BLANK SLATE MEDIA 19 May 24, 2019
Impressionism in a new light PHOTOS COURTESY OF WWW.HECKSCHER.ORG
Childe Hassam (American, 1859-1935) Old House, East Hampton, 1917. Bank of America Collection 11251 BY G R AC E M CQ UA D E “Art, to me, is the interpretation of the impression which nature makes upon the eye and brain,” American Impressionist painter Childe Hassam once said, adding that “true Impressionism is realism.” Hassam, who was instrumental in spreading Impressionism in America during the early part of the 20th century, is one of more than 50 artists included in the exhibition, In a New Light: American Impressionism 1870-1940, Works from the Bank of America Collection, on view from May 25 to Aug. 18. The exhibit is part of Bank of America’s Art in Our Communities program, the company’s ongoing effort to support the arts and bring them to local communities. “The exhibitions are organized from the company’s extensive corporate art collection and they lend these exhibitions out to museums and nonprofit galleries worldwide,” said Kerrilyn Blee, curatorial assistant at the Heckscher Museum, during a recent phone interview. “It’s a big program for them, and we’re excited to be a part of it.” Of the 130 artworks that were included in the original show, Heckscher will have 61 pieces in their exhibition that will be displayed throughout the museum. “We have four galleries in the museum. This show is going to take up three and that’s only because it comes in such large crates that we have to use one of our galleries for storage,” Blee said. “It’s going to be the only show in the museum at the time, which we haven’t done in over 10 years… We’re really excited to have it as our main attraction.” As visitors enter the museum, Blee says they will see two exhibit artworks in the lobby, Charles Adams Platt’s landscape painting, “Orchard, East Hampton,” and Lawton Silas Parker’s portrait, “First Born.” “The exhibition is designed to follow the develop-
Ernest Lawson (American, b. Canada, 1873-1939) Connecticut Trout Stream, c. 1920 Bank of America Collection 10072 ment of Impressionism in the United States,” Blee said. “So in the south gallery, where the exhibition begins, we start with the Hudson River School and Tonalist works. In the north galleries are the majority of the Impressionist works by artists from art colonies and locales across the country, presenting their diverse interests and varied interpretations of Impressionism in urban, maritime and rural settings in America.” While explaining this artistic evolution, Blee said that the Hudson River School wasn’t actually a school, but a group of artists, mainly based in New York City, who travelled throughout the Hudson River Valley, creating on-the-spot sketches. “They would take these sketches back home and make these idealized, majestic landscapes,” she said.
“Whereas when American Impressionism came about it was much more realistic, much more capturing the landscape in the moment… (It) was a reaction to the Hudson River School, kind of like going against it… The artists who were interested in Impressionism wanted to do something different.” Blee went on to describe how many of these artists traveled to Europe to learn from the French Impressionists. Although American collectors initially rejected this art form, they eventually came to appreciate how American Impressionists depicted local landscapes and architecture. “The exhibit shows how American Impressionism differs from French Impressionism because it was uniquely American,” Blee said. “Although they were similarly interested in capturing specific moments in time and scenes of everyday life as the French Impressionists were, they wanted to alternatively capture places that communicated a sense of national identity.” One example in the exhibition is Colin Campbell Cooper’s “West Front of the Capitol Steps, Washington, D.C.,” which Blee says exemplifies “that sense of nationalism and pride.” The exhibit includes another locally-inspired painting, Hassam’s “Old House, East Hampton,” Long Island artist Thomas Moran’s “View of Fairmount Waterworks, Philadelphia,” and other works derived from artist colonies that formed in Connecticut, Massachusetts and throughout New England during this time. Long Island’s main artist colony back then was in Shinnecock. “That’s where a lot of the artists, including Hassam, traveled back and forth to,” Blee said. “They all wanted to experience the different landscapes so it was very common for them to travel to the different art colonies on the east coast.” Continued on Page 64