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A keystone collection: Albuquerque Museum to host iconic works from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
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From Gilbert Stuart鈥檚 iconic painting of George Washington to Winslow Homer鈥檚 dark image of a hunting fox being hunted, paintings from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts tell stories of America.
Open at the Albuquerque Museum, the more than 100 works of art feature some of the rock stars of American art, including Winslow Homer, Andrew Wyeth, Edward Hopper and Thomas Moran, as well as Mary Cassatt and Georgia O鈥橩eeffe. The museum showcases traditionally underrepresented artists as well.
鈥淪o many of these historic objects do tell very, very rich stories,鈥 said museum director Andrew Connors. 鈥淭hey tell stories rooted in the founding of our nation.鈥
A keystone collection: Albuquerque Museum to host iconic works from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Stuart鈥檚 famous life-sized portrait of Washington was commissioned by the British ambassador to the U.S. as a gift to Lord Lansdowne in 1796.
鈥淗e was a great admirer of George Washington even though he led the revolt against his country,鈥 Connors said. 鈥淚t was in England for almost two centuries. Then it came back to the U.S. to a collector who donated it to the Pennsylvania Academy.鈥
The portrait shows the figure with one hand opened, while the other holds his sword.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really saying, 鈥業鈥檓 open in my conversation, but I also keep a hand on my sword,鈥 鈥 Connors said.
鈥淗e didn鈥檛 want to be a military leader,鈥 Connors continued. 鈥淗e really wanted to be a farmer.鈥
But Stuart makes his subject almost regal as he poses in a velvet-cloaked temple.
The canvas shows Washington dressed in a black velvet suit with a white lace jabot at his neck, and his powdered hair pulled back into a queue ornamented by a sawtoothed ribbon rosette. His lips appear swollen and his mouth uncomfortable, owing to a new set of ill-fitting dentures.
It also worked as propaganda. Stuart made more than 100 copies for American and European patrons eager to own an image of the illustrious sitter.
Charles Willson Peale鈥檚 1822 self-portrait of the opening of his museum reveals more than a touch of grandiosity in the Philadelphia painter/soldier/scientist.
鈥淗e also was fascinated with natural history, so he opened a museum,鈥 Connors said. 鈥淗e鈥檚 lifting up the curtain to show his museum. There鈥檚 a woman wearing a bonnet, signaling that she was a Quaker. A father and his young son are reading a guidebook. It鈥檚 education for everyone.鈥
A rib cage lurks behind the velvet curtain. It鈥檚 a mastodon skeleton Peale paid to excavate, revealing a new discovery in the New World.
The exhibition also heralds the unknown. May Howard Jackson was the first African American woman to receive a scholarship to PAFA, when she was admitted in 1895.
Active in the New Negro Movement and prominent in Washington, D.C.鈥檚, African American intellectual circle in the period 1910鈥30, she was known as 鈥渙ne of the first black sculptors to ... deliberately use America鈥檚 racial problems鈥 as the theme of her art.
O鈥橩eeffe painted 鈥淩ed Canna鈥 (1923) before she came to New Mexico, most likely in New York.
鈥淭he canna is kind of contorted and it鈥檚 hard to read it because it鈥檚 very abstract,鈥 Connors said. 鈥淚t takes her into modernism.鈥
Cassatt鈥檚 鈥淏aby in Mother鈥檚 Arms鈥 (c. 1891) shows the feathered, delicate brushstrokes of Impressionism. Cassatt was a groundbreaking feminist artist best known for her impressionistic style and her innovative approach to depicting the experience of women throughout the world. During her lifetime, Cassatt was known as a 鈥淣ew Woman鈥 who developed her own styles of art and was an advocate for women鈥檚 rights.
Homer鈥檚 6-feet-wide 1893 鈥淔ox Hunt鈥 plays a trick on the viewer. At first seemingly a bucolic image of the animal in the snow, a closer view reveals a group of black crows hunting the hunter.
鈥淲inslow Homer is such a rock star of a painter,鈥 Connors said. 鈥淗e was famous for his New England hunting paintings. This is probably based on a Maine scene.鈥
The fox is likely looking for a mouse, while seemingly unaware of the dangers above and behind him.
鈥淪o there鈥檚 all this drama of the natural world,鈥 Connors said.
Hopper鈥檚 1923 鈥淎partment Houses鈥 blocks view after view with columns, producing his signature feelings of loneliness and isolation.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 a killer painting,鈥 Connors said. 鈥淪omebody is making a bed 鈥 presumably a maid 鈥 in an apartment. It imagines these very close New York City apartments. Most of the painting is blocking what you might want to see. He鈥檚 bringing the punchline, so you wonder what it鈥檚 about.鈥
The Albuquerque Museum brought the exhibit to show viewers images beyond the Southwest.
鈥淭here are so many people in our community who can鈥檛 afford to travel,鈥 Connors said. 鈥淲e want to bring as much of the quality of the world to New Mexico. These artists created a visual vocabulary for this country.鈥
