Clay Center to exhibit selections from the Spainerman Gallery

Release Date: 6/21/2010 11:00:00 AM

Dateline (city): Charleston, W.Va.

Contact:
Katrina Harmon
304-561-3543

Clay Center’s newest exhibition to focus on historic American paintings

(Charleston, W.Va.) 6/21/10 – Visitors can appreciate the ever-changing styles of American art with the upcoming Clay Center exhibition Art, Nature and the American City, 1840 – 1955: Selections from the Spanierman Gallery. This exhibit will be on display July 10 through October 10.

This collection features 92 paintings and drawings by 57 artists and represents major American art movements over a 115 year period, from the Hudson River School’s romantic landscapes and the American Impressionists’ sun-drenched gardens to the Precisionists’ abstract cityscapes and the Ashcan School’s gritty urban scenes.

Mid 19th century paintings by Henry Boese, Alfred Thompson Bricher and other Hudson River School artists emphasize the scale, beauty and nobility of nature. Concentrating on the changing quality of light, American Impressionists, such as Philip Leslie Hale and John Henry Twachtman, used loose brushstrokes to render an impression of what the eye sees. The exhibition includes a rare garden scene by Twachtman and his son, John Alden. Early 20th century cityscapes by George Elmer Browne, Leon Louis Dolice, and Edith Prellwitz, among others, portray New York City’s streets and landmarks transformed by weather or atmospheric light.

Art, Nature and the American City also features paintings and drawings by Ralph Blakelock, Theodore Earl Butler, Kenyon Cox, William Glackens, Augustus Kollner, Ernest Lawson, Hayley Lever, Peter Moran, Chauncey Foster Ryder and Alexander Helwig Wyant.

This exhibition is curated from the Spanierman Gallery’s vast inventory. In 1902, the Spanierman family began selling antiques and paintings in New York City when Fred Spanierman left Vienna and opened Old World Antiques on 57th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues. The current Spanierman enterprise, Spanierman Gallery, LLC, is directed by Fred Spanierman’s great nephew, Ira Spanierman. The gallery has been dedicated for more than half a century to dealing in the finest American paintings and sculpture of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Clay Center gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.

For more information, visit www.theclaycenter.org, or call 304-561-3570.



NOTE: Electronic images are available upon request.