Amon Carter Museum features the Art of Alfred Jacob Miller (1810–1874)

Written by Edith Glassman Tuesday, 13 September 2011 21:21

 

Forth Worth, TX - Visitors to the Amon Carter Museum can embark on a captivating visual adventure this fall in a special exhibition of paintings and drawings by Alfred Jacob Miller (1810–1874), the first American artist to journey into the heart of the Rocky Mountains. Sentimental Journey: The Art of Alfred Jacob Miller, on view September 20, 2008 through January 11, 2009, features more than 85 works that offer first hand depictions of the Lakota, Shoshone, Nez Perces, and other American Indian societies, as well as the last of the fur trappers and traders of the nineteenth-century American West.

“Miller took the people and scenery he encountered on his 1837 trip to the Rocky Mountains and created paintings with many layers of meaning out of seemingly simple western genre scenes, giving them intangible qualities such as mood and emotion,” said Lisa Strong, guest curator of the exhibition and author of the exhibition’s companion publication. “In doing this, he produced images that were more innovative and compelling than those of many of his peers working in the West or the East.”

“The title of this exhibition, though it may remind people of the popular song, was carefully chosen,” added Rick Stewart, the museum’s senior curator of western painting and sculpture. “During Miller’s lifetime, sentimentalism was an important means of identifying, inspiring, or guiding moral action. Sentiments are feelings guided by thoughts. This exhibition will demonstrate how Miller was not only interested in depicting western subjects, but also portraying them through the filter of his own nineteenth-century sensibilities as an artist.”

 Returning to America, Miller spent the rest of his life painting and repainting western subjects for Baltimore’s patrons and citizens. He managed to develop patronage among Baltimore merchants whose business interests included the American West, men who sought the frontiers of opportunity that the West presented and who were willing to invest their resources there. For these patrons, Miller painted his subjects in a stylized, romantic, and sentimental manner, capitalizing on the prevalent tastes and trends of his time by drawing from the story lines and characterizations that could be found in the popular literature of the day. Miller connected to his patrons by constructing visual metaphors for the changes that were taking place at that time within the subject matter of the West: Indians, mountain men, and the untamed landscape.

Miller and the Art of the American West
Miller is regarded as one of the preeminent antebellum painters of the American West. Because his images of American Indians and the waning fur trade are so engaging and early examples of such subjects are relatively rare in western American art, historians have typically focused on the content of his works rather than his artistry. With this exhibition, the much more rich and complex nature of his contribution to American art can be understood. In the face of keen competition from other painters of the West, such as George Catlin, Seth Eastman and John Mix Stanley, Miller succeeded in painting his western subjects in a way that was compelling, relevant and appealing, creating metaphors for social change taking place both in the United States and Scotland that were immediately recognizable and therefore attractive and engaging to audiences at home and abroad for more than three decades.
Visit the Amon Carter Museum at : www.cartermuseum.org/

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