'Observation &
Creation:
One of two still lifes by Raphaelle Peale (1774-1825) in the
current exhibtion at Hirschl & Adler Galleries.
NEW YORK CITY - Hirschl & Adler Galleries will exhibit
"Observation & Creation: 200 Years of the Still Life," an
exhibition of approximately 65 paintings, drawings, prints and
decorative arts objects illustrating still life subjects from
1810 to the present. Depictions of fruits, flowers and trompe
l'oeil subjects by both European and American fine and decorative
artists will comprise this exhibition. The exhibition continues
through April 26.
Still life painting in America had its earliest flowering during
the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century. The show includes
"Still Life of Fruit, Pitcher and Pretzel" and "Table Top Still
Life with Jug and Fish," a pair of paintings by Raphaelle Peale
(1774-1825). By the mid-Nineteenth Century, such German-born
artists as Adelheid Dietrich (1827-?) and Severin Roesen (circa
1815-1872) took cues from their home country's long still life
tradition to create elaborate, meticulously rendered fruit and
flower pieces. Dietrich's "Autumnal Still Life with Fruit and
Flowers," 1866, and Roesen's monumental "Still Life of Flowers
and Fruit," circa 1870-72, brim with the harvests of field and
garden.
Johan Laurentz Jensen (1800-1856), known as the father of Danish
still life painting, brought consummate skill to complex floral
arrangements like "Still Life with Rhododendrons, a Poppy, Peony
and an Iris in a Greek Red-Figure Vase," 1841, while the
Frenchman Pierre-Joseph Redoute (1759-1840) infuses his flower
portraits with a scientific accuracy.
"Observation & Creation" also includes porcelain painting,
which sowed the seeds of many a still life artist's career.
(Jensen, in fact, began his career as a porcelain painter for the
Royal Copenhagen Manufactory). A monumental pair of "Old Paris"
crater form vases with garlands of flowers by the Parisian firm
Darte Freres, produced about 1820 demonstrate the peak of
decorative painting and gilding on porcelain in France during the
Neo-classical period.
The art of porcelain painting in America is also represented by a
pair of pitchers by the Tucker Factories of Philadelphia, the
first successful manufacturer of porcelain in the United States.
Included in the exhibition is John Frederick Peto's (1854-1907)
"Letter Rack on Black Door," an example of trompe l'oeil.
American artists such as Peto, William Michael Harnett
(1848-1892) and De Scott Evans (1847-1898) also produced
intriguing and often playful compositions.
Into the Twentieth Century, artists continued to explore the
still life genre. Preston Dickinson (1889-1930), for example, in
his pastel, "Still Life with Candle," demonstrates the influence
of Cubism on American modernism, while Charles Sheeler's
(1883-1965) lithograph "Roses," displays a precisionist restraint
and elegance characteristic of his work of the 1920s.
Hirschl & Adler Galleries is open Tuesday through Friday,
from 9:30 am to 5:15 pm and Saturdays, from 9:30 am to 4:45 pm,
or by appointment. For information, 212-535-8810 or
www.hirschlandadler.com.
