2 weeks Ago
The image that greets visitors to the new exhibit at the Philbrook Museum of Art is one of artist Charles Willson Peale. It is a monumental self-portrait depicting Peale lifting a crimson curtain with one hand, revealing a huge room lined with images of American wildlife, while with the other hand appearing to beckon the viewer to step into the frame with him and explore. "The Artist in His Museum" depicts the museum that Peale opened in Philadelphia in 1784, which was started as a way to display some of the portraits of notable Americans, and soon evolved into a museum of natural history, another field in which Peale excelled.
Peale's museum ultimately failed, but another endeavor in which he played a major role — the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts — became the first art museum and arts school in the country. People are also reading..
. These 19 new restaurants are coming to the Tulsa area soon Tito Jackson of Jackson 5 dies Sheen in Zink Lake caused by natural phenomenon, city says Postal Service cancels plans to end local mail sorting in Tulsa Artist shares revised concept for Cry Baby Hill statue after public backlash OU's Patty Gasso gets historic pay raise, will make $2 million next season Bill Haisten: In Union’s victory over Jenks, there was more anger than scoring Fatal collision forces police to shut down traffic at 71st Street and Yale Man ran red light, causing fatal crash at 71st and Yale, Tulsa police say Teacher arrested while praying during 2020 Trump rally in Tulsa tells her story Barry Lewis: Officials made right call in Jenks-Union game, but there’s a larger issue here 'A ridiculous expenditure': Lloyd Noble II on the new OU arena as city council vote looms 'Patty transcends softball': OU unveils Gasso statue, honoring the winningest active coach in NCAA history Plan for $30 million in downtown improvements announced Teenager pulled from Tulsa Wave Park on Sunday More than 100 works of art from this institution make up the exhibit "American Artists, American Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts," which opens to the public Sept. 25 at Philbrook, 2727 S.
Rockford Road. "Philbrook is proud to be able to share these iconic works of American art with Tulsa," interim Executive Director Megan Nesbit said. "Museums play a crucial role in reflection and shaping our collective narrative, and exhibitions like 'American Artists, American Stories' help us to understand our shared, complex history, and to see a future full of potential.
" Peale and the other founders of the PAFA, said Philbrook curator Susan Green, "knew the importance of the arts, and that if this new republic was truly going to be any sort of country, it needed the arts." The academy helped to train generations of American as artists, while the museum pursued a vigorous collecting program that resulted in a wide-ranging collection that includes some of the most iconic paintings and famed artists in American art, as well as works by diverse artists whose works help present a more complete story about art in America. "The PAFA has made a point of collecting works by women and Black artists from the beginning," Green said.
"This exhibit, for example, includes a work by Joshua Johnson, who was the first Black artist in America to have a career as a painter, and a piece by Patience Wright, who was the first American-born woman sculptor." That diversity is on display at the start of the exhibit, as Peale's "The Artist in His Museum" is displayed between two 20th century works: "Self-Portrait" by Joan Brown, an artist noted for her bright colors and the highly personal symbolism that infused her work; and "J.S.
B. III," a portrait by Barkley L. Hendricks, one of the leading Black artists of the late 20th century.
"I think one of the things that people are going to be surprised by is the sheer size of many of these paintings," Green said. "Some of these things are absolutely massive." Green said the exhibit is arranged according to broad categories — portraits, historical paintings, landscapes, still-lifes, genre paintings — but within these broad designations are unique juxtapositions of certain works that are design to prompt deeper thoughts and conversations.
One example is Benjamin West's "The Treaty of Penn with the Indians," a mythology image of William Penn negotiating with leaders of the Lenape (Delaware) nation for the land that would become Pennsylvania. It is displayed next to one of the 60-odd versions of "The Peaceable Kingdom" by Quaker folk artist Edward Hicks, which includes an homage to West's painting within his depiction of predators and prey together. "Benjamin West was commissioned to do his painting by William Penn's son, as a way of bolstering the family's image, by presenting William Penn as this great peacemaker," Green said.
"And Hicks' adding West's image of Penn and the Indians in his work just emphasizes the mythology in these paintings." The exhibit includes images by such artists as Gilbert Stuart, Mary Cassatt, Edward Hopper, Anna Klumpke, Isamu Noguchi, Stuart Davis, Georgia O'Keeffe, Thomas Moran, Louise Nevelson and Andrew Wyeth. While most of the works are displayed in a conventionally modern way, a few dozen images fill the back wall of the Helmerich Exhibit Hall at Philbrook from floor to ceiling.
"We call this the Salon Wall, because this was the way art was often displayed in the 18th and 19th centuries," Green said. "We like to have a 'wow factor' element in all our shows, and this certainly fills that bill. "But it's also a way for visitors to take in all these works, and maybe make connections between certain images that we would not see," she said.
Green said what she has most enjoyed about bringing this show to Philbrook and preparing it for exhibition is discovering the stories behind the works on display, and of the artists who created them. One of those stories is of Mary Russell Smith, daughter of William T. Russell, a well-known Pennsylvania artist.
"Mary Smith was an artist herself, who was known for painting pictures of chickens," Green said. "That might sound a little odd, but she was fairly successful. She died at a relatively young age, but she bequeathed the money she had earned from her paintings of chickens and the like to fund a prize for women artists at the Pennsylvania Academy's annual exhibition.
" The prize was first awarded in 1879, and continued to be presented through 1968. "So generations of American women artists were able to earn recognition for their work because of Mary Russell Smith and all her paintings of chickens," Green said. The Tulsa World is where your story lives.
