The Bruce Museum - American Impressionism and Chinese Contemporary Art

I travelled to Greenwich, Connecticut to see the exhibition Pasture to Pond: Connecticut Impressionism but stayed to enjoy Tales of Two Cities: New York & Beijing.  The Bruce Museum is a delightful small museum which was designed at its inception as a natural history, historical, and art museum.

In the late 1890's  John Henery Twatchtman, J. Alden Weir and Childe Hassam settled in the Cos Cob area, as Connectitcut became the epicenter of American Impressionism along with Old Lyme Art Colony.  "In 1912 the Bruce Museum opened with an exhibition by members of the Greenwich Society of Artists, which included Childe Hassam, Emil Carlsen, Leonard and Mina Fonda Ochtman, Elmer McRae among others. The Museum continued to host the Society's exhibitions until 1926, and acquisitions from those shows form the nucleus of its holdings in Cos Cob Impressionism."  This early history explains why I felt compelled to visit Pasture to Pond.

What's not to love about the works by Hassam or Weir?

J. Alden Weir, (American, 1852-1919)
River Scene Near Norwich, Connecticut, c. 1910

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935)
The Mill Pond, Cos Cob, 1902
Oil on canvas

I also discovered several impressionist I was unfamiliar with -

Charles H. Davis and Frank DuMond to mention two

Charles H. Davis, (American, 1856-1933)
Summer Uplands, n.d.
Oil on canvas

Frank DuMond (1865-1951)  Top of the Hill

Tales of Two Cities

I was pleasantly surprised how interesting I found this exhibit.  My favorite piece was a video called Ink City by Chen Shaoxiong (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2U8Xb-QgCE) which was a ink video installation.  The artist created a video made up of ink drawings which were based on photographs of daily life in the city.

Chen Shaoxiong
Ink City (from the Ink Animations series), 2005
Single channel video, black & white, sound
3-minute loop

Another favorite was a 12 independent panel grouping with scenes from Beijing.   I enjoyed it because it recalled the impressionists' technique by which the image only becomes clear when you step away from the canvas.  I find it amazing that anyone can paint a picture that looks very different depending on how far from one stands from it.  Below is a sample of Li's technique.

Li Taihuan
Misty Beijing, 2013-2014
Oil on canvas

The lesson learned from my visit to The Bruce Museum is to keep your mind and eyes open to discover new and delightful art forms and techniques.