The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art hosts ' A Century of American Art '

Friday, 20 July 2007 00:25

Ithaca, NY - The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University presents Looking Homeward: A Century of American Art, on view to September 23, 2007. “The works on paper collection of the Johnson Museum houses over 20,000 objects, many of them works by American artists,” said Nancy E. Green, the exhibition’s curator and the senior curator of prints, drawings, and photographs at the Johnson. “This exhibition highlights some of the many recent acquisitions to the works on paper department as well as several loans to the collection that help fill out the story of twentieth-century American art.”

The turn of the last century saw a gradual shift from European-based academic training for artists to a more homegrown approach. Education in the arts was expanding rapidly all around the country. Art in the United States became much more focused on the individuality of the American experience, and artists such as the Ashcan School group known as “The Eight” (Robert Henri, George Luks, John Sloan, Maurice Prendergast, Arthur B. Davies, William Glackens, Ernest Lawson, and Everett Shinn) explored revelatory artistic themes of lower- and middle-class life. When the Armory Show opened in 1913, the stage was set for a revolutionary reassessment. This was quickly followed by World War I, which transplanted many European artists to the New York art scene, and the shift homeward became even more pronounced.

Despite the Depression, the 1930s offered many opportunities for artists in the form of the Works Project Administration and the Farm Security Administration. The outbreak of World War II brought a new group of artist refugees to the United States. Others followed soon after the war, and by the 1950s the center of the art world was New York, with the Abstract Expressionists at the core. Subsequent art movements like Pop Art, Photorealism, and Minimalism seem quintessentially American in their clean, crisp edges and bright colors, but by the 1980s the art world started to shift again, expanding to become more global. Today, there is no longer one city at the center of the art world, as artists share ideas through mass communication and can produce their work anywhere.

The Johnson Museum has a permanent collection of over 30,000 works of art from Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America. The museum building was designed by I. M. Pei. Funds for the building were donated by Cornell alumnus Herbert F. Johnson, late president and chairman of S C Johnson. The building opened in 1973. The Johnson Museum has one of the finest collections of art in New York State and is recognized as one of the most important university museums in the country.

The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, located on the campus of Cornell University, is open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is free. The Museum is completely accessible for mobility-impaired visitors, and a wheelchair is available in the lobby. Metered parking is available in the lot next to the Museum. For more information, please call 607 255-6464. Visit the Museum’s website at www.museum.cornell.edu . The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art is a proud member of Ithaca’s Discovery Trail: www.DiscoveryTrail.com .