Tod's Visit to New Britain Museum of American Art

My wife and I went to the New Britain Museum of American Art on Saturday June 5th.

This is not something that we ever think about doing, we have taken friend's children to science museums, but I cannot remember when was the last time that I have been to an art museum.

I did enjoy the experience and looking forward to to the next museum.




This is a picture of my wife Jeth and I in front of a wall surrounded with painted plastic cups. It's amazing how the colors light up the whole stair case. The title is The Gravity of Color by Lisa Hoke



























This is a stunning painting of the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York City.

The title of the painting is The Circle of Terror and Tragedy by Graydon Parrish.












Artist: Thomas Hart Benton will be the the artist that I will write about first. I enjoy his paintings of American History. The paintings seem to be of the time of the mid 1800s to early to mid 1900s.

The paintings are called The Arts of Life in America.



Other exhibits that might be of interest to the ladies is an exhibit of shoes. Another good exhibit of watercolor paintings.





I will leave you with the most unique sculptures.

These sea creatures are made from pencils






I was planning on going to Wadsworth Antheneum on Sunday, but I had to go to work. I am planning on going this Sunday depending on my work schedule.


Thank you, Tod



The New Britain Museum of American Art

My wife Jeth and I visited The New Britain Museum of American Art on June 5, 2010. We went on a Saturday morning and I was surprise that it was so quiet and not too many people there. As we pulled in the parking lot I was impressed about the architecture of the building, the landscape and the adjacent Landers House. As we went to the lobby there was another surprise, there is no entrance fee because it’s a Saturday morning; its free admission between 10:00am through noon so I just give a donation.
The New Britain Museum of American Art is located next to historic Walnut Hill Park, designed by well known landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead. This museum has a new state of the art building which is the Family Chase building and was opened on April of 2006. This building was design by Ann Beha architects of Boston. The Museum is a 43,000 square foot building which includes 10 galleries inside and it is a 2 storey building. This museum was founded in 1903 and became the first museum in the country that dedicated to American Art. In 1934, a wealthy widow name Grace Judd Landers donated her house as a museum which is now called the Landers House next to the new building.
This museum has collections of approximately 10,236 works of arts. It dated from 1739 to present. As a first timer visiting an art museum, I was happy to see paintings that I can only dream of or seen in text books. I was impressed of the whole collection. I enjoyed the Colonial and early republic, the earliest painting I’ve seen is a portrait of Benjamin Coleman, 1739. This is oil on canvas by John Smibert. He was responsible of bringing this type of merchant portrait in America.
The Hudson River School and The Met paintings gallery was next to the Colonial and Early Republic gallery. These paintings caught my attention due to fact they are landscape paintings. I have always enjoyed going on vacations and looking at the landscape that surrounds you. These are the type of paintings that you see in many of peoples homes. One such artist’s works that stuck into my mind is The Parthenon, painted in 1871, oil on canvas. The painting was done by Frederic Edwin Church (1826 – 1900). He was born in Hartford Connecticut. These collections were on loan, so we were unable to take pictures.
The next exhibit was Ruthie Davis Shoes. This exhibit is mainly for the ladies, due to the fact that they are all ladies shoes. Ruthie Davis is a designer and has her studio in New York City. The exhibit has many different styles pumps and pictures of movie starts and singing artist wearing them. One such artist wearing Ruthie Davis’s shoes was Beyonce. When you check Ruthie Davis’s web site, she does design men’s shoes as well, but the exhibit didn’t have any men’s footwear.
The illustration collection has a chandelier, which looks like it was made from blown glass. I did not get the artist name for this work of art. The other one was a work called The Gravity of Color by Lisa Hoke. This art work was on the walls as you climb the stairs to the second floor. You do not realize it until you get close to the art work that it is made from painted plastic cups.
The first exhibit that you come to when entering the second floor is The Great American Watercolor. This exhibit is open from April 24 – July 3, 2010. I learned to appreciate these works of art, because I painted with water color when I was a child. The paintings are vibrant, but I was told it is the most difficult because it is hard to hide mistakes. These paintings need to in dim light, because the light will cause them to fade.
One other fun exhibit to look at was at a distance it looks like sculptures of sea anatomies and other sea creatures that are so life like. When you approach these sculptures, you realize that they are made of sharpened pencils that are put together to form these animals. I need to take better notes, because I did not write down the artist name.
One painting that I did not fully understand was by Greydon Parrish, The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy: September 11, 2001, 2002-2006. The painting had three young boys, blind folded and two of them holding a plane. I believe that the two planes represent the ones that went into the Twin Towers. The three boys playing might mean the innocence that no one fore seen what was about to happen. Two young men were standing and screaming and both were blind folded. My thought was that were screaming in terror and anger. One young man and one old man was lying on the ground, this might represent death that occurred on that day. The three ladies in the picture were I was confused on what they could symbolize. They were partial nude and two of them were handcuffed. Hopefully someone can help me with this one.
The paintings or I should say mural by Thomas Hart Benton. Thomas Hart Benton has his own exhibit in the New Britain Museum of American Art. I enjoyed looking at his work. The first one that caught my eye was The Arts of Life in America, Indian Arts, 1932. As I looked over his morals they painted pictures of what American life was like in the 1920’s through the 1930’s.
Thomas Hart Benton was born in Neosho Missouri 1889. He studied in the Art Institute of Chicago in 1907. Thomas then spent five years in Paris was he formularized himself with new trends and especially with cubism. He returned to the United States in 1912, when he became an advocate of synchronism (nonobjective mode of painting, featuring intersecting planes, close to French orphism, which is a branch of cubism). In 1916 Benton submitted works that showed influences of synchronism to Forum Exhibition of American Painting. During this time Benton could not resolve his conflict felt between nonobjective and realism in his painting. Benton was in the Navy from 1918-1919, which he felt that set him on the course to devote art entirely American subjects in a realistic manor.
Benton made studies between the years of 1919 and 1924 for his projected series of mural decorations based on American history. From 1924 to around 1931 he traveled the mid-west and the south taking notes of the people he observed and incorporated that into his paintings. Benton has painted scenes of mining, farming and lumbering, also turbulent growth of a boomtown. He also made paintings that showed corruption and inequality that was going on at that time.
Benton continued painting well into his 80’s. He painted a portrait of Harry Truman and it was completed shortly before Truman’s death. Benton died in January, 1975, just as he finished the basic work of a mural illustrating the origins of country music, commissioned by the Country Music Foundation in Nashville.
Benton is truly a fan of American way of life and it is nice to look at his art work and appreciate the painting and murals of American history through his eyes.

References:
http://www.answers.com/topic/thomas-hart-benton-painter
http://www.nbmaa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=46