James Tissot: Victorian Life / Modern Love

James Tissot: Victorian Life / Modern Love

Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

September 22 - November 28, 1999

Musée du Québec, Québec

December 16, 1999 - March 12, 2000

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo

March 25 - July 2, 2000

James Tissot: Victorian Life/Modern Love is the first major US retrospective in 30 years of the French artist James Tissot (1836-1902). Comprising approximately 40 paintings, 37 prints, and 20 watercolors and gouaches on loan from collections from around the world, the exhibition constitutes the most complete representation of James Tissot’s work in this country and celebrates his notable return to both popular and scholarly favor in recent years. The exhibition is organized by The American Federation of Arts and the Yale Center for British Art. 

Guest curator Malcolm Warner, Curator of Paintings and Sculpture, Yale Center for British Art, has arranged the exhibition into six thematic sections: Historical Subjects, Modern Life in France, Modern Life in Britain, Prints, La Femme à Paris, and Biblical Illustrations.

James Tissot gives prominence to the wry and urbane scenes of Victorian life for which the artist is best known. The exhibition presents a selection of James Tissot’s finest works with particular emphasis on his years in London, where he lived from 1871 to 1882. The paintings showcase his keen observations of the manners and fashions of his times. With remarkable technical virtuosity, he gently mocked what he admired, reveling in recording the minute details of contemporary finery.

In the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, Mr. Warner writes, "At the heart of James Tissot’s work as an artist lies the idea of the modern, that which makes the present time distinct in appearance and character from the past." In this setting, he portrayed the nuances of modern love: the drama of attraction, flirtation, passion, and loss, and the gestures through which they were expressed in Paris and London society.

James Tissot left London and returned to France in 1882, following the death of his beloved companion and favorite model, Kathleen Newton. Between 1883 and 1885, he created a series of fifteen large paintings titled La Femme à Paris. Like the canvases he created in London, these paintings hint at amorous intrigue while depicting scenes from the lives of Parisian women.

In 1886, still mourning the death of Mrs. Newton, Tissot experienced a vision of Christ and, consequently, a deepening of his religious ardor. From this turning point until his death, Tissot devoted himself to creating hundreds of works in a variety of mediums illustrating biblical stories. With their combination of mysticism and realism, these works struck a powerful chord with the public and were immensely popular in both exhibitions and in book form in Europe and North America.

While Tissot is not the kind of artist who features largely in general histories of art, his work is admired, studied, and collected all over the world, sometimes with cult-like devotion. According to Mr. Warner, the exhibition is designed to "present Tissot on his own terms, to bring out the intelligence, the inventiveness, and the humor that make him such a highly enjoyable artist."

JAMES TISSOT

Victorian Life/Modern Love

Published by the Yale Center for British Art 

and The American Federation of Arts

PUBLICATION - A fully illustrated catalogue, written by Malcolm Warner and Tissot scholar Nancy Rose Marshall accompanies the exhibition. James Tissot: Victorian Life/Modern Love is published by the Yale Center for British Art and The American Federation of Arts in association with Yale University Press, London. 208 pages, 9 x 10", 96 color and 31 black-and-white illustrations.

THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF ARTS

41 East 65th Street, New York, NY 10021

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Arthur Wesley Dow and American Arts & Crafts

Arthur Wesley Dow and American Arts & Crafts

Cantor Center for the Arts at Stanford University

July 14 - September 19, 1999

Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago

October 9, 1999 - January 2, 2000

Blanden Memorial Art Museum, Fort Dodge

July 7 - October 1, 2000

Arthur Wesley Dow and American Arts & Crafts is the first exhibition to examine the far-reaching effects of Arthur Wesley Dow's (1857-1922) influence as both an innovative artist and one of America's greatest art educators. It begins its national tour at the new Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University before traveling to the Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, and the Blanden Memorial Art Museum, Fort Dodge, Iowa.

The exhibition, organized by The American Federation of Arts with guest curator Nancy Green, chief curator, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, comprises eleven prints and four photographs by Arthur Wesley Dow and over 110 works in a variety of mediums by his students, disciples, and colleagues. Arthur Wesley Dow's influence extended to some of the leading painters, printmakers, photographers, ceramicists, and furniture-makers of the first half of the century. Those represented in the exhibition include painters Georgia O'Keeffe and Max Weber; printmaker Pedro de Lemos; photographers Alvin Langdon Coburn and Gertrude Käsebier; ceramicist Adelaide Alsop Robineau; Newcomb and Overbeck potteries; and the Byrdcliffe Colony, Woodstock, New York.

Throughout his lifetime, Arthur Wesley Dow developed a personal style that assimilated the influences of Japonisme, synthesism, and Impressionism, with a simplification of forms and a flattening of color. The exhibition is arranged chronologically to highlight the development of Arthur Wesley Dow's ideas and practices and their reflection in the work of his students.

In 1899, Arthur Wesley Dow produced Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and Teachers. The manual, a 1913 edition of which is included in the exhibition, was widely read and changed the way art was taught--from grade school to college level--for the next five decades. It is widely recognized as having laid the stylistic foundation for the American Arts & Crafts movement.

During a 30-year teaching career at such institutions as Columbia University Teachers College, the Art Students League, the Pratt Institute, and his own Ipswich Summer School of Art, Arthur Wesley Dow stressed the integration of mediums and, as he wrote in a preface to Composition, that the "study of composition of Line, Mass and Color leads to appreciation of all forms of art and the beauty of nature." His tenet, to create beautiful, finely crafted objects for both practical use and aesthetic contemplation, resonates in each work on view.

Arthur Wesley Dow and American Arts & Craft 

Published by The American Federation of Arts 

PUBLICATION - The catalogue accompanying the exhibition addresses Arthur Wesley Dow's influence on turn-of-the-century art, his contribution to the Arts & Crafts movement, and his commitment to teaching. Nancy Green's essay examines Dow's printmaking and the origins of the American Arts & Crafts style. Jessie Poesch, Professor Emerita, Tulane University, discusses American art pottery. Arthur Wesley Dow and American Arts & Crafts is published by The American Federation of Arts. 208 pages, 91/2 x 9", 142 color illustrations; hardcover.

THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF ARTS

41 East 65th Street, New York, NY 10021

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Maxfield Parrish, 1870-1966 - Retrospective Exhibition

Maxfield Parrish, 1870-1966

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia

June 19 - October 3, 1999 

The Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH 

November 6, 1999 - January 23 

Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY

February 19 - April 30, 2000 

Brooklyn Museum of Art

May 26 - August 6, 2000 

Maxfield Parrish, 1870-1966 is the first major critical retrospective devoted to one of the most popular artists of this century. Comprising over 100 paintings, drawings, prints, models, photographs, and ephemera, the exhibition is organized by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and The American Federation of Arts.

Sylvia Yount, Chief Curator, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, arranged the exhibition chronologically, highlighting the various phases of MaxParrish's prolific 70-year career, to examine the artist's reputation among colleagues, critics, and the public, within the context of American culture. The exhibition considers Parrish's historical importance, his enduring influence, and provides a critical reappraisal of the artist's work after his death.

Frederick Maxfield Parrish was born into Philadelphia's Quaker elite and encouraged from childhood to develop his talent by his father, Stephen (1848-1938), an acclaimed etcher and landscape painter. A student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1892 to 1894, Parrish came of age during a time when there was a flowering of artistic practices, including painting, sculpture, and the graphic arts as well as decorative arts, architecture, and landscape design. In her essay in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, Dr. Yount writes, "Encompassing both the Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts movements, this phenomenon [the so-called American Renaissance] challenged traditional artistic hierarchies of fine and applied arts, reconsidered the relationship between amateur and professional, and prompted a great deal of experimentation and collaboration in the art world. That Parrish's expansive artistic sensibility found expression in all these forms throughout his career marks him as an exemplary product of his age."

Designing magazine covers and posters, he illustrated books by L. Frank Baum and Kenneth Grahame, and a cover for a book by Edith Wharton. Iconic works, such as Princess Parizade Bringing Home the Singing Tree (1906), reveal his remarkable narrative skills and craftsmanship. School Days (Alphabet) (1909) and The Idiot (1910), commissioned by Collier's magazine, showcase his ingenious manipulation of formal layering and optical effects.

His lifelong interest in architecture, the decorative arts, and the theater informed his art. Although he frequently worked with amateur groups creating backdrops and set designs, his last known involvement with professional theater was a production of Snow White, for which he created the free-standing Gnome (c. 1916).

The 1920s witnessed an explosion of popular culture, from comic strips to jazz, and an accord between "low" and "high" art forms. This was a period of artistic experimentation in which Parrish achieved great success with his dream worlds and fantastical images of exotic and erotic innocence, typified by Interlude (The Lute Players) (1922). In 1925, three of his best-known paintings, including Daybreak (1922), sold for ten thousand dollars each, setting a record at the time for a living American artist.

Maxfield Parrish's fame continued to advance as his color reproductions were mass-produced and broadly circulated. He saw himself as a "public" artist and worked diligently to democratize art. Soon, his girls on rocks bathed in golden light, breathtaking landscapes, and images of youthful abandon were ubiquitous in American households. In 1936, Time magazine commented on his extraordinary public recognition with the report, "as far as the sale of expensive color reproductions is concerned, the three most popular artists in the world are van Gogh, Cézanne, and Maxfield Parrish."

From the 1930s and 1940s and until his death, his sole interest was in landscape painting, his first love. (His last figurative composition was a caricature of himself, Jack Frost, in 1936.) He focused on two distinctive regions associated with national authenticity, New England and the Southwest, to create a visual definition of American quintessence and a pairing of the Old World with the New.

Maxfield Parrish's posthumous revival occurred during the decade of Pop Art and the current postmodern period. According Dr. Yount, Parrish endures as "a Peter Pan figure in the art world–captivating the 'young at heart' of all ages."

PUBLICATION - In conjunction with the exhibition, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Harry N. Abrams, Inc. published Maxfield Parrish, 1870-1966. This richly illustrated catalogue addresses the artist's place in the history of American art and culture, challenging the artistic boundaries of "high" and "low" art. Dr. Yount's lead essay examines the enormous popularity of Parrish's work during his lifetime and today. Mark F. Bockrath, Paintings Conservator, the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, discusses the working methods and techniques used by the artist. 160 pages, 9 x 12", 81 color illustrations.

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF ARTS

41 East 65th Street, New York, NY 10021

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