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Blanketed in Snow: American Winter Scenes 12/6/1997 - 2/15/1998 The compelling poetry of the American winter, captured by prominent early 20th century American artists, is the subject of the exhibition Blanketed in Snow: American Winter Scenes, at the Norton Museum of Art December 7, 1997 through February 8, 1998. Blanketed in Snow appears as a companion exhibition to George Bellows: Love of Winter, providing a historical context in which to place Bellows's work. The outstanding paintings, works on paper and photographs in Blanketed in Snow depict the great variety of responses of Bellows's American contemporaries to common themes that Bellows himself painted: the new American city and the natural beauty of winter. Artists in the exhibition include Robert Henri, George Biddle, Colin Cooper, William Glackens, Alfred Stieglitz, Ernest Lawson, and Everett Shinn. Robert Henri was part of an informal but active independent movement by artists that arose from a frustration with the conservative National Academy. Henri returned to New York in 1900, after spending two years in Paris, determined to establish himself as a painter. Henri's interest in color harmonies can be seen in East River Embankment, Winter. In this painting, which is comprised almost entirely of muted green and yellow ocher, objects are simply defined in rapid strokes of blacks and browns. Henri's group of artists, known as "The Eight," included Ernest Lawson, William Glackens and Everett Shinn. Ernest Lawson studied art in Paris with the American, John Henry Twachtman, and his version of Impressionism stems from both these sources. Lawson applied paint thickly, creating a crusted surface which has been likened to crushed jewels. William Glackens delighted in capturing the mix of people as they were enjoying leisure activities or celebrating holidays. In Sledding, Central Park, 1912, he creates a vibrantly colored work that is at once Impressionistic and Modernist in its execution. Colin Campbell Cooper, who was much praised at the beginning of the twentieth century as one of America's greatest painters of the city, invests these historic architectural structures with a particular sense of quiet majesty and distinctive charm -- especially in relation to early skyscrapers, which were just then beginning to define the modern American cityscape. In Wall Street Facing Trinity Church, Cooper gives us a snow-laden view of this world-famous street on the west side of lower Manhattan. The influence of photography as a medium became more and more evident at the beginning of the 20th century. As a pioneer of modern photography, Alfred Stieglitz is recognized for having championed photography as a graphic medium equal in stature to high art, while avidly fostering the growth of the cultural vanguard in New York in the early twentieth century. His work, along with works by artist such as Alvin Coburn and Jesse Beals, used black and white photography to create a new dimension to the depiction of winter.  |
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The Norton Museum
of Art is a major cultural attraction in Florida.
The Museum is internationally known for its distinguished permanent
collection featuring
19th and 20th century European and American art, Chinese, contemporary art and photography.
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