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From Cassatt to Wyeth:
American Masterworks from the Cedarhurst Center for the Arts
June 3-September 1
Saturday, June 3
Kevin Sharp
Cedarhurst Center for the Arts, Director of Visual Arts
Free Lecture, 1:00 p.m., Arkell Pavilion
Opening Reception
2:00-4:00 p.m.
From Cassatt to Wyeth: American Masterworks from the Cedarhurst Center
for the Arts is a selection of 33 paintings, works on paper and sculpture
that, although well known to scholars of American art everywhere, has
never been exhibited as a whole beyond the gates of the Mitchell Museum
at the Cedarhurst Center for the Arts in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, before
this exhibition.
This very rare showing includes the collected works of the late John
and Eleanor Mitchell and, as such, is now the Permanent Collection of
the Mitchell Museum. It is made up solely of masterpieces created by
major American artists, including George Bellows, Mary Cassatt, Arthur
B. Davies, Thomas Eakins, William Glackens, Childe Hassam, Robert Henri,
George Inness, George Luks, Maurice Prendergast, John Singer Sargent,
John Sloan, Andrew Wyeth and others.
Philanthropists John R. and Eleanor R. Mitchell, the founders of Cedarhurst
Center for the Arts, were active art collectors for more than four decades,
eventually acquiring a highly prized collection of late 19th and early
20th century American paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts. Upon
their deaths, they left their entire estate for the benefit of residents
and visitors in southern Illinois.
The Mitchell’s collection, which has been enjoyed by thousands
of individuals since the Mitchell Museum opened November 2, 1973, is
one of the most significant collections of late 19th and early 20th
century American paintings found anywhere; it includes examples of major
American art movements including American Impressionism, the Hudson
River School, the Ashcan School, and a host of other periods and figures
crucial to the development of modern American painting.
The Works
It has been said that the history of modern art in America began at
the Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia. After Lee’s 1865 surrender
to Grant, ending the Civil War, no aspect of American life was left
unaffected, including the visual arts. With the armistice, Atlantic
sea-lanes were again opened to safe travel, and young American artists
pursued educations and experiences abroad for the first time in years.
Among those to board ships and make their way to the academies of Europe
were Mary Cassatt and her fellow Philadelphian, Thomas Eakins. Like
hundreds of others, Cassatt and Eakins arrived in Paris within a year
or two of the war’s end. Unlike the majority of their compatriots,
they were both accepted into the atelier of France’s leading academic
artist Jean-Léon Gérôme. For Eakins, perhaps the
most gifted draftsman to matriculate from the Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts, entry into Gérôme’s studio was not
unexpected. But for Cassatt, a woman seeking the highest levels of academic
training in a profession dominated by men, that acceptance was nothing
short of extraordinary.
Although bound by their connections to Philadelphia and to the French
academic system, Cassatt and Eakins took quite different paths to their
deservedly lofty positions in American art history. Eakins would return
to the United States and became arguably this country’s most inventive
artist-educator as well as its most outspoken advocate of modern art.
By the time he painted the collection’s remarkable painting of
his sister Margaret in 1871, Eakins had already startled Americans with
his unflinching realism and aesthetic candor. Eakins’ later portraits
of his friend Professor George P. Barker and his student Samuel Murray
were even more psychologically probing and visually incisive than his
first great works had been.
In the early 1890s, when Cassatt began to paint mothers and children
– her signature theme – she had already achieved more professional
success than almost any American artist of her era had. She had participated
in four of the eight famous Impressionist shows in Paris, the landmark
exhibitions staged by Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir,
and Camille Pissarro between 1874 and 1886, and she was claimed by the
French as one of their own.
By 1908, the year she produced the collection’s magnificent Jeune
Femme Allaitant Son Enfant (Young Woman Nursing Her Child), Cassatt
was as well known in the United States as she was in France. Americans
admired her sensitive yet unsentimental portrayal of maternity and her
dedication to the principles of Impressionism, which would shape American
painting for years to come.
Cassatt’s achievements in Paris encouraged generations of younger
American artists to seek success comparable to her own, beginning with
the brilliant expatriate John Singer Sargent. He would become the most
cosmopolitan and fashionable portraitist of his age, but he was perhaps
most inspired when portraying members of his intimate circle in landscape
settings, as in the collection’s Ilex Wood at Majorca with Blue
Pigs.
J. Alden Weir founded the Society of American artists, an independent
exhibition union based on the French Impressionist model. Although the
son and brother of academic painters, Weir would champion Impressionism
in America, while producing such spectacular examples as the collection’s
The Feather Boa. Similarly, Childe Hassam haunted the same Paris arrondissement
that Cassatt and her colleagues had pioneered, and through such works
as The Table Garden, he became America’s quintessential Impressionist.
Philadelphia produced some of America’s most important painters
of the early 20th century, thanks in part to the liberal pedagogy of
Eakins. The younger artists Robert Henri, John Sloan, George Luks, William
Glackens, and Everett Shinn were not students of Eakins, but they benefited
from his ideas. Along with Maurice Prendergast, George Bellows, and
Arthur B. Davies, these artists formed a collective called The Eight,
which has come to be known as The Ashcan School.
Inspired by Eakins’ model of almost scientific realism, these
painters offered biting social commentary while recording the harsh
reality of urban life. By later in their careers, when Glackens produced
A Summer Day, Henri painted Patience, (From the Gypsy Camp) and Bellows
executed his portrait of Mrs. T. in Wine Silk, they had come almost
full-circle, back to the lessons they inherited from Eakins.
With significant examples by Eakins, Cassatt, Sargent, Hassam, Bellows,
Luks, and others, From Cassatt to Wyeth: American Masterworks from the
Cedarhurst Center for the Arts possesses an exceptional collection that
has enriched the cultural life of many. But, this group of masterworks
also represents a cogent synopsis of American art history during the
modern era, a crucial period that may have begun in 1865 at the Appomattox
Courthouse.
From Cassatt to Wyeth was developed by Cedarhurst Center for the Arts,
John R. and Eleanor R. Mitchell Foundation, Mt. Vernon, IL and the tour
organized by International Arts & Artists, Washington, DC.
Exceptional Works
Fine Art from the Permanent Collection of the Southern Vermont Arts
Center
June 3-July 11, 2006
Opening Reception
Saturday, June 3, 2:00-4:00 p.m.
Exceptional Works is the fourth in a series of exhibitions drawn from
the Arts Center’s Permanent Collection, an 800-plus piece collection
that includes the world’s largest holding of Luigi Lucioni paintings
and etchings, as well as pieces by Robert Bruce Crane, John Steuart
Curry, Reginald Marsh, Grandma Moses and many other prominent 19th and
20th century artists.
While many of the pieces in the Permanent Collection are associated
with the Southern Vermont Arts Center or its immediate predecessor,
Southern Vermont Artists, this exhibition will include works that were
both given to or purchased by the Arts Center, regardless of connection.
Hoosick Falls by Grandma Moses, who celebrated her 100th birthday at
the Arts Center, and Sisters, a 1928 oil by Alfred Maurer – who
has been referred to as the First American Modern – will be included,
as will Reginald Marsh’s iconic On the Bowery.
Exceptional Works will also feature works of three prominent American
artists with strong ties to both the Arts Center and the region. Ogden
Pleissner (1905-1983), Jay Connaway (1893-1970) and Luigi Lucioni (1900-1988)
were among the Arts Center’s best-known and most successful members.
Exhibited, collected and
published throughout their careers, each offered a view into the life
and work of a full-time, committed artist; the works of these three
gentlemen hang in leading museums and collections and are familiar to
collectors and scholars throughout the world.
Rosita Marlborough
Recent Works: After Morocco
July 15-September 1, 2006
Opening Reception
Saturday, July 15, 2:00-4:00 p.m.
The Southern Vermont Arts Center is privileged to present Rosita Marlborough,
Recent Works: After Morocco. The selection of the Arts Center as host
of this special exhibition places it on par with earlier venues in London,
New York and Palm Beach.
Rosita, Duchess of Marlborough, daughter of the Swedish diplomat Count
Carl Ludwig Douglas and his wife Ottora, grew up as a diplomat’s
child, travelling all over the world. Sweden, however, remained a strong
constant during her childhood and she spent her summers at the family
home of Stjarnorp.
Rosita Douglas was born in Madrid and attended schools in Sweden and
in Washington DC. She went on to follow her interest in the arts studying
at Sweden’s renowned art school Konstfackhoskolan in Stockholm,
and then at the Ecole Superieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.
While in Paris she worked for the famed fashion designer, Emanuel Ungaro
and later as a freelance designer in London.
In 1972 she married the 11th Duke of Marlborough and moved into the
family home, Blenheim Palace, where she put her design expertise to
use taking charge of the mammoth task of redecorating and redesigning
the private apartments at Blenheim.
Encouraged by her children, Rosita Marlborough started painting professionally
in 1992. Unlike her recent work, her first solo exhibition in London’s
Mayfair in 1995 contained entirely figurative works: romantic portraits,
horses and dogs painted in a careful, academic style. Two of her paintings
were accepted for the Royal Academy of Arts’ annual Summer Exhibition
this same year.
This latest exhibition will feature a selection of the recent work of
the artist, charting her astounding journey since her return to painting
professionally and a life-changing trip to Morocco that spurred her
towards abstraction.
On holiday in Morocco in 1996 she was inspired by the extraordinary
light and color of the country. Struck by the quality and intensity
of the light, and the sweep of the panoramas she began to record her
experience in the landscape through strong use of color and abstract
shape. In the resulting body of abstract landscapes light and emotion
take center stage.
In contrast to her earlier studied, academic style, Morocco has given
her freedom. Moroccan themes have crept into her work on the figure
through her vibrant studies of the seated and reclining figure. In these
portraits she captures mood through color and form.
Rosita Marlborough’s current passion is pure abstract –
a form that she finds intellectually stimulating and exciting. The first
canvasses in this body of work are appropriately named Crossroads, where
the painter flexes her artistic ability, opening the door to endless
possibility. An apotheosis of sorts, her paintings show her ongoing
search for balance, harmony and beauty.
Since Rosita Marlborough’s return to painting professionally in
1992 she has enjoyed numerous commissions. Her paintings and sculptures
are in collections in the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden,
Germany, Italy, Mexico, Canada, Spain, and Malaysia.
Twenty-five paintings and four bronze sculptures by Rosita Marlborough
will be on view July 15-August 15 at the Elizabeth de C. Wilson Museum
at the Southern Vermont Arts Center.
Rosita Marlborough, Recent Works: After Morocco is curated by Sophie
West, a graduate of Christie’s Education "London Master’s
Programme." She holds a M.Litt. in History of Art and Connoisseurship
in 20th – 21st Century Art and Design.
Memories of World War II
Photos from the Archives of the Associated Press
September 12-November 1, 2006
Opening Reception
Saturday, September 16, 2:00-4:00 p.m.
In Memories of World War II: Photographs from the Archives of the Associated
Press, the Associated Press brings together some of its most famous
photographs of World War II, as well as pictures from its archives that
are rarely seen, in this ground breaking exhibit timed to coincide with
the unveiling of the National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC.
These historic photographs were culled from the AP’s collection
of more than 100,000 World War II photographs from archives in Britain,
France, Germany and Japan. Some of the pictures have not been publicly
viewed since the war while others have taken on iconic status, including
Joe Rosenthal’s dramatic Pulitzer Prize-winning picture of the
American flag being raised atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima in 1945.
Six other AP journalists also won Pulitzers for war coverage.
Memories of World War II is a spectrum of 121 photos from all theaters
of the war and the home front, ranging from the now-familiar scenes
of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor to triumphant American and British
troops marching through newly liberated Paris. These images, juxtaposed
with hidden surprises, are sure to evoke strong memories among older
Americans.
Some 68 journalists were killed covering World War II; five of them
were from the AP. These photographers died while viscerally and heroically
documenting the realities of the bombed-out streets of London, the blasted
islands of the Pacific, the Allies’ bloody D Day landings at Normandy
and Omaha Beach, Japan’s surrender aboard the USS Missouri as
well as many of the war’s humbler individual triumphs and tragedies.
There are photographs of Hitler and Mussolini at the peak of fascist
power, Winston Churchill in unmistakable silhouette, actor James Stewart
being inducted into the military, Nazi SS troops herding defiant Jews
after the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, and Russian women laying flowers
at the feet of four dead GIs who helped liberate them from a slave labor
camp.
In the foreword to the exhibition’s companion book, also titled,
"Memories of World War II," former U.S. Senator and WWII veteran
Bob Dole calls the photos a "personal history relived" for
those who fought the war. Dole goes on to say, "For many millions
more, the postwar generations, who know the war only as distant history,
these images will serve as the record of a shared and shaping era in
our nation’s history."
Many photos credit AP staff photographers by name; others came from
anonymous Army or Navy photographers. Some were killed in combat; others
went on to postwar prominence in their craft. "You had the same
fears as the GIs, but you had to think about the picture," says
retired AP photojournalist Max Desfor, who covered the battle of Okinawa
and Japan’s surrender about the Missouri, and later won a Pulitzer
Prize in Korea. "My camera was my shield, and I didn’t even
think about the idea that a bullet might hit me."
In an introduction
to the companion book, retired CBS anchor Walter Cronkite – who’ll
be presenting a talk at the Arts Center on Saturday, September 16 –
praises the courage of journalists who shared danger with the troops.
"Indeed, if there were no correspondents or photographers who went
to war, what would the folks at home know?" writes Cronkite, who
covered the war for AP’s then rival, United Press International.
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