The Art and Collection of James A. Suydam at the National Academy Museum

Written by Ted Loos Sunday, 05 September 2010 22:45

New York City - The first major exhibition in a quarter century to explore luminism in nineteenth-century American landscape painting, Luminist Horizons: The Art and Collection of James A. Suydam, will be on exhibit until 31 December at the National Academy Museum. 

The exhibition features approximately fifty-five paintings by Suydam (1819–1865) and the artists of his circle, including John F. Kensett, Asher B. Durand, Frederic Edwin Church, Sanford R. Gifford, Jasper Cropsey, and many others.

Suydam’s collection, bequeathed in its entirety to the National Academy in 1865, documents the many American and European influences on Suydam and his peers as they explored qualities of light and atmosphere in the landscape.  Luminist Horizons reveals the exceptional strength of the artist’s collection and presents the first ever retrospective of Suydam’s career, including his masterpiece, Paradise Rocks, Newport (1860).

Luminist Horizons contributes a new, individual perspective on the development of luminism in Civil War America.  Often characterized by art historians as an aesthetic of solitary isolation, luminism was, instead, a gregarious experience for Suydam and his peers.  His first acquisition was a landscape (1850) by Asher B. Durand depicting two artists conversing while admiring the landscape.  Accompanied by close friends, such as Kensett, Gifford, and Worthington Whittredge, Suydam visited popular sites during the 1850s and 1860s, particularly in the Hudson River Valley, the Mt. Washington region, and along the Rhode Island coast.  He made these iconic sites his own by interpreting their well-known vistas with his unique colorism, crisp geometry, and fresh compositional arrangements.

Suydam was a son of one of New York’s early Dutch merchant families.  He inherited a considerable fortune early in life that permitted him to tour Europe and the Middle East for several years after he completed his studies at New York University.  His career in art began in middle age, as an amateur painter working under the influence of Durand and the instruction of Kensett, whose landmark Bash Bish (1855) Suydam owned.

By the later 1850s, Suydam transformed himself into a professional artist and was elected to full membership in the National Academy of Design in 1861, the same year as the onset of the Civil War.  In the midst of national crisis, Suydam and his peers created an art of stability, peace, and order.

James A. Suydam, N.A. (1819–1865) was an American landscape painter and collector distinguished for his artistic subtlety and intellectual refinement.  Well known in his day, Suydam’s work as an artist and art advocate began later in life and lasted only a decade before his sudden death at the height of his career.  His legacy was ensured, however, his bequest of his expansive collection of ninety-two paintings, including several of his own works, to the National Academy of Design.  This exhibition, the first to explore Suydam’s career, offers a fresh opportunity to appreciate his contributions to American art.

Luminist Horizons is co-curated by Mark D. Mitchell, Associate Curator of Nineteenth-Century Art at the National Academy Museum, and Katherine E. Manthorne, Professor of American Art at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.  A full color catalogue by the curators with an introduction by Annette Blaugrund, and published by George Braziller Publishers will accompany the exhibition.

Visit The National Academy Museum at : www.nationalacademy.org