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EXHIBITIONS
Painting the Beautiful: American Impressionist
Paintings from the Michener Art Museum Collection
Daywood Gallery
January 27 - March 16, 2008Opening Lecture by Brian H. Peterson, Senior Curator, James A. Michener Art Museum will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday, January 27, 2008, in HMA's Grace Rardin Doherty Auditorium. Reception follows.
Edward W. Redfield (American, 1869-1965), The Upper Delaware, n.d., oil on canvas, 38 x 50 inches. In trust to the James A. Michener Art Museum from Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.
American Impressionist painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries often spurned the cities, living and working in the numerous art colonies that sprang up across the country.
One of the best known of these colonies was born in 1898 along the banks of the Delaware River north of Philadelphia, centered in the picturesque village of New Hope, Pennsylvania, in Bucks County. The artists became known as the Pennsylvania Impressionists. The group played a dominant role in the American art world of the teens and '20s, won countless awards, and sat on numerous prestigious exhibition juries. Their work was celebrated for its freedom from European influence and was praised by the noted painter and critic Guy Pène du Bois as "our first truly national expression."Painting the Beautiful: American Impressionist Paintings from the Michener Art Museum Collection includes 25 works by 12 of the Pennsylvania Impressionists. In describing Impressionist painting, the words "virile," "forceful," and "veracity" probably don't come to mind. But these are the very words used by early 20th-century critics to describe the work of the Bucks County artists, whose vigorous realism was grounded in love of the land and embodied America's populist, pioneer spirit. For example, the bold, dynamic realism of Edward Redfield, generally acknowledged as the stylistic leader of this group, influenced several generations of Impressionist artists.
Redfield, like many of the Pennsylvania Impressionists, was dedicated to painting outdoors, directly from nature. While this practice exemplifies the ideals of the movement, what most characterized Pennsylvania Impressionists was not a single, unified style, but rather the emergence of many mature, distinctive voices: Daniel Garber's luminous, poetic renditions of the Bucks County woods; Fern Coppedge's colorful village scenes; Robert Spencer's Ashcan-influenced views of mills and tenements; John Folinsbee's moody, expressionistic snowscapes; and William L. Lathrop's deeply felt, evocative vistas.
The exhibition originates from the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Thanks to a recent major gift of 60 works from a prominent collector, the Michener holds the world's most extensive public collection of Pennsylvania Impressionist paintings. The artworks are accompanied by the major publication Pennsylvania Impressionism, co-published by the Michener Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Press. The book is edited and principally authored by the curator, Brian H. Peterson, who has more than 20 years of experience as a curator, critic, artist, and arts administrator in the Philadelphia area.
This exhibit is generously sponsored by the West Virginia Commission on the Arts, Cabell Huntington Hospital, St. Mary’s Medical Center, Exhibits USA, Richardson’s Printing Corporation, Huntington Mall Complex, and The Earl and Nancy Heiner Donor Advised Fund of the Foundation for the Tri-State Community, Inc. This exhibit is a program of Exhibits USA, a national division of Mid-America Arts Alliance and The National Endowment for the Arts.
Selections from The Daywood Collection
January 26 - March 30, 2008
Daywood Gallery
John Fulton Folinsbee (American, 1892-1972), Outskirts of Trenton, ca. 1924, oil on canvas, 32 x 40 ¼ inches. Gift of Ruth Woods Dayton, 1967.1.91.
The Daywood Collection was a gift from Ruth Woods Dayton (1894-1978) to the Huntington Museum of Art in 1967. Assembled by Philippi
natives Arthur Spencer Dayton (1887-1948) and Mrs. Dayton, this rich group of paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture and glass reveals their personal eye, and their emotional and intellectual response to art.
Mr. Dayton was especially fond of American art, purchasing works from New York galleries, group shows such as the Carnegie International, and from artist's studios.
The collection includes 70 paintings, many of these landscapes, by artists working in an impressionist style. In conjunction with the exhibition Painting the Beautiful: American Impressionist Paintings from the Michener Art Museum Collection, a selection of landscape paintings from the renowned Daywood Collection will be on view. The Daywood Collection includes two paintings and an etching by John Fulton Folinsbee (American, 1892-1972), and a painting by Edward Willis Redfield (American, 1869-1965), both members of the art colony of Pennsylvania impressionists in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
Upon Mr. Dayton's death, Ruth Dayton moved to Lewisburg, and established the Daywood Gallery as a memorial to her husband. It was her decision to donate The Daywood Collection to the Museum in 1967 "to be able to keep the collection intact, and appropriately housed where others can enjoy it…"
Daywood Prints
Gallery Three
February 3 - March 30, 2008
Childe Hassam (American, 1859-1935). Calvary Church in Snow, 1915, etching. Gift of Ruth Woods Dayton, 1967.1.115.
The Daywood Collection is well known to friends of the Huntington Museum of Art. The collection comprises almost 400 pieces of predominantly American paintings, drawings, sculpture and glass.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (American, 1834-1903), The Balcony, 1879-1880.
Etching and drypoint. Gift of Ruth Woods Dayton, 1967.1.264.The couple began assembling their collection in the late 1910s, working closely with the Macbeth Gallery in New York, the first commercial gallery to specialize in the work of American artists.
In 1929, Ruth Woods Dayton purchased an etching as a Christmas gift for her husband. The etching, Calvary Church in Snow, by Childe Hassam, was the first print that the couple added to their collection. During the following decades until the 1960s, they would acquire more than 140 prints, predominantly etchings, but also drypoints, engravings, woodcuts, monotypes and lithographs. Utilizing their connections with the Macbeth Gallery, the Daytons also patronized the Grand Central Galleries in New York, the Philadelphia Society of Etchers and several auctions in Chicago, Louisville, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia to build their collection of works on paper.
Because of the affordable nature and extensive availability of the print, The Daytons were able to expand their collection to include some of the most renowned artists printmakers working in the later 19th and 20th centuries, both in the United States and in Europe. Selections include works by Childe Hassam, Kerr Eby, James Abbott McNeil Whistler, Frank Weston Benson, and John Edward Costigan, just to name a few.
Blenko: West Virginia's Gift to the World
Switzer Gallery
January 26 - May 4, 2008
Winslow Anderson (American, 1917-2007) for Blenko Glass Company, Pitcher, # 939-P, ruby free-blown glass. Gift of Winslow Anderson, 2000.2.22.
Organized by the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, Blenko: West Virginia's Gift to the World features more than 100 pieces of antique glass from the collections of the West Virginia State Museum, the Huntington Museum of Art, the Blenko Factory collection, and private collections. Traveling to various venues throughout the state, including Charleston's Cultural Center, Berkeley Springs's Ice House and Logan's Museum in the Park, this exhibition highlights the importance of one of West Virginia's most famous glass producers.
William Blenko came to the United States from London in 1893 to establish the first glasshouse outside of Europe to produce mouth-blown antique sheet glass for stained glass windows. Founding Blenko Art Glass Company in Kokomo, Indiana, in 1893, William Blenko later settled his production plant in Milton, West Virginia, in 1921, where the company is located today. Blenko Glass is world famous for its contemporary designs and bright vibrant colors.
Wayne Husted (American, b. 1927) for Blenko Glass Company, Ram's Head Vase, amber blown glass. Museum purchase, 1992.19.
Fourth generation owner, Richard Blenko, along with Charles Morris, Director of Collections and Exhibitions at the West Virginia State Museum, curated the exhibit by selecting museum pieces for the exhibition so as to represent significant periods in the company's history. The works range from the 1930s to the current day and include almost 20 pieces by designer Winslow Anderson, who worked at Blenko from 1947 to 1953. Other pieces include a tangerine vase by designer Joel Philip Myers, ruby glass for the Washington Cathedral, several West Virginia Statehood bowls, a Ronald Reagan Inaugural dinner vase and the Country Music Association annual award for which Blenko is the sole producer.
West Virginia Commissioner of Culture and History Randall Reid-Smith conceived the idea of traveling the exhibition to various venues throughout the state to link different regions in an appreciation of Blenko's cultural significance. "Blenko is one of the last remaining major glass producers so we want to honor their magnificent contribution," he said.
Support for presenting Blenko: West Virginia’s Gift to the World at the Huntington Museum of Art comes from the West Virginia Division of Culture and History/West Virginia Commission on the Arts, Cabell Huntington Hospital, the Huntington Mall Complex, an Anonymous Donor, Susann Apgar, Carolyn Bagby, Jim & Kim Becker, Rick & Marty Blenko, Steve & Nancy Canterbury, Ann Conjura & Rodger Blake, Jack Bourdelais, Ken Devlin & Jackie Hersman, Betsy Gerber, The Glass Club of Huntington, Lisa & Michael Krasnow, Bob & Poochie Myers, Dan & Kathy O’Hanlon, Rick Pulcrano, The Purple Moon, Dave Revell & Lynda Holup, John A. Sazy, John Walden, and The Earl and Nancy Heiner Donor Advised Fund of the Foundation for the Tri-State Community, Inc.
American Spirit: The A.G. Edwards/Wachovia Securities Collection
April 12 - July 13, 2008
Daywood Gallery
Opening Reception takes place at 2 p.m. April 13, 2008, with music by The 1937 Flood.
George Catlin (American, 1796-1872), Buffalo Hunt, Chase, Plate 6 from North American Indian Portfolio, 1844. Hand-colored lithograph, 12 1/4 x 17 1/2 inches (image).
In 1991, A.G. Edwards created a traveling exhibition program which encourages branch offices to partner with local art institutions to bring a selection of the corporate collection, based in St. Louis, Missouri, to their communities. The Huntington Museum of Art is excited to host a branch-sponsored exhibition that presents 55 works selected from a large collection of more than 4,000 works by noted American and European artists.
The exhibition addresses our "American Spirit" with an amazing array of prints, posters, and photographs from the mid-19th century to the end of the 20th century. Each work speaks to what it is that makes us uniquely American. The overriding themes of the exhibition deal with the issues of western expansion in the 19th century, small town life, urban life, recreational pastimes, industry (steel, oil, rail, steamboats), the immigrant experience, our national icons, women's rights, and war time propaganda.
Artists we may think of as completely disparate (for example: Andy Warhol and George Catlin) fit together perfectly in this exhibition. Artists range the gamut from painters depicting the early west such as George Catlin, and George Caleb Bingham; illustrators who produced war propaganda posters such as Howard Chandler Christy and Edward Penfield; photojournalists such as W. Eugene Smith and Eudora Welty; Pop artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein; to avant garde artists such as Vito Acconci and Robert Rauschenberg. And, many of these images have become icons of American art, such as Alfred Stieglitz's photograph entitled The Steerage, and James Montgomery Flagg's Uncle Sam posters.
The artists included in this exhibition capture our collective memories , and address the major concerns of Americans both today and throughout our country's history - the same values as denoted in the Declaration of Independence - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
This exhibition is generously sponsored by the Huntington Office of A.G. Edwards. A.G. Edwards is a division of Wachovia Securities, LLC. Additional support for this exhibition comes from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts, St. Mary’s Medical Center, the Huntington Mall Complex, and The Earl and Nancy Heiner Donor Advised Fund of the Foundation for the Tri-State Community, Inc.
Bill of Rights
Daywood Print Room
April 12 - July 13, 2008
Paul Levy (American, b. 1944), The Right to Bear Arms, 1971, silkscreen.
Gift of Huntington Publishing Company, 1975.25.6.Created between 1970 and 1974, this series of 15 screen prints by artist Paul Levy (American, b. 1944) depict artistic representations of a selection of the rights granted to each American under the United States Constitution. Levy, who started the series while living in Cincinnati in 1970 and finished it after moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts, received his artistic training at the University of Cincinnati and earned an MFA from Ohio University in 1973.
The series of works speak to a specific situation in America at that particular time. "In the later 1960s, the American flag was raised as ammunition in a war of opposing views over the conflict in Vietnam. A patriotic campaign proclaimed, 'Honor flag and country,' while others chose to invert the flag as a sign of national distress," the artist commented in an interview published in the February 26, 1976, issue of The Herald Dispatch. "As an individual and an artist, I witnessed an erosion of the Bill of Rights, which was ratified 185 years ago," Levy continued. "The press was being neutralized, privacy was being invaded and, as in Chicago in 1968, peaceable assembly was anything but peaceable. My graphic representation of how the flag got caught in the middle of constitutional conflict comes in the medium of silkscreen."
Paul Levy (American, b. 1944), The Right of Privacy, 1970-74, silkscreen.
Gift of Huntington Publishing Company, 1975.25.8.The stars and stripes are abstractly broken down to their formal elements in some works, while other prints accompany the flag's recognizable colors and shapes with other symbols to give visual expression to the Amendments to the Constitution that are so commonplace. The Right to Bear Arms, from 1971, for instance, frames an image of a muscular arm and clenched fist holding a mallet reminiscent of the Arm and Hammer baking soda logo, with a border of stars and stripes. Freedom from Cruel and Unusual Punishment, 1970-1974, incarcerates the flag behind bars, while The Right of Privacy, 1970-1974, provides a glimpse of the flag through a keyhole. Cleverly composed and sometimes humorous in nature, these works go beyond an accessible Pop sensibility to provide commentary on the political climate of the United States during a particular historical period.
The works in this exhibition are all gifts of the Huntington Publishing Company to HMA.
The Collection of
Alex E. Booth, Jr.
Gallery 3
September 22 - January 27, 2008
Opening Reception sponsored by HMA's Fitzpatrick Society takes place from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, September 28, 2007. Admission to opening reception is free.
Franz Kline (American, 1910-1962), Untitled. Oil and collage on cardboard. Gift of Mr. Alex E. Booth, Jr., 1970.11.
Ranging from Hellenistic figureheads to works by key abstract expressionists including Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell, the Collection of Alex E. Booth, Jr., comprises some of the most significant selections of the Huntington Museum of Art's permanent collection. The first of these works, purchased and donated by Alex E. Booth, Jr., was added to the Museum's collection in 1964, followed by 20 others over the following three decades.
Alex E. Booth, Jr., headed the Museum's board from 1971 to 1973 and chaired the Buildings Committee at the time of the 1970 Gropius addition. It was this Committee that selected the Architect's Collaborative, headed by Walter Gropius, to design the Museum's additional galleries and Studios. His generosity and support of the Museum's programming continues today as he has made possible, through a bequest of his mother, Roxanna Y. Booth, the Walter Gropius Master Artists Workshop Series. This series allows the Museum to invite up to six nationally and internationally known artists each year to present three-day, hands-on art workshops and give public lectures.
The Alex E. Booth, Jr., Collection is fascinating in its breadth and variety. It includes works by such noteworthy artists as Georges Braque, known for his pioneering work in the French Cubist movement; John Singer Sargent, the noted American Impressionist; and George Wesley Bellows, a member of the New York Ashcan School. A Chinese earthenware camel sculpture from the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) and a late 19th-early 20th century Adorned Buddha from Thailand find their place in this collection among pieces by American 20th century glass artists David Wulfman and Joel Philip Myers and modernist sculptor Henry Bertoia.
