The Muse Newsletter of the Slater Memorial Museum Winter 2008 Norwich, City of Inspiration: Part II, Jean Leon Gérome at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Into the Twentieth Century where Norwich Art School director Ozias Dodge By Vivian F. Zoë would study, learning classical figure painting by drawing from casts, or “drawing from the When we last examined the topic of Norwich’s antique.” service as artists’ motif, we began as early as the th th late 18 century and carried on into the late 19 His experience in France exposed him to Plein century. From that time to the present day, artists Aire painting, the Barbizon school, and to have been inspired by the Rose City and the proof American expatriate James MacNeil Whistler, exists in collections that include that of the Slater known for his loose brushwork and focus on tone. Museum. Weir was still not convinced about impressionism, though, and is said to have written home angrily complaining about the exhibition of this new style in 1874. He established a studio in New York, supporting himself and his wife by teaching and portraiture. He became affiliated with Childe Hassam, John Twachtman and other early American Impressionists and with Connecticut, where a number of the impressionists spent summers painting and where his wife’s family had property. J. Alden Weir; River Scene Near Norwich oil on canvas c. 1895 Weir digressed from his earlier idealized and floral American landscape painting to focus on scenes of industrial landscapes in and around Windham J. Alden Weir (1852-1919) was the youngest of where he spent summers. Included in this group sixteen children of Robert W. Weir, artist and art are several paintings of the granite mills of instructor at West Point Military Academy. As Willimantic, Connecticut, and an occasional view a result, his early training was academic and of Norwich, the mid-point between Windham and classical. At 18, he enrolled at the National Old Lyme, where a number of his contemporaries Academy School in New York and from 1873 to were painting at Florence Griswold’s boarding 1877, he studied in Europe, including Paris with house. (Continued on page 3) A Message from the Director As the holidays draw to a close and a new year begins, I look to the excitement of planning for our ground breaking at the end of the school year. This will mark the beginning we have all awaited with my part to this point having been very small. A new architect has been engaged to design one of the most complex and important new structures on Campus. Dubose Associates of Hartford will create a design intended to do much but to virtually “disappear” into the existing built environment of the Slater, Converse, Gymnasiums and Cranston buildings. The goal is to provide universal access to the museum and other buildings … the much awaited elevator. As we proceed through the planning and construction, I will keep you up to date on the progress of this exciting project. In the meantime, we will be doing our best to continue museum programming and planning for exciting new exhibitions. My very best to you all in the New year. Upcoming Exhibitions, Programs and Events Sunday, January 6, 2008 Ghanaian Sojourn: The People, Cultural Celebrations, Art, 2:00 p.m. Crafts and Natural Sites of Ghana - A lecture presented by For- mer Fulbright Scholar, Edward M. Goldberg Saturday, January 19, 2008 Eastern Connecticut State University professor and storyteller 3:00 p.m. Raouf Mama performs - A special presentation for visitors of all ages Sunday, February 24, 2008 65th Annual Connecticut Artist Juried Exhibition Opening Reception and Award Ceremony The Muse is published up to four times yearly for the members of The Friends of the Slater Memorial Museum. The museum is located at 108 Crescent Street, Norwich, CT 06360. It is part of The Norwich Free Academy, 305 Broadway, Norwich, CT 06360. Museum main telephone number: (860) 887-2506. The museum’s Website is linked to that of NFA: www.norwichfreeacademy.com Museum Director – Vivian F. Zoë Newsletter editor – Geoff Serra Contributing authors: Vivian Zoë, Leigh Smead and Patricia Flahive Photographers: Leigh Smead, Alexandra van den Berg, Vivian Zoë The president of the Friends of the Slater Memorial Museum: Patricia Flahive The Norwich Free Academy Board of Trustees: Robert A. Staley ’68, Chair * Steven L. Bokoff ’72, Vice Chair Jeremy D. Booty ‘74 Richard DesRoches * Abby I. Dolliver ‘71 Lee-Ann Gomes ‘82, Treasurer Thomas M. Griffin ‘70 Joseph A. Perry ’60 Dr. Mark E. Tramontozzi ’76 Theodore N. Phillips ’74 David A. Whitehead ’78, Secretary *Museum sub-committee The Norwich Free Academy does not discriminate in its educational programs, services or employment on the basis of race, religion, gender, national origin, color, handicapping condition, age, marital status or sexual orientation. This is in accordance with Title VI, Title VII, Title IX and other civil rights or discrimination issues; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1991. 2 (Continued from page 1) Weir participated in organizing the iconic 1913 Armory Show in New York, which introduced avant-garde European art, including that of Pablo Picasso to the American public. Five years after his death in 1919, the Metropolitan Museum in New York mounted a retrospective of his work. Weir’s River Scene Near Norwich is immediately identifiable as American impressionism. While we can see that there are structures built along the river (most likely the Thames), they are indistinct and lack the documentary quality of John Denison Crocker’s, Fitz Henry Lane’s and Alvan Fisher’s Corn Husking Laurel Hill detailed, illustrative renderings. Ozias Dodge, oil on canvas, nd Collection of the Slater Museum The much younger Ozias Dodge (1868-1926) was born in Vermont where the wilderness was Dodge left Halifax for study under Jean Gérome in familiar to him as a boy. A Native American, Paris, at the École des Beaux Arts whose main goals whom Ozias recalled as “Indian Joe” was hired as were to provide free instruction and to promote a farm hand and became close to the family. He equality among the students. Its curriculum was taught the boy wilderness skills which may have based on modern aesthetic thinking, in which contributed to an leg injury which forced him into simplicity, grandeur, cleanness and harmony were a lengthy convalescence. During this, he spent the fundamental characteristics. To best embody his time drawing, leading to a life in art. this modern aesthetic, the students studied works of art from Greek and Roman Antiquity, this no Upon graduation from Yale in 1891, he received an doubt helped prepare Dodge for directorship of award for “Masterly Drawing” and a scholarship the Norwich Art School! to continue his studies at the Art Students League in New York, where the use of plaster casts for Aside from the many American artists who “life” drawing was still very much an element of studied under Gérome, Degas, Monet, Renoir, training at the League. From the League, Dodge and Sisley had all studied at the Ècole shortly became headmaster of the Victoria School of Art before. These so-called “Realists” established and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, themselves in the forest at Fontainebleau near the where he used the urban environment as fodder for town of Barbizon, discovering their motifs in the his creative mill. Examining a series of grisailles, rural countryside, something Ozias would mimic oil paintings in Norwich. in black, white and grays, from His affection for the woodlands can be seen in this period in his etching of Norwich’s Trading Cove. Much the collection of Ozias’ later artwork, and that held in the of the Slater collections of the Slater Museum, recalls his reveals both his rural boyhood and his exposure to the Barbizon draftsmanship School. His oil paintings Corn Huskers, Apple and sensitivity Gatherers and Potato Diggers are reminiscent to the subjects. of the work of Millet and Corot, painters whose work Ozias would have studied in Paris. In Trading Cove these, he celebrates the natural and agricultural Ozias Dodge, environment as well as those who were essential etching, nd to making life possible: fishermen, farmers and Collection of the peddlers. Slater Museum 3 invited to James MacNeil Whistler’s Art Club in Ozias’ etchings London and to France. At the outbreak of World of the typical War I, all trade and communication with Europe but precarious were abruptly severed and the Belgian paper upon p e r s p e c t i v e s which the “Norwich Film” and Ozias’ innovation Norwich offered depended was a casualty. Nevertheless, the two include views color etching process used to today is essentially looking down Dodge’s technology. Mediterranean Lane from the ridge Ozias Dodge, etching, nd Collection of the Slater Museum above his home According to Slater Museum director of over treetops Education, Mary-Anne Hall, Margaret Lauren to the roofs below as seen in the etchings Mediterranean Lane and School House, Norwichtown. The fact that Norwich had become an urban industrial metropolis by the time Ozias and Hannah arrived in 1897 did not escape him, however and he treated mechanical structures with the same aesthetic and sensitivity. His affection for the industrial as well as the rural is evident in his etching Chappell Coal, which makes what in other hands might appear dirty, dingy and ugly, elegant, mysterious and fascinating. Chappell Coal As director of the Norwich Art School, Ozias Dodge, etching, nd Dodge taught “Preparatory, Antique, Life and Collection of the Slater Museum Illustration.” The Art School catalogue of the Dodge era proclaims, “After a year spent in Triplett (1904?-1991) was born in South Dakota learning to draw from the casts, the student is able and grew up in Iowa, where her interest in art to decide upon a course of study which will lead to developed.