: Lyman Allyn Art Museum will open a new exhibition, "Gilbert
Munger: Quest for Distinction," on Friday, September 24.
This traveling exhibition, organized by the Tweed Museum of Art
in Duluth, Minn., showcases the work of lesser-known Hudson River
School artist Gilbert Munger. Born in 1837 in Madison, Conn.,
Munger was an artist, as well as an explorer who met with success
painting the dramatic landscapes of the American West and Europe.
Munger was the ultimate self-made man, becoming quite skilled at
self-promotion as he forged his own path into the "high society"
of late Nineteenth Century artists, collectors, critics and
scientists.
Between 1869 and 1877, Munger established a solid reputation in
New York, St Paul and San Francisco as a skilled painter of
landscapes that were both scientifically accurate and
aesthetically pleasing. On the advice of English patrons, he
relocated to London, where his fame grew.
Painting in France in the mid-1880s, Munger successfully
negotiated a stylistic transformation, from the distant and
detached views of the Hudson River School to the intimate, moody
and emotional style advocated by artists of the Barbizon School.
The paintings Munger created in the last decade of his life,
after he returned to America, clearly demonstrated his success at
absorbing, mastering and often surpassing the stylistic
conventions of his day.
On September 24, at 6:30 pm, as a part of the opening reception,
Michael D. Schroeder, co-author of the exhibition catalog and
developer of the Gilbert Munger website, will present a lecture
on the life of Munger. Schroeder is a computer scientist formerly
on the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The
opening reception from 5:30 to 7:30 pm is open to the public and
free for members; for nonmembers, a $5 donation is requested.
The exhibition catalog by Schroeder and J. Gray Sweeney titled
Gilbert Munger: Quest for Distinction will be on sale at
the museum. The exhibition will be on view through December 5.
Lyman Allyn Art Museum is at 625 Williams Street. For
information, 860-443-2545 or www.
