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Indepth Arts News:
"Horace Day: An Artist in Alexandria, 1967 - 1984"
2003-04-18 until 2003-09-01
Alexandria Lyceum
Alexandria, VA,
USA United States of America
An exhibition of Alexandria paintings by Horace Day, an
acclaimed regional painter particularly known for his paintings of the
American South, will open at The Lyceum, Alexandria's History Museum, on,
Friday, April 18, 2003. The exhibition is open during regular museum hours
with free admission.
For the last seventeen years of Day’s career, between 1967 and 1984, Day
was an Alexandria resident. The Lyceum exhibition includes paintings of
city life in Old Town Alexandria, portraits of black and white Alexandrians
of the period, nearby landscapes, gardens of Alexandria's historic houses
and still-lifes. Although painted no more than 35 years ago, the paintings
in aggregate capture an image of Alexandria in transition, in some ways
linked more closely to the South of 50 years before than to contemporary
life.
Day’s paintings of upper King Street, painted at first hand, reflect a
sense of the grace and elegance of a neighborhood still in decline. “King
Street was throbbing with vitality: neon signs flashed over crudely painted
store fronts, hiding once-handsome townhouses, whose tall chimneys are
silhouetted against the evening sky. This lively combination of old and
new, black and white, seemed to epitomize the atmosphere of a Southern
town,” Day wrote. A similar lyric sympathy is reflected in his portraits,
landscapes and still-lifes, which likewise reflect a very personal handling
of familiar detail in a painterly style, marked by a subtle use of
brilliant color.
Day believed that a painter’s methods should be concealed rather than
flaunted. Working consciously in the tradition of the Old Masters, Day
believed that an enthusiasm for his subjects was the surest escape from
self-consciousness and its consequent mannerisms. “Artists,” he observed,
“are in one sense craftsmen handing down their methods to be reinterpreted
by each succeeding generation.” Shortly before Day's death, his
accomplishments were summed up by a colleague who wrote, “He lavishes a
brilliant technique on … interpretations of nature as he observes it,
always at first hand. Day’s work celebrates the delights of seeing, and
his … sight embraces a variety of subjects that can be attempted by few
painters. Equally at ease with landscape, portraits, still-life, and
figures, Horace has worked in the conviction that the age of great painting
continues in our time. He has done much to assure that it does.”
Horace Day (1909 – 1984) was born in Amoy, China, where his parents were
American missionaries. His childhood was spent almost entirely in China.
He studied at the Art Students League in New York, and from the earliest
stages of his career he was recognized as a promising artist. His work was
first included in an international exhibition at the Art Institute of
Chicago in 1933, and one of his paintings of the South was exhibited at the
New York World’s Fair in 1939.
Paintings by Horace Day are included in major museums and collections
including The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; Fleming Museum, Burlington,
Vermont; The Craven Collection, Yale University; the Anne S.K. Brown
Military Collection, Brown University; Addison Gallery of American Art,
Andover, Massachusetts; Tiffany Foundation; The Smithsonian American Art
Museum; U.S. Department of Interior; U.S. Military Academy; Clark
Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts; The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk,
Virginia; and the Nelson Atkins Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri. His
portraits include those of governors, judges and college presidents.
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