Date: Fri 26-Mar-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: CAROLL

Quick Words:

Spanier

Full Text:

A Diverse Heritage

with 6 cuts

NEW YORK CITY -- Spanierman Gallery, L.L.C., 45 East 58th Street, will host,

from April 8 to June 5, "Paintings: 1838-1840," an exhibition of oils and

watercolors by important American painters.

The exhibition will feature 63 works -- ranging from landscapes and genre

scenes to figure subjects, still lifes, and abstractions -- demonstrating the

broad diversity of America's artistic heritage.

American art from the Nineteenth to the mid-Twentieth Century is characterized

by an array of styles and thematic concerns, all of which is reflected in the

exhibition. Our country's burgeoning landscape tradition is represented by

Thomas Birch, one of the finest marine and landscape painters of Federal

America, whose "Figures with Docked Boat at Shoreline" (1838) reveals his

ability to combine topographical accuracy with a romantic conception of his

subject.

The concern for fidelity to nature was continued by the members of the Hudson

River School, including John Frederick Kensett, whose work ranges from

woodland interiors to Luminist coastal views. His skills in conveying light

and atmosphere as well as the physicality of the landscape is demonstrated in

"View of Rhode Island" (circa late 1850s-1860s), a striking work that depicts

one of Kensett's favorite painting haunts.

His contemporary, Worthington Whittredge, likewise derived inspiration from

the American wilderness, especially the Catskill Mountains, where he painted

light-filled landscapes as well as "The Club House Sitting Room at Balsam

Lake, Catskills" (1886), one of the artist's few genre scenes.

The mid-century emphasis on realism was also carried on in the work of Robert

Spear Dunning, the leading exponent of still life painting in Fall River,

Massachusetts. A master of form and color, Dunning painted elegant dessert

pieces such as "Still Life of Compote, Cherries, Three Bananas, and Oranges"

(1869), featuring luscious pieces of fruit and crystal, which convey the sense

of abundance and contentment that characterized life in the Victorian era.

"American Paintings: 1838-1940" also includes many examples by artists who

responded to late-Nineteenth Century cosmopolitanism. Desirous of completing

their academic training in Europe, and competing within the international

arena, they flocked to France, attending Parisian art schools and absorbing a

number of influences, including those of the Barbizon School and

Impressionism.

Summers were typically spent in the countryside, where they worked en plein

air, experimenting with precepts of light and color. John Charles Arter, for

example, painted depictions of French peasantry in Brittany, drawing

inspiration from the Naturalism of French painters such as Jules

Bastien-Lepage, while George Frederick Munn painted poetic landscapes

throughout rural France, including the village of Barbizon.

Stephen Seymour Thomas was active in Brolles, a village north of Fontainebleau

in the Ile de France, where he painted landscapes with haystacks in a lively

Impressionist-inspired style. Impressionism also informed the aesthetic of the

Ohio-born painter Theodore Butler who, as Claude Monet's stepson, spent the

majority of his career in the Anglo-American art colony in Giverny. There, and

during trips back to America, he applied his distinctive style -- a synthesis

of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism -- to works such as "Village in

Winter" (1916), a charming and very expensive rendition of his rural milieu.

Another turn-of-the-century artist who drew inspiration from foreign travel

was John Henry Twachtman, one of a number of key American painters to feel the

lure of Venice. His poetic and highly expressive "San Trovaso Square, Venice"

(circa 1878) marks him as one of the few artists of his generation to focus on

the "real" Venice -- not the city of the tourist or that featured in

traditional view paintings.

Italy was also a destination of the Cincinnati-based painter Annie G. Sykes,

recognized for her sparkling Impressionist watercolors, while the

Connecticut-based painter-illustrator George Wharton Edwards was one of many

Americans drawn to the exotic landscape and architecture of Spain.

"American Paintings: 1838-1940" includes a number of examples of regional

Impressionism in the US. Indeed, many Americans returning from France turned

their attention to native scenery, using fluid brushwork and bright colors to

capture the spirit of such picturesque locales as New England, upstate New

York, California, and the West.

Among the first generation of American painters to employ Impressionist

strategies in Giverny, France, Dawson Dawson-Watson returned to paint works

such as "Autumn Harvest, Connecticut" (1895), an image that attests to his

reputation as a "painter of light." Other painters associated with the vibrant

artistic life of Connecticut include Robert Emmett Owen and Ben Foster, active

in Bagnall and Cornwall Hollow, respectively, and William Chadwick, a noted

member of the Old Lyme art colony.

At the same time, artists such as Abraham Bogdanove derived inspiration from

the rugged topography of Maine's Monhegan Island, while the Norwegian-born

Impressionist Jonas Lie was known for his vigorous renderings of coastal New

England and the Adirondack Mountains. The arid landscape and brilliant

sunlight of California attracted the attention of many American

Impressionists, notably William Wendt and Alphonso Palumbo, while Gunnar

Mauritz Widforss deftly captured the vivid luminosity of the Grand Canyon and

other Western locales.

Although Impressionism remained the dominant aesthetic in American art circles

at the turn of the century, a number of artists known as Tonalists adhered to

an alternative approach that eschewed the bright light of midday for the more

evocative luminosity of dawn or dusk.

Influenced by the poeticism of James McNeill Whistler and the French Barbizon

School, artists such as Charles Warren Eaton and Leonard Ochtman painted

mood-filled landscapes in rural New England, as did Dwight Tryon, whose "Dawn,

Early Spring" (early 1913-14) underscores what the critic Royal Cortissoz

referred to as the "extraordinary delicacy" of his work. Whistlerian

aesthetics also informed the style of Aaron Harry Gorson, who garnered

critical acclaim for his nocturnal views of the fiery steel mills along the

Monogahela River in Pittsburgh.

Other European-trained artists continued their allegiance to realism, among

them the Philadelphia painter Thomas Anshutz, whose figure subjects and

portraits demonstrate the impact of his former teacher, Thomas Eakins, and the

genre specialist Harry Walcott, represented in the exhibition by "The

Blackberry Patch" (1909). As well as revealing Walcott's virtuoso

draftsmanship and his love of rendering the figure, this delightful image

celebrates the joys of rural existence and pays homage to an aspect of

American life that was slowly vanishing.

"American Paintings: 1838-1940" also includes works that herald the advent of

modernism in American art, featuring representative examples by

Post-Impressionists such as Allen Tucker, believed to be the first American to

draw inspiration from the expressive style and vivid colors of Vincent van

Gogh, and Bror Julius Nordfeldt, who played a key role in disseminating

advanced aesthetic strategies to art communities in Chicago, Provincetown, and

Santa Fe. Their efforts paved the way for a later generation of progressive

artists, among them Myron Lechay, known for the graceful and colored

abstractions he painted in the artists' colony in East Gloucester,

Massachusetts.

The move towards non-objective painting is reflected in the exhibition by the

work of A.E. Gallatin, a prominent collector of abstract art whose own style

was informed by the precepts of late Cubism. Yet, these trends existed

side-by-side with more traditional concerns, exemplified in watercolors by

John Whorf, and in the evocative still lifes of Hovsep Pushman, whose interest

in atmospheric effects and color harmonic prompted critics to compare his work

to that of Whistler.

"American Paintings: 1838-1940" is accompanied by a catalogue with full-color

plates. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday, 9:30 am to 5:30 pm.

For information, 212/832-0208.