New Britain Museum of American Art

Today I pulled another audible and went to the New Britain Museum of American Art. I replaced the Florence Griswold Museum on my schedule (side note, I checked their website and they seem to not allow photography in the galleries, so I feel a trip there would defeat the purpose). I visited the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art last Saturday, and I planned on writing up my visit there tonight instead, but, man, I need to reprocess my thoughts on some of that contemporary art. But anyways..

Stock photo of museum exterior because I forgot to take one
due to child-related emergency on the way out.

The four of us went to the New Britain Museum of American Art this morning, and I have to say out of every museum trip that the four of us have been on, this museum was the most accommodating for the purpose of the class and having toddlers in tow. I think this may have been my favorite museum trip so far; there is a wealth of local art on display! It was a bit colder today, and my daughter does not like to leave her shoes on. We actually only saw the first floor (which is large, to say the least) and the contemporary exhibit on the second floor because we lost one of her shoes somewhere in the galleries and they both had mini meltdowns. So, we decided after almost 100 photos, it was okay to move past the Dennis Hopper photo exhibit (Sorry, Dennis, still a big fan of Speed though!).

The New Britain Museum of American art was founded in 1903. The museum is actually the first museum of strictly American art in the country. Much of the work in display is surprisingly homegrown; I was amazed at the fact that much of the exhibits were produced by Connecticut-based artists! John Butler Talcott, an industrialist and one of the founders of the museum (we will see a portrait further into the paper) donated a gift of $20,000 in gold bonds to purchase (for the time) modern oil paintings. The museum's complement of art numbers 8,300, and according to the museum's site, "With particular strengths in colonial portraiture, the Hudson River School, American Impressionism, and the Ash Can School, not to mention the important mural series The Arts of Life in America by Thomas Hart Benton, the museum relies heavily on its permanent collection for exhibitions and programming, yet also displays a significant number of borrowed shows and work by emerging artists." (http://www.nbmaa.org/museum-of-american-art/about) I have to say, as a fan of regional landscape, their collection from the Hudson River School is amazing! Thomas Hart Benton's mural that the museum houses is something to behold as well.


So Kiya's report on the museum showed us  the guard statue in the entrance. Because of her report, I was aware of the silent sentinel, but my wife had no idea why this guard was standing there, not holding the door for anyone. Having seen this up  close myself today. I was impressed with its life-like quality. The artist Mark Sijan created this piece in 2006 with polyresin, acrylics, acids and oil paints. His goal was hyperrealism, and I'd say mission accomplished! Looking back at the statue  as I write this, I'm still left wondering if the uniform is real clothing or it if was art of the work...


In the first gallery of portraits, I saw these two portraits side by side that were similar, yet, one was a more updated (and odd twist) on the original. The source piece is Gentleman With Negro Attendant, by Ralph Earl, 1785-1788. The painting depicts an unknown gentleman with his house boy, slave, attendant, however you'd like to classify the young boy. The placard mentions that Ralph Earl had studied with Benjamin West (whom I had previously mentioned my fascination with his inclusion in the Yale British Gallery and the fact that his piece looked like wholesale theft of John Trumbull).

Directly next to the original portrait is an updated "remix" of sorts. Titus Kaphar in 2011 duplicated the work, updated the style, and did something very interesting in that he removed all inclusion of Caucasian focus in the painting and made the young boy the focal point. Kaphar's style in his art seeks to reverse recorded black history, with these individuals in many paintings. I had been drawn to this one first because of the cutouts; I thought it was some sort of cutout that, at one time, one could get their photograph taken in. The backstory and purpose to the style is far more interesting!








I stopped at this painting in the hallway into where the main galleries began, mostly because it reminded me of something Norman Rockwell would have conjured up for a Saturday Evening Post. To my surprise first, this was a cover for a Saturday Evening Post, and second, the course for the painting was my current town of Bridgeport. Fourth of July Parade, Bridgeport , 1947 was painted by Stevan Dohanos. It depicts a father and son preparing to march in a Fourth of July parade.
I liked the small-town charm that the scene depicts; there's a simplistic sense of Americana. I also enjoyed that we can infer that this was the man on the left's childhood home because of the carving on the right post of the stairs.

It is this simplicity of the image that really keeps my focus, partly because I know what Bridgeport is, and my mind cannot fathom a time where it was this sort of small-town that Dohanos evokes through his painting.






An even bigger surprise after stopping to view this painting was doing a 180 and seeing an actual Norman Rockwell hanging directly opposite. I have never seen an actual Norman Rockwell painting before! I'd always assumed he only did those charming Saturday Evening Post covers we like to buy calendars of at Christmas. Entitled Weighing In, this 1958 painting shows a scene of a race horse jockey being weighed before he can race. I was amazed at the composition of the piece. Some paintings, you have to adjust your distance for proper viewing. The way I described seeing Rockwell's piece in person was when you purchase an album from a musician or a band that you enjoy, and you go to hear them live and they tonally sound as good as they do with the studio production involved.

 



The gallery rooms on the first floor were pleasant to walk through. I'm a green person; greens are my favorite colors. The walls were oddly soothing to look at in addition to the paintings themselves.

I took a large amount of photos in these portions of the galleries. The first that I'd like to share that I stopped to look at is by a local artist named Frederic Edwin Church. West Rock, New Haven, 1849 should be fairly recognizable. It is a landscape of the region surrounding West Rock, where the West Rock Tunnel on the Merritt Parkway currently runs through.

 

I admittedly spent a long time lingering more so on trying to determine if the current highway and tunnel run horizontally through the scene or on a more vertical trajectory from front of the painting to the back. The painting itself hearkens to a simpler time. I think we tend to forget that these highways, routes, parkways, roads, etc. were not always in existence, and once upon a time it was all land. There's a tranquil quality to the scene. Imagine for a moment being in this scene, working fields like the subjects are; no traffic; no delays, no Starbucks off the Amity exit. Church was also known for including a trademark steeple into his paintings (because, well, his name is Church). If you can't see it, look more to the left of the painting. I thought this was my favorite example of those on display from the Hudson River School. According to the information provided in the gallery, the Hudson River School was a movement of like-minded artists who drew inspiration from the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson and his concepts of God-given wealth in natural resources. One can infer that in this example from the vastness of the landscape.

 

 One of my other favorite examples on display was taken from the American Genre gallery, which is in the adjoining wing. This movement, unlike the previous, which focused on the natural quality of the land, focused on the qualities of the American individual in everyday life.

 

I had stopped at a scene by Nelson Augustus Moore entitled West Springfield. Moore's painting is a fairly solid example of American life at the time, and this is something that I enjoyed throughout the entire time at the museum; the pieces were like looking backward through time in a much simpler period. West Springfield shows us a snapshot of a quiet area in the titular town. Dirt roads, sparse population. I get a sense of familiarity among the people in the painting. I've always enjoyed the Agawam area outside of Springfield; I feel it still maintains that small-town charm, with it's farmhouses and sprawling acres of land, local businesses in the downtown area. This painting was a nice reminder of what the area was, with some elements still existing.

 

Just past the American Genre galleries and around the corner, we actually get a glimpse of the museum's founder, John Butler Talcott. Talcott was born in Enfield, and had risen to become a prominent businessman in the New Britain area. William Merritt Chase was commissioned to paint the portrait. I enjoyed the portrait; it was not "stuffy" like so many portraits of businessmen appear to be. Truth be told, I felt like Talcott looked a little bit like Mr. Dawes Sr. in Mary Poppins. But in all seriousness, I thought it was a great example of what a portrait should be in regard to true representation of the subject.

Hanging in the stairwell between the first and second floors is an odd, out of place (given the progression of history among one gallery to another) painting that I looked over while I waited for my entourage to make their bathroom stops. Tar Del Mar and the Flying Brains of the Pleistocene Epoch is a painting by Karl Lund.

Karl Lund is a Simsbury native. From what I gather form his self-description on his website, he does not take himself or his work seriously and just likes to paint these grand-scale pop art sci-fi pieces, often depicting gigantic robots engaged in battle. What is interesting about his work is that he includes fairly subtle pop culture references into the work. In this example, you'll see that part of the robot is an old Atari 2600:

A component on the ship is the Flux Capacitor from Back to the Future:

 

And lastly, off in the distance is a very Dali-eqsue representation of Captain America's shield:

 

What I've chosen to write about as the focal piece of the paper and the trip is the mural that spans the entirety of the room by Thomas Hart Benton. The whole piece is titled The Arts of Life in America. From top to bottom: Arts of the West, Arts of  the City, Arts of the South

 

 

There is another piece that I didn't photograph entitled Indian Arts, because I thought it was a standalone piece. The information included in the gallery tells us that he was part of the Regionalist movement, which focused on agrarian life as a subject. Honestly I did not infer that from this example. The information on the wall however tells us that the purpose of the mural is to show the country overcoming adversity during the Great Depression Each individual is shown to invoke a specific talent, skill, or creative impulse that will help get them by. The information also said that Jackson Pollock was his assistant, so I found that interesting. Benton traveled America for a period and many of the subjects included were from stories of his travels. While looking up information on  his other works, I found out that some of his pieces are on display in The Met, so I regret not having time to have visited much of the American art while I was there.

 

 

As I stood and looked at the scenes and individuals, I took notice of an odd balance between individuals portraying more vice-related activities on the right as opposed to seemingly more tempered and simple individuals on the left. The southern piece also focuses on the more racial landscape of the time.  There is an inescapable fact to me that the church is included, but it is far-off in the distance, almost as a forgotten aspect of these peoples lives during the Great Depression. There is also the Revivalist-looking preacher shouting at the crowds who appear to pay him little mind. My wife had expressed disinterest in his work because she didn't like his painting style. I can't say it is the style that interested me in the mural. I stopped in to look at the piece to understand what store it was telling. To me it took on the quality of one of those old southern patchwork quilts that the women would make; each piece adding to the whole. I enjoyed how even though these were different regions of the country, Benton shows that they all blend together, each person's skill or talent in some portions beneficial to others as the scene moves on.

 

 

We did make our way to the upstairs as well, where the Jenny and Hopper exhibits were houses, but photod could not be taken of the Jenny work and the kids were tapped out before we got to the Dennis Hopper photos. This last sculpture I saw in the permanent contemporary exhibit and I enjoyed how the artist was conveying a (albeit creepy) story.

 

 

The piece on display in the photo is called Umbrella Wall #2, The Vesper Project. It is part of a larger exhibit by artist Titus Kaphar. The website for the installation tells us the story a little more in-depth:

 

"While staring at a painting by artist Titus Kaphar at the Yale Art Gallery, a man named Benjamin Vesper experienced a psychotic break and attacked one of the figures in the painting. Vesper was arrested and subsequently admitted to the Connecticut Valley Hospital where his full identity and background remained a mystery. During the course of his sessions with a psychologist, Vesper began to reveal details about himself and his family’s troubled history. Vesper remained secretive about the letters and documents he wrote to Kaphar.

In 2008, Vesper wandered off the hospital grounds, and was found squatting in a 19th century house that he insisted belonged to his family. In fact, the original Vesper home had burned down in the early 1900s. It seems Mr. Vesper needed such a space to return to, in order to engage with his own memory. It was this event that inspired “The Vesper Project” installation at Friedman Benda gallery.
This exhibition includes art works inspired by the patient’s frequent correspondence with Kaphar." (https://kapharstudio.com/the-vesper-project/) Kaphar's site also tells us that the Vespers were a 19th century black family that was able to pass for white.

Creepy and kooky; mysterious and spooky.

I stopped to check this out because there was something quite unsettling about the decomposition of the room. The walls are constructed of multiple layers of old newspaper, almost as if somebody was creating a makeshift nest. The lone portrait adds mystery to the fragment of the story we get to see here. After researching the multi-room installation when I got home, I thought that viewing one portion of the piece as a standalone does not do the exhibit justice. The website contains a panorama walkthrough of the gallery and it is a sight to behold.


Overall, the general consensus was that we all enjoyed the New Britain Museum of American Art (until we realized my daughter lost a shoe in one of the galleries and had to go back and get it almost two hours later). It's a museum I'll probably keep an eye on for upcoming exhibits to return and see.



Cited

“NEW BRITAIN MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART.” Georgia O'Keeffe, www.nbmaa.org/museum-of-american-art/about.
“The Vesper Project.” Titus Kaphar, kapharstudio.com/the-vesper-project/.