: From October 16 to January 9, the Princeton University Art Museum
will present a major retrospective of works from its acclaimed
collection of American drawings and watercolors, which is
recognized as one of the richest and most comprehensive of its
kind.
"West to Wesselmann: American Drawings and Watercolors in the
Princeton University Art Museum" will feature 77 masterpieces on
paper by American artists from the Eighteenth through the
Twentieth Century.
Princeton's collection of American drawings and watercolors,
established in the 1930s by the museum's first director, Frank
Jewett Mather Jr, charts all of the major stylistic developments.
Among the artists and movements featured in the collection and
exhibition are Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley; the
Hudson River School; Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins; Gilded Age
artists Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent; the Ashcan School;
the Steiglitz circle, including a Georgia O'Keeffe pastel;
realists Charles Burchfield, Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth;
post-World War II artists Jackson Pollock, Claes Oldenburg, David
Smith, and Tom Wesselmann; and contemporary artists Lee Bontecou
and Alex Katz.
The exhibition will travel to the Musée d'Art Américain, Giverny
from April 1 to July 3, and The High Museum of Art from April 3
to June 25, 2006.
Presenting a roughly chronological survey of American art, the
exhibition begins with early works that illustrate two principal
subject areas of the time: the human figure and the native
landscape. These themes are reflected in representative works
from Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley, and a group of
early landscape drawings from the first generation of the Hudson
River School, including a sketchbook by Thomas Cole that places
Princeton among the leading institutions for the study of this
artist.
Princeton's drawings from the mature years of the Hudson River
School by artists such as John Frederick Kensett, George Inness
and Jasper Francis Cropsey offer a rich sampling of
representative works. The exhibition also highlights examples by
later practitioners, notably William Trost Richards and Charles
Herbert Moore, as the school evolved into the Luminist and
Pre-Raphaelite movements.
The exhibition features important works from the second half of
the Nineteenth Century by some of the great masters of American
painting, including Winslow Homer, who is represented by two of
his finest watercolors, "The Trysting Place," 1875, and "Eastern
Point Light," 1880. In addition, the collection includes an
equally important watercolor by Thomas Eakins, "Seventy Years
Ago," 1877.
A notable group of American drawings at Princeton consists of
works by major artists who were familiar with international
stylistic currents at the turn of the Nineteenth Century.
Highlighting the period of the Gilded Age is a radiant Tahitian
watercolor by John La Farge, and a pastel of a young woman by
Mary Cassatt. A late watercolor by John Singer Sargent, "The
Tyrol," 1914, displays both his bravura brush techniques
and an unusual sense of abstract form and composition.
A selection of works from the Ashcan School emphasizes a
particular strength of the Princeton collection, including a
major pastel of a New York snow scene by Everett Shinn.
Representative works by many of the Stieglitz circle and by later
regionalists or realists, such as Charles Burchfield, Edward
Hopper, Ben Shahn and Andrew Wyeth, extend the collection's
chronological scope through the first half of the Twentieth
Century. Leading African American graphic artist Charles White is
represented by the museum's portrait of the actor and singer Paul
Robeson.
Princeton's collection of modern works includes important
examples of Abstract Expressionism, beginning with drawings by
Arshile Gorky and Jackson Pollock. The culminating phase of the
New York School is represented in drawings from the 1950s by
Stuart Davis, Robert Motherwell and David Smith. Three classic
Pop art images featured are Tom Wesselmann's "Study for Still
Life, #22," 1962, Claes Oldenburg's "B Tree (for Alfred
Barr)," 1969, and Wayne Thiebaud's "Study for Big
Peppermint Painting," 1969-70.
The exhibition concludes essentially where it begins, with the
human figure, as represented in selections by contemporary
artists Eric Fischl and Sidney Goodman.
The museum is in the center of the Princeton University
campus, next to Prospect House and Gardens. For information,
609-258-3788 or PrincetonArtMuseum.org.
