Exhibition: As it Almost Was

The Mead’s new exhibition, As it Almost Was: Amherst College’s Monuments to Lord Jeffery, is on view in the museum through December 29.

The exhibition features two bronze models of equestrian statues showing Amherst College’s (unofficial) mascot Lord Jeffery Amherst, and tells the story of how Amherst College almost created a monumental landmark of this historical figure.

Image credits: (left) Bela Lyon Pratt, Lord Jeffrey Amherst, 1913, Lent by Carolyn and Lindsey Echelbarger, Amherst College Class of 1974; (right) Sidney Biehler Waugh, Lord Jeffery Amherst, 1930-36/1956, Gift of Charles H. Morgan <source>

 

From the Collection: Cats Portfolio

Cats Portfolio – a series of 17 lithographs by Dutch artist Christian Karel Appel – joined the Mead’s collection in 1979.

Karel Appel is one of the founding members of the CoBrA movement (CoBrA = Copenhagen + Brussels + Amsterdam). Appel is considered one of the most important modern artists of the 20th century for his innovative use of color.

“My paint tube is like a rocket which describes its own space. I try to make the impossible possible. What is happening I cannot forsee; it is a surprise. Painting, like passion, is an emotion full of truth and rings a living sound–like the roar coming from the lion’s breast.”-Karel Appel

Click here to see the complete Cats Portfolio series:

From the Collection: Views of Manhattan

Views of Manhattan by Alan Sonfist joined the collection in 1985. On his website, Sonfist is described as “an artist/designer who engages with natural landscapes to evoke the hidden narrative of the Earth. His vision and green art projects cross borders to inspire ecological sensibility and conservation.”

Views of Manhattan is a suite of 12 prints illustrating different parts of Manhattan. The small orange-toned squares are photos of vegetation the artist inserted. 

Text from George Glazer Gallery:

“In 1965, Sonfist proposed to City officials that they allow him to return 50 parcels of land to the way they might have looked in pre-Colonial times.  In 1978, the same year [Views of Manhattan] was made, he created one such forest, on the northeast corner of Houston Street and LaGuardia Place in Greenwich Village, called Time Landscape.  To execute the project, he installed tons of earth and planted native trees and shrubs.  Time Landscape remains at that site, and is considered one of the seminal projects of the ecological art movement.”

To read more about Time Landscape, click here.

More Views of Manhattan from the Mead’s collection:

image source: Views of Manhattan

Monday Morning Muse(s): Femme Assise and Coquette

This patinated bronze sculpture by Ukrainian-born avant-garde artist Alexander Archipenko joined the collection in 2001. Archipenko developed a sculptural form of Cubism, drawing influence from Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

This print by Archipenko – Coquette – joined the collection in 1955. Perhaps best known for his sculptures, Archipenko is also remembered for his ‘sculpto-paintings,’ which experimented with negative spaces and hollow voids.

image sources: Femme Assise / Coquette

From the Collection: Jesus Sandals

I’ll start by saying, this was a gift! Prepared as part of the annual MOMART Christmas gift tradition, this sculpture – Jesus Sandals – is constructed of cardboard and machine made fleece. It joined the Mead’s collection in 2010.

image source: Jesus Sandals

Monday Morning Muse: Sing-Song Girl and Pagan Princess

These two beautiful prints - Sing-song Girl, Peking and Pagan Princess, Nigeria – joined the Mead’s collection in 1951.

The artist, Cyrus Leroy Baldridge, was an American artist, illustrator, author and adventurer. (You can read more about his life of adventure @Wikipedia.com.)

image sources: 1 / 2

From The Collection: Pirate’s Alley

This charming serigraph – Pirate’s Alley by American artist Sylvia Mayzer Rantz – joined the Mead’s collection in 1956.

image source: Pirate’s Alley

Monday Morning Muse: Study for Portrait of Girl

This charcoal drawing by American artist Eugene Edward Speicher joined the collection in 1947. Speicher was a portrait, landscape, and figurative painter who studied under fellow American artist Robert Henri. (Click here to see a previous post featuring an oil painting by Henri, along with a work from another American artist influenced by Henri, Guy Pène Du Bois.)

image source: Study for Portrait of Girl

From the Collection: Lichtenstein Posters

Lichtenstein based his iconic images on comic strips and advertising imagery. They’re instantly discernible with his signature hand-painted dots and color combinations of brilliant red, yellow, and blue hues outlined in black. The following exhibition posters from the Mead’s collection were most-likely manufactured by a poster gallery, rather than by the artist himself.

“My work is actually different from comic strips in that every mark is really in a different place, however slight the difference seems to some. The difference is often not great, but it is crucial. People also consider my work to be anti-art in the same way they consider it pure depiction, ‘not transformed.’ I don’t feel it is anti-art.” –Lichtenstein, Interviews by G. R. Swenson

image sources: 1 / 2

Monday Morning Muse: Crying Girl

This iconic image, Roy Lichtenstein’s Crying Girl from 1963, joined the Mead’s collection in 1991.

image source: Crying Girl