Belknap and Covi Galleries, Allen R. Hite
Art Institute
University of Louisville
Louisville, KY
502-852-6794
http://art.louisville.edu/
Nana Lampton: Travel Sketches and Paintings
From November 10th through December 15th,
2000 the University of Louisville's Hite Art Institute exhibited work by
artist Nana Lampton. This exhibition included 53 works, the bulk of which
were plein air watercolors and pen or ink sketches, with a limited number
of large scale oil paintings worked up in the studio. Nana Lampton's work
documents her world travels, with visits to such far away places as: Kenya,
Africa; Tokyo Bay, Japan; Bucharest, Romania; India; Czechoslovakia; and
many more. (left: cutline pending)
Nana Lampton is Chair and CEO of American Life and Accident
Insurance Company of Kentucky, and serves on many boards of business corporations
and nonprofit organizations. A graduate of Louisville Collegiate School,
she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in English literature
at Wellesley College (1964) and a Master of Arts 
degree in English Literature at the University of
Virginia (1965). She completed another year of graduate study in English
and Writing, also at the University of Virginia (1965-66), and further study
in the Smaller Company Management Program at Harvard University's Graduate
School of Business Administration (1973-79). She credits her mother for
her first instruction in painting, and Louisville Collegiate School, Wellesley
College, the Corcoran School of Art and the Louisville Visual Art Association
for further study in art. She continues to obtain advice and coaching in
painting from Lloyd Kelly, who teaches at Spalding University. (left:
Merindol des Oliviers, France, oil on canvas, 24x 36 inches)
Excerpt from Essay by Dario A. Covi, Curator of Exhibition
"We are pleased to present this exhibition of travel
sketches and paintings by Nancy (Nana) Lampton. Her first major show, they
were selected from a large "stock" of sketches and paintings produced
by her over the past two decades. Some of the sketches served as images
for reproduction in "notebooks" (three Notebooks are included
in the exhibition), sometimes accompanied by handwritten titles, descriptions
or pertinent observations, to be presented to family and friends. Some were
worked up in oil paintings on canvas. The original sketches, mostly executed
in 
watercolor,
often combined with pen or brush and ink or marker, are relatively small
and convey the spontaneity of fresh observation. The oil paintings, invariably
larger, present a grander, more studied view of the same or related subjects.
It may thus be said that the choice of media and scale is a determining
factor of Nana's stylistic approach. Overall, however, the most significant
determinant is the vision she brings to bear in depicting her subjects,
a vision of nature as seen through the eyes of a poet. (left: cutline
pending)
"While Nana's travel sketches and paintings belong
to a centuries - old tradition - witness Delacroix's Algerian sketches,
Ruskin's views of Venice, Duerer's drawings of the Italian Alps or earlier
still, Villard de Honnecourt's 
drawings of medieval churches, to name a few - her
travel sketches and paintings express not so much archaeological curiosity,
romantic search for the exotic, or interest in the ways of faraway people,
but rather the need to record her response to nature. "The key to my
psychic security is the beauty of the landscape," she wrote in a statement
for this exhibition. "I've lived on a farm all my life and find the
patterns of the sun and moon important to my well-being. I watch the change
of seasons and the way of the river as well as the lay of the fields. These
are my touchstones." (left: Riding, Soyans, France, oil
on canvas, 24 x 36 inches)
"(I wish to thank Mr. Lloyd Kelly for assistance in
selecting the works to be exhibited.)"
Read more about the Belknap
and Covi Galleries, Allen R. Hite Art Institute, University of Louisville
in Resource Library Magazine
Please click on thumbnail images bordered by a red line
to see enlargements.
This page was originally published in Resource
Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for
more information. rev. 5/23/11
Search Resource
Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.
Copyright 2011 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights
reserved.
From November 10th through December 15th,
2000 the University of Louisville's Hite Art Institute exhibited work by
artist Nana Lampton. This exhibition included 53 works, the bulk of which
were plein air watercolors and pen or ink sketches, with a limited number
of large scale oil paintings worked up in the studio. Nana Lampton's work
documents her world travels, with visits to such far away places as: Kenya,
Africa; Tokyo Bay, Japan; Bucharest, Romania; India; Czechoslovakia; and
many more. (left: cutline pending)
