Highlights from the Permanent Collection: “White House — Summer” by Maurice Prendergast

As summer comes upon us, we highlight “White House  — Summer” by Maurice Brazil Prendergast. Born in Canada and raised in Boston, Prendergast was greatly influenced as an artist by French Impressionism, Paul Cézanne, the decorative patterns of the French post-Impressionist Nabis and Fauvism. Prendergast studied at the Académie Julian and at the Académie Colarossi in Paris during the early 1890s. In 1898, he traveled to Italy, visiting Siena, Florence, Rome, Capri, and Venice. In 1908, he participated in the exhibition of the Eight at Macbeth Gallery in New York — a display of eight “independent” artists organized by Robert Henri following his dismissal from the National Academy of Design. Prendergast served on the organizing committee of the Armory Show of 1913, and seven of his paintings appeared in the exhibition, which introduced Futurism, Fauvism, and Cubism to a mass U.S. audience. Prendergast’s works are in the collections of many major institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Maurice Prendergast, White House – Summer, ca. 1910–13

Like many of Prendergast’s large oil paintings and watercolors dating after 1910, “White House — Summer” depicts leisure in a modern and idyllic New England landscape populated by young women. In the immediate foreground, two females adorned in green and yellow converse with each other while a third woman, in pink, reads while strolling. Prendergast communicates the vibrancy of the day and the lush vegetation of midsummer through rich, broad brushstrokes in various shades of green. Billowy pink and white clouds fill the azure sky. In “White House — Summer,” Prendergast juxtaposes “old” New England with the industrialization of the region by visually linking a vertical cypress with a factory smokestack in the distance.

Artist and critic Walter Pach, Prendergast’s friend and a supporter of American modernism, published a tribute to the artist in 1922: “When he comes nearest to creating a new world in his joyous fancy of a summer all of light — clear and radiant. His picture is real for us and consonant with our experience: a thing in harmony with the law that we are conscious of in all art, even though we are never able to formulate it.”

Adapted from “One Hundred American Paintings” by Paul Manoguerra

Highlights from the Permanent Collection: "Medicine Woman" by Beverly Buchanan

Beverly Buchanan died in 2015, but her art lives on. Born in Fuquay, North Carolina, in 1940, she pursued a career in science and medicine, with master’s degrees in parasitology and public health from Columbia University, New York. In the early 1970s, she shifted to a different path, studying at the Art Students League and beginning to make paintings and sculptures in a variety of media. Her success, especially with her series of works depicting shacks in the rural South, led her to pursue art full time and move back to the South. Among other places, she lived in Athens, Georgia, from 1987 to 2003.

Installation view of "Medicine Woman" at Brooklyn Museum, 2016. Photo: Jonathan Dorado

"Medicine Woman" is gift from the artist, facilitated by her friend and fellow Athenian Prudence Lopp before Buchanan’s death. It stands out among her work even as it clearly comes from the same hand, for “Medicine Woman” is much larger than the scale at which Buchanan usually worked. It uses found objects as in her other sculptures, but in wider variety, and she applied copious decoration to the figure, which also has a name: Evelyn.

In 1993, the artist wrote: “I was always looking for something for ‘HER.’ Something to add and mix [to this] ‘Healer.’” The sculpture took the artist almost seven months to complete and includes wood, glass, textile, paper, plastic, paint, stone, ceramic, foam core, masking tape, metal wire and aluminum foil. Some of these objects were adhered with glue that was failing regularly, but Buchanan was elderly and unable to perform the conservation herself. For this reason, "Medicine Woman" has never been on view at the Georgia Museum of Art. When the Brooklyn Museum approached the Georgia Museum of Art about borrowing “Medicine Woman” for its large retrospective exhibition “Beverly Buchanan—Ruins and Rituals,” which closed earlier this month, its staff agreed to cover the costs of conservation.

Amy Jones Abbe (pictured left), a professional conservator based in Athens who has performed conservation on many other objects for the Georgia Museum of Art, agreed to undertake the job. Working from a few historic photographs and consulting extensively with Shawnya Harris, the museum’s Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Curator of African American and African Diasporic Art, Jones Abbe first stabilized the sculpture and then used different glues to reattach objects that had fallen off. She then added a few minimally invasive screws and a piece of heat-treated pine
to hold the work firmly in place. A bit of sleuthing allowed her and Harris to determine where nearly every detached element had been placed originally and, essentially, put the jigsaw puzzle back together. Jones Abbe’s painstaking work should pay dividends, not only for visitors to the Brooklyn Museum, but also for future visitors to the Georgia Museum of Art, where “Medicine Woman” can now be displayed.

The Instagram Beat and Upcoming December Events

This past August, we reopened our permanent collection to the public, and visitors have extended their museum experience to the digital realm on Instagram in delightful ways. Their posts demonstrate how social media can continue to engage us with the museum's collection outside of our walls as well as how art can continually feel new and playful. We are grateful to our visitors who enliven the museum experience and exemplify our motto here at the Georgia Museum of Art: Art for everyone.


Soup-er women!

souper women

A photo posted by Erin Ernst (@ernst.agram) on Sep 22, 2016 at 7:03pm PDT

You never see this untitled work by Fred Eversley the same way twice.

#notyourmothersgardenparty

A photo posted by GeorgiaMuseumofArtStudentAssoc (@gmoasnaps) on Nov 10, 2016 at 4:50pm PST

Sister, sister

sister, sister

A photo posted by andrew mcdermott (@stealyourdog) on Sep 26, 2016 at 6:52am PDT

Making art work for you!

UGA ART MUSEUM #artstudent #artistlife #artstruggle #georgiamuseumofart #artmuseum #museum #artwork #artexhibition #artexperience #hipster #hippie #bohobold #hipsteradventures #artadventures #artafterdark #UGA #fashion #style #georgia #placestogo #septum #redhair #hairstyles

A photo posted by Crystal Weaver🦄🌛💫 (@bohemian_sheer) on Nov 18, 2016 at 5:26am PST

Life imitates art with "La Confidence."

A photo posted by GeorgiaMuseumofArtStudentAssoc (@gmoasnaps) on Nov 10, 2016 at 4:36pm PST

The museum also has its own Instagram account and we invite you to follow us at @georgiamuseum. For those who are making the physical trip to the museum as well, here is a list of some upcoming events this December:

Thursday, December 1:
Friends and Family Day in the Museum Shop, 10:00 a.m. – 8:45 p.m.

Friday, December 2:
Morning Mindfulness, 9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Gallery Talk: Nicholas Kilmer, 2 – 3 pm

Wednesday, December 7:
Tour at Two: “Gifts and Prayers: The Romanovs and Their Subjects” with curator Asen Kirin, 2 – 3 pm

Wednesday, December 14:
Tour at Two: Decorative Arts with curator Dale Couch, 2 – 3 pm

Wednesday, December 21:
"Artful Conversation: DeScott Evans" with Carissa DiCindio, curator of education, 2 – 3 pm

Visit our calendar for a full list of upcoming events in December and January.

Copyright disclaimer under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976: Allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

Highlights from the Permanent Collection: Blair-Daura Chest

This chest of drawers descended in the Blair family of Virginia and is attributable to the south side of the state or possibly the area of Milton, N.C. The chest was gifted to the Georgia Museum of Art from the Pierre Daura estate. Comprising walnut, poplar and yellow pine, the chest displays numerous aspects of fine craftsmanship and probably dates to around 1825–60. For its time and region, important stylistic features include ring-turned feet, cross-hatched inlay characteristic of furniture from the Roanoke River valley, large inlaid circles and ovals and, especially, carved masks placed in the upper stiles beneath the top. Referred to in the 19th century as “mummies,” the masks reference long-standing classical examples. Georgia Museum of Art's curator of decorative arts, Dale Couch, is exploring a possible attribution to or influences from African American cabinetmaker Thomas Day. Similar masks are found in his architectural woodwork from that region.

According to Couch, “The Blair-Daura chest is exciting for a number of reasons, but especially since aspects of its design, in particular its cross-hatched inlay, migrated with settlers from Georgia in the lower southern piedmont. Such pieces serve not only as remarkable specimens of American decorative art but also as important reference points for evaluating Georgia examples. The chest will provide numerous ongoing research projects for a long time to come. Thomas Mapp and Martha Daura’s names are well known to the museum community, and it is well known that she is the daughter of internationally important Catalan artist Pierre Daura. We forget that she is also a Virginian, and her family heirlooms have now become an important part of our decorative arts holdings.”

Highlights from the Permanent Collection: "Saint George and the Dragon"

This Tiffany stained-glass window depicting St. George and the Dragon has made a circuitous journey over seven decades to its current home. Installed in the second-floor overlook of the Georgia Museum of Art, in windows facing east, this beautifully crafted work of art is finally on view to the public.

The subject of the window is the story of St. George. In the tale, a dragon lives in a spring or lake, preventing local townspeople from gathering water. To pacify and distract the creature, the villagers offer up sheep as a sacrifice. If no sheep are available, a maiden is offered. The king’s daughter is one such maiden, but while she awaits her fate, St. George appears on horseback, makes the sign of the cross and slays the dragon. The citizens then convert to Christianity.

 The window shows St. George after his triumph, with his foot on the head of the monster, a final gasp of flame issuing from its mouth. The saint’s delicately painted face shows

his gaze heavenward. The tips of his sword and standard have a faint blood-red tinge. Layered, rippled blue glass creates the effect of undulating water in the lake behind him, and pinkish drapery glass captures the folds of his cape. St. George’s scale-like armor is made up of numerous small sections of green leaded glass. The brilliant colors and various textures of the glass help accentuate the moment of his victory. 

Much of the window’s history was lost over time and changes of stewardship. Until recently, it was listed in the museum’s files as by an unknown artist, possibly German, but dedicated investigation has uncovered some of its full story. Before his death in 1938, George Foster Peabody, famed philanthropist and friend to the University of Georgia, wrote to UGA president Harmon Caldwell to donate the window to the university. The window was eventually installed on campus in Strahan House, a faculty residence. It stayed there until the mid-1960s, when the building was razed for the new Law Library. At this time, the window was transferred to the museum’s permanent collection.

For more than 30 years, the window was installed in the stairwell of the original Georgia Museum of Art on North Campus, now the university’s administration building. When the museum relocated in 1996, the window was removed and remained crated and in storage for 15 years. As part of the museum’s subsequent renovation and expansion, completed in 2011, it was finally ready to go back on display.

Unfortunately, the window was damaged during preparations for that opening and required considerable conservation. Botti Studios in Chicago, Illinois, worked on the window for approximately two years, documenting it in detail and removing, cleaning, conserving and reinstalling much of the stained glass. Once the window returned to Athens, work began in earnest to design and construct a mount so that the work of art could be illuminated with natural light during the day and backlit during the evening with LEDs. Local craftsman Hunt Leathers led a team to create an elegant steel frame to house the several-hundred-pound window within the mullions of the overlook window.

The window’s damage resulted in unforeseen benefits. During the restoration, with the help of archivists Steven Brown and Gilbert Head at UGA and local stained-glass artist Marianne Parr, I was able to rediscover the window’s history and, most important, its maker. In addition, its placement was upgraded to a more prominent location than had been planned in 2011. The window, in a sense, was reborn.

Annelies Mondi

Deputy Director

This article originally appeared in the Autumn 2016 issue of Facet.

Pardon the Mess: Reinstallation of the Permanent Collection

Five years ago, the Georgia Museum of Art opened a wing dedicated to its permanent collection as part of a large expansion and renovation project that also added the Jane and Harry Willson Sculpture Garden, enlarged the museum’s public spaces and expanded storage. On stark white walls, the museum laid out highlights from its American and European collections, including many old favorites. It was clean. It was fresh. It was something new for us.

But 5 years is a long time. Since January 2011, we have welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors into those galleries, our curatorial staff has changed and expanded, and our collection has grown by about 25 percent. We have new priorities and new visions. It’s time for us to shed our old skin in favor of a new one. This August, after a two-month closure of the eight galleries on the south side of what the staff still call the “new wing,” we will reveal a reimagined look at our permanent collection. The white walls will get some colored paint, and removable walls will create defined spaces within the galleries. We’re doing away with the hard line between American and European artists, partially because it feels somewhat arbitrary (where would you put Mary Cassatt?) and partially because incorporating them all into the same art historical timeline just makes sense.

One thing we’ve realized in the past 5 years is that many of our visitors are first-timers not only to our museum but to any museum, which means that we need to do a better job of explaining why particular works of art are grouped together. If you have an art history degree, it’s not hard to recognize a wall of American impressionist paintings, but if you don’t, you may not understand why our Paul Revere spoons are next to 18th-century portraits. New wall text will make these connections clear, and new labels should be easier to read for everyone.

Inclusivity is a buzzword in the museum community these days, but in our position as the official state museum of art, we feel very strongly about its value to what we do. If you feel unwelcome somewhere, it is unlikely you will come back. To develop and diversify the next generation of museum lovers, we need to meet them where they are, not where we wish they would be.

Are you worried that your favorite painting is going into storage? You probably don’t need to be. Although works will be shifted around among galleries, the most well- known ones will still be on view. More works by African American artists, especially those from the collection given by Brenda and Larry Thompson in 2012, will join the story, creating a richer narrative of art history. The museum also has an especially strong collection of works on paper, and more prints, watercolors and photography will be on display. Though these fragile, light-sensitive objects cannot stay on view for as long as hardier oil paintings or works of decorative art, the upside of having a regular rotation is that the look of the galleries will change frequently, rewarding return visitors with new discoveries.

Check in with us through our Tumblr and other social media for updates on our progress, and we hope you’ll enjoy the results.

Hillary Brown
Director of Communications

From the Permanent Collection: Winslow Homer's “Taking Sunflower to Teacher”

By the end of his artistic career, Winslow Homer was considered by critics and the public among the greatest American painters. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Homer was apprenticed to a lithographer at nineteen. In 1859, he began to create illustrations for Harper’s Weekly in New York City, eventually covering the Civil War as a correspondent/artist. His experience as an illustrator led to his first two major series of paintings — images of the war and of fashionable life.

Winslow Homer, Taking Sunflower to Teacher, 1875

In 1875, Homer turned to a subject for which American painters were receiving positive critical reviews: the African American. These northern Reconstruction-era images of African Americans, although tinged with paternalism, provided viewers in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia the opportunity to reflect on the history of slavery in the United States and the debate over the role freed slaves would play in the postwar Republic. Homer had come of age in Boston as the abolitionist movement in the city intensified, and his time spent working for Harper’s and with the Army of the Potomac during the war brought Homer into direct contact with the everyday issues surrounding the position of freed slaves in the country’s civic life.

In this small, intimate format, Homer shows a lone black child, wearing partially torn and patched clothing, sitting on a wood log in a lush green forest. With his arms crossed at the wrists as if bound, the boy holds a large, brilliant sunflower in his right hand. A monarch butterfly, a symbol of freedom and of metamorphosis, rests on the boy’s left shoulder. The boy, shown in slight profile yet with erect posture, looks off into the distance as he awaits the start of school when he can give the flowery present to his instructor.

During the Reconstruction era, basic literacy skills were required in order for black citizens to secure their own rights, and schools dedicated to freed slaves emerged in many parts of the South even before the war ended. Throughout the region, communities of impoverished ex-slaves showed their commitment to education by imposing taxes on themselves to fund it, by donating their labor to construct and furnish schools, and by providing room and board for teachers. The November 9, 1867, edition of Harper’s Weekly included an article stating, “The alphabet is an abolitionist. If you would keep a people enslaved refuse to teach them to read.”

Homer’s figure in this watercolor represents the patronizing belief that the children of the post–slavery era could be instructed to “grow” into moral and civic responsibilities. An 1870 blurb in the New York Evangelist uses the sunflower as a metaphor for the growth of a child in a poem titled “Planting Himself to Grow” in which “little bright-eyed Willie” plants his feet in “the moist and cooling sand” and stands “so grave and dignified” adjacent to “a sunflower tall.” Homer’s boy stands as an allegory for all African Americans, who were seen as children like Willie, not yet “grown up” into the tasks of democracy, yet more than willing to learn. The sunflower in particular symbolized a willingness and steadfast commitment to the cause of literacy and citizenship among southern blacks. In life, literature, poetry, and popular culture, the sunflower always turns toward the sun as it travels across the sky. The sunflower came to symbolize constancy and virtue, and writers spoke of “the pride of the sunflower.”

In this watercolor, the boy clasps the sunflower in front of the luxuriant greens of the watercolor’s dense, forested backdrop, as if it protects him from the swirling miasma of Reconstruction-era politics and debates over the social position of freed slaves. “Taking Sunflower to Teacher” emphatically supports the notion of education to ensure African American participation in civic life. The child’s posture, poverty, sunflower and his look into the distance reflect the constant difficulties of making that education and contribution possible back in 1875.

Adapted from an essay by Paul Manoguerra in "One Hundred American Paintings," Georgia Museum of Art, 2011.

From the Permanent Collection: "Boys Pilfering Molasses" by George Henry Hall

Last month, we posted about two recently acquired 19th-century American genre scenes from our permanent collection (“Winter Morning” by George Washington Nicholson and “The Kitten” by Thomas Waterman Wood). In contrast to these works, which were painted after the Civil War and provide some insight into images of race during the era, the politically charged “Boys Pilfering Molasses” by George Henry Hall was painted and exhibited shortly before the onset of the Civil War.

In 1854, the year that Hall was inducted as an associate member of the National Academy of Design in New York, he presented this transfiguration of the “naughty child” genre as a commentary on the divisive politics of abolitionism. One pernicious effect of the abolitionist debates of the 1850s was the revival of the slave trade under the guise of legitimate commerce. As the son of a ship-timber merchant, Hall knew of the legal and illicit trade happening at New York City’s harbor. The port became infamous for clearing 15,000 slavers a year. Ingeniously, “Licking Lasses” serves as Hall’s commentary on a perpetual slave trade cloaked in the innocence of capitalist commerce. The artist uses the conventions of genre painting, including the popular subject of children pilfering food, to make them speak to the most pressing concerns of New York and the nation.

George Henry Hall, Boys Pilfering Molasses (or Licking Lasses), 1853 

Hall’s African American boy displays the stereotyped depictions of the antebellum “Happy Sambo,” though not egregiously so. The boy heaps brown molasses on the white bread as if painting a canvas with a palette knife or running a bow over a fiddle. His eyes, nostrils and open lips wait in excitement. He alone has yet to taste what his companions already consume. The white youths turn their backs on him, and, as they victoriously sit and lean on the barrel, they dreamily yet unequivocally indulge in their looted booty. The composition suggests that their aggressive mischief has consequences for the black boy’s fate, as the bread he so attentively butters with the spoils of their pillaging forms the symbolic center of the composition.

“Licking Lasses” also alludes to allegories of the five senses. Taste in particular is a vice fully enacted by the white companions, who slobber over the molasses. Hall’s fair-haired boy, seated victoriously on the molasses barrel, takes on the blushed complexion and mindless gaze of a drunken stupor. His clothes are the most tattered, his shirt shredded as if from whiplashes, and it barely covers his sensuous flesh. Brown molasses oozes from the barrel, soiling all three lads, but none more so than the uppermost boy. He turns his back on the harbor and his African American companion; an upturned cap by his foot suggests begging. The scene symbolizes the greedy appetites that have split the nation, just as the two white boys oppose each other in dress and position: open shirt versus suit coat; one boy faces out, the other in; one rises to the top, the other stays below, occupying the north and south of the picture. Hall makes his condemnation even more explicit by including sails with the letters S, T and E — that is, “Slave Trade Empire.”

The carefully chosen title reinforces the visual and verbal puns of this condemnatory painting. As a mid–nineteenth-century edition of Webster’s Dictionary reminds us, “lick” means to lap, to devour, to consume entirely. But it also means to strike, to whip, to flog, to chastise. By exhibiting his painting under the title “Licking Lasses,” Hall alluded not only to the lapping up of molasses but also to the punishing “licks” and “lashes” inflicted on enslaved African Americans and, by its complicity, on the American Empire, due to its greedy appetite.

Adapted from an essay by Janice Simon in "One Hundred American Paintings," Georgia Museum of Art, 2011.

Lamar Dodd

No visitor to the University of Georgia, or, in fact, the state of Georgia, can avoid seeing the name Lamar Dodd plastered in all kinds of locations: The Lamar Dodd School of Art (University of Georgia), The Lamar Dodd Art Center (LaGrange College), Lamar Dodd Professional Chair (a real job title), and even "Light one for Lamar" (a real anti-smoking ban protest). With his name being such a part of Georgia vernacular, Lamar Dodd’s actual identity eludes many – wealthy benefactor? Ancient regent?

Lamar Dodd at the Georgia Museum of Art

Dodd is actually one of the South’s most important and influential artists, contributing more than just his name to buildings, schools, and strange protests. His paintings are held in the collections of the Smithsonian, the Whitney, and Metropolitan Museum of Art – and of course at the Georgia Museum of Art – as exemplary pieces of Southern art. He enjoyed commissions from the likes of NASA, and his prolific output still permeates Southern culture, and particularly the Athens community, which Dodd made his home until his death in 1996.

Dodd’s beginnings are rooted in the region. He studied architecture at Georgia Tech, and then taught for a while in Alabama, but finding his greatest interest in painting and developing his own practice, he headed to New York in the late 1920s/early 1930s. This was a wise move – his stylized scenes of Southern landscapes and daily lives charmed New York crowds. Often dark in color, and with heavy black shadows, Dodd’s paintings of the American south appear sombre, yet romantic. This combination led to his first solo show in the city in 1932, and toward a name for introducing a renaissance in Southern art. He soon won the Norman Walt Harris Prize for his painting, “Railroad Cut,” which is now on display at the Georgia Museum of Art. 

Lamar Dodd, "North of Pratt City"

Following this, Dodd was invited to become the artist-in-residence at the University of Georgia, and so gladly returned to Georgia, and the South, to make art and advocate for its inclusionary sharing. He began giving lectures and teaching painting, and was appointed head of an essentially non-existent art department at the university. He expanded its programs, introducing more classes and a variety of courses, funded scholarships, saw the opening of the Georgia Museum of Art, and founded the Cortona Study Abroad program that is still enjoyed by students today, growing the art school until it was the biggest and most influential in the South. He retired in 1967, 16 years after the original residency program that was only intended to last a year. However, Dodd's legacy doesn't just lie with the school – he never ceased painting throughout these years, and exhibitions of his work continue today. The Monehegan Museum in Maine is currently showing a series of his works in an exploration of his 'artistic history.'

Lamar Dodd is an excellent figurehead for our institution as a great leader of the concept that we still work toward today – art for everyone. His name is proudly used to reflect the values that he instilled in (what he didn't know would become) the Lamar Dodd School of Art, and that they maintain in his memory. The school was renamed after him in 1994, not long before Dodd's passing, in celebration and tribute to his contributions to Southern art and its community, and you can visit the Georgia Museum of Art to see some of the paintings from the beginning of this great movement.

Thanks to R.E.M.

Every Athenian and music lover is well aware that R.E.M. has decided to call it quits after playing together for 31 years. The alternative rock band has donated endless time and nods to Athens in its long career, and we at the Georgia Museum of Art could not be more thankful.

Here at GMOA, R.E.M. has continued its support throughout the years with donations and sponsorships and by showcasing the permanent collection. In 1991, R.E.M. used three paintings from the Georgia Museum of Art’s permanent collection in its video for “Low,” including “La Confidence” by Elizabeth Jane Gardner. The paintings were intertwined with real models and editing technology to enliven the images and helped to attract a new audience to the museum.

Among numerous Elegant Salute events at the museum, the band also sponsored several exhibitions over the years: “Lord Love You: Works by R.A. Miller from the Mullis Collection” in 2009, “Weaving His Art on Golden Looms: Paintings and Drawings by Art Rosenbaum” in 2006 and “Becoming a Nation: Americana from the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State” in 2003.

To Michael Stipe, Bill Berry, Mike Mills and Peter Buck, thank you for years of support and artistic interpretations of this beautiful town of Athens.

Here is a last look at the "Low" music video including images from the Georgia Museum's permanent collection.

Paintings from the West Foundation Collection

GMOA recently acquired two significant American paintings from the West Foundation Collection of Atlanta, Ga. The foundation gave Benjamin West’s “Portrait of Captain Christopher Codrington Bethell” (1769) and John Linton Chapman’s “Via Appia” (1867) to the museum in honor of our director, Bill Eiland, and in anticipation of the reopening.

Benjamin West, a native of Springfield, Pa., was a founding member of the Royal Academy in England and taught important American artists, including Samuel F.B. Morse and Washington Allston. The portrait by West (below) is now the earliest American painting in the museum’s collection.

John Linton Chapman was born in Washington, D.C., but was a longtime resident of Italy. He painted the Via Appia, the section of the Roman road that led to southern Italy, several times. This version (below) shows the view along the road looking back toward Rome. The painting was part of the museum’s award-winning 2004 exhibition “Classic Ground: Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Painting and the Italian Encounter” and is also on the cover of the exhibition catalogue.

“Both paintings, important additions to the museum’s already strong collection of American art, will be on display in the new permanent collection galleries when GMOA reopens on January 29,” says Paul Manoguerra, GMOA’s curator of American art. “We are grateful to the West Foundation for giving these two excellent paintings in celebration of the new galleries and the work of our director.”

In the Collection and Art in the News

Art Daily tells us that the Asheville Art Museum is opening an exhibition titled Response and Memory: The Art of Beverly Buchanan tonight. Buchanan is not only a southern artists but, since 1977, a Georgia-based artist, and the Georgia Museum of Art has one of her paintings, Jamestown, pictured above, which was last on display in February and March 2008 for the exhibition "I am in the garden . . . ": African American Art from the Collections. Buchanan's work tends to focus on architecture and color, and her website is well-maintained, with good links to things like an interview with Buchanan on the radio.

In the Collection

While reading this review in the New York Times of an exhibition of Charles Burchfield's paintings at DC Moore Gallery, we were reminded of our own Burchfield, October Wind and Sunlight in the Woods (ca. 1963-63), pictured above. Burchfield's works fall into two major categories: paintings of industry (which the show at DC Moore seems to focus on) and paintings of nature (like the above, a late work). The Burchfield Homestead is a museum devoted to his works and located in the house where he grew up and did many of his early paintings, and its website has some more interesting links. You may also want to visit the site of the Burchfield-Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College, which has yet more information.