Winslow Homer exhibition examines the relationship of his art to photography
This expansive exhibition includes more than 100 Homer paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and archival materials
Chadds Ford, PA, September 25, 2018 — This fall the Brandywine River Museum of Art will present Winslow Homer: Photography and the Art of Painting, exploring the surprising role photography played in the evolving practice of one of America’s most iconic artists. On view November 16, 2018 through February 17, 2019, the exhibition will feature approximately 50 paintings, prints, watercolors and drawings from all major periods of the artist’s career, as well as a comparable number of photographs collected by Homer.
Winslow Homer: Photography and the Art of Painting examines the role the relatively new medium of photography played in Homer's career. The exhibition presents a full picture of the artist’s working methods and includes noteworthy archival objects, such as two wooden dolls used as models, his palette and two of the three cameras he owned.
As a young artist for Harper’s Weekly during the Civil War, Homer utilized photographs as source material for some of his drawings, including Alexander Gardner’s famous photograph of Lincoln’s first inauguration—which provided Homer with the pictorial information he needed to construct his own detailed view of the event. This exhibition documents Homer’s post-Civil War travels to newly popular tourist destinations such as the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Catskills and Adirondacks of New York, and Cape Ann in Massachusetts. In his travels he was introduced to a new type of photography—commercially produced views to promote tourism. These photographs captured a moment in time and effects like glare, blur and shadow that the eye might not perceive. Homer quickly understood that photography could provide fresh, immediate perspectives that he could incorporate into his paintings.
During the last three decades of his life, Homer often created compositions of the same subject in different mediums including painting, printmaking and photography. His use of various media came from his interest in probing the way things look and the challenge of portraying them realistically. Homer often borrowed certain elements—the cropping, the blur of the background and the flatness of the composition—from photographic convention, yet his painting, based on unique optical experiences, was an artistic creation reflective of myriad decisions. To Homer, paintings had the potential to make a subject more clearly understood; photography added to that conversation about how to portray the world around him.
Organized by the Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA), Winslow Homer: Photography and the Art of Painting is curated by Frank H. Goodyear, BCMA co-director, and Dana E. Byrd, Bowdoin College Assistant Professor of Art History. The exhibition features a rich selection of work drawn from the BCMA’s incomparable holdings of Homer’s art and archival materials, and from more than 20 major institutions, including the Addison Gallery of American Art, the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Portland Museum of Art, and the Wadsworth Atheneum.
“Homer gave visual form to the American experience in the second half of the 19th century and has been highly influential to generations of artists, including many of those in the Brandywine’s collection,” said Thomas Padon, director of the Brandywine River Museum of Art. “Because of this, Winslow Homer: Photography and the Art of Painting will have particular resonance here, and we are thrilled to be the second and only other destination for this remarkable exhibition.”
An illustrated catalogue authored by Goodyear and Byrd and published by Yale University Press accompanies the exhibition. The catalogue serves as a significant contribution to the study of Winslow Homer and the cross-disciplinary study of painters and photography in American art.
The exhibition was made possible in part by Bank of America and is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. At the Brandywine, additional major sponsors include Linda L. Bean, the Robert J. Kleberg Jr. and Helen C. Kleberg Foundation, the Davenport Family Foundation, and William C. and Laura Buck.
About the Brandywine River Museum of Art:
The Brandywine River Museum of Art features an outstanding collection of American art housed in a 19th-century mill building with a dramatic steel and glass addition overlooking the banks of the Brandywine. The Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. (except Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day), and is located on Route 1 in Chadds Ford, PA. Admission is $18 for adults, $15 for seniors ages 65 and over, $6 for students and children ages 6 and up; free for children 5 and younger and Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art members. Guided tours of the Andrew Wyeth Studio, N. C. Wyeth House & Studio, and the Kuerner Farm—all National Historic Landmarks—are available daily (for an additional fee) from April 4 through November 18; advance reservations are recommended. For more information, call 610.388.2700 or visit brandywine.org/museum. The Museum is one of the two programs of the Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art.
About the Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art:
The Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art preserves and promotes the natural and cultural connections between the area’s beautiful landscape, historic sites, and important artists. The Conservancy protects the lands throughout the Brandywine Valley, developing new conservation approaches and assuring access to majestic open spaces and dependable water supplies for generations to come. The Museum of Art presents and collects historic and contemporary works of American art, engaging and exciting visitors of all ages through an array of exhibitions and programs. The Brandywine unites the inspiring experiences of art and nature, enhancing the quality of life in its community and among its diverse audiences.
About the Bowdoin College Museum of Art:
The collections of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art are among the most comprehensive of any college museum in the United States. Collecting commenced over 200 years ago with a major gift from the College’s founder James Bowdoin III and his family that included Gilbert Stuart’s magnificent portraits of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The Museum is housed in the landmark Walker Art Building, designed in 1894 by Charles Follen McKim. Located on the historic quadrangle of Bowdoin College, the building is graced by murals by John La Farge, Kenyon Cox, Elihu Vedder, and Abbott Thayer. A $20.8-million renovation and expansion in 2007 provided a stunning setting for objects as diverse as monumental Assyrian reliefs from Nimrud, Iraq; European Old Master paintings; and works by American modernists. The Museum is the centerpiece of Bowdoin’s vibrant arts and culture community and offers a wealth of academic and educational programs.
Fully accessible, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art is open to the public free of charge from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday through Saturday; 10:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday; and from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday.
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Presenting Wyeth & American Art