Excellence for Everyone
Our Excellence in Education Campaign continues to bloom with exciting results. The lunches and afternoon meetings have been happening at a brisk pace, and the development committee has been working overtime to help make the connections. Both Stacy Fuller, director of education, and Carol Noel, director of development, have helped to bring the importance of this campaign to our donors. Their passion and professionalism not only compel people to provide support but also clearly deliver our message of innovation, quality, and customer service that are so important to all that we do at the Amon Carter.
What will these funds do for our community?
For the past six years the Amon Carter has charged a nominal supply fee for teachers participating in its educator workshops. The campaign funds have already allowed the museum to offer, free of charge, all the educator programs held onsite and via videoconference in 2011–12. At a time of unparalleled and severe fiduciary constraints for state education, this service is indeed a boon to our community.
Similarly, the museum’s Teaching Resource Center (TRC) has offered North Texas educators the opportunity to borrow free resources on American art in a wide range of formats. The campaign has allowed the TRC to expand its loan program from North Texas to the entire state!
New programs made possible by the campaign are also underway, including the First Steps Outreach Program, which targets students ages three to five from seven Tarrant County day care centers. This multiple-visit program introduces these young visitors to a museum setting through positive experiences, cultivates their observation skills, and teaches Pre-K lessons, such as social behaviors and fine motor skills.
The Connect to American Art Outreach Program serves patrons from Tarrant County senior centers. This multiple-visit program sends docents to these centers for five visits, followed by bringing seniors three times annually to the museum. The program aims to generate awareness and ownership of the museum’s collection, exhibitions, and public programs. Programs are currently scheduled for senior centers in Stop Six, White Settlement, and Arlington.
I ask you to consider becoming a part of this effort. We have known for years now that exposure to the arts, particularly at a young age, results in an astonishing array of benefits that last a lifetime and benefit our community in return. If you would like to learn more, feel free to contact me. This message is one I have no problem discussing!
To San Antonio and Back—but Why?
For the past few years the Paper Guild, one of the Amon Carter’s collector groups, has traveled to San Antonio to attend the annual print fair hosted there by the McNay Art Museum. We went there this past weekend, and in addition to attending the fair, we visited two remarkable private collections of American art. In the photograph below, we are getting a tour of one of America’s most important collections of African-American art: the Harriet and Harmon Kelley collection. Some of you may remember that the museum featured their collection a few years ago. The Kelleys have searched high and low, with the help of curators, peers, and art dealers, for the best works that convey the creative achievements of artists of color.
Collecting art is at the core of what art museums do, and the collectors in any community are vital to that aspect of a museum’s mission. In this way, institutions and individual collectors are part of a symbiotic relationship. The Kelleys, for instance, not only have given important works to the San Antonio Museum of Art but also have inspired others within their community to begin collecting.
The collector groups at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art—the Paper Guild; the Council, which focuses on paintings and sculpture; and the Stieglitz Circle, which focuses on photographs—are filled with a similar spirit of mutual exchange. Trips such as last weekend’s sojourn to South Texas are a part of an education experience, where the example of others becomes a point of inspiration. If you would like to know more about becoming a member of one of these groups, please write to me. It is truly rewarding to participate.
Good Things Come In Small Packages
A week ago, the Amon Carter opened a major exhibition focusing on Charles Russell’s watercolors. As one visitor to the show related to me, “I have been a fan of Russell for many years but never realized that he painted so many watercolors.” Part of the strength of this exhibition is that it brings together nearly 100 of the artist’s works in the medium, providing a comprehensive view of Russell’s subject matter and technical progression.
There is also power in more intimate, focused art exhibitions. In two weeks, we will be opening an exhibition on John Singer Sargent that includes just four works, all on loan from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. In the midst of a historic renovation and expansion, the Clark has generously loaned masterworks from their collection to institutions around the world—including our neighbor the Kimbell Art Museum, which will host a concurrent exhibition of the Clark’s holdings entitled The Age of Impressionism: Great French Paintings from the Clark.
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Fumée d’Ambre Gris (Smoke of Ambergris), 1880, oil on canvas, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA, image © Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA, 1955.15
The Amon Carter’s dossier exhibition, Sargent’s Youthful Genius: Paintings from the Clark, centers on the artist’s Fumee d’Ambre Gris (Smoke of Ambregris). Painted in 1880, the iconic work not only evokes an exotic mystery but shows Sargent’s capacity for immense subtlety as a painter. A study in whites and creams, the painting is, as the artist himself said, about color. The volumes it speaks on the subject are a distinct pleasure to behold. The exhibition opens March 11—don’t miss it.
What Do You See?
I have fallen a week behind! Last week was the meeting of our museum’s board of trustees, so perhaps that explains why.
Our most recent acquisitions were presented during that board meeting. One notable addition to the museum’s collection is Larry Sultan’s large-scale photograph Novato, from his series Homeland, which focused on the landscape near his home in Corte Madera, California.
Larry Sultan (1946–2009), Novato, 2009, dye coupler print, Purchase with funds provided by the Stieglitz Circle of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, courtesy of Estate of Larry Sultan/Wirtz Gallery
This important series was the last the artist completed before his untimely death in 2009 from cancer. Sultan hired day laborers to pose as actors in a semi-uncultivated landscape that abuts the edge of a housing community. The multiple layers of meaning in this work are riveting, but what struck me when I saw it in San Francisco for the first time was its pastoral qualities. It reminded me of another work in the Amon Carter’s collection: Thomas Cole’s The Hunter’s Return, painted in 1845.
Thomas Cole (1801–1848), The Hunter’s Return, 1845, oil on canvas
The settled landscape emerging out of the “wilderness” in both works is one point of intersection, but I would be interested to know what you think. What points of similarity or difference do you see? Write me in the comments section, and I will respond. And if you would like to see the Sultan work, stay tuned. I will let you know in my next blog when the opportunity will be available to you.
A Post from the Road
I have been on the road now for several days, traveling from Fort Worth to New York City and on to San Francisco, where I am attending the mid-winter meeting of the Association of Art Museum Directors. More than 240 directors from the United States, Canada, and Mexico have gathered to discuss the issues that our cultural industry is facing. As the economic and demographic trends change in urban communities, art museums are not only positioned to increase their value as destinations for education and entertainment, but also to think about new ways of doing business. Like any industry, creative and innovative thinking is the core of leadership.
Right now, I am in a seminar on how to motivate innovative thinking to meet the needs of the communities we serve. My group is exploring ways to engage younger audiences in the life of the art museum. The facilitators are encouraging us to do the unexpected. One of the ideas we are discussing is a “speed dating” event for young people on Valentine’s Day where participants pick their favorite works of art as a starting point for compatibility. Would you come to such an event? I would be very interested in ideas that you might have for ways to attract young individuals and couples to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Enter them in the comment section; you never know, we might just put it into action!
Happy New Year!
Although 2011 marked our celebration of the museum’s 50th anniversary, I am a firm believer that any anniversary of significance should last for at least eighteen months. So we will continue to celebrate, even as we turn fifty-one.
For me, our celebration continued when I returned from my holiday adventures to find on my desk an advance copy of the book that will accompany our exhibition, Romance Maker: The Watercolors of Charles M. Russell, which opens here February 11. Rick Stewart, the author of the book and curator of the project, tells a lively story of Russell’s tremendous achievement working with a medium that is subtle and variable. Every watercolor in the exhibition is reproduced in a stunning plate section in the book that proves what Rick claims in his essay: Russell was a true artistic genius as a watercolorist.
Holding this book made me realize yet again the strength of the museum’s collection and our commitment to find new ways to deepen our understanding of art that seems so familiar. Charlie Russell is one of the artists that we have long celebrated. He was a favorite of the museum’s namesake, Amon G. Carter. But never before has his work as a watercolorist been explored—he was an innovator in this medium. Finally, that story is available for all in the book that I hold. If you are a lover of watercolor, or a fan of Charlie Russell, this volume belongs in your library. Come see the works in person, then visit our store to take them home with you.
Merry and Bright
Did you know that tomorrow, December 22, is the anniversary of Christmas tree lights? The bright sparkles of string lights that today adorn trees and houses alike got their start in 1882 when Edward Johnson, who worked for Thomas Edison’s Illumination Company, first tried stringing together small electric bulbs on a single power cord. Though string lights did not enjoy immediate popularity, today they hold a special place in the hearts of many during the holiday season.
Whether your holiday season is brightened by friends and family, your very own illuminated Christmas tree, the Festival of Lights, or all three, we here at the Amon Carter wish you a holiday that is merry and bright.
Laura Gilpin (1891–1979), Gast House, Christmas Tree [Colorado], 1929, gelatin silver print, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Bequest of the artist
Spreading the Word
I am traveling this week, so I come to you this morning from gate D2 at Lambert International Airport in St. Louis. The goal of this trip is to help advance the profile of our museum across the nation. I have been in St. Louis working with our conservator, Claire Barry, and the conservators at the Saint Louis Art Museum on a proposed exhibition project that we hope to partner on.
George Caleb Bingham (1811–1879), Jolly Flatboatmen in Port, 1857, oil on canvas, Saint Louis Art Museum, Museum Purchase 123, 1944
The exhibition will explore the series of paintings the American artist George Caleb Bingham (1811–1879) made during the 1840s and 1850s of life along the Mississippi River—the edge of the western frontier at the time. While we are interested in the compelling cultural narrative Bingham’s work suggests about western expansion, we are also exploring his working process. Yesterday we examined through technical process the underdrawings Bingham made on his canvases and their relationship to the highly finished drawings he made of his primary subject: the men who worked on the river. Through the science of conservation—the art museum equivalent of CSI—we hope to better understand how Bingham linked drawing on paper and canvas to achieve complex, multi-figured paintings. Put another way, we’re endeavoring to get inside his head as a working artist creating a national story for his day. Our process began yesterday to reconstruct Bingham’s process, and it will continue for more than a year.
Building partnerships with other art museums to advance scholarship is just one reason to travel on behalf of the Amon Carter. Tomorrow, I continue north to Chicago to develop more relationships that will help bring Fort Worth’s great American art museum to the nation.
An American Tradition
On behalf of all of us at the Amon Carter, I want to wish you and yours a happy and safe holiday wherever this Thanksgiving finds you. After you have gathered around your own tables, we hope that you will become part of another American tradition—the Amon Carter Museum of American Art—by bringing your family and friends to enjoy the museum’s great collection. You are always welcome here at our house.
Erwin E. Smith (1866–1947), Lewis Dinner Party, Spur Ranch, Texas., 1912, nitrate negative, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Bequest of Mary Alice Pettis
John Marin Revealed
This past weekend, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art opened its fall exhibition, John Marin: Modernism at Midcentury. The exhibition, which brings together 65 of Marin’s paintings in oil and watercolor, takes a fresh and focused look at the artist’s last great body of work, created between 1933 and 1953, the year of Marin’s death.
During those years, Marin wrestled with the planar architectonics of Cubism—so much a part of his production as an early modernist—finally allowing the tension created by cubist form to relax into loose, flowing lines of great descriptive power and urgency. An active agent in the art world of mid-century America, as well as a tried and true observer of nature, Marin produced work in these years that deeply influenced the emerging experimentation of the New York School.
John Marin (1870–1953), Composition, Cape Split, Maine, No. 2, 1933, oil on canvas, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, 1969.9
Our museum’s interest in this underappreciated period of Marin’s long and innovative career began quite early in our history. In 1969, the Amon Carter purchased Marin’s Composition, Cape Split, No. 2, created in 1933. That acquisition in our first decade of operation foreshadowed what is now being celebrated in the exhibition: Marin’s ongoing influence on the energetic and often chaotic art world of mid-century America. The artist’s painterly exuberance in this work marked the start of his period of experimentation between the mediums of oil and watercolor, and it exemplifies his achievement of a lyrical synthesis of the two.
It is fair to say this painting has not gotten its proper due until now. The authentic character of the painting only recently was able to be fully appreciated as Marin’s application of paint and the true colors of his palette lay hidden beneath a thick, shiny layer of old, discolored varnish. Claire Barry and Bart Devolder, the museum’s conservators, expertly removed the varnish in preparation for the exhibition. We are now able to see what Marin intended us to see: a fresh-matte surface and the physicality of brushstrokes that transform the viscosity of the oil medium into a view of the roiling seas of Pleasant Bay near the artist’s home at Cape Split in Addison, Maine. It is a wonder among wonders in John Marin: Modernism at Midcentury, on view at the Amon Carter until January 8, 2012.
