: With the restoration of the Heckscher's historic building slated
to commence next year, the museum is kicking off its 85th
anniversary celebration with "A Century of Collecting" - an
exhibition showcasing the riches of its permanent collection.
Opening on September 18 and running through November 14, "A
Century of Collecting" will be hung salon-style, floor to
ceiling, throughout the building.
In lieu of a traditional chronological installation, the
exhibition will be hung thematically, with engaging - and
sometimes unorthodox - groupings such as Horsefeathers, Arcades,
Line, Gesture, Geometries, Home and Away, Leisure Time,
Travelogue and Figuration. Each offers intriguing juxtapositions
of art spanning centuries, media, nationality and style.
Transcendent landscapes by American masters Thomas Moran,
Frederic Church and Asher Durand hang cheek by jowl with modern
masterpieces by George Luks and Marsden Hartley. The linear
aspects of a Sixteenth Century Cranach "Madonna" can be compared
to Twentieth Century Modernism by abstract pioneers Arthur Dove
and Stuart Davis.
Paintings by renowned colorists Joseph Albers and Richard
Anuszkiewicz partner with one of the newest acquisitions - an
exquisite luminal sculpture by the contemporary artist Keith
Sonnier. Photographs by Twentieth Century masters Eduard Steichen
and Berenice Abbott will join stunning images by regional
photographers, who have created classic images of New York in the
1950s and 60s. Raphael Soyer's haunting oil painting of "Seated
Nude" will find a fey counterpart in Eli Nadelman's small-scale
sculpture of a more well-rounded model.
The possibilities are endless: dignified Eighteenth Century
British portraits and biting figure studies by George Grosz;
Milton Avery and Edward Moran; Thomas Eakins and Fairfield
Porter; William Merritt Chase and Georgia O'Keeffe; Berenice
Abbott and Eduard Steichen; Ralph Blakelock and Winslow Homer;
Albert Bierstadt and Paul Resika; Maurice Prendergast and Helen
Torr; J. Alden Weir and Florine Stettheimer; Jean-Leon Gerome and
Abraham Walkowitz; and Salvador Dali and Ray Johnson will create
visual feasts.
Paintings, sculpture, drawings and photographs on view range form
Old Master to contemporary - reflecting the depth and breadth of
the museum's permanent collection that has now grown to more than
2,000 objects. Art collected by founder August Heckscher a
century ago - on view here when the museum opened its doors in
1920 - will be complemented by objects acquired over the 85
intervening years, right down to the most recent additions.
"A Century of Collecting" offers a romp through some of the
Heckscher's most compelling works, from intimate drawings that
seduce with the delicacy to oil paintings heroic in scale and
concept, from extraordinary Baroque sculpture to 7-foot-tall Paul
Manship lamps.
The Heckscher will also offer public programs that focus on the
"art of collection," as well as concerts and adult and children's
programs designed to complement this extraordinary exhibition.
The museum is in Heckscher Park, Main Street (Route 25A) and
Prime Avenue. For information, 631-351-3250, email at
info@heckscher.org or online at www.heckscher.org.
