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Bush-Holley Historic Site
The Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich
Cos Cob, Connecticut
www.hstg.org
Date: April 8, 2008
Contact: Sally Frank
Director of Marketing and Communications
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203 869-6899, ext. 12
Print Exhibition of Connecticut Scenes and Artist Printmakers on view at Bush-Holley Historic Site
Exhibition is drawn from the collection of Greenwich residents
Reba and Dave Williams
COS COB, CT - The William Hegarty Gallery at Bush-Holley Historic Site, 39 Strickland Road has just opened a new exhibition; From Harbor to Haven: Connecticut Scenes and Artist Printmakers from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams. The show features over 60 works drawn from the American print collection of Greenwich residents Reba and Dave Williams. The exhibition brings together 19th and 20th century prints with a focus on Connecticut; its scenes and sites by artists who lived or worked in the state. Gallery hours are Tuesday – Sunday; 12 to 4 p.m. Admission $6, seniors and students $4. Children under 6 and Historical Society members Free. The exhibition will remain on view until Sunday, August 17, 2008.
“This exhibition includes masterful examples of woodcut, wood engraving, etching, aquatint, drypoint and lithography, while spotlighting the broad panorama of works inspired by the state’s topography and contemporary scene,” says exhibition curator and Historical Society curator of exhibitions Kathleen Motes Bennewitz. “It also draws attention to the many artists with Connecticut ties who took up the etching needle, lithographic crayon, or wood engraver’s tools.”
The printmakers featured in this exhibition came to Connecticut for different of reasons including a desire to escape the frenzy of New York City, to visit friends at weekend houses, or to stay in summer homes along Long Island Sound or in the countryside. Others sought camaraderie in the art colonies of Cos Cob and Old Lyme. They were also drawn to the natural scenery, culture and society of the varied regions of Connecticut: the waterfront towns of Westport and Mystic, the rolling farmland of Litchfield County, the fairgrounds of Danbury, and the urban centers of Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven. Many took up permanent residence and found a variety of supportive communities of artists and writers nearby.
This exhibition of prints by forty-eight artists parallels the rich variety of subjects, styles and techniques documented in the history of American printmaking, and the stylistic shifts of American art from the illustrative, symbolic and idealized to work embracing realism, modernism and abstraction. Together, the prints provide a unique look at the artistic heritage of printmaking in the state.
In the mid 1970s, Reba and Dave Williams first began collecting American prints. Today their collection is the largest in private hands and includes more than 5,400 works, representing over 2,000 artists made by American artists during the last 150 years. In 2002 (CK) Reba and Dave Williams founded The Print Research Foundation in Stamford, Connecticut to provide research facilities for the study of prints made by American artists during the last 150 years. The Foundation also sponsors independent research on prints, and travels exhibitions from the Williams collection.
In the late 1980s the Williams first gathered together prints of Connecticut subjects for the Greenwich office of Alliance Capital (now Alliance Bernstein), of which Dave was then Chairman. For this exhibition, From Harbor to Haven, research was undertaken to learn what other prints and artists with Connecticut associations were now represented in their collection. The findings were revealing, with new prints and artists identified and on exhibit in Cos Cob.
Printmaking at the Cos Cob Art Colony
The Cos Cob section of Greenwich, Connecticut was a destination for many artists and writers between the years 1890 and 1920. Childe Hassam, J. Alden Weir and John H. Twachtman and their followers came in search of artistic fellowship and subjects for their work. The artists of the Cos Cob art colony portrayed the local architecture, residents, landscape and river, although preferring painting and sketching to printmaking. In 1915 Childe Hassam, at the age of 56, first learned etching from a young talented artist named Kerr Eby who lived across from the Holley House, producing etchings of the area. Over the next few years Hassam created more than three hundred prints of New England with frequent stays in Old Lyme and Cos Cob.
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SPECIAL EXHIBITION RELATED PROGRAMS
Saturday, April 26, 12:00 to 3:00 p.m. – Teen Print Workshop, Linoleum Printmaking -
Ronnie Rysz, of the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, CT will lead a linoleum block print workshop for middle and high school students. Participants will explore multicolor and reduction printmaking techniques to create multiple images. $50 per person. $45 for members. Reservations required. Call 203 869-6899 ext. 10.
Monday, April 28, 6 to 8 p.m. - Sotheby’s Prints Auction Preview - A reception and preview of works for sale at upcoming Sotheby’s Prints Auction in New York. $30 per person
Monday, May 5, beginning 10 a.m. A Day of Childe Hassam: Printmaker - Enjoy a morning lecture on Childe Hassam at Bruce Museum followed by lunch at Bush-Holley Historic Site, a Hassam-focused tour of Bush-Holley House, and From Harbor to Haven gallery talk. Programs and lunch, $25 per person
Thursday, May 15, 11:30 a.m. - Understanding Prints, Gallery Talk by David Tunick of David Tunick, Inc. Learn about prints from techniques to collecting. Brown bag lunch or box lunch for $10, Gallery talk: $7 per person
Saturday, June 21, 12 to 4 p.m. - Greenwich Museums Focus on American Prints - Visit exhibitions, From Harbor to Haven at Bush-Holley and 20th Century American Prints from the Bruce Museum Collection at Bruce Museum, for one price. One museum admission valid at both
Gallery hours: Tues. – Sun; 12 to 4 p.m. Closed Mondays. Admission $6, seniors and students $4. Children under 6 and Historical Society members Free. House tours included with admission. Admission FREE on Tuesdays. Call for more information, 203 869-6899, x 10 or visit www.Bush-Holley.org.
Artists who lived and worked in Fairfield County:
John Taylor Arms (1887–1953)
John Taylor Arms, born in Washington, D.C., studied architecture at MIT. He worked for architectural firms in New York until joining the Navy in WWI. Arms devoted the rest of his career to graphic art, becoming acclaimed as an etcher of European and American architectural scenes. In the 1940s he produced a series of etchings depicting U.S. battleships at ship building companies and dry docks in New Jersey, Virginia and Groton, Connecticut. Arms etched his plates in his studio “Millstones,” located at his longtime residence in the Greenfield Hill section of Fairfield, Connecticut where he lived with his wife, author Dorothy Noyes Arms. An active member of the New Haven Paint and Clay Club, he exhibited prints there frequently between 1933 and 1950.
John Steuart Curry (1897–1946)
John Steuart Curry was a painter whose renditions idealizing the Midwest led many to consider him a leading Regionalist along with Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood. Born in Kansas, Curry attended art school in Kansas City and Chicago before studying illustration with Harvey Dunn. He retained his midwestern identity despite having traveled extensively and living for over twenty years, in the Northeast--New Jersey, New York, and then Westport, Connecticut beginning in 1924. In those years he progressed from magazine illustrator to muralist and painter of national renown. In Westport he met his wife, Kathleen Shepherd, whom he married in 1936. He also became involved in the local art community, becoming close friends with many artists and executing murals for public buildings in Westport and Norwalk. His activity as printmaker spans 1927 to 1945 but includes only twenty-nine prints. Curry continued painting Kansas scenes and was equally inspired by the lively action and dramatic personalities of Fairfield County fairs and circuses.
James Daugherty (1889–1974)
Born in North Carolina, James Daugherty moved at an early age with his family to Ohio and later to Washington, D.C. and England and studied at the Corcoran School of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and the School of Fine Arts in London. He is known as a synchronist painter who was devoted to “making beautiful noise with color.” Working for the WPA and Treasury Relief Art Project, he created murals for public buildings across the country including Stamford and Greenwich, Connecticut. In 1923 he moved from New York to Westport and, later, purchased a farm in nearby Weston, restoring the house and turning the barn into a studio. There he branched out as a children’s book author and illustrator. In 1940 his book Daniel Boone received the John Newberry Medal for the year’s most distinguished contribution to children’s literature.
Kerr Eby (1889–1946)
Born in Tokyo to Canadian missionaries, Kerr Eby learned etching while studying in New York at the Pratt Institute and the Art Students League. From 1913 to 1917 he lived across from the Holley House in Cos Cob, producing etchings of the area while imparting his technical skills to Childe Hassam. While serving in the Army Engineer Corps during World War I, Eby observed the actions of soldiers in the field artillery. After his discharge he captured the sordidness of war in a series of etchings and lithographs. Following the War Eby lived in New York and rented a weekend farmhouse in Westport. In 1923 he purchased a colonial house, “Driftway,” on eighteen acres along the Aspetuck River, where Eby resided and worked until his death. Eby created a range of masterful etchings and lithographs capturing his love for winter and nature. At his death Karl Anderson, Ralph Boyer, John Taylor Arms along with other artists eulogized Eby in town papers by as a loyal friend, distinguished etcher, superb printer and as “one of Westport’s greatest personages.”
Helen Frankenthaler (born 1928)
A native of New York and resident of Connecticut since the early 1970s, Helen Frankenthaler achieved international acclaim for her style of lyrical abstraction. From her Darien studio Frankenthaler bravely experiments with color and spatial dynamics of her subjects Loving the immediacy of painting on canvas, Frankenthaler hesitantly approached printmaking due to its technical demands. The successful experience of making her initial lithographs at the United Limited Art Editions in 1961 convinced her to experiment with other media—etching, aquatint, woodcut, screen printing, etching, and monotype—and to create a large body of work over the years. She worked collaboratively with such workshops as ULAE, Tyler Graphics, Ltd. and Crown Point Press to masterfully create prints that captured the fluency and delicacy of her painterly forms.
Childe Hassam (1859–1935)
Childe Hassam was a leading American Impressionist who studied painting in Boston and Paris where he became attracted to French Impressionism. Integrating this style into his own work, Hassam became celebrated for his own impressionist paintings of urban scenes. He moved to New York in 1889. Following the lead of J. Alden Weir and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam began visiting the Holley House in Cos Cob, in search of artistic fellowship and subject matter. During the summer of 1915 Hassam, with technical advice and assistance from Eby, began mastering the etching medium and translating his painter’s eye for color and light into richly tonal and textural monochrome prints. Hassam created more than three hundred prints of New England with frequent stays in Old Lyme and Cos Cob.
Gabor Peterdi (1915–2001)
Gabor Peterdi was a master printmaker and painter, born in Budapest, Hungary. He studied in Rome and in Paris at the Atelier 17 with Stanley Hayter, and immigrated to the U.S. in 1939. After serving in World War II, he resumed painting and continued his studies with Hayter then in New York. In 1949 her bought an etching press and established his graphic studio. That year he began teaching at the Brooklyn Museum School of Art, and, later, at Hunter College and Yale University from 1960-87. In 1951 Peterdi moved to Rowayton and purchased a house and studio. Peterdi studied the natural forces of nature, interpreting his direct experiences of them with expressive line and form.
Garrett Price (1896‑1979)
Garrett Price is best known as artist and cartoonist and for his many covers and illustrations for The New Yorker among other weekly magazines. Born in Kansas and raised in Wyoming, Price began drawing people and animals on his family’s farm. At age 14 Price sold his first comic strip to a local newspaper and after attending the Art Institute of Chicago he contributed illustrations and cartoon strips for The Chicago Tribune and Kansas City Star. He moved to New York in 1925 and the following year, Price and his wife began spending summers in Mystic, Connecticut. In 1941 he moved his residence and studio to Westport, Connecticut where he remained highly involved in the artistic community until his death.
John Henry Twachtman (1853–1902)
John H. Twachtman was an influential American Impressionist who traveled and studied extensively in Europe before settling on a Greenwich farm in 1889. The natural scenery of his Round Hill Road residence became the inspiration and subject for many of his best-known landscapes. In New York Twachtman had become friends with many painters including Childe Hassam and J. Alden Weir, with whom he helped found the American Impressionist group called “The Ten” in 1898. Throughout the summers of the 1890s he brought his students from the Art Students League to the Holley House in Cos Cob to sketch and paint. As a printmaker Twachtman produced a small body of work, only twenty-nine etchings and one lithograph between 1879 and 1896. Like Weir, Twachtman carried plates and an etching needle with him on walks, etching directly from nature. Most of his etchings were made on trips to Europe and others depict scenes in Cincinnati, Ohio, along the Hudson River, Newport, Rhode Island and Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Julian Alden Weir (1852-1919)
J. Alden Weir formally studied art in New York in Paris where he was introduced to French Impressionism and etching. As a printmaker, Weir experimented with the media, eventually acquiring a press and traveling with copperplates and needles in hand to etch a view on the spot. Although painting remained paramount to Weir, his etchings were widely exhibited and highly acclaimed. In 1893 Weir’s failing eyesight forced the end of his printmaking work. Just before his marriage in 1883 Weir bought a modest farm in Branchville, Connecticut as a summer retreat from New York. Over the years he built a studio and enlarged the house and property. The landscape was a source of inspiration for Weir and his friends, including Childe Hassam and John Twachtman whom he would also visit in Cos Cob. Weir also had a second Connecticut studio in Windham on land that belonged to his wife’s family. Weir spent the last months of his life at Windham, where he died and is buried.
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