William Gropper (American, 1897–1977), "Art Opening,” about 1959, oil on canvas, 32 by 22 inches. Gift of Paul M. Kaminsky.
:Founded by the Dutch as New Amsterdam in 1624, New York City was renamed by the English in honor of the Duke of York. Originally consisting only of Manhattan Island, it was rechartered in 1898 to include the five present-day boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.
The Norton Museum is celebrating the life, architecture and landscape of New York City with two concurrent exhibitions: "George Segal: Street Scenes," through December 6, and "New York, New York: The 20th Century," through December 27.
George Segal (1924–2000) is considered one of the most important and influential American artists of the Twentieth Century. He started his signature life-size sculptures in the early 1960; using friends and families as models, he draped bandages soaked in plaster over their bodies and let the bandages dry in place.
Working on one section at a time, he removed the hardened lifelike shapes and later reassembled the pieces with found objects to create contemplative tableaux documenting the quiet introspective moments in life.
George Segal, "The Diner,” 1964–66, plaster, wood, chrome, laminated plastic, Masonite, fluorescent lamp, glass, paper, 93¾ by 144¼ by 96 inches. ©The George and Helen Segal Foundation/licensed by VAGA, New York. Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Gift of the T.B. Walker Foundation, 1966.
"Street Scenes" is the first exhibition to focus on the sculptor's exploration of the urban environment; he was born and raised in New York City, and his interaction with the city and his ability to quietly observe and capture the urban sphere were central to his sculpture.
Conceived as a counterpoint to "Street Scenes," "New York, New York: The 20th Century" features more than 50 paintings, photographs, sculptures and works on paper that capture New York's unique metropolitan sphere and the human interaction with it.
The artistic interpretations and documentations of this remarkable city range in style and date from Childe Hassam's American Impressionism to Edward Hopper's American scene painting and Edward Steichen's Tonalist photographs to the large-scale contemporary photographs of Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao.
The imagery in "New York, New York" is centered on some of the most notable and beloved features of the city, which can be seen in each of the five themes: "On the Waterfront," "Avenues and Streets," "In the Park," "On the Town" and "Tall Buildings."
The Norton Museum is at 1451 South Olive Avenue. For more information,
www.norton.org
or 561-832-5196.
