A Rogue Minimalist

In Grace with Chance, 1989. Power Boothe (b. 1945). Oil on Canvas, 72 x 72 in. New Britain Museum of American Art, Gift of the artist (2010.17)

Although he will continue to teach, former Dean of the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford Power Boothe now has the chance to commit all his efforts to painting, as his job only allowed him a few weeks of artistic focus in the summer. The exhibit Power Boothe: Out of Order at the New Britain Museum of American Art through April 10, 2011, gives us a glimpse of his work from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.

Although he is originally from Texas, Boothe grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and received his BA and Honorary Doctor of Arts from Colorado College. In the late 1960s, he became a fellow at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. Not only does he paint, Boothe is well known for his accomplishments as a set designer for theater, dance, and video, designing sets for Obie Award-winning productions.

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Contemporary/Interactive Crazy Quilts

Love the Eats, 2010. Carol Padberg (b. 1964). Mixed media, 36 x 36 in. Collection of the artist.

Victorian crazy quilts were textiles made for display. They adorned the public space of the parlor rather than private space of the bedroom. The compositions of these quilts did not follow traditional patterns, but were the product of the seamstress’ own sense of invention. Beyond their decorative function, Crazy Quilts had a social function. Crazy Quilts were most often viewed during the visits called “calling hours” that brought people together to share news and socialize.

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200 Years of Women Artists

A Caress, 1891. Mary Cassatt (1844-1926). Pastel on paper, 29 1/4 x 23 3/4 in. New Britain Museum of AMerican Art, Harriet Rusell Stanley Fund (1948.14).

On Dec. 18 the New Britain Museum of American Art will open WomenArtists@NewBritainMuseum, a comprehensive exhibition of women artists represented in the permanent collection. This is a first in the Museum’s history and a landmark show that sets it among a group of major international museums—the Musée National d’Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles—that have presented large-scale exhibitions of art by women in the past four years. The Museum of Modern Art just published a 500-page catalogue of women’s work in their collection and the Jewish Museum of New York recently opened an exhibition of feminism and painting drawn primarily from their collection and featuring seven works that they have recently acquired. This sudden flurry of action signals a coming of age for women artists from the perspective of museums. After forty years of political pressure, women’s art has achieved major institutional recognition.

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“Carrying” on Tradition

View of Nantucket Lightship Baskets: Carrying on Tradition. Davis Gallery, New Britain Museum of American Art.

Nantucket Lightship Baskets have had a long and illustrious history beginning in the early 19th century on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. Though wooden baskets have been in existence since before America was colonized by the British, Nantucket residents modified the original design by using different materials (such as rattan) and innovative designs, creating the Lightship Baskets that are sought after today

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Classical Realism Today: Christopher Pugliese

Eve, 2005. Christopher Pugliese (b. 1968). Oil on linen. Collection of the Artist.

Christopher Pugliese (b. 1968) is the most recent artist featured in the NEW/NOW Gallery at the New Britain Museum of American Art. His style merges the classical with the contemporary, painting his figures with the grace and anatomical accuracy of the Old Masters while simultaneously creating an air of modern existentialism. His approach to art is partially due to early influences from artists Ted Jacobs (b. 1927), Tony Ryder (b. 1957), and Martha (b. 1937) and Walter Erlebacher (1933-1991). Ted Jacobs created a style known as “Restructured Realism,” described by Jacobs as “the study of perception, and the optimal suggestion paint allows, of what we see. It is a contemporary vision, or perhaps a future one, whose roots are from the past.”¹ Ryder utilizes this style as well and both artists stress the importance of drawing from life.

Pugliese met Jacobs and Ryder while studying at the New York Academy of Art and traveled with them to France, where Jacobs founded L’Ecole Albert Defois, a private art school, in 1987.

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New Media & Fractal Art

TV Cello, 1971. Nam June Paik (1932-2006). Video tubes, TV chassis, plexiglass boxes, electronics, wiring, wood base, fan, stool, photograph. Permanent Collection, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

A broad term that emerged in the 1960s and exploded onto the art scene in the 1980s, New Media ecompasses the fusion of traditional media such as film, images, painting, sculpture, music, and the written and spoken word with the interactive power of computer and communications technology, computer-enabled consumer devices, and the Internet. This new category of art includes digital art, animation, interactive and installation art, and computer graphics, among others. New media artists such as Nam June Paik (1932-2006) and Wolf Vostell (1932-1998) first experimented with video and sound art in the 1960s and many artists have since followed in their footsteps with further experimentation. A key concept of New Media is that the artworks produced are available to anyone at any time through the Internet and other digital frameworks. This digitization creates a universal forum for artists to share ideas with each other, and communicate with viewers directly.

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American Reflections: The Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin

Millstone Point. William Chadwick (1879-1962). Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 in. Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin.

The NBMAA is currently showing American Reflections: The Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin in the Davis Gallery. This private collection is composed of a wide variety of local and regional subject matter. The exhibition is a focused view of Dr. McLaughlin’s collection of landscape paintings from the mid 19th to early 20th century. Following are several highlights of the exhibition.

The artistic heritage of Connecticut is rich and deep. Portraitists and limners earned a living here in colonial times. The nineteenth century saw the advent of history painting and landscape painting. A number of Hudson River School artists came from the state, lived here, or worked here. American Impressionism was embraced very early by painters in the artists’ colonies of Cos Cob and Old Lyme.

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Gallery Tours: Late 20th Century Art

Blue Prescence, 1970. Richard Pousette-Dart (1916–1992). Oil on board, 24 x 24 in. New Britain Museum of American Art, General Purchase Fund, 1971.25.

With no formal artistic training, Richard Pousette-Dart borrowed from the early efforts of the Abstract Expressionists during the 1940s and soon developed a painting technique that focused on the artist’s direct experience with materials and discouraged the use of preparatory sketches. The artist incorporated substances, such as sand, razor blades, and sandpaper, to alter the surface texture of his works and create visual radiance. A focus on the complexities of paint surfaces and a highly developed sense of color harmonies are hallmarks of his style. In Blue Presence the artist uses a Pointillist method of applying small dabs of color to interplay textures and light-generating color fields. The dominant circular image appears to be radiating outward as if it were a cosmic event while particles of paint decrease slightly in size toward the center of the canvas.

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Exhibition Tour: American Pulp Art

Revolt of the Underworld. Rafael de Soto (1904-1987). The Spider, June 1942. Oil on canvas. Promised gift of Robert Lesser

From the depths of the Great Depression through the era of World War II, Americans turned to inexpensive novels as a form of entertainment and a way to escape their woes. These gripping stories, written before the age of television, were charged with adventure and mystery. Buyers were immediately attracted to their covers. The situations depicted were fraught with drama, their narratives simple and direct, and their colors were vibrant.

These artworks were, however, intended for one-time use and were then invariably thrown away to avoid the cost of storage. Over the decades, almost all the original covers commissioned by publishing houses from the leading illustrators of the day—also esteemed for their portraits, landscapes, and still lifes—have been lost.

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Gallery Tours: Winslow Homer

Skirmish in the Wilderness. Winslow Homer (1836-1910). Oil on canvas mounted on masonite, 18 x 26 1/4 in. New Britain Museum of American Art, Harriet Russell Stanley Fund, 1944.05.

Concurrent with the development and rise of the Hudson River School, American artists journeyed abroad and enrolled in the leading art schools of Europe. Thomas P. Rossiter (1818–1871) received his training in the most fashionable of all art capitals, Paris. Eastman Johnson (1824–1906), who studied at the Düsseldorf Academy in Germany and at the studio of French painter Thomas Couture (1815-1879), specialized in genre scenes of the emerging upper class of New Yorkers who had begun to collect pictures that reflected their lifestyles. The Industrial Revolution led to an increase in the urban population and, with it, a nostalgic yearning for the simple, outdoor life of a bygone era. Genre paintings were seen as offering city dwellers an escape from the hectic pace of their lives.

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