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C. Arnold Slade, Study for Nubian Card Players, ca. 1915. Courtesy of Eugene Kelly.
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True Visions: The Paintings of C. Arnold Slade (1882–1961)
St. Botolph Club, Boston, Mass.
June 12 to August 21. Open to the public on Wednesdays, 2–4 pm.
For information, call 617.536.7570.
Although Isabella Stewart Gardner focused on Renaissance art, the influential collector avidly supported a few American painters. In 1922, two of her favorite contemporary artists simultaneously held critically acclaimed exhibitions in Boston. Sargent exhibited Venetian watercolors at the historic St. Botolph Club. A few blocks away at Vose Galleries, C. Arnold Slade’s one-man show of vivid oils depicting Venetian canals, Arab card players, and Cape Cod sand dunes nearly sold out. In a review of both shows, art critic F.W. Coburn focused less on Sargent than on Slade, whose work he praised for its “scarcity of line and cheerfulness of color.” After nearly eighty years, Slade returns to Boston, this time to the St. Botolph. Works are on loan and for sale at the 122-year-old private club. A fifty-seven-page illustrated catalogue is available.
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Model of The Ocean, an 118-gun vessel, 1790. Collection of Musée national de la Marine; photography courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum.
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Rendezvous with the Sea: The Glory of the French Maritime Tradition
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.
July 12 to October 14
For information, call 800.745.4054 or visit www.pem.org.
In 1748, Louis XV installed a room in the Louvre for his ship models. Now housed in Paris’s revitalized Musée national de la Marine, the collection has grown into one of Europe’s finest maritime-related repositories. Encompassing three centuries of art, navigational instruments, maps, and more, the esteemed collection makes its North American debut when it sails for Salem this summer. While sometimes linked to rough seas and salty rogues, the art and artifacts from France’s maritime past nonetheless reveal that their creators had a “flair for embellishment and design,” says curator Daniel Finamore. Not to be missed: Marie Antoinette’s pleasure craft used on languid summer days at Versailles and Napoléon’s favorite ship model, The Ocean, a tour de force of craftsmanship.
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Pair of engraved whale’s teeth by the so-called “Ceres Artisan,” circa 1835–1850. Courtesy of Kendall Collection, New Bedford Whaling Museum.
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Scrimshaw Collectors’ Weekend
Kendall Institute, New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Mass.
June 28 to 30. Event fees: $50–$275.
For information, call 508.997.0046 or visit www.whalingmuseum.org.
Imagine years at sea, not a woman in sight. What’s a sailor to do? Artistically engrave an enormous whale’s tooth for his land-locked sweetheart, perhaps. Scrimshaw, the sailor’s whalebone art form, is the subject of events sponsored by the recently merged Kendall Institute and New Bedford Whaling Museum. An introduction to the medium for new collectors, in addition to scholarly reports, viewings of private collections, and more, will be offered throughout the weekend.
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Martin Johnson Heade, Sudden Shower, Newbury Marshes, ca. 1866–1876. Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
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American Sublime: Epic Landscapes of Our Nation, 1820–1880
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA.
June 15 to August 25
For information, call 215.972.7600 or visit www.pafa.org.
An ambitious exhibition canvassing masters from Cole to Moran. Organized by London’s Tate Gallery and presented in thematic sections such as Awful Grandeur, the show begins with a few grand J.M.W. Turners and progresses through America’s classic Hudson River school.
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| Cotton and silk quilt made by Rebecca Jeanes Holt, 1850. Courtesy of Chester County Historical Society. |
Threads of Chester County
Chester County (PA) Historical Society
For information, call Curator Ellen Endslow, 610.692.4066, ext. 257.
Many historians consider quilting to be one of America’s purest homegrown art forms. To preserve this culturally significant folk expression, a major documentation project is underway in Eastern Pennsylvania, a land rich in quilts. A grant has been awarded to the Chester County Historical Society, working with noted quilt historian Patricia Keller, to archive the region’s historical and contemporary quilts. “We’re hoping for strong community interest,” says Keller about future events to aid the project. To help shape the program, an advisory panel of quilt enthusiasts, material culture specialists, historians, artists, and community members will be formed.
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Hudson River school artist Frederic Church often drew inspiration from photographs of distant lands.
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Olana — Hudson, NY
June 13, June 18 (gala evening), July 11, tours through the Dahesh Museum
For information and registration, call 212.759.0606, ext. 35.
Summer destination: Olana, the exquisite orientalist-style villa with its polychrome turrets overlooking the Hudson was designed by nineteenth-century artist Frederic Church. His home and studio is the day trip’s focus, but there will be time to take in some antiques shopping and lunch nearby. The tours complement Fire & Ice: Treasures from the Photographic Collection of Frederic Church at Olana, an exhibition at Manhattan’s Dahesh Museum of Art, June 4 to August 24.
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The American Revolution Project
The New-York Historical Society, New York, NY
For information, call 212.873.3400 or visit www.nyhistory.org.
The New-York Historical Society, proprietor of one of the largest holdings of colonial and American Revolutionary War materials, received a generous grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Their massive collection, which includes hundreds of thousands of documents, manuscripts, historical objects, and works of art, will now be preserved and interpreted for the benefit of students, young and old. The first completed project is a virtual exhibition, Independence and Its Enemies in New York, online at www.independence.nyhistory.org. Readers of David McCullough’s best-selling biography of the second president may want to peruse John Adams’s personal keepsakes, part of the Presidential Treasures from the Library Collections series, on view at the museum beginning May 20. Also coming up: Historic maps from the glory days of surveying—when alluring “unknown territories” existed (but not GPS), in Degrees of Latitude: Mapping Colonial America, from October 1 to February 2, 2003.
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Georg Jensen Hollowware at The Silver Fund
The Silver Fund has recently published Georg Jensen Hollowware: The Silver Fund Collection (2002). Written with decorative arts specialist David A. Taylor (see their article on Georg Jensen hollowware), the volume contains over 500 photographs presented in chronological order according to the Jensen firm’s original design numbers, providing a clear understanding of the evolution of Jensen design and how individual designers contributed to it. The Silver Fund, based in London, recently opened a showroom at 1001 Madison Avenue in New York. For more information, call toll free 877.224.5230 or visit www.thesilverfund.com.
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Old Sturbridge Village
Sturbridge, Mass.
For information, call 508.347.3362 or visit www.osv.org.
In this recreated 1830s village, a new $4.5 million federal-style tavern serves up home- cooked fare such as period-inspired Marlborough pudding (made with stewed apples and wine). From the desserts to the paint colors, every aspect of the tavern is based on historical accuracy. Village events this summer include: The Enduring People: Native American Life in Central New England, an exhibition through 2003, addresses frequently asked questions: Was there ever really a “last of the Mohicans”? And what happened to local Native Americans after that jovial “first Thanksgiving” in 1621? On display are baskets, beadwork, pre-colonial stone tools, regalia dress, and a recreated wigwam from Chaubunagungamaug (today’s Webster, MA).
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Moving Up Madison
Known for his unerring eye and unhesitating opinions, Thomas Devenish has dealt in fine eighteenth-century English furniture for over five decades. In late June or early July, 2002, he plans to open a new gallery at 1043 Madison Avenue. The multi-story brownstone is nearly ready after three years of extensive renovations. For information, call 212.535.2888 or visit www.devenishantiques.com.
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Arts & Crafts
Sources and Inspiration: Boston as a Beacon for the American Arts and Crafts Movement, a conference in Boston, MA., June 19–23. For information, call 212.998.7080 or visit www.scps.nyu.edu/crafts.
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Audubon’s Blue Heron or Crane, plate 307 from The Birds of America, London, 1826–1838. Courtesy of Hirschl & Adler Galleries.
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John James Audubon & Robert Havell, Jr.: Artist’s Proofs from The Birds of America
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, NY
May 2 to July 12 — For information, call 212.535.8810.
Publication of the four-volume The Birds of America, the grandest and most sumptuous colorplate folio ever produced, was a massive undertaking without precedent. For the first time in over a half-century, a large number of artist’s proofs from the series are for sale to the public. The exhibition includes sixty-one proofs that descended in the family of printer Robert Havell, many inscribed by Audubon with instructions to Havell on engraving and coloring.
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Frederick Childe Hassam, Summer Evening, 1886. Oil on canvas, 12 1/8 x 20 1/4 inches. Courtesy of Florence Griswold Museum.
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The American Artist in Connecticut: The Legacy of the Hartford Steam Boiler Collection
Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Conn.
July 2, 2002, to June 23, 2003
For information, call 860.434.5542 or visit www.flogris.org.
“No lover of American art can afford to miss a visit to Old Lyme,” noted scholar William Gerdts in Art Across America. And that was before the Florence Griswold Museum received the landmark Hartford Steam Boiler Collection last summer. The gift of 188 paintings, an outstanding act of philanthropy by the insurance company, represents artists who lived or worked in Connecticut from the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. The newly built riverfront Kreible Gallery, near the original Greek Revival museum, will display eighty masterworks from the collection ranging from Ammi Phillips to Childe Hassam.
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Email your Highlights to Julie Eldred at news@antiquesandfineart.com.
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