What We've Been Doing December 2010

December 2010

WHAT WE'VE BEEN DOING

From Richard and Mark:

Having survived another hectic summer in Santa Fe, once the fall arrived we decided to take a couple of trips to see some exhibits out of town.

In October we went to Denver to have a look at two exceptional exhibitions, one public and one private. The first was a show that featured the work of 19^th century artist Charles Deas at the Denver Art Museum and the second was a private tour of the Anschutz Collection. Wow.

The show at the Denver Art Museum was “Charles Deas & 1840s America,” which closed November 28^th. We were lucky enough to be expertly accompanied (after-hours) by the curator of Western art, Thomas Smith. Deas painted scenes that focused on the intersection of life in the early West, of the new frontier and the people who inhabited it. The New York Times noted that Deas “painted brilliantly and prolifically for a decade and became, briefly, a sensation on the New York art scene.” However, at the young age of 29, the artist lost his sanity and was institutionalized for the remainder of his life. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view a large body of work (40 of Deas’s most important paintings, according to Smith) from an artist whose name was almost forgotten for much of the last century. This exhibition did much to help restore recognition to a highly-gifted painter who gave us some of the most vivid images of the mid-eighteenth century American West.

For Lewis and Clark buffs: In October we went to see a fascinating exhibit at the Tucson Museum of Art, "Charles Fritz: An Artist with the Corps of Discovery - One Hundred Paintings Illustrating the Journals of Lewis and Clark."  A living Montana artist, Fritz completed this project over a ten year period, from 1998 to 2008. The show also includes fourteen watercolor paintings by Michael Haynes, portraits of people from the period related to the expedition, as well as numerous works from a private collection. As you know, the Lewis and Clark expedition was second to none, but they forgot to bring an artist. This project tried to fill that void. For those of you who were not on the expedition, this exhibition offers a unique visual glimpse of the locations and characters that comprised the first exploration of the American West. For more information, see our museum exhibition information in this issue.