The Tarble Arts Center Shows 82 Years of Painting from the Collection

Written by Oliver Thatcher Wednesday, 17 August 2011 01:23

Charleston, IL.- The full range of oil and acrylic paintings found in the Tarble Arts Center’s permanent collection are presented in the Tarble’s summer exhibition. Titled "From the Collection: 82 Years of Painting", the exhibition is on view now. Paintings in a wide variety of styles and approaches are presented – Midwest Impressionism, folk art, and different forms of abstract art and representational art, from forms of Cubism to Surrealism to Photo-Realism.  Subjects include landscapes, still lifes, portraits, even some barn paintings. The paintings date from 1927 to 2009.

For visitors to the Paul Sargent’s Coles County exhibition who came away wanting to see more paintings by the Charleston, Illinois, artist Paul T. Sargent (1880-1946) – they are in luck. The ten paintings by Sargent that the Tarble has had restored to date are in the summer painting exhibition. Also included are photographs documenting some of the restoration processes. There are more than fifty paintings by Paul Sargent in the Tarble’s permanent collection.  Paintings by this EIU alumnus (1900-1906) were among the first artworks acquired by the university and came to form an early core of the permanent collection.  EIU’s first art gallery was named in tribute to Sargent. Sargent taught part-time for Eastern and two of Sargent’s students who became noted artists are represented in the collection and this exhibition.  They are Color Field painter Alice Baber (Kansas, Illinois; 1928-1982) and EIU alumnus Ralph Wickiser (Greenup, Illinois; 1910-1998).

Also exhibited from this period are landscapes by Robert M. Root (1863-1937), a friend of Sargent’s from Shelbyville, Illinois. Root is probably best known as a portrait artist.  He painted a portrait of Eastern’s first President, Livingston C. Lord, which hangs in EIU’s Old Main, and the portrait of Sargent that is in the exhibition.  A portrait by Mattoon artist Sophie Davis Talbot (1888-1963) is also in the Tarble exhibition. Featured is a work each by noted Charleston folk painter Jennie Cell (1905-1988) and her uncle and painting partner, Jerome (“Rome”) McGahan (d. 1966).  Cell is represented in the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection in Washington, D.C.


Twentieth century Illinois folk arts form the largest sub-collection in the Tarble’s permanent collection.  In addition to these paintings are carvings, quilts, needlework, and other folk art forms, totaling about 500 pieces in all. Rounding out the summer Tarble exhibition are paintings from former Eastern Art faculty members, and art acquired from past exhibitions held at the Paul T. Sargent Gallery and the Tarble Arts Center. The most recent acquisitions in the exhibition are three works from the SPIN series by Paul Henry Ramirez. These three canvases were acquired as a part of the SPIN exhibition project when the series premiered at the Tarble in 2009.  The Smithsonian American Art Museum recently acquired an identical set of SPIN canvases from this same series first shown at the Tarble Arts Center.

The Tarble Arts Center is a major cultural arts resource serving east-central Illinois. Its founding purpose is "to take the arts to the people." The Tarble presents a year-round schedule of changing visual arts exhibitions alongside education and outreach programs, with many designed especially for area schools. The Tarble maintains a one-thousand piece permanent collection, including a 500 piece collection of late 20th century Illinois folk arts and related archival information. The Folk Arts Collection, survey data, and archival materials have been housed in the Tarble Arts Center since its opening in 1982. The collection has been added to through gifts and grants, and works by Illinois artists continue to be sought for the collection, especially contemporary works from artists living in east-central and southeastern Illinois. Excluding folk arts, most of the Tarble Arts Center collection holdings are works on paper by 20th and 21st century American artists, primarily from the Midwest, including original prints, watercolors, drawings, and mixed media works. Some noted artists include: Alice Baber, Leonard Baskin, Lawrence Calcagno, William Stanley Hayter, Jasper Johns, James McGarrell, and Claus Oldenberg.  The American Scene/Regionalist holdings consists primarily of prints, and the grouping is broad, in some cases relying more on art historical associations than on the imagery itself. Essentially, these works can be grouped into two categories: those that were purchased from Associated American Artists (AAA) in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and those that were produced through Federal “New Deal” art projects of the 1930s and ‘40s. Artists represented include, Thomas Hart Benton, Federico Castellon, Aga Cheffetz, Howard Cook, John Steuart Curry, Adolf Dehn, William Gropper, Rockwell Kent, Julian Levi, Luigi Lucioni, Samuel Margolies, Fletcher Martin, Paul Sample, Raphael Soyer, Stow Wengenroth and Grant Wood. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.eiu.edu/tarble

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