Connecticut River Museum

CONNECTICUT RIVER MUSEUM - ESSEX, CT

I have spend many a pleasant afternoon strolling down to the base of Main Street in Essex to reach the Connecticut River.  On several occasions we have gone into the Connecticut River Museum and enjoyed their nicely prepared historical displays.  We also enjoyed the Christmas trains display with the family.  Now it seems that the Connecticut River Foundation is expanding its mission and vision of what this museum can offer the community.  The Foundation at Steamboat Warehouse was established in 1974 as a small, all-volunteer organization dedicated to preserving the history of the Connecticut River and its people.  Today, the museum is a private, not-for-profit, educational institution which recently purchased the Samuel lay House which adjoins the museum property.

Mid-June I ventured to the museum with family in tow to discover that the most recent exhibition

NEW DEAL ART ALONG THE THE RIVER

"During the Depression and the early years of World War II, the American Government supported the arts in unprecedented ways. A wide variety of artistic projects were sponsored through the Federal Arts Project. The projects promoted American art and culture and employed thousands of artists."  The exhibition at the Connecticut River Museum offered a wonderful sample of the artist who lived and worked along the river. 

Yngve Edward Soderberg, On the Rail

The cover art for this exhibit was done by Yngve Edward Soderbergh who was born in Chicago, but later settled in Mystic.  He was a water colorist and etcher who also created a WPA mural which can be seen at the US Coast Guard Academy in New London.

Certainly, comprehensive exhibitions offered by major museums provide the visitor with a grand experience.  But small regional shows can be very worthwhile and positive - as was the art on display in Essex in June.  The curator did a nice job collecting art from many Connecticut institutions.  Below you'll find some of my favorites.

Beatrice Cuming, Saturday night, New London

I'll admit it, I am always on the look out for female artists and to my great pleasure there were a number on the walls in this show.  In 1934 Beatrice Cuming relocated from New York to New London and participated in a number of Federal Art Projects.  Much of her art is a study of the industrial landscape; however the range of the styles of her work is very exciting as this show revealed.

Beatrice Cuming, Tuna Boad

Beatrice Cuming, Industrial Landscape

Harold Barbour was a Higganum artist and spend time painting the scene of the all important tobacco industry in Connecticut.  His attention to detail can be seen the two pictures below.  Notice that most of the workers appear to be women with male supervisors.

Another favorite was done by Corneila Vetter from Haddam who did 18 painting for the Federal Arts project, including the follow painting of her hometown.

Many fine paintings by Connecticut artist who one doesn't normal have access to were on display as shown by the following sample.

Frank Raymond, Rod Singer's Boat

Archie Tillinghast, Gathering Marsh Hay

Jerome Stavola, Park Concert

This exhibit tells the story of life along the Connecticut River and reminds us of the important contribution that the Federal Art Project made in supporting and preserving art during the depression.  If this exhibition is any indication of the commitment to expanded the scope of the museum, I will be monitoring their plans for future exhibitions.

Postscription:  I found a very interesting article call Art of the Thirties by Arthur D. Hittner.  It can be found at http://www.antiquesandfineart.com/articles/article.cfm?request=966  It discussed the masters of the movement called American Scene which flourished during the 1930's.

Nancy and I outside the museum

Addison Gallery at Andover

Addison Gallery at Andover

I have often seen works from the Addison Gallery on loan to important exhibits in major galleries.  But it wasn't until May 2015 when the ESA met at Andover that I was able to actually visit this truly fine museum. 

The following overview was provided by the Addison website. The Addison Gallery of American Art has one of he most important collection so American art in the country.  The museum's founding collection included major works by such prominent American artists as John Singleton Copley, Thomas Easkins, Windlow Homer, Maurice Pendergast, John Singer Sargent, John Twachtman and James McNeill Whistler.  Aggressive purchasing and generous gifts have added work by such artists as Alexander Calder, Stuart Davis, Arthus Dove, Marsden Hartley, Han Hofman, Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffee, Jackson Pollock, Charles Sheeler, John Sloan, Frank Stella, Mark Bardford and Kara Walker.  

The Addison's collection of nearly 7,600 photographs spans the history of American photography and includes in-depth holding in key individual artists.

Today, the collection is comprised of more than 17,000 works in all media-painting, sculpture, photography, drawings, prints, and decorative arts- from the eighteenth century to present.

The exhibition I viewed in May featured the art of Alfred Maurer and it did not disappoint!

Alfred Maurer: At the Vanguard of Modernism

April 25 - July 31, 2015

Considered the most accomplished American artist to adopt Fauvism, Alfred Maurer (1868–1932) tirelessly explored the boundaries of artistic expression throughout his career. From his cross-fertilization of Fauvism between French and American circles to his channeling of abstraction in his late radical works, Maurer proved to be a formidable creative force in expanding the potential for artistic expression in American art.

Consisting of over 70 master works, Alfred Maurer: At the Vanguard of Modernism, a major traveling exhibition organized by the Addison Gallery, assesses Maurer’s singular accomplishments and contributions to American painting in the early decades of the twentieth century. Tracing themes that run throughout the full scope of his work, the exhibition illustrates the invaluable contributions this progressive artist made to the development of modernism in America.

While Maurer is often characterized as a painter of divergent, seemingly contradictory aesthetics, careful study of his oeuvre reveals steady interest in thematic ideas as well as formal experimentation with color, form, and abstraction, all of which will be revealed in this significant exhibition. 

Co-curated by independent scholar Dr. Stacey Epstein and Addison curator Susan Faxon, the exhibition will travel to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in the fall of 2015.

The video that the Addison prepared celebrating the opening on the exhibition is very instructional.

Click to hear Curator Speaks about exhibition

I tend to enjoy more traditions works for some of my favorites were:

The detail and colors were just amazing.  The white of the blouse was amazing as was the use of the red in the second picture.  It seems that Mauer did not name most of his painting, so the titles derive from simple descriptions of each work.

It is always interesting to see portraits of the artist himself and here are a few I found while trying to learn more about this inventive artist.

As Mauer moved through his career his work became more abstract as the images of two women show.

His landscapes also show how his art evolved and become more abstract.

While abstract, I so loved the colors that I added them to my favorites.

When I left the Addison Gallery I found that I was deeply jealous of the students and faculty who live next door to this wonderful gallery.  I hope to be able to return to visit it again, but until that time, I will surely make regular virtual visits.

artists from Mohegan

In an exhbition at the New Britain Museum of American Art, these was a very intesting display of the art of Mr. and  Mrs.  Charles Hamm entitled Over Life's Water: The Coastal Art Collection of Charles and Irene Hamm.  As I walked through the large display of delight art of the sea and coast, I began to notice that many of the either lived on or painted scenes from Mohegan Island.  That encouraged me to create a list of these artists and they explore them as time permited.

Kevin Beers

Samuel Peter Roth Triscott

The artist in the show were 

     James Fitzgerald

      Andrew Winter

     Jay Hall Coonnaway

      Frank Carson

      Leo Brooks

      Guy Corriero

      Robert Henri

      William  Partridge Burpee

      Richard Hayley Lever

      Kevin Beers

      Sears Gallagher

      Samuel Peter Rolt Triscott

MOMA - Matisse cut-outs

In November it looked as if I would never get to New York to see the Henri Matisse CutOut at MOMA.  I decided to experiment with my ipad and blogster to see if those two technologies would be useful in creating my blog.  Frankly, I found them difficult to master, so I put aside this post and started to celebrate the holidays.  But the elves decide to deliver one more gifts - a trip to NY and MOMA with Harriet.  That trip encouraged me to revisit my original post to see what could be saved using my laptop and blogger.  What follows is the hybred.

According to MOMA, in the late 1940s Henri Matisse turned almost exclusively to cut paper as his primary medium, and scissors as his chief implement, introducing a radically new operation that came to be called a cut-out. Matisse would cut painted sheets into forms of varying shapes and sizes—from the vegetal to the abstract—which he then arranged into lively compositions, striking for their play with color and contrast, their exploitation of decorative strategies, and their economy of means. Initially, these compositions were of modest size but, over time, their scale grew along with Matisse’s ambitions for them, expanding into mural or room-size works. A brilliant final chapter in Matisse’s long career, the cut-outs reflect both a renewed commitment to form and color and an inventiveness directed to the status of the work of art, whether as a unique object, environment, ornament, or a hybrid of all of these.

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs is a groundbreaking reassessment of this important body of work. The largest and most extensive presentation of the cut-outs ever mounted, the exhibition includes approximately 100 cut-outs—borrowed from public and private collections around the globe—along with a selection of related drawings, prints, illustrated books, stained glass, and textiles. The last time New York audiences were treated to an in-depth look at the cut-outs was in 1961.

This exhibition was sparked by an initiative to conserve The Museum of Modern Art’s monumental cut-out The Swimming Pool(1952), a favorite of visitors since its acquisition by MoMA in 1975. The Swimming Pool is the only cut-out composed for a specific room—the artist’s dining room in his apartment in Nice, France. The goals of the multiyear conservation effort have been to bring this magical environment back to its original color balance, height, and spatial configuration. Newly conserved, The Swimming Pool—off view for more than 20 years—returns to MoMA’s galleries as a centerpiece of the exhibition.

With research on two fronts—conservation and curatorial—this exhibition offers a reconsideration of the cut-outs by exploring a host of technical and conceptual issues: the artist’s methods and materials and the role and function of the works in his practice; their environmental aspects; their sculptural and temporal presence as their painted surfaces exhibited texture and materiality, curled off the walls, and shifted in position over time; and their double lives, first as contingent and mutable in the studio and, ultimately, as permanent, a transformation accomplished via mounting and framing. The exhibition also mines the tensions that lurk in all the cut-outs, between finish and process, fine art and decoration, drawing and color. (Taken from the MOMA website, for more information on visiting the exhibition Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs

 This exhibition was just marvelous.  It rivaled the Sargent show at the MFA.  What follows are some of my favorites.

It is difficult to select favorites - so I am concentrating on new favorites that is to say pieces I was less familiar with.  The range of joyable dancers are simply wonderful.  

One of the real treats was seeing the new restored Swimming Pool.  Many people asked how we felt about the attending such a popular this exhibition - didn't the crowds annoy?  MOMA did a great job managing the crowds and most of the time, all visitors were polite and we shared the space happily.  By the time we go to the gallery displaying the Swimming Pool, we shared the space with one other person.  

Once thing about ignorance is the pleasure you feel when it falls away.  I didn't know or forgot that Matisse did stained glass.  This section of the exhibition was another glorious experience.  As is always the cases pictures can do nothing more than hint, but it does help me remember the experience.

With art like this is a chapel, the visitor know they are in an extraordinary special space.

A trip to an exhibition always ends with a trip to gift shop for postcards and other fun items.  There were two children books on display which made me first think of Ben.  But when I got home, I decided I also needed these books.  So the first title in my new collection of picture books on artist is Matisse's Garden.

Impressionism in Scotland

While reading book reviews, I discovered that the National Gallery of Scotland was hosting an exhibit entitle American Impressionism: A New Vision. Having visited a number of exhibits last summer on American Impressionism I decided I just needed to go to Scotland to see this exhibit. Fortunately, they had a virtual website which hinted at the possibilities of this exhibit.



"The exhibition traces the discovery of Impressionism by American artists in the late 19th-century. Divided into four groups these include: major figures such as Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler who lived in Paris and were close personal friends of the French Impressionists, especially Degas and Monet; the group of American artists who trained in Paris and/ or settled near Monet at Giverny in 1887; American Impressionists working in the USA, including William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam and Theodore Robinson and Later Impressionism and the American group known as 'The Ten'."

Some museum sites have many virtual features.  The Scottish site is interesting but not as adventuresome as others.  Nonetheless, there were some wonderful features on this exhibit that I really enjoyed.  Clearly, the sample of art that I was not familiar with was a happy thing.  A sample of these pictures are below.

In the Orchard
Edmund C. Tarbell

Summertime, Mary Cassat

Blossoms at Giverny, Theodore Robinson

Lady Agnew, James McNeill Whistler

Art in Understated Elegance - Paul Mellon's Collection in New Haven

 

Yale Center for British Art

In 1966 Paul Mellon give his collection of British at to Yale and had Louis Kahn build a museum to house it in New Haven. Entering the museum is always a pleasure.  The warm wood and light make it easy to put the chaos of the world behind you.

In January the YCBA will close for a year of refurbishing.

Sculpture Victorious: Art in an Age of Invention, 1837–1901

The range of sculptures made this an interesting exhibition.  For me one of the highlight was being able to see Greek Slave by the British sculptor John Bell opposite The American Slave.  It seems just amazing how artists can make bronze and marble come alive.

The Slave Girl or the American Slave,
 John Bell

Hiram Powers, Greek Slave, 1847, marble 

Another of my favorites was Perseus and the Graiae by Edward Coley Burne-Jones.  There was just something wonderful about the texture of this picture/sculpture created using Oil, bronze and silver leaf on carved gesso on an oak panel overpainted with gold..

Perseus and the Graiae

Of course, what's not to love about the Devonshire Perure.

Studying this set with its reset cameos makes you want to go back to the Victoria era for just one evening.