Posts from ‘Art History’
This summer visitors to the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) can reacquaint themselves with a group of works from the museum’s collection that have been on the road. Wild at Heart: Highlights from the National Museum of Wildlife Art, returned May 22 and is on display through August 15, 2010.
More than 70 works make up the collection, an homage to America’s wild places. Paintings and sculptures are grouped by region (North, South, East and West of America) rather than chronologically. Significant European and American artists are represented, including Albert Bierstadt, William H. Dunton, Bob Kuhn, John Woodhouse Audubon, George Catlin, Charles Russell, Ken Bunn and Carl Rungius.
Artists heralded the power and magnificence of America’s wildlife and wilderness.
“Beginning with explorer-artists and continuing with the best contemporary painters and sculptors working today, wildlife has been a consistent subject in American art,” says National Museum of Wildlife Art Curator of Art Adam Duncan Harris. “We hope that this exhibit helps viewers see the connections between wildlife and art in new ways and prompts further appreciation for the wilderness that remains at the heart of what makes North America exceptional.”
Harris is the author of the recently published book, Wildlife in American Art, which includes many images from the Wild at Heart exhibition.
NMWA’s strong ties with the city of Pittsburgh may have played a role in the exhibition’s premiere at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in the summer of 2006. The exhibit subsequently “toured” the Rockwell Museum in Corning, N.Y., the Vero Beach Museum of Art in Vero Beach, Fla., and the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi.
For information on NMWA’s exhibitions and schedules log onto the Museum’s website, www.wildlifeart.org.
Item #2:
“Artists in the Park” was, I’m told, originally known as “Artists in the Environment.” I’ve known it under the former identity; they are one and the same, however and here is this summer’s (2010) schedule of participating artists:
This coming Saturday, June 12, painter Eliot Goss will be painting from 9am – noon on the shore of String Lake near the main String Lake parking lot, in Grand Teton National Park, weather permitting. The public is invited to view Goss as he works; bring your chairs, water, snacks, sketch books, paints, questions, cameras, whatever strikes your fancy for this summer’s first plein air painting demonstration.
The rest of this summer’s schedule is as follows:
July 10 – Shannon Troxler – Cottonwood Turnout, 9am – noon (first turnout on the right after Taggart/Bradley Lake)
August 14 – Joslyn Slack – Oxbow Bend Turnout, 9am – noon
September 11 – Kathy Wipfler – Chapel of the Transfiguration, 9am – noon
“Artists in the Park” is a great tradition of sharing the plein air process, as well as the special places in GTNP, with the public. Make sure you catch at least one of these exceptional painters this summer. For information, contact Liza Millet at 917-864-9395.
We now return to American Idle……
Now, I must say something—go a little outside my comfort zone—about Jackson’s green marketing blitz.
We’re over- market-greening, risking the individualism we Jackson Holers hold so dear. An overall energy policy for Teton County would set a great standard for counties residing in such special territory. Set standards, legislate for the environment. Just don’t bury me in “green” emails and overtures and solicitations. I know you are green. We’re the green choir, we are. My email box is crammed with solicitations for donations because the asker is “green.” I’m asked to contribute to one green event after another. Everyone seems to be finding ways to weave a green thread through their marketing.
I am pretty green myself. I’m not perfect, but I try. Our marketing is homogenizing, and I cannot tell the difference between recycling centers and hotels and retail stores and restaurants and ANYTHING!!!……I’m often chastised because I still read news printed on paper, and I enjoy reading real books–not flat, tiny iridescent slabs costing hundreds of dollars apiece, soon to be outdated. We’re an army of iPadding, iPodding, crackberry droids. We look silly!
There is, actually, evidence that books are much greener than electronic readers. Every big event promoting initiative costs money and creates a large carbon footprint.
When will one of our leaders take a leap and begin campaigning for JOBS in Jackson? That’s the elephant in our room. We know how to ask one another for money. Can we please confer on how to create jobs that will provide long-term salaried positions in Teton County? Our real estate prices remain among the highest in the country; as sales statistics show only the most expensive properties are seeing some movement. As for the rest of the inventory, it’s reasonable to expect a rebound lagging behind most of the rest of the country, because we are not showing any inclination to nudge asking prices down to an acceptable level in this recession. That means all the real estate based jobs we’ve lost in Teton County will be slow to recoup. And that sector is where a high proportion of salaried jobs have been.
The technology sector is widely viewed as the sector most likely to create jobs for the future. How can we attract that sector to Jackson? There are ways, but I fear that the same single vision for Teton County–a rich county basing income on expensive real estate and tourism–is remaining intact with our political and civic “deciders.”
We’re ever more elitist and controlling; this is the same sort of restraint one finds in country clubs where rules are rigid and there is real trouble if you’re
caught wearing anything but white on the tennis court. PLEASE, Jackson Hole — consider our visitors. Only the wealthiest of the wealthy will be able to afford (and for that matter be attracted to) a destination that has plastered over every sign with green paint.
I don’t want to go for “green drinks.”
We are GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK. We are YELLOWSTONE. We are JACKSON HOLE. We’re losing the ability and will to stand out amongst ourselves, and if it gets blurry for us, it gets blurry for the public at large. I don’t idle my engine, but I hate the idea of a see-all community eye gauging my every errand and measuring my idle index. If I park my car outside in sub-zero Jackson winter weather, it’s going to idle for a while after I get it started before I drive it. Particularly if I don’t have a block heater.
We need JOBS.
I’ll say this too: The Virginian got a raw deal. Talk about stealing a last toehold from the original population of Teton County. The Virginian is one establishment, one eatery and bar, for God’s sake!! We’re arrogant in our persecution of its smoking policy. If you hate smoke, don’t frequent the Virginian. People I know and admire very much support cutting the Virginian off, but their judgement is in error here; a line was crossed. Eventually, possibly as soon as the next generation, the Virginian’s status will evolve because the good people frequenting it will no longer be with us. But leave the Virginian, a vintage (one of the last un-monkeyed with vestiges of Jackson) and salty Western holdout of Jackson Hole, to its own devices. We’re squeezing out the “undesirables.” When will we see the first harassing graffitis sprayed on the doors of those we deem “non-green-compliant?”
We’re an army of drones. Be conscious, but know, too, when your marketing and driving “greenego” © requires an intervention.
Yikes! This mass marketing is so pervasive it’s redundant and …vain. Lead by example, not persecution and retort. Our agendas are proved not by what we proclaim or explain, but by what we do. The action is the measure.
I’m talking here about marketing outside the realm of scientific conservation; NOT about the mission of orgs like the J.H. Conservation Alliance and their sister science and research-based groups. We need to support such organizations in every way we can, keep the pressure on full blast lest we lose the wilderness we’ve managed to save thus far.
I’m a registered Democrat and an independent thinker.
Item #3:
The Art Association holds its Free Art Class Sampler on Thursday, June 10. From 5-6:30 pm the public is invited to the Center for the Arts to get a taste of the many classes offered by the Art Association this summer. Head on up to the third floor studios for an opportunity to get to know a bit more about the large variety of classes offered. Meet the teachers, tours the studios; it’s all FREE. Sign up for a class that night and get a discount–10% off your class cost. For more information, call (307) 733-6379, or log onto www.artassociation.org.
Press materials describing the National Museum of Wildlife Art’s exhibit of field sketches from the American frontier read like the pages of a scholarly tome. So I’m thinking a scholar–namely Adam Duncan Harris, NMWA’s Curator of Art–wrote it.
So it’s quite difficult to improve upon what Harris has already told me.
May 8 – August 29, 2010, visitors to the Museum will have a chance to see “…a veritable snapshot of wildlife roaming the American frontier in the early 1830′s, Swiss artist Karl Bodmer’s detailed field studies made while on expedition up the Missouri River…”
Karl Bodmer’s Western Wildlife: Original Sketches from the Joslyn Art Museum showcases some of the earliest works depicting the American West. The sketches combine the best of two observing schools, Science and Art. In fact, the exhibition has an accompanying, complementary exhibit, Travels in the Interior of North America: Etchings by Karl Bodmer, on display through October 17, 2010.
Studies are often closeted in favor of finished works, and that’s a shame because studies can offer up lively compositions and “first takes,” unfettered by possible over-working. The show presents a fine opportunity for scholars and lay people alike; those who know these sketches exist 
but do not get a chance to see them will relish the opportunity; those seeing wildlife art for the first time will appreciate its roots.
These sketches represent Bodmer’s observations from 1832 – 1834, while the artist was on the Missouri River Expedition. Bodmer completed studies of animals, birds and reptiles, created either out in the wild or in studio, using deceased animal specimens. Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum holds a great cache of Bodmer’s original work.
If you read the excellent monthly art magazine Western Art Collector, please take time to read Harris’ excellent essay (April 2010 edition) A Diverse View of the West: Works on Paper. I think Harris is one of the most passionate of curators. He loves the wildlife art genre. Time and time again he has expressed to the public–using either the written word or by giving a talk–his great ability to “see” what we may not immediately be able to describe to ourselves when looking at wildlife art. Harris acknowledges the difficulty artists face trying to keep renderings of wildlife fresh; even when “fresh” is not an element in wildlife art, Harris knows what makes great wildlife art great. And in the case of artist Geordie Millar’s large drawing “Moose #4,” it is simplicity of line and the fact that the artist pushes traditional boundaries by coming close to filling a 60 x 63 inch field with a female (not an antlered male) moose trying to stand.
First sketches often contain an Asian minimalist quality. And that is lovely indeed.
More info: www.wildlifeart.org
While we’re still in NMWA land, I will mention that former NMWA gift shop manager and plein air artist Jen Hoffman is prominently mentioned in the May/June edition of Fine Art Connoisseur, as an Artist to Watch. That is huge. And, this art blogger is proud to be mentioned at the end of that article, in relation to Hoffman’s work and Blurb catalog. Congratulations, Jen!
Item #2:
Whodunit?
Artspace Main & Loft Galleries
ONE NIGHT ONLY! | May 7, 2010
An annual favorite, Whodunit is a one-night event exhibiting and selling many dozens (that’s my best estimate) of small works (6 x 6 inches) that sell for $99 each at the close of the evening. The twist is two-fold: 1) Artist identities are unknown 2) Works are sold by lottery to one of the list of bidders listing their name as wanting to purchase the art.
Familiar with many local artists’ styles? Well, you may guess correctly on who created what some of the time…but usually, there are many surprises. Artist names known, artists names not-so-known; it doesn’t matter, the talent and diversity of work is the stuff of legend.
A great fundraiser for the Art Association! Check it out. www.artassociation.org
PS: Summer Classes sign up – Do it! Lots of great classes to be taken, art to be made, creative roads to be traveled. Classes start in June, and that is SOON.
As this is the Jackson Hole Art Blog, and not the Irish Artists Look at America Blog, I should probably begin this post with my “Art for Dummies” discovery that Thomas Moran, famed portraitist of Yellowstone, was not the only artist in his family. In fact, most of his immediate family were noted artists, a bit of art history I recently discovered.
Instead I’m opening by turning you on to Irish painter Tom Molloy’s exhibit at the 
Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art. Located in Ridgefield, Connecticut, the Aldrich is a gem, an “approachable” museum with great appeal. A friend cautioned that the Aldrich was, at the time of our visit, “between exhibits.” It was. Most galleries were closed, but the exhibition we viewed was so powerful it was worth the time invested and more.
The show’s title, Tom Molloy, is as spare as this exhibit first appears. It is unusual because Molloy is an Irishman living in Ireland whose work is largely about American events and issues. Akin to Pop Art, Molloy’s art utilizes real money, maps, other found objects and wordplay. His “surgically precise” drawings and scale are magnetic. Zoomed in, Molloy’s scathing opinions on global events, new world order and America’s role in global affairs reveal themselves. Messages are punch-you-in-the-heart clear.
A self portrait depicts Molloy holding a newspaper featuring a photo of an Abu Ghraib detainee holding a photo depicting one of the detention facility’s nefarious prisoner abuses. Map, one of Molloy’s best known works, is a cut dollar bill map of the world; not much larger than a dollar bill, we initially mistook the work for a wall doodle. Positioned at eye level, it is in fact a “….double-edged metaphor of American might and hegemony.”
Dead Texans, a series of fifty stamp sized portraits of death row prison inmates executed in that state during George W. Bush’s tenure as governor, captures each prisoner’s likeness, even providing glimpses of personality and fractured spirits. From a slight distance the portraits resemble inky thumbprints. These men are simultaneously stripped of personal identity and confirmed as unique, individual beings. Each regards the viewer straight on. Faintly visible penciled drawing grids further connote incarceration and the reality of fifty doomed destinies.
Standing in the gallery’s center, we realize that an exhibition as politically charged as this has yet to turn up in Jackson. With time, I believe we can open ourselves to exhibiting work with equal depth and commentary.
Tom Molloy remains on exhibit at the Aldrich until June 13 2010. Phone: 203.438.4519.
Item #2:
Went to dinner at my cousin’s house. She’s a master artist in her own right, she needs to exhibit and show, show, show.
As we talked, she pointed out a substantially sized etching hanging over the sofa. The work depicts a Pennsylvania open field, ringed by forest, and inhabited- Peaceable Kingdom style–by cows and other animals. She pointed to the artist’s name: Peter Moran (1841-1914).
My cousin found the etching at a flea market. She cleaned it up, and instantly spotted Moran’s signature.
Peter Moran, brother of Thomas Moran, favored Pennsylvania’s farmlands as subjects, but in 1890 
he participated in the U.S. Indian census, and ventured into Yellowstone. “Grand Tetons View” was, according to Grand Teton National Park, most likely painted while he was on that expedition. A watercolor, this view captures the Tetons as they appeared from Idaho. It is part of the permanent collection of the Roswell Museum and Art Center.
Peter Moran, the youngest brother in the Moran family, is said to have become his brother’s best art student.
Peter was three when his family arrived in America. At age fifteen, he became a lithographer’s apprentice. His interest in portraying animals was life long. Moran’s efforts in this area are obvious; the Teton painting seems an exercise compared to his animal scenes, which are rich in detailed devotion.
“I love the way my gallery looks right now; it looks like a New York gallery!” – Tayloe Piggot
J.H. Muse Gallery’s Tayloe Piggot made that comment a few years back; the gallery was then housed in its former West Broadway space. But, far from moving away from aligning herself with NYC’s mega-arts culture, she continues to reach out, looking to translate that city’s contemporary energy to Jackson Hole’s art scene.
To that end, she and arts specialist Camille Obering present “Influences of Nature on Abstraction,” opening at J.H. Muse on September 3. Spotlighting contemporary masters Milton Avery, Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell, the show remains up through the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival (power play!) all the way to October 14, 2009. An opening reception takes place Friday, September 11, 5-8:00 pm.
Obviously, public access to works by internationally known contemporary artists is rare in Jackson. We’ll all feel as if we’re partaking in a MoMa field trip, and that will be thrilling. Folks living full time in the inter-mountain west, as a rule, don’t visit significant contemporary museums as often as urban dwellers This show, says its organizers, depicts work “unconstrained” by “representational” rules—a comment seeming to allude to a belief that here, constraint and representation are the norm.
Emerging art movements often claim to be throwing off restraints of earlier schools, and they are. But no school of art emerges from a vacuum.
Artistic “constraint” is a misconception; artists decide for themselves what feels like constraint. If Clyde Aspevig were asked to paint like Frankenthaler, he may feel some constraint. Aspevig doesn’t interpret and experience nature the same way as Frankenthaler. Poetry is highly structured and disciplined, but often seems less formally conceived than prose.
These artists–Frankenthaler, Avery, Mitchell and Diebenkorn–created something 
new for themselves and for art history. In creating something new, another set of rules for achieving the effect the artist wants is established. Another guide is written, another opinion. Artists’ efforts to tell the world as they see it are opinions set to canvas, photographic paper, in clay.
Artistic vision is highly personal, but principles invariably apply.
From the age of seven, Picasso received formal, academic artistic training. From those building blocks, his brilliance exploded. Over and over again Picasso studied the human form. Without this deep knowledge, Picasso’s abstractions would lose their magic.
Obering puts the Muse show artists in context:
“Milton Avery (1885 – 1965), often thought of as America’s Matisse, is best known for his conflation of abstraction and representation using a rich and unusual palette.
Richard Diebenkorn’s (1922 – 1993) aerial landscapes of California illuminated the light and line of this area by marrying color field painting and geometric abstraction in a bold personal style.
Helen Frankenthaler (born 1928), known as a color field 
painter and an abstract expressionist, utilized a technique known as “soak stain,” in which oil paints were diluted and painted onto unprimed canvas or
paper, resulting in stunning and luminescent paintings.
Joan Mitchell’s (1925 – 1992) powerful and energetic brush stroke played out nature’s patterns, light, and depth, making her work some of the most spectacular of the
Abstract Expressionists.”
I’d kill for a Frankenthaler; when I look at her work I feel as if I’m beneath the ocean’s surface—a favorite place to be—floating over brilliant corals, translucent kelps. My sister would like an Avery, please.
For information, visit www.jhmusegallery.com, phone 307.733.0555—or, contact Camille Obering through her website.
Item #2 - Not Too Late For a Little Cayuse!
Cayuse favorite Jack Walker is back, bringing new designs and best sellers, on Friday, August 28th from 5 – 8pm. Meet Jack and view his pure silver and leather hand crafted work. He’s joined for the second year by Jackson jeweler and silversmith Dawn Bryfogle, whose work combines contemporary gemstone styling with vintage sterling treasures. She’ll also be showing her new handmade sterling pieces.
Margaritas may make an appearance at tonight’s opening. For info, email info@cayusewa.com.
The Buffalo Bill Historical Center’s Whitney Gallery of Western Art is set to re-open June 21. It has been closed for remodeling since October 2008.
Curator Mindy Besaw has been neck deep in the project.
“It’s been “all Whitney, all the time” says Besaw. “I hope to provide visitors with a rich new perspective on the role of art in understanding the American West.” Besaw feels the gallery’s 50th anniversary catch phrase, “Seeing the West in a whole new way,” captures its essence. She notes that the “… reinterpreted gallery goes beyond a traditional chronological display of artwork to create a mixture of historic and contemporary art, grouped together based on such themes as, “Horses in the West,” “Wonders of Wildlife,” “Heroes and Legends,” and “Inspirational Landscapes.” Put another way, it “celebrates the past and envisions the future.” ”
The gallery’s history began when the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association commissioned a New York artist, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, to create a monument to Cody. She donated Buffalo Bill – The Scout, which was dedicated on July 4, 1924, and forty acres of adjacent land.
Besaw tells us that,”For 30 years, the Scout remained a solitary horse-and-rider at the outskirts of town. In 1954, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, the sculptor’s son, donated funds in his mother’s honor to create a western art gallery in Cody, Wyoming. Then, in 1957, the Honorable Robert Coe, acting for the Coe Foundation, purchased the Frederic Remington studio collection of paintings, sketches, and artifacts and gave it to the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association for a new art museum.”
And, as they say, the rest is history. For information, contact Mindy Besaw at mindyb@bbhc.org , or phone 307.578.4053