John Whorf, "Ship in Rough Water," 1930, oil on canvas, 28 1/4 x 36 1/8 inches

Lisa N. Peters

Prominent in the New York and Boston art worlds from the 1920s through the 1950s, John Whorf (1903-1959) is best known for his vivid, painterly watercolors, which are often compared with those of John Singer Sargent.* Oils are a rare aspect of Whorf’s oeuvre, but one nonetheless in which he demonstrated the same masterful handling, using sweeping, bravura brushwork that seems effortless.  This technique is exemplified in Ship in Rough Water (1930s), in which John Whorf portrayed a large fishing vessel battling a raging sea.  Here he no doubt felt oil was ideal for this dramatic scene, and he used the medium adeptly to express the weight and feel of the surging waves.

An allegory of the confrontation between man and nature, the storm-tossed boat has been explored in art through the ages.  John Whorf’s painting of it parallels those by Winslow Homer, expressing man’s struggle against the sea’s elemental force.  As in the works of Homer, Whorf used a  high horizon and a dynamic, closely cropped composition to create a sense of immediacy. Whorf’s vision of this subject is hopeful.  On the listing ship, a lighted cabin offers refuge, while figures on the deck stand watchfully over the sea, exuding a sense of confidence that their ship will proceed to safety.

John Whorf is represented in many important private and public collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Brooklyn Museum; the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Pitti Palace, Florence; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

The New York Times stated in John Whorf’s obituary:  “While still in his twenties, Mr. Whorf already had established a solid artistic reputation.  Reviewing Mr. Whorf’s 1929 exhibition in New York, one critic said of the young artist that he was ‘perhaps the most brilliant watercolorist in America today, if we take ‘brilliancy’ to mean a breathtaking skill in depicting reality.’ Mr. Whorf won constant acclaim from art critics over the years, particularly for his deft landscapes, maritime subjects, and nudes. . . he conceived of painting as an act of absolute fidelity to the picturesqueness of America and Europe.”  “John Whorf, 56, Water-Colorist,” New York Times, February 14, 1959.

*When Whorf had his first exhibition at the Grace Horne Gallery in Boston in 1924, John Singer Sargent visited the show and purchased one of Whorf’s works.  Following his successful debut, Whorf received informal instruction from Sargent.

John Twachtman, "L'Etang," ca. 1884, oil on canvas, 19 1/2 x 24 inches, Spanierman Gallery, presently on view at Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut

Lisa N. Peters

As we received notices of exhibition openings this fall and winter, we realized there are presently several shows—including one of our own—featuring the work of John Twachtman (1853-1902).  Whether it’s a coincidence or a spirit in the air, we felt this confluence was worthy of notice.

The first to open is American Impressionism: The Lure of the Artists’ Colony, on view at the Reading Public Museum, Pennsylvania, from September 24, 2011 through January 29, 2012.  Twachtman’s The Coast Scene (1879), in the museum’s holdings, is accompanied by other works from this significant collection of American Impressionist painting that is rarely on view with this breadth, and that is less well known than it should be.

On view from October 22, 2011 through January 22, 2012 is Seeing Colors: Secrets of the Impressionists, an exhibition of more than forty works from the collection of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, that is being held at the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.   Committed to using its museum as a teaching tool, the Muscarelle has involved the students at the college in every stage of organizing the show (the most important in the history of the museum, according to director Dr. Aaron De Groft) and in studying the art, which includes iconic paintings such as Claude Monet’s Houses of Parliament in the Fog (1903), and work by other French artists Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, and Cézanne, as well as by Americans, including Cassatt, Sargent, Hassam, Chase, and Twachtman, who is represented by the very still, quiet snow scene, Along the River, Winter (ca. 1885).

The third exhibition is Divided Light and Color: American Impressionist Landscapes, on view at the Bruce Museum of Art, Greenwich, Connecticut, from October 29, 2011-January 29, 2012.  The show features two dozen works, including many by artists who were part of the local Cos Cob art colony.  Jewel-like in the low light of the galleries, the paintings capture a celebratory feeling for the refreshing beauty of the American countryside and coast.  Among the works by Twachtman on view are two lent by the gallery, L’Etang (ca. 1885), an abstractly composed poetic image from Twachtman’s French period and Greenwich Garden (1890s),* a vibrant Impressionist image, in which the artist transformed his home and garden into a totality, expressive of his love for a  place that was an extension of his creative and personal identity.  The gallery also lent William Merritt Chase’s Sunset at Shinnecock Hills (Long Island) (ca. 1895); as the painting given the key position just beyond the entryway, it sets the tone for the show.

John Twachtman, "Weeds and Flowers," ca. 1888-91, pastel on paperboard, 19 x 16 inches, Spanierman Gallery, LLC, New York

Last, but not least in the confluence, is Seeing Abstractly: Works on Paper and Small Oils by John Twachtman, the exhibition we are holding from December 15, 2011 to January 14, 2012.  The twelve works included—ranging from throughout Twachtman’s career—reveal his consistent ability to express the artistic qualities in his everyday experiences, demonstrating an awareness of abstraction that was far ahead of his time. The show is accompanied by a pdf catalogue that is available online.

*Twachtman painted Greenwich Garden, with the assistance of his son Alden, whose signature appears on the work.  Nonetheless, the painting bears little evidence of the artistic approach of Alden, leading to the conclusion that he played a very small part in its execution.

Sarah Lamb, "Sunflowers," 2011, oil on linen, 23 x 25-7/8 inches

Spanierman Gallery is pleased to announce the opening on November 10, 2011 of Sarah Lamb, presenting new still lifes in the venerable tradition of the eighteenth-century French painter Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin and the seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish painters of the Golden Age.  Depicting humble forms of everyday life bathed in a delicately varied light, Sarah Lamb’s paintings capture the rhythmic cadences of her motifs, revealing their beauty, while reminding us of their worldly transience.

Lamb honed her art by absorbing the lessons of European academic painting.  She began her training in Italy and at L’Ecole Albert Defois in Les Cerqueux sous Passavant, in France’s Loire Valley. Moving to New York in 1996, she trained with Jacob Collins at his Water Street Atelier during its early years. She also attended New York’s Art Students League and received instruction from Sarah Brown in Atlanta.

Sarah Lamb’s still lifes remind us to stay aware and awake to the life around us. As the British-born art critic, John A. Parks, noted recently: “Sarah Lamb brings to her work a robustly sensual grasp of the world. Her keenness of eye and joyful brush make the whole enterprise feel freshly alive as she reminds us what the really wonderful things in life are.”

Lamb was featured in a recent solo exhibition, held at the New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut, from August 13 to October 30, 2011.

View the exhibition online

View the exhibition brochure
PDF download times may vary

George Elmer Browne, "Rooftops," 1920s, oil on canvas, 32 x 40 inches

A cosmopolitan artist who worked and exhibited in Europe and America, George Elmer Browne (1871-1946) was distinguished for his art and teaching.  He not only was made a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, based in New York, but was also made a Knight of the Legion of Honor of France.  While he depicted many European sites, he also favored coastal New England (his birthplace was Gloucester, Massachusetts), often finding subject matter in and near Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he ran the West End School of Art.

Browne was an astute observer of the world around him, using an approach in keeping with a realist sensibility.  Yet, as his career progressed, he transitioned from a loose impressionist style to a modernist approach. The latter is apparent in Rooftops (1920s), in which he conjoined the three-dimensional architectural structures with the two-dimensional space of the picture, demonstrating a Cubist point of view.  Rather than gazing into the distance, the viewer is led upward across the surface, where the buildings gradually evolve into pure directional lines and geometric shapes unified with the picture plane.

Browne’s view of a coastal town (possibly the site is Provincetown) differs from typical Impressionist images of the shores of New England.  Instead of depicting a quiet harbor fronted by a cottage or two, as an Impressionist portrayal, he accentuated the spread of the town far from the water’s edge.  In his image of seemingly a sea of houses, he captured a phenomenon of modern life in the United States in the early twentieth century: the rapid development that took place along America’s coastlines, as beach vacations became a commonplace ritual for the middle-class.  It was fitting that Browne chose a modern style for his modern subject, demonstrating his alert eye for the realities of the life around him.

Read George Elmer Browne biography

John H. Twachtman, "Holland Meadows," ca. 1881, oil on cradled panel, 11 3/8 x 18 1/2 inches

Lisa N. Peters

A number of months ago, I received a call regarding a Dutch scene signed “J. H. Twachtman.”  On receiving an image of it, I knew immediately that it was a previously lost painting entitled Holland Meadows that John Henry Twachtman painted in Dordrecht on his 1881 honeymoon.  What was especially exciting was that the painting was a key work from this formative time in Twachtman’s career.  I had previously seen only a black and white reproduction of the painting, but that I had an image of it was due to the fact that the artist’s wife, Martha, made it available from the estate (Twachtman died in 1902) for several exhibitions from 1919 through 1923.  It was also in auction sales in 1925 and 1944, which provided enticing descriptions of it, mentioning its rich green expanse and limpid water.  Additionally, there was this vivid commentary on the work in the Boston Evening Transcript in 1919 by the eminent critic William Howe Downes:

Holland Meadows (7) is notable for its lush, moist richness of tone and its local color.  It is a veritable epitome of Dutch landscape in its depth of watery atmosphere, its suffused light, its verdant vegetation, its “fat” quality.  This admirable little picture was painted at Dordrecht on the artist’s wedding journey, in 1881.  It reminds one of the best examples of Weissenbruch, and it also has some affinity with Jacob Maris.

The painting surfaced from the estate of Himan Brown, who died at age 99 in 2010.  Brown, a creator of radio dramas, acquired the rights to fictional characters such as Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, and The Thin Man. He wrote scripts for such prominent figures as Orson Welles, Boris Karloff, and Peter Lorre, and was an early innovator in the creation of sound effects.  He was also a sagacious art collector, filling his New York apartment with works by artists such as Renoir, Degas, and Picasso.  In this august company, Twachtman’s Holland Meadows must have quietly spent several enjoyable decades.

When the painting arrived at the gallery, a gray film covered it.  A light cleaning brought it back to its original condition, the sparkle of the light on the water, the subtle movement of the clouds, the wet quality of the meadow evoking the contentment Twachtman felt on encountering this refreshing and naturally artistic countryside, while sharing it with his wife, also an artist, and visiting with J. Alden Weir and his half brother John Ferguson Weir, who joined the couple in a locale so popular with artists that it was known simply as the “Southern Sketching Grounds.”  Downes was accurate in pointing out a connection between Twachtman’s Holland Meadows and the paintings of Hague School contemporaries such as William Maris.  Indeed, Twachtman visited with Maris on his trip and showed him his work.  He found in Maris’s art an example of how to bring out nuances of light, atmosphere, and mood, which would remain Twachtman’s emphasis throughout the rest of his career.

There are six other known oils that Twachtman created in Holland on his honeymoon, but Holland Meadows is the one that best epitomizes this trip. With the mystery of its whereabouts now solved, the painting brings this moment in Twachtman’s art into a focus it did not have previously.

Visit the John H. Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné site

Pages 96-97, watercolor and graphite on paper, 8-3/4 x 5-1/4 inches

View the full sketchbook
(PDF download times may vary)

Spanierman Gallery is delighted to offer for sale the last surviving and intact sketchbook by Maurice Prendergast that is not held by a museum.  An artist committed to recording contemporary life, Prendergast kept sketchbooks from the time he traveled to Paris in 1891 until his death in 1924.  The other eighty-eight extant examples are in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (75); Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts (5); the Cleveland Museum (4); the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2); the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington (1); and the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut (1).

In the artist’s estate after his death, the sketchbook (119 pages in length) was inherited by his brother Charles after Maurice’s death in 1924.  It was rescued from a fire that occurred in Charles’s studio in the winter of 1924-25.  After Charles’s death, it was inherited by his widow, who retained it until 1984, when it passed into the collection of Robert Brady, a private collector from Mexico.  After his death in 1986, the sketchbook was in his estate, from which the gallery purchased it in the following year. Protected from the sun and light throughout the years, the pages have retained their original colors.  No fading has occurred. The link included provides a PDF of this charming fully bound volume in its entirety, presenting its twelve exquisite double-page watercolors (full works of art in their own right), four pages of crayon drawings, forty-two pages of pencil drawings, and one page of notes by the artist.  With the exception of one scene, rendered in the Boston Public Gardens, the vignettes of coastal landscapes and figures appear to have been executed during Prendergast’s summer visits to Massachusetts’s North Shore in the early 1920s, when he spent time in the resort towns of Annisquam, Gloucester, Nahant, Swampscott, and Marblehead. In the style typical of his mature aesthetic, Prendergast heightened the spontaneity and immediacy of each scene, using fluent handling to convey the idyllic feeling of American leisure life.  The result is an indelible record of the spirit of the era and of the artist at his peak.

View the full sketchbook
(PDF download times may vary)

Otis Kaye (1885-1974), "Washington and the Half Dollar," oil on panel, 6 1/4 x 8 1/4 inches

On September 2, 2011, the Suzanne H. Arnold Art Gallery at Lebanon Valley College, in Annville, Pennsylvania (eight miles east of Hershey), opened the exhibition, Money, Art and the Art of Money.  Held in conjunction with the college’s annual colloquium (appropriately on the topic of money), the exhibition “considers money as a material pleasure in art, as well as the obsession with money that transpired in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.”  This show includes works by trompe l’oeil artists of the late nineteenth century, such as William Harnett, Victor Dubreuil, and John Frederick Peto, as well as recent examples by Andy Warhol and the hand-drawn facsimiles of U.S. banknotes of J. S. G. Boggs.  Spanierman Gallery is lending two paintings to the show: Otis Kaye’s Washington and the Half Dollar (after 1929)—chosen to represent the exhibition on the museum’s website—and Michael Theise’s Taking Chances (2006-7).

View Michael Theise works in our collection

View Otis Kaye works in our collection

Michael Theise (b. 1959), "Taking Chances," 2006-7, oil on board, 19 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches

Noted for his exquisite draftsmanship and highly finished surfaces, Otis Kaye was fond of the visual pun, which is evident here.  The folded bill, putting the viewer eye to eye with Washington, is a clue to the dialogue in which the artist asserts his name into the newsprint fragment and into history at the same time.  In a time of debit cards and video games, Michael Theise perpetuates a fading world in images of greenbacks and monopoly boards.  “I started doing currency to make people stop in their tracks and look at the paintings,” says the artist.  “Money is instantly recognizable and any viewer can tell if the likeness is right or wrong.”  Theise has found scratches on his works from people trying to see if his images are painted or collaged, demonstrating the exactitude of his depictions.  Nonetheless, he wants viewers to realize that his images are paintings of money and of games, conveying an appreciation for the history and art of these cultural icons.

Michael Theise was featured in the exhibition Contemporary Still-Life Paintings, held March 24-April 16, 2011, at Spanierman Gallery.

Money, Art and the Art of Money closes October 23, 2011.

Lebanon Valley College Gallery Hours
Wednesday: 5–8 p.m.
Thursday–Friday: 1–4:30 p.m.
Saturday–Sunday: 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
By appointment for tour groups.

Alson Skinner Clark, "Early Morning, Palm Springs, California," oil on canvas, 36 x 32 inches

Alson Skinner Clark is featured in the current California Art Club Newsletter in an article that is part of a series entitled “The Artist as Critic: Art that Inspires,”— in which a contemporary artist chooses and discusses an artist from the past who has inspired him or her.  Clark was selected by the realist painter Scott W. Prior, who compares a painting by Clark, Rooftops, Paris (1936, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas), with his own painting, The Bu (ca. 2005), an image looking over the rooftops of Malibu.  Responding to the questions of art historian Stephanie Campbell, Prior expresses the affinity he feels for Clark, who Prior observed did not just want to paint something that was good, but “wanted to paint the aspects of life that were spectacular.”

View Alson Skinner Clark works in our collection

Alson Skinner Clark, "French Cliffs near le Pouldu," 1903, oil on panel, 7 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches

Prior sees an affinity between the sense of nostalgia in the two works for places the artists had experienced in their youths, expressed through their chosen vantage points—Clark’s is from the fifth floor of the hotel where he stayed on his last trip to Paris and Prior’s is from a point in Malibu not usually reached due to the limited public access in the beachfront city. Alson Skinner Clark’s adventurous nature and free use of a flexible vocabulary, stimulated by his studies with William Merritt Chase and James McNeill Whistler, are revealed in the wide range of his subjects, all of which he rendered with unwavering enthusiasm.

Alson Skinner Clark, "Pushing through the Ice (Chicago)," 1906, oil on masonite, 18 x 21 1/2 inches

Contact: Claudia Thesing
860.229.0257 ext. 213

Press Release

New Britain Museum of American Art to Present: NEW/NOW: Sarah Lamb

 New Britain, Conn.—Cheney Gallery: Sarah Lamb—Still Life Painter and Realist, Aug. 13- Oct. 30 2011.

Sarah Lamb paintings on view at the New Britain Museum of American Art

Beginning August 13^th the New Britain Museum of American Art’s Cheney Gallery will feature Sarah Lamb, the latest artist in the NEW/NOW series. Intrigued by the art of trompe l’oeil, Sarah Lamb is among a younger generation of American painters who carries on the tradition of representational realism. Eighteen of her recent still-lifes and landscapes will be included in her exhibition. Lamb’s work will be on display through October 30, 2011. An opening reception is planned for Thursday, August 18, 5:30-7 p.m. with remarks by the artist at 6 p.m.

Sarah Lamb provides a convincing reassurance that the academic tradition in painting has a continuing vibrancy and relevance today. Her incredibly beautiful paintings are a fusion of classically realistic style with a bold compositional sense. Still-lifes by Lamb recall the tradition of the art of the 18^th century French painter, Jean-Baptiste- Simeon Chardin. Her work reveals the beauty of familiar, everyday objects.

Sarah Lamb, "Pomegranates," 2010, oil on canvas, 11 x 18 inches

In a self-description, Lamb says, “Being predominantly a still-life painter and a realist, I’ve always been seduced by the art of trompe l’oeil. The genre seems a natural fit with the subjects I find interesting, the compositions I’m drawn to, and the way I see the world through paint.” These words are an accurate portrayal of the young artist as is evident by the way in which she is drawn to arresting colors and subtle textures while at the same time honing a fascination with the way light absorbs, reflects, and shines through objects.

Lamb was born in Petersburg, VA, studied in Italy and France and is an alumna of the prestigious Water Street Atelier in Manhattan, led by her mentor, Jacob Collins. She boasts an impressive exhibition record in fine galleries coast to coast and a large following of admiring and discerning collectors. She currently resides with her artist husband David Larned in a 300-year old farm outside of Philadelphia near Chadd’s Ford and is represented by the Spanierman Gallery in New York, where she recently had a sell-out solo show.

Related Programming

Opening Reception
Thursday, August 18, 2011: 5:30-7pm
Artist’s Remarks: 6pm

*The NEW/NOW Series is made possible by the generous support of Marzena and Greg Silpe.*

New Britain Museum of American Art
Museum Hours
Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday: 11am-5pm
Thursday: 11am-8pm
Saturday: 10am-5pm
Sunday: Noon-5pm
Closed on Mondays and national holidays.

Tours
Tours for school and adult groups are available by appointment and should be booked four weeks in advance.

Admission
Adults: $10; Senior Citizens: $9; Students: $8; Children under 12: free. Free admission from 10am-noon on Saturdays.

Café
The Café on the Park serves American fare with regional emphasis.

Museum Shop
The Museum Shop offers unique items related to the Museum’s collection.

Directions:

From Interstate 84:
Take Exit 35 onto Rt. 72. Take Exit 8. Follow signs to Museum.

From Interstate 91:
Take Exit 22N (Rt. 9 North). Take exit 28 onto Rt. 72W to Exit 7. Follow signs to Museum.

56 Lexington Street
New Britain, CT 06052
www.nbmaa.org

Accredited by the American Association of Museums

The New Britain Museum of American Art is a member of the state-wide Connecticut Art Trail, a partnership of fifteen world-class museums and historic sites. Visit www.arttrail.org for information on member museums, lodging packages, Trail Getaway itineraries and the new $25 Art Pass. Make the Connecticut Art Trail the centerpiece of your next travel experience!

Deborah Bigeleisen's "Vortex" in the Palm Beach Post

Deborah Bigeleisen, "Vortex," 2010, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

Deborah Bigeleisen’s painting Vortex (2010) was illustrated in the Palm Beach Post (July 9, 2011). It appeared as part of a feature article on the Boca Raton Museum of Art’s “60th Annual Florida Juried Exhibition,” showcasing one hundred artists from Palm Beach County and across the state. View the article (PDF)