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Metadata Embedded, 2019
Thomas Cole
Date: 1826
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1993.2
Text Entries: (modified anniversary publication entry) The English-born painter Thomas Cole, a key figure of the Hudson River School, recognized the epic potential of the American landscape. On his arrival in Philadelphia at the age of seventeen, he had already been apprenticed to an engraver and soon turned his interest to painting. He later moved to New York City and, inspired by the magnificent vistas along the Hudson River, began to define landscape as a spiritual subject that could transcend its function as a mere topographical record. In this way, Cole contributed to the romantic transformation of landscape painting from documentary and picturesque views into a discourse on the human experience set against the enduring forces of nature, elevating the once modest genre of landscape painting to an expression of the heroic sublime. In Landscape with Figures: A Scene from "The Last of the Mohicans" the human figures are dwarfed by an awe-inspiring vista of towering mountains and an expansive sky. Cole portrays the denouement of James Fenimore Cooper's newly published, popular novel The Last of the Mohicans (1826). The painting visualizes the novel's climactic scene in which the hero frontiersman Hawkeye aims his shotgun at Magua, the native villain, who tries to flee down a cliff. Cora Munro, the heroine of the novel, after being kidnapped and brutalized by Magua, lies dying at Hawkeye's feet. The grandeur of Cole's autumnal wilderness of scarlet leaves and wild rushing mountain streams overwhelms the narrative, however, reminding the viewer that there are greater forces in the universe than human conflict and desire.
Metadata Embedded, 2017
Charles Courtney Curran
Date: 1888
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1999.35
Text Entries: Considered Charles Courtney Curran's masterwork, Lotus Lilies depicts Curran's wife Grace Wickham, seated on the left, and her cousin Lottie Taylor. Individual identities are subsumed, however, in favor of an ideal, more universal, notion of femininity, evoked by the pictorial device of flowers and reinforced by the women's demure, downcast gazes. Curran's compositional merging of flora and feminine is seamless and entrancing: the brilliant sunlight bathes an abundance of lilies that frames the women and literally arrests their movement (with no oars in sight). In the distant right, two men can be seen actively rowing through the growth of flowers with no protective umbrella and though Curran has rendered them barely visible the difference is inescapable.
Metadata Embedded 2019
Thomas Eakins
Date: 1907
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Art Acquisition Endowment Fund
Object number: 1998.1
Text Entries: A man stands in a three-quarter pose in front of a dark background. His eyes are turned toward the source of light which illuminates his face, and he seems indifferent to the viewer. His dark suit, tightly knotted tie and glasses give the impression that he is an intellectual. His blue eyes attract our attention without revealing his thoughts. Considered one of the most important artists of the second half of the 19th century, Thomas Eakins helped create a truly American pictorial realism. Following his academic training, first in Pennsylvania, then in Paris, in the studio of Jean-Léon Gérôme, between 1866 and 1869, Eakins dedicated himself to the representation of the human figure and to portraiture in particular. The painter was largely influenced by his European predecessors and was also an ardent photographer. However, he quickly distinguished himself by accepting very few commissions and by only choosing his models from among his friends, colleagues or students. Such is the case with Thomas Eagan, a close friend pictured here twenty-five years after their first meeting. This portrait is typical of the artist's work towards the end of his career, when he moved away from tradition by portraying members of the American middle class with objectivity and sincerity.
Metadata Embedded, 2017
William Stanley Haseltine
Date: 1864
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1999.65
Text Entries: Nineteenth-century landscape painter William Stanley Haseltine closely studied nature with a scientific curiosity. The rocky Nahant coast, north of Boston, attracted Haseltine because of its beautiful, open expanses of sky and water and its unique masses of smooth-topped, reddish indigenous rock. Remarkably commanding, the polished detail of the rock in this painting dominates the coastal scene as it diagonally divides the picture.
Metadata embedded 2017
Martin Johnson Heade
Date: 1870
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Art Acquisition Endowment Fund
Object number: 1999.7
Text Entries: “Art Notes,” <i>New York Evening Post</i>, May 16, 1870. Text, front page (as <i>Apple Blossoms in a Nautilus Shell</i>). [may refer to TFAA work]<br><br> Sotheby's, New York, New York (September 23, 1993): lot 24. Ill. lot 24 (color).<br><br> Davis, Kate and Thomas B. Parker. <i>American Art</i>. New York: Jordan-Volpe Gallery, 1994. Ill. p. 69 (color).<br><br> Novak, Barbara. <i>Martin Johnson Heade, A Survey: 1840–1900</i>. (exh. cat., Eaton Fine Art, Inc.). West Palm Beach, Florida: Eaton Fine Art, Inc., 1996. Text p. 40; ill. p. 41.<br><br> Sotheby's, New York, New York (Sale 7320, May 27, 1999): lot 122. Ill. lot 122 (color).<br><br> Stebbins, Jr., Theodore E. <i>The Life and Works of Martin Johnson Heade: A Critical Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné</i>. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2000. Ill. p. 131 (color); p. 299, cat. no. 397 (black & white).<br><br> Yood, James. <i>Still Life with Apple Blossoms in a Nautilus Shell</i>, Martin Johnson Heade. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, September 2001. Ill. (color).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>An American Point of View: The Daniel J. Terra Collection</i>. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text pp. 66, 197; ill. pp. 8 (color), 67 (color), 197 (black & white).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>Un regard transatlantique. La collection d'art américain de Daniel J. Terra</i>. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text pp. 66, 197; ill. pp. 8 (color), 67 (color), 197 (black & white).<br><br> Kennedy, Elizabeth. "The Terra Museum of American Art." <i>American Art Review</i> (December 2002): 126–41. Ill. p. 131 (color). <i>American Encounters: The Simple Pleasures of Still Life.</i> (exh. cat., Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, High Museum of Art, Musée du Louvre and the Terra Foundation for American Art). Atlanta, Georgia: High Museum of Art, 2014. Text, pp. 22, 52, 54; ill. p. 53, cat. no. 6 (color).<br><br> <i>New Frontiers IV: Fastes et fragments. Aux origines de la nature morte américaine.</i> (exh. cat., Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the High Museum of Art, the Musée du Louvre and the Terra Foundation for American Art). Atlanta, Georgia: The High Museum of Art, 2014. Text pp. 23, 48, 50; ill. p. 49, cat. no. 5 (color).<br><br> Mayer Heydt, Stephanie. "American Encounters, the Simple Pleasures of Still Life." <i>Antiques and Fine Arts Magazine</i> (January–March 2015): 148–156. Text p. 153; ill. p. 151 (color).<br><br> Mayer Heydt, Stephanie. "American Encounters, the Simple Pleasures of Still Life." <i>Incollect</i> (January 22, 2015).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M., and Peter John Brownlee, eds. <i>Conversations with the Collection: A Terra Foundation Collection Handbook.</i> Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2018. Text pp. 98, 99; ill. p. 98, detail pp. 100–101 (color).<br><br>
Metadata Embedded, 2019
Edward Hicks
Date: c. 1829-1830
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1993.7
Text Entries: (modified anniversary publication entry) Edward Hicks gained a reputation in his community for his work as an ornamental painter and his outspoken participation in the Society of Friends, popularly known as the Quakers. A lifelong resident of rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Hicks had a limited formal education. At the age of thirteen, he apprenticed to a coach painter. Later he married and set up shop painting signs, coaches, and other utilitarian objects. This profession was in conflict with the spare life advocated by his faith, and his increasing activity as a traveling minister kept him away from his business. Why or when Hicks turned to easel painting is unknown, but about 1820 he began to explore an allegorical subject that he found infinitely variable and satisfying. A Peaceable Kingdom with Quakers Bearing Banners portrays the tolerant coexistence among all the animals and humanity described in Isaiah 11: 6-9. Depicting wildness calmed by gentleness and worldliness tempered by innocence, the message of the Peaceable Kingdom became for Hicks a form of testament, a painted articulation of his deepest beliefs. A Peaceable Kingdom with Quakers Bearing Banners places Hicks at the center of a religious controversy that split the Quakers into factions. Hicks' elderly cousin Elias promoted an extreme form of Quaker quietism, in which the faithful were urged to discard all but the most basic elements of daily life to open themselves to divine grace and be guided by the Inward Light of Christ. Elias and his followers, known as Hicksites, withdrew from the Quaker Orthodoxy, prompting accusations of heresy. A series of one hundred Banner paintings by Hicks announce his solidarity with his cousin's beliefs, while calling for peaceful coexistence among the factions. Standing in the front row of the figures at the left and holding a handkerchief he used to mop his brow when preaching, Elias Hicks is accompanied by George Washington and William Penn. The Apostles stand behind them. The banners read "mind the LIGHT within IT IS GLAD TIDEING of Grate Joy PEACE ON EARTH GOOD WILL to ALL MEN everywhere," the words of the Apostle Luke and a basic tenet of the Quaker faith.
Metadata Embedded, 2019
Winslow Homer
Date: 1873
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1994.12
Text Entries: Goodrich, Lloyd. <i>Winslow Homer</i>. (exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art). New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1973. Text p. 137 (checklist); ill. p. 68 (black & white).<br><br> “News and Notes: Discoveries and Thefts.” ARLIS/NA Newsletter 3, no. 6 (October 1975): 121. Text p. 121.<br><br> “News and Notes: Lost and Found.” ARLIS/NA Newsletter 4, no. 2 (February 1976): 64. Text p. 64.<br><br> Hendricks, Gordon. <i>The Life and Works of Winslow Homer</i>. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1979. Text p. 113; ill. p. 298, CL-279 (black & white).<br><br> Christie's, New York, New York (Sale ANNABELLE-7894, May 26, 1994): lot 19. Text p. 30, lot 19; ill. p. 31. <br><br> Berman, Ann E. "American Paintings." <i>Art & Auction</i> 17:2 (September 1994): 80–81. Text p. 81; ill. p. 81 (black & white). <br><br> Blaugrund, Annette. <i>The Tenth Street Studio Building</i>. (exh. cat., Parrish Art Museum). Southampton, New York: Parrish Art Museum, 1997. Text pp. 91, 138 (checklist); ill. p. 96, fig. 54 (color).<br><br> Cartwright, Derrick R. <i>The City and the Country: American Perspectives, 1870–1920</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1999. Text p. 24 (checklist); ill. p. 45 (color).<br><br> Cartwright, Derrick R. <i>Ville et campagne: les artistes américains, 1870–1920</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1999. Text p. 24 (checklist); ill. p. 45 (color).<br><br> Cartwright, Derrick. "The City and Country: American Perspectives, 1870–1920." <i>American Art Review</i> 7:1 (January-February 2000): 100–11. Ill. p. 104 (color).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>An American Point of View: The Daniel J. Terra Collection</i>. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text p. 88; ill. p. 88 (black & white).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>Un regard transatlantique. La collection d'art américain de Daniel J. Terra</i>. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text p. 88; ill. p. 88 (black & white).<br><br> <i>Side by Side: Works from the Terra Foundation for the Arts and the Detroit Institute of the Arts</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2003. Text p. 22 (checklist).<br><br> <i>Deux collections en regard: oeuvres de la Terra Foundation for the Arts et du Detroit Institute of Arts</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2003. Text p. 22 (checklist).<br><br> Goodrich, Lloyd and Abigail Booth Gerdts. <i>Record of Works by Winslow Homer</i>. Vol. 2, <i>1867 through 1876</i>. New York: Spanierman Gallery, LLC, 2005. Text p. 213, no. 432; ill. p. 213, no. 432 (black & white).<br><br> Tedeschi, Martha with Kristi Dahm. <i>Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light.</i> (exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois). Chicago, Illinois: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2008. Text pp. 37–38; ill. p. 39, fig. 4 (color).<br><br> Twain, Mark. <i>The Adventures of Tom Sawyer</i>. Hartford, Connecticut: American Publishing Company, 1876. Reprinted with an introduction and notes by Peter Stoneley, Oxford’s World Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Ill. on 2008 edition cover (color, detail).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M., and Peter John Brownlee, eds. <i>Conversations with the Collection: A Terra Foundation Collection Handbook.</i> Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2018. Text pp. 106, 107; ill. p. 107, detail pp. 108-109 (color).<br><br>
Metadata Embedded, 2019
Winslow Homer
Date: 1864
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1994.11
Text Entries: Goodrich, Lloyd. <i>Winslow Homer</i>. New York: Published for the Whitney Museum of American Art by Macmillan, 1944. Ill. frontispiece.<br><br> Goodrich, Lloyd. <i>Winslow Homer</i>. New York: George Braziller, 1959. Ill. no. 3. <br><br> Christie's New York, New York (Sale ANNABELLE-7894, May 26, 1994): lot 31. Text p. 44; ill. lot 31, p. 45 (color).<br><br> Wilson, Claire. "Winslow Homer at Giverny." <i>France Magazine</i> 35 (Summer 1995). Ill. p. 9.<br><br> <i>On Guard</i>, Winslow Homer. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, January 1996. Ill. (black & white).<br><br> <i>Regard sur cinq années d'expositions</i> (<i>Five Years of Exhibitions at a Glance</i>). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1997. Text p. 93; ill. p. 88 (color).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>An American Point of View: The Daniel J. Terra Collection</i>. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text pp. 88, 198; ill. pp. 9 (color), 89 (color), 198 (black & white).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>Un regard transatlantique. La collection d'art américain de Daniel J. Terra</i>. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text pp. 88, 198; ill. pp. 9 (color), 89 (color), 198 (black & white).<br><br> <i>Side by Side: Works from the Terra Foundation for the Arts and the Detroit Institute of Arts</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2003. Text p. 11; ill. p. 10 (color).<br><br> <i>Deux collections en regard: oeuvres de la Terra Foundation for the Arts et du Detroit Institute of Arts</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2003. Text p. 11; ill. p. 10 (color).<br><br> Tedeschi, Martha with Kristi Dahm. <i>Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light.</i> (exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois). Chicago, Illinois: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2008. Text p. 37; ill. p. 39 fig. 3 (color).<br><br> Brownlee, Peter John, Sarah Burns, Diane Dillon, Daniel Greene, and Scott Manning Stevens.<i>Home Front: Daily Life in the Civil War North with a foreword by Adam Goodheart.</i>(exh. Cat., Terra Foundation for American Art and Newberry Library). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. Text pp. 70, 121, 162 (checklist), 178n31; Fig. 72, p. 120 (color).<br><br> Byrd, Dana E. and Frank H. Goodyear. <i>Winslow Homer and the Camera: Photography and the Art of Painting</i>. (exh. cat., Bowdoin College Museum of Art). New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. Pl. 12, p. 80 (color). <br><br> <i>Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865–1945</i>. (exh. cat. Shanghai Museum with Art Institute of Chicago and Terra Foundation for American Art). Shanghai: Shanghai Museum, 2018. Text p. 18; ill. p. 19 (color).<br><br>
Metadata Embedded, 2018
Fitz Henry Lane
Date: 1864
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1999.83
Text Entries: Baur, John I. H. <i>A Mirror of Creation: 150 Years of American Nature Painting</i>. (exh. cat., Vatican Museum). New York: Friends of American Art in Religion, Inc., 1980. Ill. no. 14 (color). Text (checklist, no. 14); ill. no. 14 (color, as Brace’s Rock). <br><br> Novak, Barbara. <i>Nature and Culture: American Landscape Painting, 1825–1875.</i> New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. Ill. no. 10 (color). <br><br> Weinberg, Adam. “Photography Eclipsed.” <i>Afterimage</i> 8, no. 3 (October 1980): 17–18. Text p. 17; ill. p. 18 (black & white).<br><br> Wilmerding, John. <i>American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850–1875</i> (exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980. Text pp. 46, 81, 84, 102, 112; ill. p. 22, pl. 11 (black & white), p. 62, pl. 11 (color).<br><br> Millard, Charles W. “American Landscape Painting, 1850–1875.” <i>The Hudson Review</i> 34:2 (Summer 1981): 269–276. Text p. 272.<br><br> Novak, Barbara. "Une Amérique tranquille." <i>Connaissance Arts</i> 365–66 (July/August 1982): 72–75. Text p. 74; ill. p. 75 (color).<br><br> Gustafson, Eleanor H. "Museum Accessions." <i>The Magazine Antiques</i> 124, no. 5 (November 1983): 974, 976, 978. Text p. 974; ill. p. 974 (black & white).<br><br> Hemphill, Christopher. "Daniel Terra and His Collection." <i>Town & Country</i> (February 1984): 196. Ill. p. 196, pl. VIII.<br><br> Sokol, David M. "The Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois." <i>The Magazine Antiques</i> 126:5 (November 1984): 1156–69. Ill. p. 1159, pl. VIII (color). <br><br> Smith, Gayle L. “Emerson and the Luminist Painters: A Study of Their Styles.” <i>American Quarterly</i> 37:2 (Summer 1985): 193–215. Text p. 206. Ill. p. 206, fig. 3 (black & white, image credit listed as The Tara Museum of American Art).<br><br> Atkinson, D. Scott et al. <i>A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art</i>. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Ill. p. 122, pl. T-13 (color).<br><br> Wilmerding, John et al. <i>Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane</i>. (exh. cat., National Gallery of Art). Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1988. Text pp. 36, 39, 161 (checklist, cat. 22); ill. p. 37, cat. 22 (color).<br><br> <i>Winslow Homer in Gloucester</i>. (exh. cat. Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Museum of American Art, 1990. Text pp. 11–12, 58; ill. p. 58, fig. 40 (black & white).<br><br> <i>Brace's Rock, Brace's Cove</i>, Fitz Hugh Lane. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 1990. Ill. (black & white).<br><br> Goddard, Donald. <i>American Painting</i>. New York: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc., 1990. Ill. p. 70 (color). <br><br> Vallino, Fabienne-Charlotte Oraezie. "Alle radici dell'etica ambientale: pensiero sulla natura, vilderness e creativita artistica negli Stati Uniti del XIX secolo." <i>Storia dell'Arte</i>. Rome, Italy: Universita degli Studi della Tuscia, 1993. Ill. p. 241, fig. 21.<br><br> Miller, David C. “The Iconology of Wrecked or Stranded Boats in Mid to Late Nineteenth-Century American Culture.” In <i>American Iconology: New Approaches to Nineteenth-Century Art and Literature</i>. Edited by David C. Miller. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Text pp. 192, 195. Ill. p. 193, fig. 9.5 (color, image incorrectly credited as Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Karolik Collection).<br><br> Novak, Barbara. <i>Nature and Culture: American Landscape Painting, 1825–1875</i>, rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Ill. no. 10 (color).<br><br> Yaeger, Bert D. <i>The Hudson River School: American Landscape Artists</i>. New York: Smithmark Publishers, 1996. Text p. 50; ill. p. 51 (color detail), p. 53 (color), back cover (color).<br><br> Cartwright, Derrick R. <i>Waves and Waterways: American Perspectives, 1850–1900</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text p. 27 (checklist); ill. p. 32 (color).<br><br> Cartwright, Derrick R. <i>Rivières et rivages: les artistes américains, 1850–1900</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text p. 27 (checklist); ill. p. 32 (color).<br><br> MacDonald, Scott. “Peter Hutton: The Filmmaker as Luminist.” <i>Chicago Review</i> 47:3 (Fall 2001): 67–87. Text p. 74; ill. p. 75 (black & white).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>An American Point of View: The Daniel J. Terra Collection</i>. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text pp. 62, 200; ill. pp. 8 (color), 63 (color), 200 (black & white). <br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. <i>Un regard transatlantique. La collection d'art américain de Daniel J. Terra</i>. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text pp. 62, 200; ill. pp. 8 (color), 63 (color), 200 (black & white). <br><br> Wilton, Andrew and Tim Barringer. <i>American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States 1820–1880</i>. (exh. cat., Tate Britain). London, England: Tate Publishing, 2002. Text pp. 202, 254; ill. p. 202 (color).<br><br> Kennedy, Elizabeth. "The Terra Museum of American Art." <i>American Art Review</i> (December 2002): 126–41. Text pp. 131–32.<br><br> Czestochowski, Joseph S. <i>Georgia O’Keeffe: Visions of the Sublime</i>. Memphis, TN: Torch Press and International Arts, 2004. Ill. p. 184, pl. 91 (color).<br><br> Vaughan, William. <i>Friedrich</i>. New York: Phaidon Press, 2004. Ill. p. 315 (color).<br><br> Wilmerding, John. <i>Fitz Henry Lane & Mary Blood Mellen Old Mysteries and New Discoveries</i>. (exh. cat., Spanierman Gallery). New York, New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2007. Text pp. 24, 37, 42; ill. p. 39, fig. 36 (color), p. 103, cat. no. 50 (color).<br><br> Tedeschi, Martha with Dahm, Kristi. <i>Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light.</i> (exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois). Chicago, Illinois: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2008. Text p. 37; ill. p. 37, fig. 2 (color).<br><br> Neset, Arne. <i>Arcadian Waters and Wanton Seas: The Iconology of Waterscapes in Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Culture</i>. New York, New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2009. Text p. 183; ill. p. 182, fig. 8.13 (black & white).<br><br> <a href="http://fitzhenrylaneonline.org/catalog/entry.php?id=73" target="_blank">“Brace's Rock, 1864 (inv. 73)”</a>. Fitz Henry Lane Online. Cape Ann Museum. Accessed January 27, 2016. Cat no. 73 (color, as <i>Brace’s Rock</i>).<br><br> Holdsworth, Sam. <a href="http://fitzhenrylaneonline.org/essays/index.php?name=Braces_Rock_Series" target="_blank">“Brace's Rock Series.”</a> Fitz Henry Lane Online. Cape Ann Museum. Accessed January 27, 2016. Ill. (color, as <i>Brace’s Rock</i>).<br><br> Baca, Miguel de. <i>Memory Work: Anne Truitt and Sculpture</i>. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016. Text pp. 70–71; ill. p. 71, fig. 28 (black & white).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M., and Peter John Brownlee, eds. <i>Conversations with the Collection: A Terra Foundation Collection Handbook.</i> Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2018. Text pp. 46–47, 64, 65; fig. 3, p. 47; ill. p. 64, detail pp. 66-67 (color).<br><br>
Rail Shooting
William Tylee Ranney
Date: c. 1856–59
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.124
Text Entries: "Americans to 1875." <i>Art Digest</i> (April 15, 1942): 18. Text p. 18; ill. p. 18.<br><br> Grubar, Francis. <i>William Ranney: Painter of the Early West</i>. (exh. cat., The Corcoran Gallery of Art). Washington, D.C.: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1962. No. 85, p. 45. <br><br> Atkinson, D. Scott et al. <i>A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art</i>. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-19, p. 128 (color).<br><br> Thistlewaite, Mark. <i>William Tylee Ranney East of the Mississippi</i>. (exh. cat., Brandywine River Museum). Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania: Brandywine River Museum, 1991. Text pp. 35, 82 (checklist); ill. p. 34 (black & white).<br><br> Luhrs, Kathleen, ed. <i>Forging an American Identity: The Art of William Ranney with a Catalogue of his Works</i>. (exh, cat. Buffalo Bill Historical Center). Cody, Wyoming: Buffalo Bill Historical Center, 2006. Text pp. 167–168; ill. p. 169 (color).<br><br> Neset, Arne. <i>Arcadian Waters and Wanton Seas: The Iconology of Waterscapes in Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Culture</i>. New York, New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2009. Text p. 147; Ill. p. 148 (black & white).
Metadata Embedded, 2019
William Sidney Mount
Date: 1844
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1992.52
Text Entries: (modified anniversary publication entry) Hailed by his contemporary critics as an original American artist, William Sidney Mount studied briefly at the National Academy of Design after a short apprenticeship as a sign maker. An ambitious painter, inventor, and entrepreneur who worked both in New York City and in rural Long Island Sound, Mount carefully developed his image as a homegrown talent. His paintings of everyday life rejected the high-culture demand for grand historical scenes made popular by European trends; his subsequent refusal to travel abroad for further study underscored Mount's commitment to the American scene. By the late 1830s one New York critic could rave that Mount was "a vigorous, untaught, untutored plant, who borrows from no one, imitates no one." Mount's familiar subjects of agrarian labor, childhood innocence, and Yankee ingenuity spoke directly to the American experience. Yet, despite their innocent veneer, Mount's works often deliver a deeper message. The Trap Sprung, for example, seems to celebrate the excitement of youthful anticipation, as two country boys rush to a rabbit trap to collect their prize. Painted in the years following the Panic of 1837, the informed contemporary viewer would not have failed to recognize Mount's veiled political message. In the aftermath of the economic crisis, the conservative Whig party sought to blame the populist-based Democrats for the nation's troubles, and thereby convert (or trap) the large Democratic electorate base to the Whig cause. Mount's use of a rabbit trap draws on the familiar association of "rabbit," or "hare," with the Whigs in popular joke books and suggests that the victim (the Democrat) was lured unsuspectingly by the trapper's (the Whig) unsophisticated, though effective, trapping technology. Alternatively known as The Dead Fall in reference to a type of trap that instantly kills its prey, Mount's painting would have had resonance as an image of rural life with a political message.
2017 Metadata embedded
John Singer Sargent
Date: 1888
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1999.130
Text Entries: On the verdant shore of a flowing stream, an artist contemplates his work, while his companion, sitting on the bank, seems absorbed in her reading. An American artist living in Europe, John Singer Sargent was already a well-known portrait painter when he produced this small canvas in 1888. It shows his sister Violet in the company of the American painter Dennis Miller Bunker, who, after completing his artistic training in Europe, had settled in Boston in 1885. Sargent was spending the summer with his family in Calcot, England, and invited Bunker, to join him. This painting represents how the two artists worked in the English countryside. In spite of his absence from the picture, we can imagine Sargent painting the scene beside his sister and his friend. The light fluid strokes reveal Sargent's skill, as well as his mastery of the constraints of painting outdoors: they give the picture a sketchy look, but at the same time make it more dynamic. The bright luminosity is rendered by colorful contrasts, revealing nuances of light and shadow. Thus it is the different hues, light and dark, of Bunker's white suit which define his figure, and not a drawn outline. And the touch of red that Sargent adds to Bunker's belt, is a complementary color, that intensifies the vivid greens surrounding him.