For release January 5,
2011
CONTACT: Tracy Greene
at
817.989.5067
E-mail:
tracy.greene@cartermuseum.org
Or
Jessica Poole at
817.989.5065
E-mail:
jessica.poole@cartermuseum.org
Iconic
Hudson River School paintings travel to Amon Carter Museum of American Art for
spring exhibition
Downloadable digital
images
at http://www.cartermuseum.org/press/images
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FORT WORTH,
Texas—On February 26,
the Amon Carter Museum of American Art
presents
The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision, organized by the
New-York Historical Society (New York, New York). Undergoing a comprehensive
renovation, the New-York Historical Society is sending nearly 50,
19th-century
landscapes
on a journey across the nation, and the first stop is Fort Worth. The special exhibition
is on view at the Amon Carter through June 19, and admission is
free.
“The New-York
Historical Society houses one of the oldest and most comprehensive collections
of landscape paintings by artists of the Hudson River
School,”
said New-York Historical Society Senior Art Historian Dr. Linda S. Ferber,
curator of the exhibition. “We welcome this unique opportunity to share
these treasures with a national
audience.”
Beginning in the
1820s, the American landscape became a significant theme for artists, who
traveled up the Hudson River from New York City to sketch
the
rugged mountains and tranquil valleys along its banks. With the noted landscape
painter Thomas Cole as their inspirational leader, these artists gave impetus to
the first self-consciously “American” vision for landscape painting,
a movement that would
become
known as the Hudson River
School.
Leading figures of the
Hudson River School are represented in the exhibition, including Cole, Frederic
Edwin Church, Jasper Francis Cropsey, Asher
B.
Durand, George Inness and John Frederick Kensett, among others. Arranged
thematically, the exhibition illuminates the sites that artists depicted
as
resources
for spiritual renewal, as well as potent symbols embodying powerful ideas about
nature, culture and
history.
The exhibition tells
this story in four thematic
sections:
The American Grand Tour; American Artists A-Field; Dreams of
Arcadia: Americans in
Italy;
and Grand Landscape Narratives.
The American Grand
Tour
features
paintings
of the Catskill, Adirondack and White Mountains celebrated for their scenic
beauty and historic sites, as well as views of Lake George, Niagara Falls and
the New England countryside. These were the destinations that most
powerfully attracted both artists
and
travelers. The American Grand Tour also includes paintings
that memorialize the Hudson River itself as the gateway to the touring
destinations and primary sketching grounds for American landscape
painters.
American Artists
A-Field includes works by
Hudson River School artists who after 1850
sought
inspiration farther from home. The paintings of Church, Albert Bierstadt,
Thomas Hill and Martin Johnson Heade show how these adventurous painters
embraced the role of artist-explorer and thrilled audiences with images of the
landscape wonders of such
far-flung
places as the American frontier, Yosemite Valley and South America.
Dreams of Arcadia:
Americans in Italy features wonderful
paintings by Cole, Cropsey,
Sanford
R. Gifford and others who celebrated Italy as the center of the Old World and
the principal destination for Americans on the European Grand Tour. Viewed
as the storehouse of Western culture, Italy was a living laboratory of the past,
with its cities,
galleries
and countryside offering a survey of artistic heritage from antiquity, as well
as a striking contrast to the wilderness vistas of North America portrayed by
these same
artists.
The highlight of the
exhibition is the
section
Grand Landscape Narratives, featuring
Cole’s monumental five-painting series The Course
of
Empire (ca. 1834–36). Charting the cyclical
history of an imaginary nation, the paintings are breathtaking in their wealth
of detail from the initial scene of
hunting
in the wilderness to the concluding panel portraying the aftermath of an empire
ravaged by its own decadence and
corruption.
“It’s quite a privilege to have these magnificent Hudson River
School paintings in Fort Worth, and museum visitors should definitely take
advantage
of
seeing them,” says Rebecca Lawton, curator of paintings and sculpture at
the Amon Carter. “It’s very likely they won’t be on view in
Fort Worth again in our
lifetimes.”
The ideas explored in
the exhibition are also investigated in an award-winning 224-page publication by
Ferber.
The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision book features 150
full-color illustrations and retails in the Amon Carter’s Museum Store
+ Café for
$50.
Nature and the
American Vision will also travel
to
the
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass. (July 30–November 6, 2011); the
Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, S.C. (November 17, 2011–April 1, 2012);
and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art,
Bentonville,
Ark. (May–August, 2012). The paintings will then return to their
renovated home at the New-York Historical
Society.
The
exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and
the
Humanities.
A Tru Vue Optium® Conservation Grant from The
Foundation of
the
American
Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works has supported
glazing of the works in the
exhibition.
The
local presentation of this exhibition is supported in part
by
the
Katrine Menzing Deakins Trust and the Crystelle Waggoner Trust; U.S. Trust,
Trustee.
In conjunction with
the exhibition, the Amon Carter offers
these
free public programs.
People and Places in
American
Art
Every Tuesday from
January 18–April 26 (excluding March 15), 3–4
p.m.
Lecture Series by Dr.
Mark Thistlethwaite, Kay and Velma Kimbell Chair of Art History,
TCU
Examine
the artistic and historical contexts of American art from the Colonial period
through the
Hudson
River School.
The Moral of All Human
Tales: Thomas Cole’s The Course of Empire*
Thursday, March 24, 6
p.m.
Lecture by Dr. Mark
Thistlethwaite, Kay and Velma Kimbell Chair of Art History,
TCU
Reflect
on Cole’s masterful
series
The Course of Empire and how it fits into the context of American
history painting during the antebellum
decades.
This
program is made possible in part by a grant from Humanities Texas, the state
affiliate of the National Endowment for the
Humanities.
Sunday, April 10,
1–4
p.m.
April
Showers
Family
Funday
April showers bring
May flowers! Find out why by exploring artworks of plants and flowers through
hands-on art
activities.
Family
Fundays are made possible by
Alcon.
Thursday, May 12, 6
p.m.
Keeping It Current:
Contemporary Artists Working in Classical
Style*
Panel
Discussion
Join the conversation
with classically trained contemporary artists whose work is inspired by
nineteenth-century Hudson River School
artists.
*Because seating is
limited, reservations are required. Call 817.989.5030 or
email
education@cartermuseum.org to
register.
End
