The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, NY
212-535-7710
http://www.metmuseum.org/
William Trost Richards
in The Metropolitan Museum of Art
February 13-May 13, 2001
The first American
drawings acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art were by William Trost
Richards (1833-1905), an artist associated with both the Hudson River School
and the American Pre-Raphaelite movement. A number of these early acquisitions
-- donated to the Metropolitan in 1880 by the Reverend Elias Lyman Magoon
-- will be displayed at the Museum, along with recent significant acquisitions
and works from a loan collection of Richards's miniatures. William Trost
Richards in The Metropolitan Museum of Art will open on February 13,
2001.
Born
in Philadelphia in 1833, William Trost Richards studied in Florence, Rome,
and Paris before settling in Germantown, Pennsylvania. He was recognized
initially for his landscapes - especially of the White Mountains of northern
New Hampshire and southwestern Maine - but turned his attention to the sea
beginning in about 1867. A leading artist of the American Watercolor Society,
Richards was esteemed for helping lift the medium into higher prominence.
(left: Moonlight on Mount Lafayette, New Hampshire, 1873,
Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on green wove paper, 8 1/2 x 14 3/16 inches,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of The Reverend E. L. Magoon, D.D.,
1880 (80.1.2), Photograph by Geoffrey Clements)
The exhibition at the Metropolitan will feature works representing
the entire range of subjects for which Richards was known. Noteworthy among
his early works will be Palms, a delicate drawing from 1855 which
was acquired recently by the Museum. Landscapes from the E. L. Magoon gift
of 1880 will include the watercolors Moonlight on Mount Lafayette, New
Hampshire 
(1873)
and Lake Squam from Red Hill (1874). Among Richards's luminous and
highly realistic paintings of the sea will be the watercolor A Rocky
Coast (1877). Complementing the works in watercolor, graphite, and ink
from the Museum's collection will be selections from a private collection
of Richards's charming postcard-size watercolors of landscape and marine
subjects in Pennsylvania, New England, and the British Isles. (left:
Lake Squam from Red Hill, 1874, Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on
green wove paper, 8 7/8 x 13 5/8 inches, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Gift of The Reverend E. L. Magoon, D.D., 1880 (80.1.6), Photograph by Geoffrey
Clernents)
The
Web site for the Metropolitan will feature the exhibition.
The exhibition is organized by Kevin J. Avery, Associate
Curator, Department of American Paintings and Sculpture. (left: Indian
Summer, 1875, Oil on canvas, 24 1/8 x 20 inches, The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, Bequest of Collis P. Huntington, 1900 (25.110.6))
Read more about the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in Resource Library Magazine
Please click on thumbnail images bordered by a red line
to see enlargements.
For further biographical information please see America's Distinguished Artists, a national
registry of historic artists.
This page was originally published in Resource
Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for
more information. rev. 5/23/11
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Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.
Copyright 2011 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights
reserved.
Born
in Philadelphia in 1833, William Trost Richards studied in Florence, Rome,
and Paris before settling in Germantown, Pennsylvania. He was recognized
initially for his landscapes - especially of the White Mountains of northern
New Hampshire and southwestern Maine - but turned his attention to the sea
beginning in about 1867. A leading artist of the American Watercolor Society,
Richards was esteemed for helping lift the medium into higher prominence.
(left: Moonlight on Mount Lafayette, New Hampshire, 1873,
Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on green wove paper, 8 1/2 x 14 3/16 inches,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of The Reverend E. L. Magoon, D.D.,
1880 (80.1.2), Photograph by Geoffrey Clements)
