DANIEL MORPER IN MEMORIAM THE LIFE OF A LANDSCAPE PAINTER
2
Daniel Morper In Memoriam:
The Life of a Landscape Painter
October 7 - NOVEMBER 6.2016
LewAllenGalleries 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com cover: Blue Moon, 2006, oil on canvas, 34 x 46 in
Daniel Morper The Life of a Landscape Painter “Daniel Morper has helped bring about a veritable renaissance in American landscape painting by reasserting the viability, significance and tradition of landscape in a visual culture whose myriad components even now struggle for primacy.” Peter Frank, Exhibition Catalog for “Daniel Morper: A Sense of Light, A Sense of Place,” Exhibit at LewAllen Galleries, August 2008 Daniel Morper loved the landscape of America so much that he devoted most of his life and creative energy to capturing its spirit and vitality in luminously glowing portraits of place – both natural and built space. Though his canvases invariably exhibited a unique verisimilitude and vivid sense of concentrated precision, they also possessed the remarkable capacity to transform faithful renderings of place into physical avatars of the American Dream. Bridging the gap between rendition and imagination, Morper’s paintings engage the eye and the heart. Morper, a longtime resident and much beloved figure within the Santa Fe art world, passed away in April of this year and is remembered as a nationally respected painter of the American landscape. LewAllen Galleries presents a memorial exhibition surveying the nearly 35 years of Morper’s highly successful career that included numerous gallery and museum shows around the country. The exhibit opens October 7 and remains on view through November 6. Morper’s work has been represented at LewAllen for much of the past two decades. The memorial exhibition features a wide-ranging selection of works from the artist’s lifelong love affair with every variant of the American land. He delighted in painting everything from New York rooftops and street scenes, to Southwestern mountains and canyons, even volleyball courts on California beaches. In later years he became intrigued with railroad imagery – engines, boxcars, train tracks, and signal sheds framed in stoic relief against sylvan expanses of distant mountains. The contrast between the railroad as icon of the mechanical age and the sprawling ranges of unspoiled pastoral grasslands it traverses never ceased to fascinate Morper. He is especially well known for his meticulously rendered reverential paintings of the Santa Fe Railyard before its recent re-development. Morper deeply prized these luminous and richly evocative portraits of a time in Santa Fe’s history now gone by. Credited by many as helping lead a sea-change in American landscape painting, Morper’s vision of the land is one that acknowledges his forebears, the early artists of the 18th and 19th centuries and
2
their wide-eyed, romantic dialogue with America. He worked within the framework of the modern world: his sunlight is just as likely to illuminate a mountainous vista as train tracks and telephone poles, or to streak through the buildings of a sprawling metropolis. Morper enlivened this tradition with an eye for both photorealism and expression, beholding an America that included its still-pristine canyons, gorges and peaks, as well as artifacts and edifices made as byproducts of a civilization no longer an unspoiled Eden. In his work Morper could lend visual honor to both the mundane and the spectacular: the majesty of mountains and Manhattan skyscrapers, as well as the simple ordinariness of trucks along a highway and train cars in the railyard. His best work reads like gentle yet engaging meditations: as he told Southwest Art Magazine in 2009, “My paintings come from someone reflecting on a quiet space … you sense it’s a space fraught with emotion.” As one critic who labeled Morper “one of America’s leading landscape painters” described it, Morper’s was “a naturalistic approach that trusts the eye’s reportorial abilities – but also teases its sensual responsivity. Morper rewards looking. His style borders the edge of photorealism but is filled with metaphor: stunning Southwest light and enough painterly touches to remind viewers that they are looking at hand-painted expressive illusions and not imitations of photography.” (Peter Frank, ibid.) Morper was born in 1944 in Fort Benning, Georgia. He was raised in Chicago and Seattle, earned his BA at the University of Notre Dame, and in 1969 earned a law degree from Columbia University. He practiced law for several years in California and then Washington, DC, where he enrolled at the Corcoran Museum School of Art and rented his first painting studio. In the mid-1970s he moved to New York to devote himself full-time to painting. His first solo show in New York, at the G.W. Einstein gallery in 1978, was a sell-out and was named a “Best Bet” by New York Magazine in addition to being reviewed favorably in ARTnews and Arts magazine. Morper relocated from New York to Santa Fe in the mid-1980s, and is survived by his wife, wellknown Santa Fe artist Carol Mothner, and daughter Elizabeth. Morper’s paintings are widely sought after for leading private and corporate collections and are included in leading museum collections such as the Denver Art Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Philbrook Museum of Art, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, among others. Many critics and writers have observed admiringly about the remarkable aspects of Morper’s paintings. It is fitting in connection with this memorial exhibition to remember some of them here.
3
One participates in Morper’s spiritual moment, looking upward at the lofty heavens. Strong light and shadow, geometric repeats of rectangular or oval windows, modern or turn-of-the-century architecture, are painted with great skill. These silent, inanimate tombs stand alone, transcending time and human life. They are metaphors for man’s reaching — his reaching higher than the ground on which we walk. Hedy O’beil, Arts Magazine, January 1979 Morper exploits an almost old master technical “propriety,” softening forms and hues with deft chiaroscuros, brushless gradations and occasionally, glazing. Even in his “brownest” canvases, though, Morper is a vivid colorist. It is in his careful, obviously loving attention to architectural detail, however, that Morper actually bests his predecessors. Peter Frank, ARTnews Magazine, January 1979 Morper’s blend of dramatic light and barely populated industrial scrubland comes off as both commonplace and nostalgic—a sort of found wilderness. The New Yorker Magazine, February 1998 Morper is a phenomenal observer of the effects of light on flora, fauna and the built environment. His skies rival the real thing. He paints peeling box cars reflected in puddles so that the puddles become jewels scattered on the ground. He wrings the last bit of color out of a monotonous scene and makes it come alive. John O’Hern, American Art Collector Magazine, May 2006 Morper rewards looking. He rewards us for looking at his painting, and he rewards us for looking at vast terrains – the vast terrains of our western lands and eastern cities – by re-enacting their vastness, their intricacy, and their beauty on canvas. Morper has a knack for finding the spectacular in the mundane, emphasizing—but not exaggerating—the skew of a vantage, the force and weight of a horizon, the surprise and poignancy of an object silhouetted against a sky. Peter Frank, Exhibition Catalog (2008 at LewAllen Galleries) There is something reassuring about many of his paintings — a sense, perhaps, that man will come and go but these places and buildings will stick around a long time. Robert Nott, Pasatiempo, August 2008 4
There are many elements in these paintings to be carefully savored: the artist’s precise attention to architectural detail, for example, as well as his ability to soften photorealistic imagery with a painterly approach to form and hue. These are artworks of the current time that also constitute a legacy of great traditions of painting over the last four centuries. Santa Fean Magazine, August 2008
At Day’s End, 2004, oil on canvas, 48 x 64 in 5
Box Car in Railyard, 2005, oil on board, 7 x 9 1/2 in
6
Changing Crews, oil on board, 11 x 14 in
7
Colorado, Day’s End, 2009, oil on board, 9 1/2 x 14 in
8
Race, 2007, oil on board, 8 x 9 in
9
Crossing the Yard, 2005, oil on board, 8 1/2 x 9 1/4 in
10
New Ties, 2008, oil on canvas, 36 x 48 in
11
San Francisco Street, 2006, oil on canvas, 13 x 16 in
12
Santa Fe Be Safe, 2010, oil on board, 14 1/2 x 18 1/2 in
13
Metropolis, 1989, gouache on paper, 26 1/4 x 35 1/2 in
14
Overlooking the Corner, 1983, gouache on board, 16 x 13 1/2 in
15
16
South Valley, Beef Pro, 1992, oil on canvas, 24 x 60 in
17
Midtown Motel, oil on panel, 11 1/2 x 14 in
18
Rooftop Tennis, oil on canvas, 16 x 14 1/4 in
19
Grand Canyon, oil on canvas, 32 x 44 in
20
Peering into Time, 1994, oil on canvas, 34 x 40 in
21
Acequia Madre, San Louis Valley, 2007, oil on board, 49 x 53 in
22
Crossing the Prairie, 2007, oil on canvas, 46 x 38 in
23
Flying Saucers, 2007, oil on board, 10 1/2 x 8 1/2 in
24
The Yards at La Junta, oil on board, 14 x 18 in
25
At the White Place, The White Rock, 1994, gouache on paper, 8 x 11 in
26
Grand Canyon, Day After Christmas, 1996, oil on canvas, 12 x 16 in
27
Winter Fog, 2006, oil on canvas, 28 x 36 in
28
Into the Fog, oil on board, 11 1/4 x 14 in
29
Queen’s Gambit II, 1989, oil on canvas, 44 x 72 in
30
Metropolitan Life, 1980, pastel on paper, 10 x 12 1/2 in
31
The Veil Descends, 1994, oil on canvas, 36 x 44 in
32
Communications from the West, 1977, gouache on paper, 18 x 25 in
33
Sunset in November, 1996, monotype, 9 3/4 x 14 7/8 in
34
Opera Noche, 2006, oil on board, 7 1/4 x 10 1/4 in
35
Statue of Liberty, oil on canvas, 8 1/4 x 13 1/4 in
36
Santa Monica Pier, oil on canvas, 10 1/2 x 19 1/2 in
37
Summer in the City, 2006, oil on canvas, 38 x 53 in
38
Daniel Morper b. Fort Benning, GA, 1944; d. Santa Fe, NM, 2016 2002 2001 2000 1999 1996 1995 1993 1991 1990 1987 1986 1982 1979 1974
EDUCATION 1966 BA, University of Notre Dame 1969 JD, Columbia University 1971-72 Corcoran Museum School of Art SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2016 Daniel Morper: In Memorium, The Life of a Landscape Painter, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM 2008 A Sense of Light, A Sense of Place, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM 2004 J. Cacciola Gallery, New York, NY Look Both Ways, LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM 2001 Romance with the Rails, Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, Evansville, IN LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM 2000 New Paintings, Tatistcheff & Company, New York, NY 1999 LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM 1998 New Paintings, Tatistcheff & Company, New York, NY 1996 Paintings, Betts Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 1994 Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 1992 New Mexico Landscapes, Owings-Dewey Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM 1990 Fields of View, Keats Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 1989 Tatistcheff & Company, New York, NY 1986 Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame, IN G.W. Einstein Company, New York, NY 1983 Canyon Lands, G.W. Einstein Company, New York, NY 1981 G.W. Einstein Company, New York, NY 1980 Lawrence Institute of Technology, Southfield, MI Xochipilli Gallery, Birmingham, MI 1979 Canton Art Institute, Canton, OH 1978 G.W. Einstein Company, New York, NY
J. Cacciola Gallery, New York, NY Trains of Thought: The Railroad in Contemporary Art, Suzanne H. Arnold Art Gallery, Lebanon Valley College, Annville, PA New Art of the West 7, Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN Green Woods and Crystal Waters: The American Landscape Tradition Since 1950, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK Landscape 2000, University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, WY Southwest Landscape Regional, Armory for the Arts, Santa Fe, NM Enduring Inspiration: New Mexico Landscape Painting, Cline Gallery, Santa Fe, NM Churches of New Mexico, Santa Fe Foundation, Santa Fe, NM Collector’s Show, Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR A Sense of Place, Peyton Wright Gallery, Santa Fe, NM Home Again, Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA Nightworks, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, NY The 1987 Biennial, New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM American Landscapes from the Collection, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN Contemporary Romantic Landscape Painting, Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL Clouds, Max Hutchinson Gallery, New York, NY The Urban Landscape, Wave Hill Center for the Arts, New York, NY 19th Area Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
SELECTED MUSEUM COLLECTIONS Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH Eiteljorg Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN Evansville Museum of Art, Evansville, IN Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame, IN
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2006 Cities Different, LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM 2004 Traditions & Departures, Vose Contemporary, Boston, MA John Pence Gallery, San Francisco, CA Salon D’Arts, Colorado History Museum, Denver, CO 2003 Re-presenting Representation VI, Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, NY; and Rockwell Museum of Western Art, Corning, NY 39
40
Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com Š 2016 LewAllen Contemporary LLC Artwork Š Estate of Daniel Morper