Amon Carter Museum of American Art

Our primary objective in Fort Worth Texas was to meet a former classmate of mine and his wife for dinner.  But when we arrived in town we had plenty of time left to check out a major local attraction…

This is the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.  It’s located in Fort Worth’s cultural district.  The museum opened in 1961 as the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art.  The museum's original collection of more than 300 works of art by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell was assembled by Fort Worth newspaper publisher and philanthropist Amon G. Carter, Sr. (1879-1955). 

The museum's permanent collection features paintings, photography, sculpture, and works on paper by leading artists working in the United States and its North American territories in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The greatest concentration of works falls into the period from the 1820s through the 1940s.

Note:

·       From 1923 until after World War II, Amon Carter’s Star-Telegram had the largest circulation of any newspaper in the South, serving not just Fort Worth but also West Texas, New Mexico, and western Oklahoma.  The newspaper created WBAP, the oldest radio station in Fort Worth, in 1922, following it with Texas' first television station, WBAP-TV, in 1948.  To learn more about this interesting character, just go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amon_G._Carter.

Now for a look at a variety of the art works on display at the museum…

This painting titled “Sic Transit”, oil on canvas, was painted in 1956 by Donald L. Weismann (1914 – 2007).  In addition to his work as a painter, Weismann was also a graphic artist, educator and author.  From what I could determine, at one point he was the department head for the art school at the University of Kentucky.

These, as you can see, are portraits of Martha and George Washington.  They are the work of Rembrandt Peale. (1778 – 1860) Peale a prolific portrait painter who was especially acclaimed for his likenesses of presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.  His paintings are on display in art museums across America.  

Peale was also known as a museum keeper.  In 1814 he launched his first museum in Baltimore Maryland.  It was the first building that was constructed in America to serve as a museum.

Factoid:

·       Peale’s father Charles, also a notable artist, named his son after the noted 17th-century Dutch painter and engraver Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. (aka Rembrandt) Charles taught all of his children…”Raphaelle” Peale, “Rubens” Peale and “Titian” Peale, to paint scenery and portraiture. 

This painting entitled “Marion Crossing the Pee Dee” is by William T. Ranney (1813 – 1857).   Ranney is known for his depictions of Western life, sporting scenery, historical subjects and portraiture.  In his 20-year career, he made 150 paintings and 80 drawings, and is considered to be one of the most important pre-Civil War American painters in the USA.  Ranney’s work is on display in several museums across the United States.

General Francis Marion, aka “The Swamp Fox”, was a hero of the American Revolution.  His surprise attack on the British captors of colonial militiamen at Camden South Carolina and his swift retreat across the Pee Dee River with those militiamen was a key turning point in the war.  Unlike the Continental troops, “Marion's Men” served without pay, supplied their own horses, weapons and often their own food.

Factoid:

·       William Ranney was living in Brooklyn New York when the Alamo was overrun by the Mexican Army.  Six days later he volunteered to join the Texas Army to fight in the Texas War of Independence under General Sam Houston.  This experience influenced much of his later work.

This striking painting is one of Albert Bierstadt’s (1830–1902) masterpieces.  He is one of my favorite landscape artists.  This work was painted ca. 1870 and it’s entitled “Sunrise, Yosemite Valley”.  Bierstadt is best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West.  He actually joined several expeditions to the American west to see and experience what he painted.  He was the foremost painter of these scenes throughout the remainder of the 19th century.

As a result of the publicity generated by his Yosemite Valley paintings, Bierstadt's presence was requested by virtually every explorer considering a westward expedition.  He also was commissioned by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad to visit the Grand Canyon for further subject matter.

To view a large number of Bierstadt’s paintings, you can go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Bierstadt and scroll to the bottom of the page.

Frederic Remington (1861 – 1909) was the artist who created this painting.  It’s entitled “The Fall of the Cowboy” and it was completed in 1895.   

During a trip to Yellowstone Park in the summer of 1893, Remington met Owen Wister.  The two established an instant friendship.  Wister was on assignment for Harper’s to write a series of articles on “The Whole adventure of the West,” and Remington was the potential illustrator for the series.  In October 1894 Remington wrote: “Say Wister—Go ahead please—make me an article on the evolution of the puncher—the ’passing’ as it were. . . . Don’t mistake the nice young men who amble around wire fences for the ’wild rider of the plains.’” For Remington, the real cowboy was already a thing of the past. Wister’s article, titled “The Evolution of the Cow-Puncher,” appeared in the September 1895 issue of Harper’s Monthly.  One of the illustrations was this painting. 

The scene is like a lament for something that has gone forever.  Remington, was a great popularizer of the West.  He viewed the cowboy as the last great figure of America’s frontier history…hardy and self-reliant…a mythic image that was doomed to extinction in the wake of civilization’s steady progress.

Factoid:

·       In 1902, Owen Wister went on to publish the widely acclaimed novel “The Virginian” probably the first of its genre.   The book was reprinted 14 times in just 8 months!

American Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt (1844 – 1926) created this piece of art.  It’s entitled “Woman Standing, Holding a Fan” ca. 1879.    Cassatt was born in Pennsylvania but lived most of her adult life in France, In France she became friends with Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the French Impressionists.  Cassatt frequently focused on creating images of the social and private lives of women, particularly emphasizing the intimate bond between mothers and children.

An understated feminist from an early age, Cassatt objected to being stereotyped as a "woman artist".  She supported women's suffrage, and in 1915 showed eighteen works in an exhibition supporting the movement.  The exhibition caused a conflict with her sister-in-law Eugenie Carter Cassatt, who was anti-suffrage and who boycotted the show along with Philadelphia society in general.  Cassatt responded by selling off her works that were otherwise destined for her heirs!

Factoids:

·       Some of Mary Cassatt’s early paintings in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

·       Cassatt's paintings have sold for as much as $4 million with the record being set at Christie’s in New York in 1996 when “In the Box” was sold for $4,072,500. 

·        In 1966, Cassatt's painting “The Boating Party” (my favorite) was reproduced on a US postage stamp. Later she was honored by the United States Postal Service with a 23-cent Great Americans series postage stamp.  To view this painting, just go to https://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.46569.html.

This still life painting is entitled “Ease”.  It was completed by William M. Harnett (1848 – 1892) in 1887.  Harnett was born in County Cork Ireland during the time of the great potato famine.  Shortly after his birth his family immigrated to America, settling in Philadelphia.  He became a US citizen in 1868.  As a young man, he made his living by engraving designs on table silver.

Other than his obvious skill was Harnett's interest in depicting objects that are not normally the subjects of paintings.  He painted musical instruments, hanging game, and tankards, but also painted a horseshoe, entitled the “Golden Horseshoe”, a single rusted horseshoe shown nailed to a board.  Harnett painted a casual jumble of second-hand books set on top of a crate entitled “Job Lot, Cheap”, as well as firearms and even paper currency.  His painting sold well…but they were more likely to be found hanging in a tavern or a business office than in a museum.  They didn’t conform to the notions of high art at that time. 

To view a selection of William Harnett’s paintings, you can go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Harnett. 

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) is regarded by many as one of America’s preeminent portrait artists.  He finished this painting entitled “Alice Vanderbilt Shepard” in 1888.   Sargent portrayed many images of Edwardian era luxury and wealth.  He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors!

Sargent’s parents were American but he was trained in Paris and then moved to London.  He lived most of his life in Europe.  Sargent enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter, although not without controversy and some critical reservation.  From the beginning his work was characterized by remarkable technical facility, particularly in his ability to draw with a brush, which in later years inspired admiration as well as criticism for a supposed superficiality.  Art historians generally ignored society artists like Sargent until the late 20th century.

Factoids:

·       So much for those early art historians!  Sargent’s “Portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson and his Wife” was sold in 2004 for $8,800,000 and it’s on display at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville Arkansas.  In December 2004, “Group with Parasols (A Siesta)” sold for $23,500,000 million!

·       Alice Vanderbilt Shepard, the subject of the painting shown above, was known to her family as "Angela" because of the sweetness of her disposition and the beauty of her face.  However she was no true angel, climbing a tree despite her father’s specific orders not to.  She fell and fractured her spine.  Her father was angry and he refused to call the doctor.  As a consequence she was deformed and in pain for most of her life.   Alice defied her father one more time when she eloped with a man (David Morris) who loved her despite her deformity.  To learn more about Alice’s interesting and creative life, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Vanderbilt_Morris.

This eye catching painting is entitled “West Texas Incident”.  It was painted by Everett Spruce (1908 – 2002).  Spruce was an expressionist style painter that often created local surrealistic landscapes with sharply defined forms and figures.  This particular painting by refer to a plane crash into a mountainside in 1933 near Alpine Texas that resulted in the death of an Army Lieutenant.

 

Everett Franklin Spruce was an artist and teacher who grew up in Arkansas and worked in the state periodically in the 1920s and 1930s.  He is considered the most prominent painter to emerge from a group of Texas regionalists in the 1930s.  Spruce was highly influenced by his boyhood in the Ozarks and his paintings always reflected his love of the land and of nature.  In 1940, he accepted a position as instructor in life drawing and creative design at the University of Texas at Austin.  He became a full professor and from 1949 to 1951 he served as chairman of that school’s art department.  He retired as professor emeritus in 1974.

Both Laurie and I love the work of Thomas Hart Benton (1889 – 1975).  This painting is entitled “Flood Disaster (Homecoming – Kaw Valley)” (1951).  Benton was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement in the United States.  The sinuous, sculpted figures in his paintings showed everyday people involved in various scenes of life in the United States.  Despite the fact that Benton’s work is strongly associated with the Midwestern USA, he actually studied in Paris, lived in New York City for more than 20 years and spent summers on Martha’s Vineyard off the New England Coast for 50 years.

 

This painting was created by Benton to highlight the extent of the damage when the Kansas and Missouri rivers swelled to 70 times their normal size on July 13, 1951.  The flood killed 17 people and displacing more than 518,000 residents.  In a further effort to shed light on the flood victims’ suffering, the Missouri artist made a lithograph of the painting and sent a copy to each member of Congress urging them to expand a flood relief appropriations bill.  The bill did not pass, and many of Benton’s lithographs wound up in the trash.  President Harry Truman had estimated the damage at more than $1 billion and reluctantly signed a $113 million flood relief bill.  Adjusted for inflation, this flood damage would have approximated $8.5 billion in 2016 dollars.

 

Factoid:

·       Thomas Hart Benton’s painting “Flood Disaster” was sold at auction in May of 2011.  The price…$1,900,000.  Too bad so many of those Congressmen tossed out those original lithographs!

George Morrison (1919 – 2000) was the artist who created this imaginative creation in 1967…using wood as his medium!  It is entitled “New England Landscape II”.   Morrison was a landscape painter and sculptor… especially wood collage sculptures.  He was a member of the Chippewa Indian tribe and was born on the Grand Portage Indian Reservation in Minnesota.  His Indian name was “Wah Wah Teh Go Nay Ga Bo” which translates -”Standing in the Northern Lights”.  To say the least, Morrison accomplished a lot in his life… 

After receiving a Fulbright scholarship he studied in Paris and Antibes and at the University of Aix-Marseilles.  Then he was awarded a John Hay Whitney Fellowship.  After living in New York and becoming acquainted with the likes of American expressionists, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and Jackson Pollock Morrison moved on to teaching.  He served in this role in Minneapolis, Duluth, Dayton, Ohio, Ithaca (Cornell University), Pennsylvania (Penn State) and New York City.  Then he moved on to teach at the Rhode Island School of Design.  Finally, starting in 1970, Morrison taught American Indian studies and art at the University of Minnesota until he retired in 1983.

This is another painting by Frederic Remington.  It’s entitled “The Right of the Road – A Hazardous Encounter on Mountain Trail” (1900).  This is another example showing Remington’s belief that the days of the old west were past… Because early periodicals such as Harper’s Weekly contained only black and white pictures, Remington frequently painted in grisaille (monochromatic) tones that could be transferred into legible illustrations. 

We love Remington’s paintings!  If you would like to review a selection of his works, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Remington.

Factoid:

·       Frederic Remington was a cousin to Eliphalet Remington, founder of the Remington Arms Company which is considered to be America's oldest gun maker.  Frederic was also related to 3 famous mountain men - Jedediah S. Smith, Jonathan T. Warner and Robert "Doc" Newell.

This was a recent acquisition of the Amon Carter Museum.  This portrait by Henry Inman (1801 – 1846) is of “Payta-Kootha (Flying Clouds)” and it was completed in 1833.  Inman was a portrait, genre, and landscape painter.  He was born at Utica New York to English immigrant parents who were among the first settlers of the area.  He excelled in portrait painting… 

Perhaps Inman's most famous portrait painting was of “Sequoyah”, who independently created a Cherokee alphabet, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible.  This painting is displayed in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.  To view this painting and to learn more about Sequoyah, go to http://npg.si.edu/blog/portrait-sequoyah-henry-inman.

Another critical task undertaken by Inman, an accomplished lithographer, was the copying of more than a hundred oil paintings of Native American leaders by Charles Bird King so they could be translated into a printed book, the “History of the Indian Tribes of North America”.  Inman was the first vice president of the National Academy of Design and he later served as that organization’s President.  

This painting was based on truth even if the painting itself isn’t based in reality.  The work is entitled “The Abduction of Boone’s Daughter by the Indians.  It was completed by Carl Wimar (1828 – 1862) in 1856.   Karl Ferdinand Wimar was a German-American painter who concentrated on Native Americans in the West and the great herds of buffalo.  However, he is most famous for this painting.  Wimar lived in St. Louis Missouri for most of his life and he is buried there.  Among his other well-known works are murals painted in 1861 in the Rotunda of the St. Louis Court House.  That building is now part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. 

On July 5, 1776, Boone's daughter Jemima and two other teenaged girls were captured outside Boonesborough Kentucky by an Indian war party.  They took the girls north towards the Shawnee towns in the Ohio country. Boone and a group of men from Boonesborough followed in pursuit, finally catching up with them two days later.  Boone and his men ambushed the Indians while they were stopped for a meal, rescuing the girls and driving off their captors.  This incident became the most celebrated event of Boone's life.  Author James Fenimore Cooper created a fictionalized version of the episode in his classic novel, “The Last of the Mohicans”.

In the painting, the Indians are poling a raft rather than using canoes, only Jemima is pictured and not the other 2 girls and a close look at the Indians as portrayed, shows an idealistic pose by the leader of the war party.  

How about a little variety?  A special exhibit was underway during our visit that was called “The Polaroid Project”.  Its purpose was to “survey the history of the innovative photographic company Polaroid and its intersection with art, science, and technology during the second-half of the twentieth century. Featuring a wide-ranging group of artists, the exhibition showcases the diversity of works produced over several decades.”  While I will admit that this isn’t my ‘type’ of art, it was interesting. 

This particular work is from the “Polaroid Collection” and it was created by Patrick Nagatani (b. 1945) and Andree Tracey (b. 1948).  It is entitled “34^th and Chambers” (1986) and it involves Polaroid 20 X24 Polacolor triptych. 

Here are 2 more items from The Polaroid Project.  These works are by James Nitsch (b. 1952).  The one at the top is entitled “Razor Blade” (1976) and the second is titled “Leaf” with no date shown.  Both works are Polaroid SX-70 assemblages, one with a razor blade and the other with a leaf.

This was just a sampling of the art works on display at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.  I took a couple of photos of sculptures but they didn’t come out very well… This is a big museum with a nice focus on American Art.  Please note that admission to this museum is free!

The Amon Carter Museum of American Art is located at 3501 Camp Bowie Boulevard in Fort Worth Texas.  Phone: 817-738-1933.  The museum’s website is at http://www.cartermuseum.org/.

That’s all for now… Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for stopping by to check out the art work!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave