape.” In this work, the color of the sky is made all the more intense when contrasted with the yellow leaves of the trees (this is of particular consideration given the fact that Van Gogh learned that the impression a color makes is determined not only by the color itself but also by the colors around it.)




Vincent van Gogh, Vase with gladioli and China asters, 1886. Oil on canvas; 18-1/2 x 15-1/3 inches (47 x 39 cm). Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

However, it isn’t until his Parisian period (1886-1888) that the Van Gogh we are most accustomed to begins to take shape. Vibrant hues of red, yellow, green and blue (among other bold colors) occupy the majority of the works. Focusing on still life (i.e. vases of flowers, fruit,) Van Gogh starts to experiment with thicker paints and quick, short brushstrokes, creating texture that virtually pops off of the canvas.