'Luminist Horizons: The Art And Collection Of James A. Suydam'

New York City

:It is not often these days that a previously neglected, highly accomplished Nineteenth Century American painter is rediscovered, much less that his superb collection of works by like-minded colleagues comes to public attention. Yet that is the case with "Luminist Horizons: The Art and Collection of James A. Suydam" currently on view at the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts through December 31.

The exhibition introduces most viewers to Suydam (1819–1865), a masterful landscape painter, and the rich collection he acquired — and gave the National Academy of Design, predecessor of the National Academy Museum — works by himself and distinguished friends and colleagues. It also provides insights into the oft-misunderstood Luminist movement.

Displayed are nearly 20 of Suydam's beautifully composed, serene canvases, along with 35 works by such Hudson River School and Luminist compatriots as Frederic Church, Jasper Cropsey, Asher B. Durand, Sanford Gifford, William Hart, Daniel Huntington, Eastman Johnson, John F. Kensett, William Trost Richards and Worthington Whittredge. Many of these artists formed a circle of Suydam friends, who influenced each other's work and charted new paths for landscape painting.

The first major exhibition in a quarter century to examine Luminism, the show offers a fresh, individual perspective on the development of that landscape aesthetic in the 1850s and 1860s. It suggests the manner in which Luminists, with their expressive depictions of the effects of light and atmosphere, advanced American art at a crucial period in the nation's history. For a nation torn asunder by the Civil War, Suydam and his peers created beautiful images filled with peace, order and stability, whose appeal endures to this day.

Suydam (pronounced "soo-DAM") came late to painting and collecting. Born in Manhattan into a wealthy merchant family, he dabbled in medicine and architecture, traveled extensively in Europe and became a businessman in New York before he began painting landscapes in the late 1840s. His pride in his Dutch heritage was reflected in his purchase of Eastman Johnson's charming "The Art Lover," 1859, depicting a Dutch child perusing an illustrated book.