Editor's note: The Tampa Museum of Art provided source material to Resource Library for the following article or essay. If you have questions or comments regarding the source material, please contact the Tampa Museum of Art directly through either this phone number or web address:



 

Frederic Church, Winslow Homer and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape

January 6 - April 1, 2007

 

Frederic Church, Winslow Homer and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape will explore the promotion of tourism in 19th-century America. (right: Winslow Homer (American, 1836-1910), Man with a Knapsack, 1873, Brush and oil paint on canvas. Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Mrs. Charles Savage Homer, Jr. 1918-20-1)

The exhibition will demonstrate the roles of these 19th-century landscape works in the broader context of design, particularly the decorative arts and graphic design, and will offer a new perspective on the study of these American artists. Seventy landscape paintings, oil sketches and drawings will be featured in the exhibition, with 46 examples of decorative arts and ephemera -- such as books, brochures, broadsides, and stereoviews -- to illustrate the connections between the disciplines of social, cultural and economic history with those of art and design history. Oil paintings, sketches and drawings by Church (American, 1826-1900) and Homer (American, 1836-1910), and watercolors by Moran (American, 1837-1926) capture romanticized views of Niagara Falls, Maine, the Catskills, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and other scenic locations.

The artists' works, which were seen through exhibitions, reproductions, popular journals, illustrated publications and guidebooks stimulated national interest in these regions and contributed to a burgeoning tourist industry. By the second half of the 19th century, as incomes grew and working people enjoyed more leisure hours, scenic touring became accessible to middle-class as well as wealthy Americans, increasing the market for prints, photographs and other tourist souvenirs. (right: Winslow Homer (American, 1836-1910), Girl Picking Apple Blossoms, 1879, Brush and oil paint on canvas. Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Mrs. Charles Savage Homer, Jr.1918-20-7)

The Frederic Church, Winslow Homer and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape exhibition will feature three separate geographical areas of America's landscape -- New York, including the Adirondacks, the Catskills, and Niagara Falls; New England, including Bar Harbor and Prout's Neck, Maine, as well as the White Mountains of New Hampshire; and the West, including Yellowstone and Yosemite. The exhibition will explore such themes as: the pastoral ideal, particularly Homer's glorification of rural life through depictions of bucolic fantasy; the role of Moran and other artists in the promotion of Western tourism through the creation of iconic images of natural wonders such as the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone; and the contradictory nature of scenic tourism, where overdevelopment of rural mountain and seashore retreats challenged the pristine landscape that Americans seemed to prize.

Frederic Church, Winslow Homer and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape is organized by Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution. The exhibition was made possible in part by the generosity of Enid and Lester Morse. Support was provided by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State agency, Stephen McKay, Inc., Furthermore: a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, and Movado. Additional support was provided by W. Leslie Duffy, Margery and Edgar Masinter, Susan and Jon Rotenstreich, Mr. and Mrs. Frederic A. Sharf, Mr. and Mrs. Richard J. Schwartz, and Larry and Janet Larose. Local support for the exhibition is provided by Sabal Trust Company of St. Petersburg, FL, and the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Board of County Commissioners.

The members' opening reception is scheduled for Friday, January 5 from 6 - 9 p.m.; Patron members from 6 - 7 p.m.; all other members from 7 - 9 p.m. An accompanying exhibition catalog will be available in the Tampa Museum of Art's Guilders Museum Store.

 

(above: Thomas Moran (American, 1837-1926), Cliffs of the Rio Virgin, South Utah, 1873, Brush and watercolor, white gouache, over graphite on light brown wove paper. Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Thomas Moran 1917-17-20)

 

(above: Frederic E. Church (American, 1826-1901), Niagara from Goat Island, Winter, March, 1856, Brush and oil paint on paperboard. Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Louis P. Church, 1917-4-765-a)

rev. 1/6/07

Editor's note: readers may also enjoy from Distinguished Artists, over 2,600 historic American painters including:

Read more articles and essays concerning this institutional source by visiting the sub-index page for the Tampa Museum of Art in Resource Library.


Visit the Table of Contents for Resource Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art, calendars, and much more.

Copyright 2007 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights reserved.