American Reflections: The
Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
September 10 - October 24, 2010
- James Carroll Beckwith (1852-1917)
- Portrait of a Lady (Figure Study of Minnie Clark)
- Oil on canvas
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- In the 1870s, James Carroll Beckwith shared a studio
with his friend, John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), and the two young artists
helped their teacher Carolus-Duran (1837-1917) paint a large ceiling decoration
in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Beckwith subsequently became one
of New York's most influential figural painters during the city's Gilded
Age.
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- In the 1890s, Minnie Clark (née Mary Elizabeth
Clark) posed for many well-known artists such as William Merritt Chase
(1849-1916) and Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944), among others. Artists
enjoyed drawing her classical facial features, her delicately shaped nose,
alabaster skin, high cheekbones and deep blue eyes. Her aura of innocence
and elegance were also enticing and inspiring for the various artists.
Beckwith regarded Minnie as one of the best models he had ever painted.
He felt that the "first requisite of a young female model is undoubtedly
her face. . . [c]ontrary to the general impression in the lay mind, the
face is the fortune, and the figure comes afterward."
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- Portrait of a Lady shows
how at ease Minnie was with posing for Beckwith. The oil paint accentuates
her luminous skin, her shining hair as well as the bright textures and
transparencies of her dress. Art critics praised Beckwith's oil studies
due to their freedom of expression, intimacy and spontaneous manner.
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- The painting is set a period Stanford White frame.
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- William Chadwick (1879-1962)
- Millstone Point
- Oil on canvas
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- The Impressionists preferred sunlight to shadows; light,
air, and color as experienced outdoors; and fleeting daily scenes as opposed
to mythological or historical subjects. Artists strove to render not the
landscape itself but the sensation it produced. While the French depicted
middle- and working-class subjects, the American Impressionists focused
on sophisticated society and picturesque views of nature. The differences
arose from America's emergence as a world power at the turn of the twentieth
century, newly rich and recently influential.
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- Chadwick's style clearly reflects the changes occurring
in American Impressionism at the time. The artist's fascination with Impressionistic
landscape is evident in Millstone Point, which embraces the spontaneous
quality of the style. The picture disregards traditional hierarchies of
subject, order, and finish, capturing instead a snapshot in time, as waves
crash against the rocky shoreline. Chadwick's bright palette is complemented
by his quick, light brushstrokes.
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- Millstone Point was the site
of a quarry in Waterford, Connecticut, and presently is the location of
the only nuclear power plant in the state.
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- Bruce Crane (1857-1927)
- May Moon, 1907
- Oil on canvas
- The Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- Bruce Crane was one of the nation's leading landscape
painters and became internationally known for his Tonalist "American
Barbizon" compositions. His idyllic landscapes were very popular,
and Crane was among the most honored artists of his day.
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- While on a summer trip to the Adirondack Mountains, young
Crane stumbled upon a group of ladies sketching nature studies. Inspired,
he sought out the renowned artist Alexander Wyant (1836-1892) as his mentor.
Despite his Hudson River School training, Wyant admired the French Barbizon
artists and developed a more painterly and personal response to nature;
his Impressionist and Tonalist tendencies deeply influenced Crane.
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- May Moon is an excellent
example of Crane's evolving Tonalism. The use of delicate tonal values
and harmonies, muted colors, and a restrained composition evoke the quieter
side of nature. Crane also captured the serenity and nuances of light and
tone in a carefully created harmony. The Tonalists were concerned with
conceptual truths based on a personal response to the landscape and frequently
sacrificed the actual details of a scene to maintain the line, color, beauty,
and mood of the final painting. In May Moon the cherry tree at the
right blossoms in front of the house, indicating that it is spring. Above,
the full moon casts a soft glow, illuminating the pile of hay at the left.
The inclusion of hay, a fall phenomenon, might be an addition meant to
maintain the harmony of the image. May Moon does not represent an
actual locale but rather an "unidentifiable pocket of nature."
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- Asher B. Durand (1796-1886)
- Landscape with Cattle,
1861
- Oil on canvas
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- Landscape with Cattle is
typical of Asher B. Durand's work in that it depicts a panoramic and sun-lit
view of an American landscape. Durand started to paint this style of pastoral
scene after his return from Europe in the 1840s. These paintings show Durand's
knowledge and understanding of Flemish and Dutch paintings as well as the
works of Claude Lorrain (ca. 1604-1682) and John Constable (1776-1837).
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- Landscape with Cattle includes
several compositional features that are typical of Durand's work, such
as the cows and the shadows cast by the trees in the foreground, the low
horizon, and the luminous sky. The combination of these different elements
creates the artist's "faithful landscape," which reminds the
viewer of the Hudson River Valley in upstate New York, but in Durand's
philosophy was the visible manifestation of Deity, a reverential reflection
on an exalted subject.
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- This painting depicts a landscape barely touched by man,
which can be seen in the inclusion of the foot path and the sailboat, where
animals and nature live in harmony with each other. This tranquil scene
must have been alluring to the viewers of 1861, the year in which the Civil
War broke out.
- The painting retains its original, period frame.
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- Ben Foster (1852-1926)
- The Meeting House
- Oil on canvas
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- The Meeting House is an exceptional
example of a Connecticut landscape by Ben Foster and atypical of his work
in the genre in that it includes a building. The structure at the far left
is likely Cornubia Hall, a Baptist church that could be seen from his property.
In the Barbizon style, the landscape is picturesque and calm, depicting
the subtle transition between day and night. The remaining sunlight appears
in the sky, but the stream reflects darker tones, as if a cloud were passing
by or the sun were about to set over the edge of the mountain. This attention
to changing light was typical of American Barbizon artists.
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- The composition of The Meeting House appears to
be symmetrical, but, upon closer inspection, small nuances become apparent.
Even though the stream bisects the landscape, it is positioned slightly
off-center, as is the hill. The tones are predominantly warm, as if reflecting
the yellows, oranges, and reds of the impending sunset on the early autumn
landscape.
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- Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823-1880)
- Hudson River Highlands, ca.
1867
- Oil on canvas, mounted on board
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- Highlands of the Hudson shows
a northwestern view from Constitution Island, which is located across from
West Point, New York. Storm King Mountain is situated on the left-hand
side of the painting and Breakneck Ridge and Mount Taurus on the right.
Due to the way Sanford Robinson Gifford modeled the light while painting
Mount Taurus it seems as if there were two mountains. In the far distance,
one can detect the river bending into a northern direction. Here Gifford
amplified the natural contour and altitude significantly, even more than
he changed the height of the mountains in the middle ground.
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- Even though Highlands of the Hudson was painted
somewhat quickly, it still depicts the same characteristics of the rest
of Gifford's work, such as chromatic shadows, warm light, and hazy atmosphere.
Upon closer inspection, one can see the pencil underdrawing, for instance
in the outlines of the hills to the right and the left of the river. This
makes it apparent that Gifford was not always faithful to his drawings
while applying his oils.
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- The painting is enhanced by a period frame.
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- James McDougal Hart (1828-1901)
- Farmington River
- Oil on canvas
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- James McDougal Hart, his brother, William, and his sister,
Julie Hart Beers, were part of the second generation of the Hudson River
School, established by Thomas Cole (1801-1848) in the early nineteenth
century. To achieve realistic and sublime works, the artists made preliminary
sketches outdoors but completed the paintings in their studios.
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- Farmington River is typical
of Hart's work. The river meanders through the left side of the composition
and disappears in the trees, cloaked with the green leaves of a warm season.
In the distance, the hills stretch for miles, drawing the viewer's gaze.
Hart often included cattle in his scenes and, in 1871, began to study them
more closely. Here, they roam freely, grazing in the foreground.
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- With the growth of industrialization, many Americans
were forced to move to the cities to find work. Paintings such as Farmington
River gave these workers a chance to imagine what it would be like
to be in a place unspoiled by man. Hart's painting does not make any reference
to a societal establishment, choosing to ignore the presence of man.
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- Childe Hassam (1859-1935)
- Nude, 1918
- Lithograph on laid paper
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- While living in New York, Child Hassam drew inspiration
from his environment and was able to perfect his impressionist technique
in watercolor and oil paintings. Elegantly dressed female figures placed
in beautiful interiors were a common theme in his work and also with his
fellow artists of The Ten American Painters, which was a group of Impressionist
artists that Hassam helped establish.
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- Towards the end of his career, Hassam painted romanticized
versions of the female nude in summer landscapes. Nude significantly differs
from these expressive paintings of female nudes due to its more aggressive
execution.
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- Hassam's advanced skill of sketching can be seen in the
clear outline of the nude's silhouette and the meticulous strokes that
accentuate the roundness of the model's body. At the same time, the dark
and intense strokes of the surrounding vegetation overlap with the sitter
and seem to be enveloping her body.
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- Even though Hassam was unreserved in his criticism of
modernism, one could argue that the stark tonalism of light and dark areas
in Nude could be considered as Hassam's own version of modernism.
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- Childe Hassam (1859-1935)
- Fireplace in the Old House,
1912
- Oil on cigar box panel
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- Childe Hassam painted Fireplace in the Old House on
the lid of a Cuban cigar box. This painting shows a woman sitting in front
of the fireplace in the Old House, a boardinghouse run by Josephine and
Edward Holley, in Cos Cob, Connecticut. The Holley House, as it was also
known, became the center of the Cos Cob artist colony at the beginning
of the twentieth century.
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- Unfortunately, it is impossible to accurately identify
the sitter. Several ladies were used as models by Hassam during his time
in Cos Cob, among them the artist's wife, Maude, Josephine Holley herself,
as well as her daughter Constant Holley MacRae. It is also possible that
the sitter was the novelist Willa Cather, who visited the Old House sometime
before 1915.
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- However, the painting was not meant to be a portrait
of a specific model but rather a depiction of an intimate moment during
which a woman is seen reading by the glow of the fire. The fact that the
sitter is painted in this way is quite important since the other female
subjects that Hassam depicted in front of a fireplace are always inactive.
In the other paintings the models either stand or sit in contemplation.
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- The painting retains its original period Whistler-style
gilded frame.
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- Robert Henri (1865-1929)
- Untitled (Nude with Arm over Head)
- Pen and ink on paper
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- Henri's art was heavily influenced by the French modernists
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) and Henri Matisse (1869-1954), both well known
for their depictions of nudes. However, in Untitled (Nude with Arm over
Head) Henri concentrated on the uninterrupted, flowing outline of the model's
figure.
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- It is interesting to compare Henri's Untitled (Nude
with Arm over Head) to Nude (1918, Collection of Dr. Timothy
McLaughlin) by Childe Hassam (1859-1935). Hassam's sitter modestly turns
her back to the viewer, while her nakedness is enhanced by his aggressive
strokes that outline the background vegetation. In contrast, Henri's nude
does not pose in a demure fashion; although the lower part of her body
is covered by a drape, she looks straight at the viewer. By omitting any
background information or shading to create a feeling of three-dimensionality,
Henri joins avant-garde artists who modernized the way female nudes were
depicted.
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- Wilson Henry Irvine (1869-1936)
- Sunlight and Shadows, 1917
- Oil on canvas applied to board
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- Sunlight and Shadows shows
a spring landscape in Lyme, Connecticut, which was one of W.H. Irvine's
preferred subjects. A cluster of young trees has just come into bloom.
Behind the hillcrest, Irvine painted a view of the hills of Lyme. Even
though the trees are set in light shadow, the rest of the landscape is
glowing with the typical New England spring light. Irvine once explained
that he enjoyed painting when there is "a kind of hazy beauty in the
air."
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- Irvine did not move to Lyme, the famous art colony, until
1918 but started visiting New England on a regular basis in 1905-6. He
not only painted in Connecticut but also on Cape Ann, Massachussetts, and
along the Maine coast, where he especially enjoyed exploring the scenic
views of Monhegan Island. Even though he traveled extensively throughout
Europe he was always drawn back to Lyme to paint the seasonal variations
and changes of light in the Connecticut landscape.
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- Wolf Kahn (b. 1927)
- Richard Hamilton Barns, 2006
- Pastel on paper
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- Wolf Kahn concentrates on exploring composition and color
by drawing forests, fields, and barns en plein air yet insists that his
pictures are in fact not about those very same forests, fields, and barns
but go beyond them. He explains that he wanted "to do Rothko over
from nature" and abstracts his subjects based on mood and interpretation.
Vivien Raynor, an art critic for the New York Times, has referred
to Kahn's paintings as "chromatic arias."
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- Kahn first depicted barns in 1966, and continued up until
the 1980s. He often draws the same barn from different angles, at different
times of day, and at various scales to convey different meanings. This
working method was most famously employed by Claude Monet (1840-1926) in
his paintings of haystacks. When looking at Richard Hamilton Barns
and Kahn's other drawings of the same structure seen from different angles,
the viewer is able to imagine the appearance of the barn in its entirety.
At the same time the viewer is able to understand how Kahn examines his
surroundings and the different approaches he employed to analyze them.
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- John Frederick Kensett (1816-1872)
- A View in Italy, 1847
- Oil on canvas
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- While living in Italy, J.F. Kensett and Thomas Hicks
(1823-1890) embarked on a trip together to visit Lake Nemi, Subiaco, Tivoli,
and Albano, during the summer and fall of 1846. When Kensett returned to
Rome he utilized the many oil studies and sketches from this trip for a
series of paintings executed during the winter of the same year. A View
in Italy was a result of Kensett's trip and depicts a view which many
Americans easily recognized, ruins of a series of aqueducts situated in
the countryside outside of Rome. These aqueducts were built in A.D. 52
during Emperor Claudius's reign and carried clean water from the Anio Novus
River to Rome.
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- A View in Italy shows a large
mass of dark trees on the left countered by a smaller grouping of trees
on the right, and ruins in the middle ground with the background receding
into the gray-blue haze, a typical convention established by Claude Lorrain
(ca. 1604-1682). Upon closer inspection the viewer notices pieces of classical
architecture in the left foreground that appear to have "JFK 1847"
carved into them. The viewer's eye is led from the zigzagging path towards
the aqueduct and up to the mountains in the distance. This work from Kensett's
early period shows a mid-century American reflection on the fate of a previously
great civilization after centuries of decline, returning to nature.
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- The painting is set in a period "Thomas Cole style"
frame, made in Hartford or New York,
- 1845-50.
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- Sol LeWitt (1928-2007)
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- Tangled Bands (Blue), 2005
- Gouache on paper
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- Tangled Bands (Red), 2005
- Gouache on paper
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- Even though these two paintings are distinctly different
from Sol LeWitt's earlier serial-based work, he stated that "[t]hese
ideas are the result of my work as an artist and are subject to change
as my experience changes." Gouaches had the advantage of being more
opaque on paper compared to the ink washes LeWitt used on walls at the
time. Twisted and curvy red lines are present in both Tangled Bands
(Blue) and Tangled Bands (Red) and are natural successors to
the wavy brushstrokes and curvy forms of LeWitt's wall drawings. He used
the opacity of the gouaches to his favor by concealing the red lines and
the background color with squiggly black lines.
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- Creating works such as Floor Structure (Well)
(Yellow) (National Gallery of Art, 1963) as well as the instance
when LeWitt buried an unknown object in a box in a secret location (1968),
he disclosed his liking for secrecy, sequestered imagery and unseen domains.
In order to see the Tangled Bands the viewer must look beyond the
black lines into the watery depths of the paintings.
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- Frederick MacMonnies (1863-1937)
- Bacchante and Infant Faun,
c. 1894
- Bronze
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- MacMonnies was a very talented pupil of Augustus St.
Gaudens (1848-1907), who imbued in his student a love for French sculpture
in the Beaux-Arts tradition. In 1893 MacMonnies created an 83-inch bronze
version of Bacchante and Infant Faun for his friend and patron, Charles
McKim, of the architectural firm of McKim, Meade, and White. McKim offered
the first cast to the city of Boston for the courtyard of the new renaissance-style
Boston Public Library, which he had just designed for Copley Square. An
incredible public outcry over the moral appropriateness of the work led
to charges by the Womens' Christian Temperance Union in the Boston newspapers
that the sculpture celebrated "drunken indecency" and "the
worst type of harlotry with which the earth was ever afflicted." McKim
eventually withdrew his gift to the Boston Public Library in disgust.
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- Subsequently, the board of trustees of New York's Metropolitan
Museum accepted a copy of the large sculpture, and another copy went to
the Luxembourg Museum in Paris.
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- MacMonnies profited from the controversy as he gained
public recognition for his art. He made copies of "Bacchante"
in 18 and 30 inch versions which were very popular with collectors.
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- In 1894 MacMonnies visited Naples and Pompeii. He wrote,
"The more of Pagan art I saw, the more I liked it." His reflections
on "the spirit of the antique" were translated into sculpture
which achieved great critical acclaim in his time, and continue to delight
audiences today.
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- Lawrence Mazzanovich (1872-1959)
- Autumn Afternoon, ca. 191520
- Oil on canvas
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- After a brief and successful stint as an illustrator,
Lawrence Mazzanovich traveled to Europe in 1903. He studied landscape painting
in France and Italy, which enabled him to abandon illustration, and exhibited
work in the Barbizon style at competitions and at Paris Salon with great
success. Just before returning to the United States, Mazzanovich began
experimenting with Tonalism and Impressionism.
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- Down the coast from the already thriving Old Lyme and
Cos Cob art colonies, commercial illustrators established the Westport
art colony between 1899 and 1907. After moving there upon his return to
the United States, Mazzanovich was inspired by its landscape. His technique
developed from Impressionism into a Pointillist and color-driven Post-Impressionist
style while living there.
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- Autumn Afternoon explores
the varying effects of light and atmosphere. The canvas shows Mazzanovich
turning away from strictly Tonalist subject matter, yet he retains the
lively surface and rich color palette that garnered him fame. He employs
a conventional composition with shadows and modeling not present in earlier
works. The new sense of decorative patterning, organization of forms, and
brilliant colors links the work to Post-Impressionist and decorative Impressionist
traditions. Autumn Afternoon is a perfect example of Mazzanovich's
broken brushwork combined with a tendency toward symmetry, which resulted
in unnatural yet representational landscapes. It has been said "subjects
of themselves are of slight importance to Mazzanovich. What he works for
is effects of light and right, poetic impressions, tender and dream-like
color harmonies."
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- Graydon Parrish (b. 1970)
- Rose, 2009
- Oil on panel
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- When looking at The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy: September
11, 2001 (2006; New Britain Museum of American Art), one of the many
details that struck Dr. McLaughlin as particularly beautiful was the inclusion
of dozens of roses. Thus, McLaughlin asked Graydon Parrish for a smaller,
personal commission.
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- In The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy, the red roses
are painted onto fallen scraps of paper. These roses recall the many flowers
placed in various locations around the city but especially in front of
New York fire stations in the days just after 9/11. Not only are the flowers
reminescent of roses used at funerals but they also help remind us that
there was and will be beauty in the world. As a result, they become part
of the mourners' coming to terms with and acceptance of death.
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- Rose shows a beautifully rendered flower situated a little
off-center due to the inclusion of the stem and leaves. The rose petals
are painted in various shades of pink and the wax-like texture of the leaves
is conveyed beautifully with the light shown reflected off of them. This
painting is an excellent example of Parrish's classical approach to painting
and his exceptional technical skills.
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- William McGregor Paxton (1869-1941)
- Reclining Nude
- Pencil on paper
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin.
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- Beginning in 1887, William McGregor Paxton supplemented
his high school education with evening classes at the Cowles School of
Art in Boston under the tutelage of Dennis Miller Bunker (1861-1890), a
member of the "Boston School" of artists who had studied in Paris
and returned to Boston. In 1889 Paxton himself went to Paris to study under
Bunker's former teacher Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)
at the École de Beaux-Arts. Gérôme had been a pupil
of Jean-August-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867), making Paxton an artistic
descendant of Ingres, who had a profound influence upon Paxton.
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- Long after he left France, Paxton executed an exact copy
of Ingres's Odalisque with a Slave (1839-40; Fogg Museum, Harvard
Art Museums) while it hung in the Philadelphia home of a friend. Although
not a copy, Reclining Nude is illustrative of Ingres's lasting influence
on Paxton. The pose of Paxton's nude is nearly identical to those in Ingres's
Odalisque with a Slave and A Sleeping Odalisque (ca. 1830;
Victoria and Albert Museum). Paxton's nude, like those of Ingres, verges
on being a pinup, but modesty made both artists stop short of showing overtly
erotic details. Paxton's work goes beyond a simple life drawing
and verges on becoming an homage to a favored artist, one to whom he owed
his artistic heritage.
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- Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860)
- George Washington, ca. 1824
- Oil on canvas
- Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin
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- In 1795 George Washington posed for the seventeen-year-old
Rembrandt Peale -- it was the last portrait (Historical Society of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia) of the President to be done from life. Apparently, Charles
W. Peale (1741-1827), Rembrandt's father, arranged for and attended the
sessions. Even after his sittings with Washington, Peale sought to capture
an ideal image of the first president. Some of Peale's copies show Washington
on horseback, others behind a stonework oval, and others wearing various
uniforms.
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- This version of Washington is a replica of a portrait
type established by Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828). In 1995, Lillian Miller,
editor of the Peale Family Papers, suggested that George Washington
is an unfinished work -- a trial executed by Peale sometime after 1824.
In this painting Peale concentrated on the eyes and nose and was less concerned
with the remaining features, as seen in the sketchlike representation of
the jabot and suit and "the liney quality around the nose and eyes
[as well as] the heavier pencilling around the lower hairline." Thus,
the painting provides the viewer with an opportunity to see Peale's working
method and explore the manner in which the artist approached this famous
subject.
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- Henry Rankin Poore (1859-1940)
- The Horse Pasture
- Oil on panel