Faces & Flowers: Painting on Lenox China February 19th to June 28, 2009 Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature University of Richmond Museums The University of Richmond Museums presents Faces & Flowers: Painting on Lenox China on view from February 19 through June 28, 2009, in the Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature. The exhibition includes more than seventy objects made by Ceramic Art Company/Lenox China and drawn from public and private collections, featuring china plates, vases, and decorative wares with exquisite paintings of orchids, figures, idealized women, and landscapes.
Walter Scott Lenox (American, 1859-1920) started the Ceramic Art Company in 1889 in Trenton, New Jersey (becoming Lenox China in 1906), with the ambition to achieve “the perfection of American porcelain.” His goal was to make art, and he chose the best artisans he could find — specialists in clay bodies, firing techniques, design, and decorating. Lenox recruited for his company the premier European, English, and American porcelain painters of his time, including Bruno Geyer (Austrian, active late 19th – early 20th century), William Morley (British, circa 1869-1934), and Sturgis Laurence (American, 1870-1961). In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries china painters mixed their own colors by grinding metallic oxides — such as blue from cobalt, green from copper, and yellow from antimony — to powder form and combining them with ground glass and a variety of aromatic oils that provided the medium for laying the colors on a glazed porcelain surface. The plates were embellished with gold and enamel decorative borders adding visual interest and opulence to the final product. The quality and creativity shown in the wares from Ceramic Art Company/Lenox China surpassed the best porcelain produced in the Old World at the time. The exhibition highlights the remarkable talents of Lenox’s china painters with works by the firm’s leading artists made for some of America’s foremost citizens, including orchid fancier Charles G. Roebling, son of the great bridge builder, and Newark industrialist Franklin Murphy, who was governor of New Jersey from 1902 to 1905. In her catalogue essay, Ellen Denker states, “Paintings on china offer the confluence of many arts and sciences — the form and substance of translucent porcelain enhanced by idealized nature rendered in metallic oxides. Few entrepreneurs, fearing the costs and disappointments of failure, have yielded to the siren call of creating exquisitely painted porcelain, but many connoisseurs desire the results and are willing to pay dearly for the privilege of possession.” Organized and circulated by the University of Richmond Museums, the exhibition was curated by Ellen Denker, an independent scholar. An illustrated catalogue with an essay by the curator and published by the University of Richmond Museums is available. Following its venue at the Lora Robins Gallery, the exhibition will be on view at the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina, from August 28, 2009, through January 31, 2010. Programming - Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 7 to 9 p.m. 7 p.m., Lecture and exhibition walk-through, Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature Faces & Flowers: American Painting on Porcelain Ellen Denker, independent scholar and curator of the exhibition 8 to 9 p.m., Reception and preview of Faces & Flowers: Painting on Lenox China Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature - Friday, February 20, 2009, 2 to 4 p.m., Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature China Painting Workshop taught by Amy Talley, educator and owner of All Fired Up, a ceramics studio in Carytown, Richmond In this hands-on painting workshop, create your own painted china plate. Limited space, pre-register by calling Heather Campbell, Curator of Museum Programs, University of Richmond Museums, at 804-287-6324, or email hcampbel@richmond.edu All programs are free and open to the public. Video of the lecture Faces & Flowers: American Painting on Porcelain by Ellen Denker, independent scholar and curator of the exhibition.