August 25, 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Matt Montgomery
401 454-6348
mmontgom@risd.edu

The RISD Museum presents 19th-century Painting, Sculpture and Decorative Art from the Permanent Collection
Friday, September 21, 2001 and ongoing

Re-installation will dramatically increase display of popular artists

PROVIDENCE, RI -- Visitors to the RISD Museum will enjoy a dramatically expanded selection of great works of art from the 19th century, starting in late September. The Museum, long admired for its suite of intimate galleries of French paintings, will more than double the exhibition space devoted to painting, sculpture, and decorative arts from that century.

The ongoing presentation of works, to be shown in the spacious and light-filled Main Gallery and four adjoining galleries, represents one of the areas of great depth in the Museum's holdings. Curator of Painting and Sculpture Maureen O'Brien notes that the installation represents a 19th-century enclosed arcade, offering a viewerıs choice of "the best examples of the century in our collection."

The small galleries that look out on the Museum's recently renovated garden continue to include favorites like Edouard Manet's full-scale portrait of the artist Berthe Morisot and Claude Monetıs brilliant Basin at Argenteuil.

Now added to the sequence are later works by Renoir and Cézanne in a Post-Impressionist room, and a gallery dedicated to important American Impressionist paintings by Frank Benson, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, and William Merritt Chase. Notably, Chase's Lady in Pink, exhibited at the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893, became the first American painting to be acquired for the Museum the following year.

Another insight to 19th-century taste appears in Fritz von Uhde's The Busy Family, a rarely shown interior that was the first contemporary European painting to enter the collection. This glimpse of domestic life is part of the Main Gallery's impressive selection of paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts that create an international dialogue of styles, influences, and themes. Confronting each other across the skylit room are the English painter William Frith's chronicle of sophisticated gamblers in the last days of a renowned German spa, and Eastman Johnson's nostalgic, unfinished view of Maine farmers and townspeople gathered in a maple grove for a spring "sugaring off." James Jacques Joseph Tissot's spectacular view of female chariot riders at a newly electrified Parisian hippodrome jostles Silvestro Lega's poignant study of the dying Italian patriot and political reformer Giuseppe Mazzini.

"The 19th century," notes O'Brien, "was a time of accelerated ambition, travel, and access to knowledge." With Curator of Decorative Arts Thomas Michie, she assembled objects that demonstrate an expanded exchange of ideas. The English concept of the "sublime" infuses an early landscape by Thomas Cole, and resurfaces in a turn-of-the-century seascape by Winslow Homer. Polar exploration, shown in William Bradford's Arctic Sunset, hangs side-by-side with Martin Johnson Heade's foray into a lush Brazilian forest.

"New styles," she continued, "were diffused in European art centers and quickly adopted by American painters, sculptors and decorative artists."

The innovations of Manet's teacher Thomas Couture were conveyed to American artists by the New Englander William Morris Hunt. Paintings by Willard Metcalf and Julian Alden Weir grouped around a Nocturne by James Whistler demonstrate the pervasiveness of an Aesthetic Style that is characterized by a table by British designer E.W. Godwin. Carved and painted American Arts and Crafts chests oppose the high-style elegance of silk-upholstered Belter chairs. The energized Beaux-Arts style of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, whose work graces the facade of the Paris Opera, resurfaces in a bronze relief by the American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

A revelation of the wide appeal and dispersal of one popular theme is the gallery that focuses on "Orientalism," a subject that attracted European and American artists throughout the nineteenth century. Western fantasies of history, luxury, and desire were conveyed in images of the exotic costume and romantic landscapes of North Africa, Turkey, Greece, Palestine and Egypt. Scenes of Arab travelers by Eugéne Delacroix, devout Jews praying at the Wailing Wall by the African-American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner, and the interior of a Moorish bath by Jean-Léon Gérome suggest the wide appeal of these themes. A favorite sculpture of visitors, the silvered bronze bust of African Venus by the academic sculptor Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier, provides a focal point for a gallery that also includes a French vase in the Turkish style and an upholstered American chair embellished with carved sphinxes.

The international flavor of the installation offers viewers the opportunity to explore recurrent themes, investigate the emergence of styles, and to be surprised by connections between artists whose works is not often displayed together. The reinstallation of Rodin's marble Hand of God, and the juxtaposition of the French sculptor's bronze statue of a portly, naked Balzac with John Singer Sargent's austere portrait of a one-hundred year old Spanish musician, offer a compelling invitation to reexamine the Museum's diverse and thought-provoking collection.

RELATED EVENTS

Sunday, October 7, 3-4:30pm
Family Workshop: People
The first of three Sunday Workshops focusing on "People, Places, and Stories" in the Museum's new installation of 19th-century painting and sculpture looks at portraiture. Learn how a subject's identity is revealed through facial expression, gesture, clothing, and surroundings, then create a portrait of yourself (or a family member) using these visual devices.

Sunday, October 14, 3-4:30pm
Family Workshop: Places
Discover the places depicted in the paintings exhibited in the Main Gallery. How much information do different landscapes provide? Which painting would you most like to "jump into"? In a workshop, paint a watercolor landscape of your own favorite place.

Friday, October 19, 12:15pm
Gallery Spotlight: Orientalism in Art
In the 19th century, some artists looked to the "Orient" (the Middle East and Northern Africa) for intriguing and even titillating subjects. Join Docent Miriam Coleman as she discusses romance and stereotype in their art.

Sunday, October 21, 3-4:30pm
Family Workshop: Stories
How do paintings tell tales? Learn the stories behind many of the paintings in the Main Gallery. Choose your favorite and try to imagine what came before or after that scene; then create an illustration to show your ideas.

The RISD Museum was founded as part of Rhode Island School of Design in 1877. Today, its permanent collection consists of more than 80,000 works of art from diverse periods, cultures and genres. Located on the edge of downtown Providence, the Museum showcases an array of ever-changing exhibitions, which encompass a range of areas and periods of world culture.

MUSEUM HOURS
Tuesday-Sunday, 10am-5pm; third Thursday monthly until 9pm
Closed: Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Easter Sunday and Independence Day.
Admission: $5 for adults; $4 for senior citizens; $1 for ages 5-18; $2 for college students with valid ID.
Free 5-9pm on the third Thursday of each month, and for Free-For-All Saturdays (last Saturday of the month). Information: 401 454-6500

NOTE TO REPORTERS
Maureen C. O'Brien, Curator of Painting and Sculpture, and Thomas S. Michie, Curator of Decorative Arts, are available for interviews about these projects and related issues. Please contact Matt Montgomery at 401 454-6348 or mmontgom@risd.edu.