America Painting a Nation SYDNEY ONLY 8 November 2013 – 9 February 2014 Art Gallery of New South Wales More than 80 iconic works spanning 200 years of American art.
Edward Hopper cover detail: House at dusk 1935 Henry Inman Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, No-Tin (Wind), a Chippewa chief John Barton Payne Fund © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts 1832–33 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of the 2008 Collectors Committee M.2008.58
Our mission is to foster the The Philadelphia Museum I am especially pleased that This initiative is the result exploration, understanding of Art is delighted to join the Museum of Fine Arts, of a deep collaboration and enjoyment of the visual with the Los Angeles Houston will be sending between four great arts of the United States. County Museum of Art, some of its great treasures institutions. We could One way we fulfill this goal the Museum of Fine Arts, of American art to Australia, not present such a grand is partnering with major Houston and the Terra because I know how much survey of American art institutions across the Foundation for American they will be appreciated. history without each other, globe to create and deliver Art to share their rich Australians and Americans and it gives me great exhibitions that stimulate collections of American art share a common heritage, pleasure to see the fruits a robust cross-cultural with Australian audiences. and our nations and national of this labour continue its dialogue. We are very The development of this identities emerged on tour around the world. pleased to collaborate exhibition has been parallel tracks; I feel certain We are very pleased to lend with the Art Gallery of New motivated by the strong that our Australian friends some of our most important South Wales to bring belief that the arts are a will recognise kinship in works for this exhibition America: painting a nation unique and powerful means these works of art. including Henry Inman’s to audiences in Australia. for the expression of ideas No-Tin (Wind), a Chippewa Seeing works from 200 and the communication of Gary Tinterow chief 1832–33, Georgia years of American art in cultural values. We have Director O’Keeffe’s Horse’s skull the context of Australia’s enjoyed the process of The Museum of Fine Art, with pink rose 1931, cultural treasures will be putting it together with our Houston Thomas Sully’s Portrait of a powerful demonstration partners and hope that it Misses Mary and Emily of art’s potential both to will provide new insights McEuen 1823 and Portrait distinguish cultures and into the history and artistic of a black sailor 1823, artist unite them. achievements of our country. unknown.
Elizabeth Glassman Timothy Rub Michael Govan President & CEO The George D Widener CEO & Wallis Annenberg Terra Foundation for Director & CEO Director American Art Philadelphia Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art
ART GALLERY OF NEW SOUTH WALES / 5 Unknown Thomas Sully Edward Hicks Portrait of a black sailor Portrait of Misses Mary and Penn’s Treaty with the Indians (Paul Cuffe?) 1800 Emily McEuen 1823 1830–40 Los Angeles County Museum Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, of Art, purchased with funds purchased with funds provided by The Bayou Bend Collection, gift of provided by Cecile Bartman M.2005.2 Cecile Bartman M.2008.222 Alice C Simkins in memory of Alice N Hanszen B.77.46
I am delighted to give our audiences in Sydney This exhibition is a voyage through American history, across the American landscape and into the minds greater access to American art and culture and of the American people. It begins in the 18th century, nothing could be more important than this first among pious farmers and republican merchants. It traverses the continent, alongside Native Americans major survey of American painting to be shown and frontiersman. It explores the great cities, and in Australia. We are deeply grateful to our partner the lives of workers and bohemian artists. Answering institutions in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and the question, ‘What makes Americans American?’ is complex, but these paintings are a guide, revealing Philadelphia for lending such brilliant examples the self-reliance and communal beliefs, optimism and of American painting from the mid-18th century anxieties, that makes America tick. to the 1960s. Jackson Pollock is now a household Dr Chris McAuliffe Curatorial consultant name in Australia but America: painting a nation America: painting a nation is the most expansive survey will highlight many other artists who deserve to be of American painting ever presented in Australia and is equally well known here, such as Copley, Church, the Gallery’s major summer exhibition for 2013. It is part Homer, Sargent, Cassatt, Eakins, Whistler, Sheeler, of the Sydney International Art Series which brings the world’s outstanding exhibitions to Australia, exclusive Hopper and O’Keeffe. While the United States and to Sydney, and has been made possible with the support Australia share a New World heritage and parallel of the NSW Government through Destination NSW. Over art traditions, the stories told have different 80 works, ranging from 1750 to 1966, cover more than inspirations. I know this exhibition will both open a 200 years of American art, history and experience. The exhibition sets a course from New England to the Western window on the grand narrative of American painting frontier, from the Grand Canyon to the burlesque theatres and hold up a mirror against which we can further of New York, from the aristocratic elegance of colonial explore our own art history. society to the gritty realism of the modern metropolis.
Dr Michael Brand This exhibition will reveal the breadth of American history, Director the hardy morality of the frontier, the intimacy of family Art Gallery of New South Wales life, the intensity of the 20th-century city, the epic scale of its landscape and the diversity of its people. The works being presented – many by American masters – are the works Americans love and works that represent the stories they have grown up with.
ART GALLERY OF NEW SOUTH WALES / 3 Ernest Martin Hennings Jackson Pollock Passing by 1924 No 22 1950 The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The gift of the Ranger Fund, National Albert M Greenfield and Elizabeth Academy of Design 26.11 M Greenfield Collection1974-78-41 © Estate of Ernest Martin Hemmings/ © Pollock Krasner Foundation, ARS, licensed Bridgeman Art Library by Viscopy
America: painting a nation features well-known names – ‘This exhibition signals a significant direction for the AGNSW Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Georgia O’Keeffe and by building relationships with major American museums and James Whistler among them. But most are less familiar; further developing our visitors’ engagement with American the ‘household names’ of American art are rarely seen in art and culture. While we have a fair share of American Australia. The exhibition will introduce Copley, Peale and culture in Australia, especially through the media, we need Sully, the great portraitists of the Revolutionary era; Church, to be better connected with American history and American Cole and Moran, masters of the sublime landscape; Homer vision. What we see in this exhibition is how America came and Remington, lyric poets of the frontier; Cassatt, Sargent to be America. The artists reveal America’s foundation and Hassam, celebrators of the 19th-century Gilded Age; narratives: the Pilgrims, the Founding Fathers, the frontiers- Sloan, Shinn and Henri, humanist observers of the early man, the migrant. They explore the ideas, places and people 20th century city; Demuth, Marin and Davis, the voices of that made America exceptional but equally there are works a uniquely American vision of dynamic modern life. that don’t shy away from the darker chapters of American history either. Some of the paintings are very challenging’, Selected in collaboration with the Los Angeles County said Michael Brand. Museum of Art, the Terra Foundation, Chicago, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, America: painting a nation Houston, America: painting a nation brings to Sydney • The most expansive survey of American painting ever both national and regional perspectives on American art. presented in Australia. Diversity is a key theme in the exhibition. The cultural diversity of a continent inhabited first by Native American • Over 80 works, ranging from 1750 to 1966, cover more Indians; colonised by the Spanish, French and English; than 200 years of American art, history and experience. and developing through mass migration into a cultural • This exhibition features artists including Jackson melting pot. The physical diversity of a landscape Pollock, Mark Rothko, Georgia O’Keeffe, James McNeil encompassing the dense forests of the northeast, the Whistler, Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent. endless plains of the Midwest, the awe-inspiring geography • Works have come from four major institutions in the USA: of the Grand Canyon and the stillness of the desert. The Terra Foundation, Chicago; The Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. • Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has lent its major work, Edward Hopper’s House at dusk 1935. • Most of the works have never been seen in Australia. • Sydney is the only Australian venue for this exhibition.
ART GALLERY OF NEW SOUTH WALES / 4 Highlights
Charles Willson Peale Henry Inman Winslow Homer Portrait of John and Elizabeth Lloyd No-Tin (Wind), a Chippewa chief 1832–33 A temperance meeting 1874 Cadwalader and their daughter Anne 1772 A portrait of a Native American leader The grand idea of frontier life as a hallmark A measure of the wealth, ambition and reveals the moral and political complexities of American character, condensed into unique cultural circumstances in pre- of American history. Bridging two worlds, a modest anecdote from everyday life. Revolutionary America. The Cadwaladers No-Tin adapts imported clothing and A folksy tale – boy meets girl over a shared were art patrons in Philadelphia, then the feathers into formal regalia worn during drink of well water – expands into a gentle fourth largest city in the British Empire and territorial negotiations in Washington DC. reflection on youth, rural labour and the soon to be the site for the drafting of the One of a series of official portraits, Puritan legacy. A reminder that morality Declaration of Independence. This is a coinciding with the federal government pervades American art: honest work, sound modern family; their wealth derives from policy of forced removal and relocation, community values and a foundation of piety business, their values are those of the the image speaks of heritage, nobility and shape the 19th-century frontier. Enlightenment, and their relations are casual. loss simultaneously. Peale reinvents the family portrait, setting Philadelphia Museum of Art, purchased with the John Howard McFadden Jr Fund 1956-118-1 aside the rigidity of English aristocratic Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of the 2008 Collectors Committee M.2008.58 conventions and revealing the informal spirit of an emerging American character.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, purchased for the Cadwalader Collection 1983-90-3
Thomas Moran Georgia O’Keeffe Stuart Davis Grand Canyon of the Colorado River Horse’s skull with pink rose 1931 Something on the eight ball 1953–54 1892–1908 A remarkable example of art’s passage from A distinctive characteristic of American A hymn to the awe-inspiring scale of personal experience to national symbolism. abstract art is that it always stayed American space. Immersing the viewer in O’Keeffe abandons New York for the open connected with the realities of American a space so deep that all sense of scale is spaces of New Mexico. In a horse’s skull, experience. Davis finds abstract values – lost, the painting pushes the idea of the found in the desert, she finds a symbol of the colour, energy, vitality – in American street sublime to an almost hallucinatory level. frontier, history and mortality. In a moment life. Neon lights, advertising hoardings, Moran’s huge landscape reveals why big is |of improvisation, she adds a flower, adding petrol stations and jazz music inspire a so important; wide-open spaces represent a grace note of commemoration, fecundity painting to appeal to the avant-garde and not only the might of the Creator but the and beauty to a symbol of death. A deliberate the hipster alike. seemingly boundless opportunities of the attempt to invent an American symbol, the New World. painting also marks the artist’s embrace of Philadelphia Museum of Art, purchased with the Adele Haas Turner and Beatrice Pastorius Turner a new life in the west. Memorial Fund 1954-30-1 Philadelphia Museum of Art, © Stuart Davis. VAGA, licenced by Viscopy gift of Graeme Lorimer 1975-182-1 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of the Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation AC1994.159.1 © Museum Associates/LACMA
ART GALLERY OF NEW SOUTH WALES / 5 ART Gallery NSW
Strategic partners Principal partners
Major supporterr The exhibition is organised by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Terra Foundation for American Art in collaboration with the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and has been made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Official airline Media partners
Supported by
U.S. Consulate General Sydney
SYDNEY ONLY Tickets Sydney International Media information Art Pass 8 November 2013 – $20 adult Susanne Briggs 9 February 2014 $16 concession See two exhibitions and save T: +61 2 9225 1791 Art Gallery of $12 member America: painting a nation M: 0412 268 320 New South Wales $10 children (5–17yrs) at the Art Gallery of NSW and [email protected] Art Gallery Road, $50 family War is over (if you want it): Yoko Ono at the Museum of Sydney NSW 2000 Combine your ticket with the Book Contemporary Art Australia. America: painting a nation artgallery.nsw.gov.au official audio guide. $32 adult, $24 concession A comprehensive full-colour Buy online or in person: book with over 90 images Daily 10am–5pm artgallery.nsw.gov.au Buy online or in person: will be published in conjunction Art After Hours: artgallery.nsw.gov.au with the exhibition. Wednesdays until 10pm mca.com.au RRP $55; only $45 from the AGNSW Gallery Shop
America: painting a nation Thomas Eakins Henry Inman John Frederick Peto Robert Feke Robert Irwin Jackson Pollock Milton Avery Erastus Salisbury Field William Smith Jewett Maurice Prendergast Cecilia Beaux Daniel Garber Eastman Johnson Frederic Remington George Bellows Yun Gee William Keith Severin Roesen Thomas Hart Benton Sanford Robinson Gifford John Frederick Kensett Mark Rothko Edward Biberman Arshile Gorky Lee Krasner John Singer Sargent Joseph H Boston Adolph Gottlieb John Lewis Krimmel Charles Sheeler John George Brown William Michael Harnett Walter Kuhn Everett Shinn Mary Cassatt Marsden Hartley John La Farge John Sloan Jefferson David Chalfant Childe Hassam Fitz Henry Lane Allen Smith Jr William Merritt Chase Miki Hayakawa Jacob Lawrence Robert Spencer Frederic Edwin Church Martin Johnson Heade Helen Lundeberg Thomas Sully Thomas Cole Ernest Martin Hennings John Marin Henry Ossawa Tanner John Singleton Copley Robert Henri Reginald Marsh Max Weber Jasper Francis Cropsey Edward Hicks Thomas Moran William Wendt Stuart Davis Hans Hofmann Georgia O’Keeffe James McNeill Whistler Charles Demuth Winslow Homer Otis Oldfield Thomas Waterman Wood Arthur Garfield Dove Edward Hopper Charles Willson Peale NC Wyeth
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