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'New Jersey Landscape' by George Inness
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'Two Guides' by Winslow Homer.
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'Undertow' by Winslow Homer.

Clark Knocks Homer Out of the Park

By Stephen DravisWilliamstown Correspondent
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Clark Art Institute curator Marc Simpson discusses the new exhibit 'Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History.' Above, prints from Homer's woodcut illustrations on the main gallery wall.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Each year, thousands of visitors come to the Clark for — and associate the museum with — masterpieces of French Impressionism.

But this summer the museum will show just how much of an impression American art made on founders Robert Sterling Clark and Francine Clark.

"Clark began his collection with a (Winslow Homer) painting called 'The Rooster' in 1915, that is no longer here," said Homer scholar Marc Simpson, who curates "Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History," the featured exhibition at the Clark this summer.

"He sold three paintings over the years ... and 'Rooster' was one of those. It went out of the collection in the 1940s. But his second painting, 1916, was [Homer's]' Two Guides.' "

"Two Guides," an Adirondacks scene that is one of the staples of the Clark Art Institute's permanent collection, holds a prominent place in this summer's exhibit. It tells the artistic odyssey of Homer, a 19th-century American master whose career encompassed oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, etchings and wood engravings.

Simpson's show, which uses three galleries in the Clark's Manton Research Center, utilizes scores of works from the museum's 250-piece Homer collection as well as a few pieces on loan to help complement the museum's holdings and fill in some historical gaps.

Simpson and Clark Senior Curator Richard Rand agreed that Homer was a major interest of Robert Sterling Clark, who founded the South Street institution in 1955 with works from his extensive private collection.

"When he opened the building in 1955, there were seven works by Winslow Homer on display — more work than by any other artist in that initial installation," Simpson said. "And, overall, he owned more works by Winslow Homer than any other artist.

"It's true there are more Renoir paintings (at the Clark) than Homer paintings, but when you think about the scope of the collection in general, the Clark has very few works from (Renoir's) late career and very few works from the other media. For Homer, he has the full span of the career, and all of the media are represented."

Rand said the Clark staff has been looking extensively at the lives and intersts of both Sterling and Francine Clark for at least 10 years — going back to preparation for 2005's golden anniversary year. Last year's summer show highlighting Sterling's expedition to China told one part of his story; the Homer exhibit this summer helps round out the Clarks' story.

"It is generally part of our getting to know as fully as we can, our founders," Rand said. "We always say Renoir was Clark's favorite artist, but it was really Homer. We have 32 paintings by Renoir, but we have ... almost 200 works by Homer in this show."

And next door to Homer, Rand has curated "George Inness: Gifts from Frank and Katherine Martucci," which highlights another American master from the 19th century.

Inness, who was born in the Hudson Valley and spent much of his life in New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey, was a relatively late addition to the Clarks' collection. But the museum's two Inness works were supplemented this year by eight landscapes donated by the Martucci family.

One of those works, "New Jersey Landscape," appeared at the Clark in 2008 as part of its "Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness and the Art of Painting Softly" exhibition.

"We are delighted to have the opportunity to present these new additions to our collection," Clark Director Michael Conforti said in a news release. "Frank and Katherine Martucci's generous gift of these eight Inness landscapes has created an exceptional focused suite of works.

"The opportunity to consider them side by side with our summer exhibition of works by Winslow Homer will provide our visitors with a wonderful opportunity to engage with two of the most important American artists in a very special way."

"Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History," opens with a sight unlike what one usually sees at the Clark. The main wall of the first gallery greets visitors with dozens of wood engravings — most as illustrations for Harper's weekly in the 1850s and 1860s, some depicting scenes from the Civil War.

"The idea is: How can we show that bulk without boring every visitor to death?" Simpson said. "I tried to come up with some schemes about how to make this work. So, when you walk up the steps, I'm hoping people will say, 'Wow! What's that? I've never seen an installation like that of 19th-century art prints.'

"I hope that will be one of their thoughts. They'll probably all think, 'There's a really good reason I've never seen that before.'

"But if they make their way over to it, I hope ... that question, 'What are all these things?' will prompt them to come up close."

Those who do might notice that not all of the images in the wood engravings look like "Homers." There is a reason for that, and it has to do with the process of printing images in 19th-century periodicals.

"He'll draw on the block or he'll bring his drawings back," Simpson said. "Most often, he's drawing on the block, and the block is a composite of 16 small boxwood blocks, hand-cut, that have been bolted together. He makes his drawing over that. Then the blocks are divided and given off to 16 other engravers who are responsible for deciding how each block is going to be cut.

'Summer Squall,' one of the nearly 200 works by Homer being displayed by the Clark.

"If you look here, these faces look kind of like Homer's faces; that face looks nothing like anything Homer did anywhere else. But there's a real reason for that because Homer is not responsible for the final way that face looks. The individual carver was. Homer was the one who suggested it. That notion of collaborative effort ... is very much part of the story."

More engravings await when you turn the corner, but the presentation is less dense and more focused on various themes that emerge in Homer's work.

The exhibit's second gallery focuses on Homer's oil paintings, including "Two Guides," the dramatic "Undertow" and four stunning seascapes grouped together.

In the third and final gallery of the Homer exibit, the focus is on Homer's efforts to make his art more commercially viable by exploring different media and different reproductive techniques. The commercial side of Homer also is explored in the exhibition's use of letters from Homer to patrons and art dealers spanning three decades.

Simpson, who serves as the Clark's curator of American art and as an associate director and lecturer in Williams College's graduate program, said that the Clark collection gave him a unique opportunity to show the full story of one of America's great artists.

"By virtue of the Clarks' collection, we are able to survey Winslow Homer's entire career from soup to nuts, within the confines of our own collection," he said. "That is, we move from music cover illustrations in 1857 — which are objects he did as an apprentice at the Bufford lithography shop in Boston — through his freelance work as an illustrator for Harper's Weekly and into and through the early 20th century, when he's making the great seascape paintings that are the foundation of his achievement, the things we most truly value him for."


Tags: Clark Art,   exhibit,   

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WCMA: 'Cracking the Code on Numerology'

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) opens a new exhibition, "Cracking the Cosmic Code: Numerology in Medieval Art."
 
The exhibit opened on March 22.
 
According to a press release: 
 
The idea that numbers emanate sacred significance, and connect the past with the future, is prehistoric and global. Rooted in the Babylonian science of astrology, medieval Christian numerology taught that God created a well-ordered universe. Deciphering the universe's numerical patterns would reveal the Creator's grand plan for humanity, including individual fates. 
 
This unquestioned concept deeply pervaded European cultures through centuries. Theologians and lay people alike fervently interpreted the Bible literally and figuratively via number theory, because as King Solomon told God, "Thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight" (Wisdom 11:22). 
 
"Cracking the Cosmic Code" explores medieval relationships among numbers, events, and works of art. The medieval and Renaissance art on display in this exhibition from the 5th to 17th centuries—including a 15th-century birth platter by Lippo d'Andrea from Florence; a 14th-century panel fragment with courtly scenes from Palace Curiel de los Ajos, Valladolid, Spain; and a 12th-century wall capital from the Monastery at Moutiers-Saint-Jean—reveal numerical patterns as they relate to architecture, literature, gender, and timekeeping. 
 
"There was no realm of thought that was not influenced by the all-consuming belief that all things were celestially ordered, from human life to stones, herbs, and metals," said WCMA Assistant Curator Elizabeth Sandoval, who curated the exhibition. "As Vincent Foster Hopper expounds, numbers were 'fundamental realities, alive with memories and eloquent with meaning.' These artworks tease out numerical patterns and their multiple possible meanings, in relation to gender, literature, and the celestial sphere. 
 
"The exhibition looks back while moving forward: It relies on the collection's strengths in Western medieval Christianity, but points to the future with goals of acquiring works from the global Middle Ages. It also nods to the history of the gallery as a medieval period room at this pivotal time in WCMA's history before the momentous move to a new building," Sandoval said.
 
Cracking the Cosmic Code runs through Dec. 22.
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