Carnegie Museum of Art announces Six Works Accquired for the Collection

Saturday, 05 April 2008 00:06

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - Carnegie Museum of Art announces the acquisition of six significant works for the collection.  A Pastoral Landscape is a major work by Asher Brown Durand, a founder of the Hudson River School and one of the originators of American landscape painting.  Conceived on a grand scale, Pastoral Landscape reflects an idyllic vision of 19th-century rural America, based on the topography of upstate New York, and the Catskill and Adirondack mountains. Painted in the difficult decade preceding the American Civil War and intended for urban dwellers and industrialists, the painting offers a nostalgic view of a simpler agrarian society and an unspoiled environment. It represents Carnegie Museum of Art’s earliest Hudson River School painting.
 
Vija Celmins
American, b. Riga, Latvia, 1938
Night Sky 2 (Reversed), 2002
three-color photo-etching, aquatint, photogravure, and drypoint on Hahnemühle Copperplate paper
20 3/4 x 24 1/2 in.
Edition 16 of 65
Carnegie Museum of Art, purchase: Carol R. Brown Acquisition Fund for Contemporary Art
 
Night Sky 2(Reversed) (2002), a work on paper by artist Vija Celmins, is a subtle rendering of a night sky in which the artist explores the elusive beauty of that natural world through a laborious mark-marking process.  
 
Catherine Opie
American, b. 1961
Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, 2007
triptych of three chromogenic prints
51 x 30 in. each
Edition 1 of 5
Carnegie Museum of Art, purchase: Gift Fund for Specific Acquisitions
 
Catherine Opie’s triptych, Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, depicts the architectural cast of the west façade of this church, located in Carnegie Museum of Art’s Hall of Architecture. As part of her Pittsburgh (American Cities) project, this triptych is the latest installment from the series, in which Opie has been documenting the landscape and architecture of various cities around the United States.  
In March 2007, Opie came to Pittsburgh and photographed the museum, and this visit marked the first time she photographed digitally.  
 
Andrey Avinoff
Russian-American, 1884–1949
The Dispensation of the Old and the New, c. 1941–1949
watercolor on three sheets of paper
30 x 50 in. (overall, estimate)
Carnegie Museum of Art, purchase: Gift Fund for Specific Acquisitions
 
The Dispensation of the Old and the New is the acknowledged masterpiece of Andrey Avinoff, a brilliant artist, scientist, and cultural leader from the time of his youth in the court of Czar Nicholas, II to his tenure as director of Carnegie Museum of Natural History from 1925 to 1945.
 
Ebbs Gift
 
This large gift from George H. Ebbs and his family includes some of the most prominent names in photography such as Berenice Abbott, Gertrude Kasebier, Joel Meyerowitz, Eadweard Muybridge, Alfred Stieglitz, and Clarence H. White.  The collection encompasses a wide span of photographic history, from 19th-century photographs to contemporary works.
 
This gift also includes a valuable and rare collection of numerous vintage volumes of Alfred Stieglitz’ famous journals, Camera Notes and Camera Work.  One rare book from 1911, The Door in the Wall and Other Stories written by H.G. Wells and illustrated by Coburn is also included in this gift.  
 
Charles H. White, manufacturer
American, 1796–1876
Chair, c. 1853
walnut, original wool upholstery
Carnegie Museum of Art, purchase: Richard L. Simmons Acquisition Fund
 
This chair—retaining all its original upholstery—and its mate are two of the only documented rococo revival armchairs made and sold by the important Philadelphia furniture maker Charles White. They are among the relatively few rococo revival objects in America to retain their original wool, block-printed upholstery, decorated in vivid hues and galloon trims of the same color palette.  This chair is an ideal example of the florid, often asymmetrical, rococo revival style that was pervasive in furniture and furnishings throughout America by the 1840s and 1850s, visible in exaggerated C- and S- shapes in the legs.
 
Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, manufacturer
Corona, New York, 1892–1902 under name
“Favrile” Bowl, c. 1893
iridescent glass
Carnegie Museum of Art, purchase: gift of Audrey Hillman Fisher Foundation
 
This bowl represents the beginning of experimentation in art glass, conducted in the earliest period of Tiffany’s production under the name Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company.  The strikingly abstract and modern bowl is an ideal example of Tiffany’s early “favrile” process, in which he manipulated different types of glass to produce a lustrous shine that dramatically changes with exposure to light.
 
Carnegie Museum of Art
Located at 4400 Forbes Avenue in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh and founded by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1895, Carnegie Museum of Art, one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, is nationally and internationally recognized for its distinguished collection of American and European works of art from the 16th century to the present.  The Heinz Architectural Center, part of Carnegie Museum of Art, is dedicated to the collection, study, and exhibition of architectural drawings and models.  For more information about Carnegie Museum of Art, call 412.622.3131 or visit our web site at www.cmoa.org.