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D**R
Introducing familiar works to new audiences
This catalogue relates to an exhibition organised under the Tate’s International Programme, that is intended to create new global cultural links and to open its collection to to new audiences, partly by exhibiting selected works from its extensive holding.In 2002, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee, hosted this exhibition of thirty-eight Impressionist works by Whistler, Sargent and Steer from the Tate Collections. The Frist Center opened in April 2001 [a year after Tate Modern] ‘to present and originate high quality exhibitions with related educational programs and community outreach activities’.Two essays are included in this catalogue – ‘Nocturnes, Characters and Sunlit Beaches – Whistler, Sargent and Steer’ by David Fraser Jenkins and ‘A Window on the Nineties – W. Graham Robertson and Aesthetic London’ by Avis Berman; these contain 17 and 12 b/w illustrations, respectively. One of the fascinating aspects of this catalogue is how it presents to an American audience works that are familiar to London/British art-lovers.The exhibited works, seven by Whistler, 1834-1903, nineteen by Sargent, 1856-1925, and twelve by Steer, 1860-1942, are presented as colour plates with complementary texts adapted from originals by Frances Fowle. The three works on the front cover represent details from Whistler’s “Three Figures: Pink and Grey”, 1868-78, from Sargent’s “The Misses Hunter”, 1902, and Steer’s “The Beach at Walberswick”, c. 1889.Jenkins points out that the works in the exhibition date from the period during which the Tate Gallery was founded. He compares and contrasts the Tate Gallery, Tate Modern and the Frist before considering varieties of Impressionism in France and beyond. He then discusses Whistler, Sargent and Steer, and places each in the context of the artistic times. Particular attention is paid to Sargent’s society portraits, his Boston decorations and his enormous ‘swagger portraits’ of the Wertheimer and Hunter families.In contrast, Berman focuses on the painter, collector and friend of many artists, W. Graham Robertson, 1866-1948, as little known to Nashville visitors as to me. Robertson, who was painted by Sargent in 1894, studied with Albert Moore, 1841-93, and was active until his painting dwindled after the start of the Great War [his last significant work being “Self-portrait with Rachel Hill”, 1914, although “Dame Alice Ellen Terry”, 1922, is also shown in the essay]. As a collector he acquired many watercolours, paintings and drawings by William Blake some of which were given to the Tate Gallery in 1939, the remainder given to public and private collections after his death. This is a rather inward-looking essay that did include one fascinating fact - he changed his name in the mid-1880s from Graham Walford Robertson because he ‘already hated machinery [and] disliked sharing his initials with the Great Western Railway’.The paintings by Whistler include “Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl”, 1864, “Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea”, 1871, “Miss Cicely Alexander: Harmony in Grey and Green”, 1872, “Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge”, c. 1872-75, as well as the less familiar “Three Figures: Pink and Grey”, 1868-78, which dissatisfied the artist.It is interesting to see the many Sargent portraits in the light of the current exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery; those shown here include the austere “Mrs Robert Hunter”, 1886, the larger than life-size “Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth”, 1889, “Asher Wertheimer”, 1898, reminiscent of Thomas Eakins, “The Misses Hunter”, 1902, and “Miss Eliza Wedgwood and Miss Sargent Sketching”, 1908. Very different, but also impressive, are the Italian watercolours “Oxen, Carrara”, 1911-13, and “San Vigilio, Lago di Garda”, c. 1913, the Near Eastern landscape “The Mountains of Moab”, 1905, and the “Preliminary Relief of Crucifixion”, 1897-99, designed for the Boston Public Library.A number of Steer’s paintings are of Walberswick – “The Bridge”, 1887-88, “The Beach at Walberswick”, c. 1889, which almost seem to prefigure Munch, and “Girls Running, Walberswick”, 1888-94, but there are also “Boulogne Sands”, 1888-92, the Japanese-influenced “Mrs Cyprian Williams and her Two Little Girls”, 1891, “Girl in a Blue Dress”, c. 1891, “A Procession of Yachts”, 1892-93, “Chepstow Castle”, 1905, in which he takes an identical viewpoint as Turner, and “The Outskirts of Montreuil”, 1907.
D**R
Introducing familiar works to new audiences
This catalogue relates to an exhibition organised under the Tate’s International Programme, that is intended to create new global cultural links and to open its collection to to new audiences, partly by exhibiting selected works from its extensive holding.In 2002, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee, hosted this exhibition of thirty-eight Impressionist works by Whistler, Sargent and Steer from the Tate Collections. The Frist Center opened in April 2001 [a year after Tate Modern] ‘to present and originate high quality exhibitions with related educational programs and community outreach activities’.Two essays are included in this catalogue – ‘Nocturnes, Characters and Sunlit Beaches – Whistler, Sargent and Steer’ by David Fraser Jenkins and ‘A Window on the Nineties – W. Graham Robertson and Aesthetic London’ by Avis Berman; these contain 17 and 12 b/w illustrations, respectively. One of the fascinating aspects of this catalogue is how it presents to an American audience works that are familiar to London/British art-lovers.The exhibited works, seven by Whistler, 1834-1903, nineteen by Sargent, 1856-1925, and twelve by Steer, 1860-1942, are presented as colour plates with complementary texts adapted from originals by Frances Fowle. The three works on the front cover represent details from Whistler’s “Three Figures: Pink and Grey”, 1868-78, from Sargent’s “The Misses Hunter”, 1902, and Steer’s “The Beach at Walberswick”, c. 1889.Jenkins points out that the works in the exhibition date from the period during which the Tate Gallery was founded. He compares and contrasts the Tate Gallery, Tate Modern and the Frist before considering varieties of Impressionism in France and beyond. He then discusses Whistler, Sargent and Steer, and places each in the context of the artistic times. Particular attention is paid to Sargent’s society portraits, his Boston decorations and his enormous ‘swagger portraits’ of the Wertheimer and Hunter families.In contrast, Berman focuses on the painter, collector and friend of many artists, W. Graham Robertson, 1866-1948, as little known to Nashville visitors as to me. Robertson, who was painted by Sargent in 1894, studied with Albert Moore, 1841-93, and was active until his painting dwindled after the start of the Great War [his last significant work being “Self-portrait with Rachel Hill”, 1914, although “Dame Alice Ellen Terry”, 1922, is also shown in the essay]. As a collector he acquired many watercolours, paintings and drawings by William Blake some of which were given to the Tate Gallery in 1939, the remainder given to public and private collections after his death. This is a rather inward-looking essay that did include one fascinating fact - he changed his name in the mid-1880s from Graham Walford Robertson because he ‘already hated machinery [and] disliked sharing his initials with the Great Western Railway’.The paintings by Whistler include “Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl”, 1864, “Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea”, 1871, “Miss Cicely Alexander: Harmony in Grey and Green”, 1872, “Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge”, c. 1872-75, as well as the less familiar “Three Figures: Pink and Grey”, 1868-78, which dissatisfied the artist.It is interesting to see the many Sargent portraits in the light of the current exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery; those shown here include the austere “Mrs Robert Hunter”, 1886, the larger than life-size “Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth”, 1889, “Asher Wertheimer”, 1898, reminiscent of Thomas Eakins, “The Misses Hunter”, 1902, and “Miss Eliza Wedgwood and Miss Sargent Sketching”, 1908. Very different, but also impressive, are the Italian watercolours “Oxen, Carrara”, 1911-13, and “San Vigilio, Lago di Garda”, c. 1913, the Near Eastern landscape “The Mountains of Moab”, 1905, and the “Preliminary Relief of Crucifixion”, 1897-99, designed for the Boston Public Library.A number of Steer’s paintings are of Walberswick – “The Bridge”, 1887-88, “The Beach at Walberswick”, c. 1889, which almost seem to prefigure Munch, and “Girls Running, Walberswick”, 1888-94, but there are also “Boulogne Sands”, 1888-92, the Japanese-influenced “Mrs Cyprian Williams and her Two Little Girls”, 1891, “Girl in a Blue Dress”, c. 1891, “A Procession of Yachts”, 1892-93, “Chepstow Castle”, 1905, in which he takes an identical viewpoint as Turner, and “The Outskirts of Montreuil”, 1907.
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