American Made

AMERICAN

made

PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURE FROM THE DEMELL JACOBSEN COLLECTION

Thomas Cole, The Arch of Nero, 1846 (detail of Cat. No. 10)

THE COLLECTOR’S STORY Diane DeMell Jacobsen, Ph.D.

W

h e n i wa s a yo u n g g i r l ,

my mother took

my father’s footsteps, majoring in math in college, joining IBM

me to a museum in New York that opened

after graduation, and progressing through a series of marketing

my eyes to the wonders of art. Mesmerized

and ever-increasing responsibilities in senior management

by the majestic landscape scenes as well as

positions. My jobs included working for the IBM chairman of

powerful portraits, I kept thinking how wonderful it must be to

the board, which required extensive travel.

create such important works. I was inspired by how these artists

As we were growing up, my mom would ask us what we

could turn a simple canvas into something that made me think,

might like to do on school breaks and holidays. Invariably, my

feel deeply, and react with emotions I had never felt before.

sister Lisette wanted to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

As much as I was enamored of the paintings, however, I never

and so we did. I can remember standing in front of compelling

dreamed that someday I would try to build a representative

portraits of U.S. presidents as well as monumental landscapes

collection of American art. This is my journey.

from different parts of our beautiful country. At the time, I did

I was reared in Huntington, New York, a quiet seaside

not know the true significance of these works of art and never

community about 40 miles from New York City. My parents

imagined that someday I would actually be able to purchase a

both stressed the importance of education to us three girls. My

portrait of George Washington or a painting by Thomas Cole—

mother worked at Macy’s department store modeling hats as

America’s foremost Hudson River School artist. As I observed

a young woman and later completed college. Eventually, she

what I now know is his famous Oxbow (View from Mount

became an English teacher who spoke three languages. My dad

Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm) of

was in sales, had a keen sense of architecture, and also painted

1836, I was transported to another place. I was in awe of the

the most beautiful scenes to surround our holiday tree.

scenery and saw more and more in the painting the longer I

At the dinner table each night, Mom would teach us new

stared at it. As I traveled throughout the United States and the

words by using pantomime to give us hints. My elder sister,

world for work, I always made time to visit the great museums,

Nancy, became an English teacher. My younger sister, Lisette,

even if it meant that I had to take the red-eye from the west

became an art teacher. As the middle child, I followed more in

coast to get back in time for work.

Theodore Robinson, Neapolitan Child, 1878 (detail of Cat. No. 39)

THE ART OF FRAMES

I

f r a m e s — b e au t i f u l ,

appropriate frames that

collection, when a painting did not come with an appropriate

surround a painting. With just the right frame, a viewer

frame, one was painstakingly selected to be historically accurate

is drawn in and invited to examine the painting more

and complementary to the work it now surrounds. One example

carefully. Today, the purpose of a frame is generally seen

took nearly two decades to find—it’s just that important.

lov e

as a complement to the work—perhaps an enhancement—and

This catalogue shows a handful of the paintings from

often a humble supporting player, selflessly taking a backseat

the collection in their frames just to whet your appetite for

to the mastery of brushstrokes within it. Yet the frame bridges

this important art form. Frames deserve a whole catalogue

the gap between the imaginative scenes on the canvas and the

with detailed descriptions of styles, makers, and years, which

interior style of the gallery or home in which it hangs. This is

someday we hope to write. For now, here is a brief introduction

why finding the “right” frame is so critical: “when the marriage

to these beautiful pieces that are works of art unto themselves.

of frame and painting is right, both parties sing.”1 In the

DI A N E DEM ELL JACOBSEN, PH.D.

Framing American Art For centuries, frames have been designed and crafted to

its own; however, the significance of the role the frame plays in

hold masterpieces of painting. Despite this, they have been

the art world should not be underrated. Artist and frame maker

underappreciated, underrepresented, and often overlooked.

Charles Prendergast said, “A good frame will bring out all the

Of course, it’s common today to see large canvases hanging

fine points of a good picture and will strengthen a poor one,

without any surrounding borders, but in prior centuries, one

making it seem better than it is.”2

couldn’t imagine a painting on a wall without a frame. Today,

There are many intricate steps in creating the “art around

many of us seldom think about the frame as a work of art on

the art,”3 which is rarely achieved by a single artist or craftsman;

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M O R AN, T.

50

Thomas Moran

(1837–1926)

Born in Bolton, Lancashire, England, landscape painter Thomas Moran grew up in Philadelphia and became well known for his monumental canvases of Western American scenery. Yet he also created a number of striking works of art based on his travels to Venice. Moran first arrived in Venice in 1886, returning a second time in the summer of 1890. Struck by the ethereal beauty of the floating city, Moran proclaimed that Venice “is all and more, than travelers have reported of it. It is wonderful.”1 Captivated

by Venice’s picturesque beauty and unique maritime traditions, Moran later purchased a gondola as a memento and had it shipped back home for use on the Town Pond at his East Hampton house on Long Island.

In Venice, Moran compiled enough sketches to provide him with reference material for decades, ultimately rendering more paintings of the city than any other subject during the last 35 years of his long career.2 He was especially drawn to views with gondolas or picturesque fishing boats set against the striking architectural backdrop of the city. Moran’s Venetian scenes were inspired by those of English Romantic painter Joseph Mallord William Turner, whose influence is felt throughout Moran’s oeuvre. Studying Turner’s paintings in London in 1861, Moran was inspired by Turner’s ability to capture romantic settings and invoke emotions within the viewer through his masterful use of atmospheric effects and opalescent colors.

Like Turner, Moran favored views of the Bacino San Marco, looking westward toward the mouth of the Grand Canal. Moonlight in Venice (50a) was likely sketched from the shores of San Giorgio Maggiori. The principal structures bordering the Bacino—Santa Maria della Salute, the Doge’s Palace, and the Campanile—are rendered as soft diffused forms enveloped in an atmospheric haze. Moran used a palette of blue, green, and pink to create a delicate cast of reflections across the expanse of still water. Awash in moonlight, the city floats like a mirage between sea and sky.

Less concerned with topographical accuracy, Moran uses the cityscape as a backdrop to the theater of Venice’s waterways. He foregrounded the view with a moored flotilla of picturesque gondolas and fishing barges, on which fishermen perform everyday chores as they ready their boat for the morning launch. For this grouping, Moran used a range of vivid orange tones, which further distinguish the vessels from the dreamlike background and perhaps suggest the intense light of the rising sun. The setting moon

beyond the domes of Santa Maria della Salute not only captures the liminal moment before dawn, but symbolically alludes to Venice’s decline from a powerful maritime city to a state of elegant decay by the late 19th century.

While he came to be one of America’s most celebrated painters, Moran actually began his career as a printmaker. Following an apprenticeship in wood engraving at Scattergood & Telfer in Philadelphia, he studied the etching process under the tutelage of noted Philadelphia printmaker John Sartain in the mid-1850s.

Taught lithography by his brothers Peter and Edward Moran (Cat. No. 34), he also mastered intaglio techniques of mezzotint, clichéverre, and roulette.

Moran began to seriously pursue the art of etching in the 1880s.

The Much Resounding Sea is a reproductive etching based on one of Moran’s paintings of the same name, which is derived from Homer’s Iliad: Like unto the blast of boisterous winds, which rushes down to the plain, urged by the thunder of father Jove, and with a dreadful tumult is mingled with the ocean; and in it [rise] many boiling billows of the much resounding sea, swollen, whitened with foam.3

One of Moran’s largest etchings, The Much Resounding Sea (50b) depicts a view of the ocean from New York’s East Hampton seaside. A violent storm appears to churn the ocean and send waves crashing along the shore. Sandpaper and roulette were used to lay down both rich and subtle tonal passages of sea and storm.

Moran burnished a patch at the center top of the etching plate until it was smooth. When printed, this area appears as a central aura of light within a vortex of atmospheric turbulence that envelops the rowboat. As can be seen in his later work Moonlight in Venice, Moran drew inspiration here from the sublime landscapes of Turner, depicting the drama of “man versus nature.” He builds upon the narrative by including a small cluster of figures and a debris pile along the beach. Looking out across the scene, a ship on the horizon lists heavily to the side while a rowboat struggles across the churning surf towards shore.

M O R AN, T.

50a

Moonlight in Venice, 1898 Oil on wood board, 13 × 18 in.

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148

GAY

52

Walter Gay

(1856–1937)

Born in Hingham, Massachusetts, Walter Gay was a longtime resident of France. Arriving in 1876, Gay spent his first three weeks in Paris studying the Old Masters at the Louvre before traveling to Auvers-sur-Oise, where he was introduced to the French Barbizon style by painter Charles-François Daubigny. In 1877, he began to study in the atelier of Léon Bonnat, where he became friends with fellow expatriate painter John Singer Sargent (Cat. No. 65). He later became acquainted with other American artists in Paris, such as Frederick Bridgman (Cat. No. 70) and Edwin Blashfield (Cat. No. 49). In 1879, Gay exhibited at the Paris Salon for the first time, and from that point forward he was a regular contributor.1 After visiting Brittany in northwest France in 1884, Gay began to paint scenes of peasant life in a naturalist style. His works frequently depicted intimate, interior scenes of pre-industrial hand work and handicrafts, such as the weaving of tapestries, spinning wool, and woodworking. In the Shop features a solitary craftsman quietly working in his studio. Gay’s use of loose brushwork and

Fig. 52.1. Edmond Bénard, Walter Gay in His Paris Studio, c. 1885, photograph.

a tonal palette of muted brown with touches of gray, blue, and green create a sense of calm tranquility. On the left, the chisels and clamps hanging along the wall and a knife-grinding wheel in the foreground indicate that the man is a woodworker. Recalling the use of natural light by 17th-century Dutch genre painter Johannes Vermeer, Gay’s shop is subtly illuminated by sunlight from the large corner window. Gay’s interest in pre-industrial work reflects the spirit of the Arts and Crafts movement (1880–1910), an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that promoted hand labor as a moral and social antidote to the industrialization of society.

In the Shop is shown in Walter Gay in His Paris Studio (Fig. 52.1), an albumen print by the famous French photographer Edmond Bénard.2 The portrait was created for his photographic album Les Artistes chez eux (The Artists at Home), a series that presented painters and sculptors in their Paris studios at the turn of the 20th century.

NOTES 1. William Rieder, A Charmed Couple: The Art and Life of Walter and Matilda Gay (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2000).

2. Walter Gay’s In the Shop is the first painting on the right in Bénard’s photograph.

GAY

52

In the Shop, 1886 Oil on canvas, 13 × 93/4 in.

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SARG E NT

65

John Singer Sargent

(1856–1925)

In 1894, John Singer Sargent was commissioned to paint a portrait of Miss Elsie Wagg (1876–1949), the 18-year-old daughter of wealthy London stockbroker Arthur Wagg and his wife Mathilde (née Morton). Socially well connected, the Waggs were one of London’s most prominent Jewish families.1 Arthur’s father, John Wagg, came to London in the 19th century and quickly began to climb the rungs of society, despite currents of anti-Semitism in British culture.

Lacking noble birth, London’s newly rich were often regarded as outsiders among British society.2 For middle-class families such as the Waggs, who aspired to be regarded in the same light as the aristocracy, Sargent’s portraits had the potential to enhance the social status of his sitter while defying negative stereotypes.3 Born in Florence, Italy, to American expatriate parents, Sargent lived most of his life abroad. In 1854, Sargent’s parents moved from Philadelphia to Europe, where they lived a nomadic life, often passing winters in Florence, Rome, or Nice and summers in the Alps.4 Demonstrating an early interest in art, Sargent enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence in 1873. The following year he traveled to Paris, where he enrolled at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts and also entered the teaching atelier of CarolusDuran, a leading portraitist in Paris. Under Carolus-Duran’s tutelage for approximately five years, Sargent developed a style marked by painterly realism, with broad, fluid brushwork and a monochromatic palette.

Sargent quickly established a career as the leading portrait painter of his generation. In the 1890s, at the height of demand for his portraits, wealthy and privileged people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean came to his studio in London to be immortalized.

His elegant portraits created an enduring image of society of the Edwardian age. A careful observer of his sitters, he sought to render an accurate physical likeness, while understanding and capturing the character and psychology of his clients.

NOTES 1. Arthur Wagg’s father, John Wagg, was co-founder of Helbert, Wagg & Co. and related to the Rothschild family by marriage. For more information regarding the Wagg family, see Richard Roberts, Schroders: Merchants and Bankers (London: Macmillan Press, 1992), 355–360.

2. Kathleen Adler, “John Singer Sargent’s Portraits of the Wertheimer Family,” in The Jew in the Text: Modernity and the Construction of Identity, ed. Linda Nochlin and Tamar Garb (London:

Thames & Hudson, 1995), 83–96.

3. Adler, 86.

4. Elaine Kilmurray and Richard Ormand, John Singer Sargent (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1999).

5. In 1914, Sargent created a charcoal sketch of Mrs. Arthur Wagg (location unknown).

6. “The Queen’s Drawing Room,” Morning Post (London), May 11, 1894, 6.

7. According to Elsie’s brother, Alfred

Sargent’s Elsie Wagg is perhaps the earliest of a cluster of portraits that he painted of Jewish sitters in London.5 It is likely that the commission of Wagg’s portrait coincided with her debut to London Society.6 Conservative yet elegant, Wagg is pictured in a white gown with a fitted bodice, high neck, and gigot sleeves. Sargent often painted his female subjects in costumes that revealed to the viewer a sense of their character. Sargent’s elegant broad brushwork (often referred to as bravura) captures the tonal effects of the white opalescent fabric. Wagg is seated on an elegant French-style bergère chair, which is set against a cloudy blue sky.7 While her left hand rests in her lap, her right wrist is bent back against her waist. This detail appears in several portraits by Sargent and serves to create a balance of tension and relaxation in the figure.8 As Sargent often selected a pose to capture the attitude and character of his sitter, Wagg’s upright posture and akimbo arm exudes an air of energetic confidence.

The suggestion of his sitter’s self-possession is further enhanced by her unflinching, straightforward gaze, trained directly outward, engaging the viewer, relieved by only the faintest suggestion of a smile playing across her lips. Indeed, the 1890s were the heyday for portraits of fiercely independent women, and the akimbo gesture signaled the emancipated woman.9 If you fancied an engaging, stimulating conversation at a dinner party, Sargent’s painting suggests you would want to be seated next to Miss Wagg.

Never married, Elsie Wagg devoted herself to public service. An honorary fellow at London’s Zoological Society, she also became honorary secretary of the East Sussex Nursing Association from 1927 to 1946, and a vice president in 1948.

In 1927, she developed the National Garden Scheme, in which England’s private gardens were opened to the public for a small fee for a few days yearly, as a fund raiser for district nurses.

Wagg, Sargent saw the portrait some years after it was completed and decided to repaint the background and replace the original frame, both of which he regarded as unsuitable.

Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray, John Singer Sargent: Portraits of the 1890s, Vol. II (New Haven: Paul Mellon Center, 2002), no.

288, 68.

8. Other examples of the bent-wrist pose are Sargent’s Mrs. Edward L. Davis and Her Son Livingston Davis (1890)

at the Los Angeles County Museum and Lady with the Rose (1882) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

9. Holly Pyne Connor, “Not at Home: The Nineteenth Century New Woman,” in Off the Pedestal: New Women in the Art of Homer, Chase and Sargent, ed. Holly Pyne Connor (Newark, NJ: Newark Museum, 2006), 43.

SARG E NT

65

Elsie Wagg, 1894 Oil on canvas, 40 × 27 in.

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N EVE LS O N

167

Louise Nevelson

(1899–1988)

Maquettes (studies for sculptural works) are fascinating objects in their own right, conveying the immediacy of the artist’s first realization of an idea. Used to visualize and test forms, they are highly regarded by artists and can be as desirable as their full-sized completed works. Maquette for Sky Landscape 1 (A) by Louise Nevelson is one of an edition of six maquettes that were created in conjunction with the monumental sculpture of the same title, which is currently located at Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park.1 It comprises a welded assembly of abstract steel shapes that overlap and intermingle, their verticality and combination of slight curves and straight lines suggesting two human forms in a landscape.

Recognized as one of the leading sculptors of the 20th century, Louise Nevelson did not begin to develop large-scale welded sculpture until later in her career. Born in 1899 in Russia and reared in Maine, she began her artistic career in New York City, where she studied drawing and painting with Kenneth Hayes Miller and Hans Hofmann at the Art Students League and sculpture with Chaim Gross at the Educational Alliance. Nevelson began to develop her distinctive abstract relief sculptures in the 1940s.

Collecting wood scraps and odd bits and baubles, she began to assemble the pieces into intricate compositions within shallow

NOTES 1. Maquettes for Monumental Sculpture, exh. cat. (New York: Pace Gallery, 1980), n.p.

2. Arnold B. Glimcher, Louise Nevelson (New York: E.O. Dutton & Co., 1976), 145–169.

3. Nevelson said of the color black, “I

fell in love with black; it contained all color. It wasn’t a negation of color.

It was an acceptance. Because black encompasses all colors. Black is the most aristocratic color of all…You can be quiet, and it contains the whole thing.” Quoted in “Louise Nevelson

boxes, which she then painted in a solid unifying color of black, white, or gold. Although initially intimidated by the processes of sculpting metal, Nevelson began to develop her metalwork in the 1960s. She relied on technicians skilled in casting and welding to carry out the physical labor while she developed ideas and directed fabrication.

Maquette for Sky Landscape 1 (A)—a bold yet graceful abstract work that is composed of curving strips, jagged shapes, and odd shards—represents Nevelson’s collage process of improvised assemblage. She typically mocked up her initial models using cardboard and tape, which allowed her to easily shift shapes and line as the form developed.2 Based on these paper models, her maquettes were crafted from welded scraps of metal. She then unified these disparate parts with black paint. Black was one of Nevelson’s favorite colors—the most “aristocratic color” in the world.3 To her, black was not really one color, but rather a range of subtle tones and shades that resulted from light and shadow striking the overlapping and interconnected forms.4 This interplay of brightness and shade, shifting and moving, is an important element of her work. An architect of shadows, Nevelson is not simply arranging shapes and forms but sculpting light and space.

+ the Color Black,” Alabama Chanin Journal, July 20, 2016, https://journal. alabamachanin.com/2016/07/louisenevelson-the-color-black/.

4. David L. Shirey, “Louise Nevelson,” in Maquettes for Monumental Sculpture, n.p.

N EVE LS O N

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Maquette for Sky Landscape 1 (A), 1977–1979 Welded steel painted black, 30 × 261/2 × 18 in.

Inscribed (on the underside): NEVELSON 5/6/7987

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HATC H E R

173c

Lift Stanza I, Stanza II, Stanza III, 2016 Acrylic and gel on canvas, each 24 × 30 in.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1920 as its official anthem, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” has inspired generations of African American artists.

Hatcher’s triptych marries the message of the song with contemporary issues related to race—equality, inclusion, violence, and hope. The artist explained, “It was my intention to use the words of the song as the background for each canvas. As a visual artist, I hope that my visual interpretation of this uplifting, inspiring song will help others see and understand what this song means to me.”3 Read left to right, each panel focuses on one stanza of the song, while simultaneously reflecting on the Black experience across time. In Stanza I, a young man casts his eyes to the left as silhouetted figures rise up, symbolizing the ongoing struggle for freedom and equality. Hatcher chose to represent the figure as a young man as she felt that this voice is all too often not heard. The sorrowful youth wears an earring with a miniature

version of the Lincoln penny, a detail connecting the figure directly to Johnson’s original song.

In Stanza II, male and female figures are linked in protest in the continuing struggle for equality in the Civil Rights era. The figures are a united voice in protest, but also united in the security of their clasped hands. They stand together against the continued violence of the era. Symbols of this violence, a noose and an axe handle, are strategically placed in the lower left-hand corner. This gesture calls attention to a painful historical moment in Jacksonville’s past, “Ax Handle Saturday.” On August 27, 1960, a group of Black students protesting segregation staged a peaceful sit-down at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Hemming Park (renamed James Weldon Johnson Park in 2020). After being denied service, the youths were violently attacked by an angry white mob wielding wooden ax handles. The reference to this horrific event is designed to bring awareness to the city’s role in the violence of the Civil Rights era.

HATC H E R

***

“Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” Lyrics by James Weldon Johnson, Music by John Rosamond Johnson

Lift ev’ry voice and sing ’Til earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; Let our rejoicing rise High as the list’ning skies, Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us, Facing the rising sun of our new day begun Let us march on ’til victory is won.

Stony the road we trod, Bitter the chastening rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat, Have not our weary feet Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, Out from the gloomy past, ’Til now we stand at last Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

Another reference to the violent conflicts of the Civil Rights era is included at the bottom of Stanza III—the image of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. This bridge was the site of Bloody Sunday (March 7, 1965), when police attacked peaceful Civil Rights demonstrators who were marching to the state capital. In this composition, Hatcher draws together patriotic symbols of America and Africa. In the center a bald eagle overlaps the image of God, depicted here as a dark-skinned veiled figure who gazes upwards.

Curving to the right of the figure, the stripes of the draped American flag morph into the outstretched arms of brown-skinned figures. Above these figures, in the upper right corner, is the Ghanaian symbol Nyame Biribi Wo Soro (God is in the heavens), comprised of two ovals united by a diamond in the center. The sign is intended to be a symbol of hope, which is the overriding message of the triptych.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou who has brought us thus far on the way; Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light, Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee, Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee; Shadowed beneath Thy hand, May we forever stand.

True to our God, True to our native land.

***

NOTES 1. Pat Bonner, “A Portrait of Marsha by a Childhood Friend,” Signifying Scholar, May 2017, 18–20.

2. Marsha Hatcher quoted in Gallery Guide for “Lift: Contemporary

Expressions of African American Experience” (Jacksonville, FL: Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, 2017).

3. Hatcher quoted in Gallery Guide for “Lift.”

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