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Jacob Collins, “Waves with Perspective,” 2007, oil on canvas with white chalk, 12 by 16 inches.

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Jacob Collins, “Low Tide with Gulf Bar,” 2007, graphite on paper, 7 by 10½ inches.

 

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MUST RUN 5/2

JACOB COLLINS’S ‘LANDSCAPE’ AT HIRSCHL & ADLER MAY 8 w/2 cuts

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NEW YORK CITY — Hirschl & Adler Modern will present “Jacob Collins — Rediscovering the American Landscape: The Eastholm Project” May 8–June 13.

The centerpiece of the artist’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery is a 50-by-120-inch panoramic landscape view from Eastholm, on the island of Vinalhaven in Maine. The exhibition features more than 40 related works created during this two-year project, including drawings, oil sketches, studies, and fully realized landscapes, ranging in size from 5 by 7 inches to 36 by 70 inches. David B. Dearinger of the Boston Athenaeum contributed the introduction to the 16-page exhibition catalog.

“The Eastholm Project” is a culmination of numerous visits to specific locales on Vinalhaven, planned at different times of the day and in changing seasons, during which the artist found himself “rediscovering” the American landscape by connecting with the land. Rather than approaching his subject through the lens of Impressionism or abstraction, Collins found himself studying, in great detail, each of the unique and particular components that constitute the landscape.

In his essay, David Dearinger notes that, as an accomplished classical-realist painter of the figure and nudes, Collins uses his careful study of drawing, superb draftsmanship and his deep understanding of human anatomical structure in painting these landscapes.

“For Collins,” writes Dearinger, “anatomy itself proved to be the catalyst for epiphany. This was not only the anatomy of the body, although that is basic to Collins’s paintings, but the anatomy of all things, solid, liquid or ethereal: rocks and soils, leaves and wood, wind and water. It was this especially, that made the Eastholm project a journey of discovery of method and technique and of rediscovery of landscape and nature for the artist.”

The small- and medium-sized sketches produced for the Eastholm project range from loosely painted to highly finished, detailed to minimalist, and panoramic to concentrated. Each showcases the artist’s intense investigations of the specific elements realized in the larger paintings: from clouds and weather patterns, tree formations and moss-covered rocks, sunrises and sunsets to wave perspectives and light refraction.

Many were executed en plein air, as observed on site, waterside on Vinalhaven. Others were realized back in his New York studio, fueled by memory, as Collins recalled or reimaged the specifics of what he had seen and felt.

The definitive view featured in “The Hen Islands from Eastholm,” and the grand-scale format in which it is painted, evidences Collins’s unflagging commitment to incorporating the artistic, social and spiritual values of the Hudson River School painters into contemporary landscape painting.

In addition to founding and directing his own private art school, The Water Street Atelier, Collins is the founder and director the newly opened Grand Central Academy of Art in New York and the Hudson River School for Landscape in Hunter, N.Y.

The gallery is at 21 East 70th Street. For information, www.hirschlandadler.com or 212-535-8810.