Date: Fri 13-Nov-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: CAROLL

Quick Words:

Wiggins

Full Text:

Wiggins, Wiggins & Wiggins

w/3 cuts (2 as transparencies)

NEW YORK CITY -- Joan Whalen Fine Art will present a selection of works by a

rare American family of painters -- Carlton Wiggins (1848-1923); Guy C.

Wiggins (1883-1962) and Guy A. Wiggins (1920- )... in the exhibit "Wiggins,

Wiggins & Wiggins."

Carleton Wiggins, who studied with premier landscapist George Inness,

specialized in pastoral American Barbizon landscapes dotted with flocks of

sheep or herds of cattle. He was one of the original members of Connecticut's

Old Lyme Art Colony, an early center of American Impressionism. One wall of

the exhibit features framed graphite sketches, both studies and fully finished

works, Carleton executed on site in Fontainebleau, Dieppe and the bucolic

countryside around Barbizon as well as studies of American rural landscapes.

Of especial interest are three Civil War drawings, including the dramatic "A

Cavalry Charge." Drawings from yet another sketchbook exhibiting the artist's

eye for detail and assured draftsmanship are available unframed.

Carleton's son, Guy C. Wiggins, who studied with famed Ashcan School painter

and teacher Robert Henri, remains the premier painter of wintry New York City

with his images of the city amid swirling snowflakes and waving flags.

While Guy C.'s urban images exhibit the spirit of American Impressionism, he

also played an active role in the Old Lyme Art Colony and executed numerous

light-filled impressionist rural subjects. The show includes one of his

masterpieces, "New York City -- Winter," depicting the skyline around City

Hall Park in air thick with snow.

In the gallery's 1997 exhibit, "New York: A Century of Wonder," it first

presented Guy C. Wiggins' early masterpiece, "Riverside Drive." When Guy A.

Wiggins heard that Joan Whalen was showing his father's little-known scene of

the drive, he contacted the gallery. The current exhibition grew out of

subsequent conversations.

Guy A. is a uniquely informed and entertaining eyewitness of the "Golden Age"

of modern American art, from the last sunsets of the Barbizon School to the

high noon of the Impressionists and the gritty glory of the Ashcan School of

Urban Realists.

He grew up surrounded by some of the great names of American painting, such as

George Luks and John Sloan. He studied at the Corcoran School of Art in

Washington, D.C., and later at the Art Students League and the National

Academy of Design in New York City. His still lifes and urban scenes are

expressions of the New Realism and fresh evidence of this talented family's

achievements.

At the gala opening for "Wiggins, Wiggins & Wiggins" on October 28, Guy A.

Wiggins spoke with his usual vivacity and humor, delighting the crowd with his

anecdotes of living in one of America's greatest painting families. He

recalled that, while growing up, his gentle, fun-loving but pragmatic father,

Guy C., described paintings as "a wonderful hobby but a damned difficult way

to make a living."

It proved to be good advice, frequently borne out as the family's fortunes

rose and fell: they took their young son to the Riviera in the 1920s, then

struggled through the 1930s Depression.

The artist also related how his father, late in his career, accomplished his

greatest public relations coup: he received personal permission from then

President Dwight D. Eisenhower to set up his easel on the White House lawn.

One canvas, "Morning at the White House," is part of the Whalen exhibition;

while another was given by Eisenhower to one of his White House staff members,

Raymond Saulnier.

Guy A. most enjoys painting en plein air, exchanging comments with interested

passersby, as exemplified in "Summer at the Metropolitan Museum," "Greenwich

Village Cafe" and "Noonday at the Public Library." "End of Autumn," an elegiac

landscape, and the Hopperesque "Gansevoort Meat Market" demonstrate the

artist's noteworthy evocation of mood.

In addition, the gallery's 70-year retrospective of Ashcan/American Modernist

painter Theresa Bernstein has been extended through December 31.

Joan Whalen Fine Art is in the New York Gallery Building, 24 West 57th Street,

Suite #507, and is open Monday through Saturday, 10 am-6 pm. For information,

212/397-9700.