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New Curator Joins
Museum
On March 2, Anna O.
Marley joined PAFA as
the Curator of Historical
American Art. Marley is a
scholar of American art
and material culture from
the colonial era to 1945.
She holds a BA in Art History
from Vassar College,
an MA in Museum Studies
from the University of
Southern California and is
currently a PhD candidate
at the University of Delaware,
completing her dissertation on eighteenth-and early
nineteenth century landscape paintings and their display
in international merchants’ domestic interiors.
In 2007, Marley curated the exhibition “The Art of Edward
L. Loper, Sr.: On the Path of the Masters” for
the University Museums of the University of Delaware
as part of a larger project cataloging Delaware African
American artist Edward L. Loper’s life works. In 2002, she
co-curated the exhibition “Global Address” which focused
on globalization and contemporary art in Los Angeles at
the University of Southern California’s Fisher Gallery.
Marley has held numerous internships with and conducted
public lectures for the National Gallery and the
National Park Service and has held research fellowships
at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Winterthur
Museum, the Maryland Historical Society, and Colonial
Williamsburg. Papers and public lectures include “The
Imperial Picturesque on the Northern Caribbean Frontier:
Thomas Coram’s Representations of the Carolina Plantation
Landscape” for the College Art Association and “Japanned
and Gilt Painted Furniture, Mercantile Networks,
and Transatlantic Taste in Early Federal Baltimore” for the
American Society of Eighteenth Century Studies.
Notes Marley, “I am so excited to be joining the staff of
the Academy, one of the finest collections of American
art in the country. I look forward to working with the PAFA
team to continue presenting exhibitions of local, national
and international scope.”
Landscape
Paintings from the
Metropolitan
Museum of Art
June 15 - September 30, 2009
Historic Landmark Building
The Hudson River School of landscape painting is an
important tradition in American painting. Ranging from
grand visions of the American West to quiet forest interiors,
American painters absorbed the traditions of European
landscape artists and reinvented them to celebrate
the distinctiveness of this vast continent. They became
masters of light and students of such natural sciences as
geology and botany, while creating poetic images rather
than mere transcriptions of the places they painted. In
appreciation for a group of paintings that PAFA is lending
next year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is generously
reciprocating with three masterworks of the Hudson River
School that will be on loan to us this summer.
Thomas Cole, often acknowledged as the founder and
leader of the first generation of Hudson River School
painters, will be represented by one of his greatest paintings,
View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts,
after a Thunderstorm—Oxbow, 1836. Asher
B. Durand, who carried the tradition well into the second
half of the nineteenth century after Cole’s untimely death
in 1848, favored quiet, light-filled landscapes, such as
The Beeches, 1836. Albert Bierstadt introduced Americans
to the grandeur of the American West, as in Merced
River, Yosemite Valley, 1866. These three great paintings
will add immeasurably this summer to PAFA’s presentation
of the Hudson River School.
From the Desk of the
Museum Director
By David R. Brigham, Edna S. Tuttleman
Museum Director
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts has one of
the most important collections of American art in the
world, distinguished by the high quality of works by the
nation’s most accomplished artists. Yet, as we take
people through the galleries, we tend to gravitate to
certain works and give them more time for study, reflection,
and enjoyment. In the course of leading a small group on
just such a tour, I wondered if I could reduce my list of favorites to
only ten works. Here is my attempt to do so, in chronological order
in which they were created:
John Vanderlyn, Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos, 1809-14
The most sensuous nude painted by an early American artist.
Charles Willson Peale, The Artist in His Museum, 1822
The crowning achievement of PAFA’s founder and one of the
most ambitious cultural leaders of the early Republic.
Thomas Eakins, The Gross Clinic, 1875
(Currently on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with whom
we share ownership of Eakins’ masterwork) A revolutionary
painting that provokes the intellect and the emotions. Still shocking
a hundred thirty years after its creation.
Frank Furness and George W. Hewitt, Historic Landmark
Building, 1871-76
Arguably the nation’s greatest Victorian building and the most
beautiful art galleries in North America.
Winslow Homer, Fox Hunt, 1893
On the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth, this imminent death
struggle between a fox and a group of crows is silent, poetic,
and haunting.
Marsden Hartley, Flower Abstraction, 1914
An extraordinarily colorful, dynamic abstraction by the most
sophisticated painter in Alfred Stieglitz’s circle.
Maxfield Parrish and Tiffany Studios, The Dream Garden,
1915 (on view at the Curtis Building, Washington Square)
America’s most popular illustrator’s attempt to create a grand
vision of paradise on earth, first in his own garden and then in
glistening glass with Tiffany Studios, spectacularly luminous
and recently relit.
David Smith, V.B. XXII, 1963
American industry meets timeless totemic sculpture to create
PAFA’s most important Abstract Expressionist work.
Jacob Lawrence, Hiroshima, 1983
Transcends race and nationality to devastating humanist impact,
by considering the enormous cost of war.
Robert Ryman, Philadelphia Prototype, 2002, 2002
So quietly beautiful, so unexpected, and so different from hour
to hour.
I hope my list inspires
you to compile your own
list. What are your favorites,
and what do you appreciate
about them? Let me know at
dbrigham@pafa.org.
With so many wonderful
artworks to choose from,
I expect that no two lists
would be the same.
Winslow Homer, Fox Hunt, 1893, Oil on canvas, 38 x 68½ in., Joseph E. Temple Fund, 1894.4
Charles Willson Peale (1882-1952), The Artist in His Museum, 1822, Oil on canvas,
103¾ x 79 7/8”. Gift of Mrs. Sarah Harrison (The Joseph Harrison Jr. Collection)
Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), Flower Abstraction, 1914, Oil on canvas with painted
wooden frame, 49 3/8 x 42 in., Vivian O. and Meyer P. Potamkin Collection.