E. Ambrose Webster (1869‱935), the major American modernist whose brilliant landscape paintings even today remain innovative, is the focus of two exhibitions and a new 240-page monograph, E. Ambrose Webster: Chasing the Sun by Gail Scott, published by Hudson Hills.
The exhibitions at Babcock Galleries (“E. Ambrose Webster: Chasing the Sun,” November 13⁄ecember 19) and at the Greenville County Museum of Art (“E. Ambrose Webster: Pioneer Modernist,” November 19⁆ebruary 22) offer selections of his finest work and constitute a significant revelation and rediscovery.
Webster was an artist on the forefront of Modern art in America. In 1913, he was selected, along with fellow artists Edward Hopper, Charles Demuth and Marsden Hartley, as exemplifying a new Modern aesthetic and worthy of representing America in the famed International Exhibition of Modern Art, more commonly known as the Armory Show. He exhibited regularly at major national and international exhibitions, and participated, along with Gerald Murphy and Patrick Henry Bruce, in the 1925 Exposition Internationale L’Art d’Aujourd’hui conducted in Paris.
A lifelong New England artist, Webster was born January 31, 1869, in Chelsea, Mass.. After studying in Paris, in 1900 he permanently established himself in Provincetown, Mass. Located on the northernmost tip of Cape Cod, Provincetown provided Webster with much inspiration through the brilliant light that saturated its landscapes, seen in works such as “Provincetown Garden,” 1916.
Shortly after his arrival, Webster established a summer art school, and along with Charles Hawthorne, Edwin Dickinson and others, was a founder of the Provincetown Art Association and was instrumental in initiating a lively artistic community in the small fishing village.
Babcock Galleries is at 724 Fifth Avenue in New York City; for information, www.babcockgalleries.com or 212-767-1852. The Greenville County Museum of Art is at 420 College Street in Greenville; for information, www.greenvillemuseum.org or 864-271-7570.
