Michele Phillips to speak at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute on Wednesday April 11, 2007 at 12:00pm
Illustrated Lecture
Care and Conservation of Paper Materials: The Richardt Drawings
Wednesday April 11, 2007 at 12pm
Easton Pribble Conference Room - Free and Open to the Public
Ferdinand Richardt: Drawings of America, 1855-1859
Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute
Presents First Modern American Showing
of Danish Landscape Master's Drawings
Utica, NY... Fifty-six magnificently executed drawings by 19th century Danish-American landscape artist Ferdinand Richardt (1819-1895)--that have not been publicly exhibited for at least a century-- are featured in the landmark exhibition "Ferdinand Richardt: Drawings of America, 1855-1859" opening to the public Sunday, February 11 at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute Museum of Art. Museum of Art Director and Chief Curator Paul D. Schweizer and Melinda Young Stuart, an independent scholar and curator of the Keller Family Trust Richardt Collection organized this groundbreaking exhibition at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute.
When the 36-year-old Ferdinand Richardt set foot in New York in July 1855 he was already a successful professional artist in his native Denmark. He enjoyed a noteworthy reputation during the Golden Age of Danish painting and was patronized by the Danish royal family. He trained, in part, under the renowned Danish neoclassical sculptor, Bertel Thorvaldsen (ca. 1770-1844), and after 1839 exhibited his paintings at the annual exhibitions of the Royal Danish Art Academy in Copenhagen. Before his arrival in New York Richardt had also published more than 100 lithographs reproducing his meticulous drawings of Scandinavian manor houses and their grounds, a project that provided the first visual record of that region's great residences. When Richardt was in America he made plans to publish a series of prints of the natural scenery and public architecture he encountered here. Ultimately, however, this plan never came to fruition.
Between 1855 and 1859 Richardt traveled throughout eastern North America drawing and painting a wide variety of subjects. The phenomenon of tourism, then expanding at a terrific rate in America, attracted Richardt to the country's rivers, mountains, spas, and resort hotels, and to the people who gathered there, as well as to America's cities and new architecture.
Today, Richardt is chiefly remembered for his impressive views of Niagara Falls. While a number of his Niagara Falls paintings are in museums in the United States, the hundreds of on-site drawings he made during his travels from New York City to Kentucky, Minnesota, Canada and points in between remain almost totally unknown. These drawings are remarkable examples of 19th-century draftsmanship because of the quality of their execution and the historical documentation they provide about pre-Civil War America.
A fully-illustrated exhibition catalog, with essays by Melinda Young Stuart, Paul D. Schweizer and Michele Phillips, a conservator of paper and photographic materials at West Lake Conservators, Ltd., Skaneateles, New York, has been published by the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute to accompany the exhibition. The exhibition remains on view through April 15, 2007.
West Lake Conservators, PO Box 45, Skaneateles, NY 13152.
Contact: Michele Phillips, Tel. 315 685 8534