Delaware Art Museum: Odds & Ends

 Finally, a couple of works that just caught my attention during my recent visit, and some thoughts they evoked in me.  It seems like my life in art has become rich enough over the past 65 years that I can find comfort and connection in nearly any Art Museum I visit.  That this gallery photo.  The horse sculpture is by artist Deborah Butterfield.  She is legendary for her iconic sculptures of horses created from "found" objects: discarded metal, driftwood, kindling, mud...  As such they are deceptively simple appearing in their physical construction; however, that they are are bronze casts made from molds created off of the found object prototypes.  These are then treated with various elements to attain the uncanny resemblance of the original artifacts.  The process alone is a work of detailed and intricate artistry.

How do I know this?  I attended her Artists-in-Residence lecture at the Phillip's Collection as the guest of a friend.  (The next year, I was gifted the same and attended a lecture by another great American sculptor, Martin Puryear.)  I cannot account for the graces that have been afforded me like this.  I can only be responsible for allowing my mind to draw from when appropriate and hopefully (though never a guarantee!) accurately.

Now you know that I bring to every Butterfield equine sculpture --which also evinces such a powerful and palpable personality from what is by all imaginable description refuse and/or junk!  It's really miraculous in its own way.

"Taking the Oath and Drawing Rations," 1865

- John Rogers (1829 - 1904)

This is a plaster cast.  It's honestly quite beautiful and captures a moment in history.  After the end of the Civil War, the South in particular was devastated and things like the spread of disease and lack of food threatened to exacerbate the horrors.  The nation responded by providing an influx of rations; however, in order to obtain them, citizens of the confederacy had to swear an oath of allegiance to the United States of America in the presence of a Union soldier.

I am a great fan of these works of egalitarian art.  My grandmother owned one depicting a scene around a hearth.  Likewise, my cousin also owned one in the style of Frederick Remington with cowboy on horseback about to overcome a fleeing bison.  Both of these enthralled my childhood imagination.  Alas, both have also slipped from my view in years past with the dissolution of estates that I was not engaged in.  Yet, the magic they create is as fresh as it was when I first discovered those other ones.

"The Soldier," circa 1962

- Jamie Wyeth (1946 - present)

Jamie Wyeth is the Grandson of N. C. Wyeth, and the son of Andrew Wyeth.  He is, 80 years of age, the end of a modern 3 generational family dynasty of American artists.  It's hard to find a more prolific familial heritage of artists outside of the Charles Willson Peale clan that just inundated early American art on so many levels.  The thing that I find most intriguing in Jamie's work is it's latent homo-erotic nuances.  Certainly NOT writ large throughout his oeuvre, but undeniably present throughout.  I'm certainly open to understanding it as platonic, too.  I mean, there's nothing wrong with that.

"Along the Harlem River," 1925

- Marvin Gray Johnson (1896 - 1934)

Isn't this just delicious?  I love the tension between realism and abstraction inherent in the design.  It reminded me in a connective way of the works of artists from Charles Sheeler (1883 - 1965) to George Bellows (1882 - 1925) to Thomas Pollock Anshultz (1851 - 1912).  But it's not any of their works.  It belongs to Marvin Gray Johnson who may share a tragically short life (38 years) with George Bellows (only 43), yet remains uniquely African American.  Now, when you visit most museums, you will be hard-pressed to discover works by Black artists.  At the Delaware Art Museum you won't.  Back to it's earliest paintings by American Artists, the work of Black painters is present, and celebrated.

"Weathervane and Roof Gable with Birds," circa 1920

- Ethel Franklin Betts Bains (1877 - 1959)

I loved all of the choices the artist made.  At every level: Background, Mid-range, and Foreground there is a juxtaposition of choices: Geometric versus organic, depth of light versus shadow, cool versus warm colors...it's a mash-up that works to offer an interesting sense of movement and focus.  It's just a lovely painting with tons of embedded intuition.  And it's a painting by a woman.  Paintings by women are also prevalent throughout the collection.

The simple yet profound idea of presenting a diversity of artistic expression is a reality at the Delaware Museum of Art.  I don't think it's possible to enter a gallery and see ONLY works by white men.  That's a really radical and welcome aspect.  One I just cherish with my visits.

Delaware Art Museum: The City On Paper, Seven Views

 I feel like one of the wonderful things about mid-sized, regional Art Museums is the way in which they utilize their resources to create beautiful, thought provoking focus exhibitions.  They often bring works out of the archives that otherwise would unlikely ever see the light of day.  The current exhibition at the Delaware Art Museum titled "The City On Paper" (March 28 to August 16) is exactly the epitome of these sorts of exhibitions.  It's only there for a couple more weeks, so if you stumble upon this post before it's too late and you have the means to do it--go.  You won't be disappointed.

Here are 7 views from a series of around 30 works.  Because, as works on paper, they also represent a variety of medium and techniques, I'm including that information with the title and attribution.

"Dürer's House, Nürnberg," 1930

- Stanley Anderson (1884 - 1966)

Drypoint

"House of God," circa 1940

- Gertrude Howland Balch (1909 - 1964)

Etching and aquatint with hand painted watercolor

"Radio City, N. Y.," circa 1935

- Leon Louis Dolice (1892 - 1960)

Woodcut on wove paper

"Break in the Thunderstorm," 1930

- Martin Lewis (1881 - 1962)

Drypoint

"Provincetown," 1919
- William Zorach (1889 - 1966)

Linocut

"Evolution," 1928

- Henry Jarvis Peck (1880 - 1964)

Etching

"Hill Street," 1987

- Wayne Thiebaud (1920 - 2021)

Color Woodblock (39 blocks 16 colors)

Delaware Art Museum: My Chosen Exhibition

 I'm intimately familiar with a few art museums having visited them many, many times.  The National Gallery of Art, The Phillips Collection, The Baltimore Museum of Art, the Walters Collection, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Delaware Art Museum, for example.  Many times the impetus is a special exhibition.  But sometimes, I just want to go and rest among the art.

One of the things I occasionally do is just pick a theme, a genre of art, and wander stopping at paintings that fit my theme.  During this visit, I chose landscapes.  Here are four that I spent time with on this visit to the Delaware Art Museum.

"Landscape," 1884

Henry Lea Tatnall (1829 - 1885)

"Morning on the River, Providence, R. I.," circa 1890 - 1891

Edward Mitchell Bannister (1828 - 1901)

"Trout Brook, Catskills," 1875

John Frederick Kensett (1816 - 1872)

"Four O'clock Train," circa 1940 - 1941

John W. McCoy (1910 - 1989)

Delaware Art Museum: The Pre-Raphaelites (Highlights)

 I share something from every visit, and so this time I'm keeping it brief and only identifying 4 works.  Also, I'm reaching out beyond works on canvas to show off some of the other forms of art that are part of this expansive collection.

But first, a super quick tutorial on the Pre-Raphaelite Movement.  It began to formalize itself at the end of 1848 when a group of friends and acquaintances who were artists and poets and writers formally rejected the carefully developed rules and expectations of their contemporary canon as maintained by the Royal Academy of Art, among other national institutions.  The original group of seven men christened themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.  In rejecting the status quo, they adopted what they believed to be a freer style where nature and the natural world rose in value and idealistic themes of valor and romance entwined with stories from the Bible, Arthurian Legends, Myths and even Shakespearean settings.  The movement was not long lived, but the ideals behind it continued to expand and evolve into all sorts of directions and media.

What began as a brotherhood, soon found itself with a wide range of sisters who took up the ideals.  What was a works on paper sort of movement (painting and writing) quickly diversified to include all manner of ornamental and utilitarian creations from Wallpaper and Fabric designs to Glassware and Jewelry, from furniture to pottery to stained-glass, to arguably even architecture.  The desire to be original, to discover something pure, worthy of admiration is not new.  However, I wonder when such a motivation has influenced so many others (whether we even realize it or not) in the history of modern art?  Just the start of a conversation...some day.

"The Waterfall," 1853

- John Everette Millais (1829 - 1896)

I must confess that I just LOVE this painting.  Millais was a founding member of the Brotherhood.  On this day, early into its existence, he and his wife have traveled north to Scotland to spend time with the writer and philosopher, John Ruskin and his wife.  Ruskin was quite taken with the ideals of the Pre-Raphaelites to the tune of actually bankrolling some of the projects.  In this painting by Millais with see Effie (Ephemia) Ruskin sitting among the rocks at a little waterfall's edge.  What is not initially apparent is the manner in which Millais paints the rocks.  Not with a harsh rigidity that seeks to copy carefully every bump and crack.  No.  His rocks are much more organic.  They seem to also glow.  AND they feel like additional characters in a conversation with Ruskin's wife.  It is an intentional melding of nature with humanity...a tenet of the movement's "raison d'etre."  

"Vase with Horses," c. 1902
- Florence C. Roberts (c. 1879 - 1930)

I look at this vase and I am immediately drawn to Art Deco and the works of legendary North American Pottery mills like Rookwood in Cincinnati or Van Bruggle in Colorado.  You just can't get to "B" without "A".

"The Octopus (Death of a Mermaid)," 1929

- Ernestine Evens Mills (1871 - 1959)

"Noah," 1874 (1st manufactured in 1909)
- Edward Burne Jones (1833 - 1898)

A total testament to the enduring love of the creativity of the Pre-Raphaelites that even 11 years after his death, a design by Edward Burne Jones would be resurrected and finally created. 

Delaware Art Museum: Jamey Grimes: Aster

 Every visit to Wilmington also always includes a stop at the Delaware Art Museum.  Like the Brandywine Zoo, this is an absolute gem of a regional art museum with both a lovely range of 19th & 20th Century American Art, a thought-provoking collection of Contemporary Art, and a few rather unique collections, the depth of which you'll not likely find anywhere else.  These are the works of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, American Illustration and the paintings of native son, John Sloan of the Ashcan School.  For a little icing on this cake, there is also an expansive Modern Sculpture Garden behind the main building.  

The two-story entrance of plate-glass windows is filled with glorious colorful glass discs by America's greatest living Glass Sculptor, Dale Chihuly, casting a decidedly modern appearance to the cavernous Catherine A. Fusco hall.  Often set with larger works from the museum's collection, this visit found it home to an amazing installation stabile sculpture by another contemporary artist, Jamey Grimes.

Rather than share about someone I know nothing about!  You know me...  I'm going to share the text from the wall blurb:

JAMEY GRIMES: ASTER

"Through his manipulation of synthetic materials, Jamey Grimes constructs sculptures that engage the viewer in an exploration of form and space. This site-specific installation for the Catherine A. Fusco Hall is part of the artist's ongoing Aster series. Reminiscent of natural forms and phenomena, like cellular tissue, cirrus clouds, or a starling murmuration, Aster fills the space with sweeping energy. For Grimes, the desire to create is 'fueled by encounters with nature and playful experimentation with synthetic materials.' His skillful handling of corrugated plastic leads to the turbulent form that appears to swirl above us."

ENJOY!

Josephine Fountain, Brandywine Creek Park, Wilmington, Delaware.

 

Jasper Crane Rose Garden, Wilmington, DE

Near to the Brandywine Zoo, and part of the park in which the zoo sits, is a lovely little Rose Garden.  The Park skirts the Brandywine River and was originally laid out by the progenitor of Urban Park Design, Frederick Law Olmsted.  The Rose Garden was added later, along with other elements like the iconic Josephine Fountain.

The Rose Garden also features a fountain.  It was added by the Friends of Wilmington Parks which coordinates the upkeep of the garden in 2013 as a general gift to the citizens of Wilmington, Delaware.

I have visited this garden many times before.  On this occasion the proliferation of Rose blooms was scant by comparison.  I am such a rose enthusiast to understand the blossom cycles of Roses during the Spring-Summer-Autumn season.  I did notice that there were lots of buds to suggest a better time for a photo shoot might be in the not too distant future.  Yet, you can see, there were still some lovely flowers to be enjoyed.