The museums have strengthened the variety of historical works in the collection through the recent acquisition of prints by William Hogarth (British, 1697-1764), Wenzel Hollar (Bohemian, 1607-1677), and an etching by Laurent Cars (French, 1684-1721) after the French artist Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1792). From fanciful studies of nature to detailed scenes of life in the eighteenth century, the new works emphasize the museums’ extensive range of subject matter, style, and origin. New at the Harnett also presents works by influential American artists, such as Kenneth Hayes Miller (1876-1952), Reginald Marsh (1898-1954), and Isabel Bishop (1902-1988). These artists are representative of the American Scene style, emerging in the early twentieth century, with their monumentalizing portrayals of the working class and urban street-life in New York City.
Selected works by Fritz Scholder (American, 1937-2005), Markus Linnenbrink (German, born 1961), and Edna Andrade (American, 1917-2008) represent the museums’ vast range of contemporary holdings. Widely differing in technique, these prints illustrate the various processes of the print medium, whether through Andrade’s screenprints of precise geometric forms or Scholder’s vivid lithographs of Native Americans. Added to the collection in 2010, Brice Marden’s (American, born 1938) Distant Muses is an example of the gestural abstraction that typifies the artist’s minimalist style of intertwining lines.
Also emphasized in the exhibition is the Harnett Print Study Center’s expansion of its collection of photography. The work of Ralph Gibson (American, born 1939) focuses on the use of high contrast as a means of intensifying the surreal qualities of everyday objects, such as the top of a hat or the curved edges of a guitar. As depicted in the 1972 photograph Perfect Future, the unusual perspective and the juxtaposition between light and dark transforms the geometric lines of a street into an image that is both mysterious and dynamic. Additionally featured are color photographs by Richard Ross (American, born 1947) and Polaroids by Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987).
Other significant works in the exhibition are Avel de Knight’s (American, 1921-1995) World War II sketchbook, a detailed engraving by Simon Dinnerstein (American, born 1943) titled Angela’s Garden, the exotic painting Witness and Woodpeckers by Hunt Slonem (American, born 1951), and a pair of evocative landscape watercolors by Hans Friedrich Grohs (German, 1892-1981).
Recent acquisitions to the museums’ permanent collection include donations by organizations such as the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Center Street Studio Archives, LCCM Ltd., the Richmond Public Library, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Gifts have also been received from many individual patrons, including Stan Brodsky, Carolyn Bullard and Susan Schulman, Joseph Czestochowski, Simon Dinnerstein, Charles and Moira Geoffrion, Ray Kass, James Kearney, Evgeny Orlov, Charles and Virginia Ritchie, Henry and Pat Shane, Brook Smith, Andrew Stasik, and Fletcher Stiers.
Organized by the University of Richmond Museums, the exhibition was co-curated by Richard Waller, Executive Director, University of Richmond Museums, and Dayle Wood, ’11, art history major, University of Richmond, and the 2010 Harnett Summer Research Fellow, University Museums.
Friday, September 24, 2010, 2 p.m.
Curator’s Talk, Harnett Museum of Art, Modlin Center for the Arts
New at the Harnett: Examining the Museum’s Recent Acquisitions
Dayle Wood, ’11, art history major, University of Richmond, 2010 Harnett Summer Research Fellow, and curator of the exhibition New at the Harnett
