After a long run of high profile and concept contemporary exhibitions at the GRAM, I am sure it is a breath of fresh 18th century air for many to see this impressive collection of American paintings arrive in Grand Rapids by way of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
It is not a bad thing that our contemporary run came to an end; in fact it is quite impressive when you see the roster of paintings and the artists who created them.
Masterpieces of American Landscape Painting begins visually with works rooted in Romanticism (early 1800s) and travels over time to the early works of Modernism (1940s) and includes many familiar artists who also traveled miles in their style of painting from Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt, Winslow Homer, George Inness, Maxfield Parrish, Arthur Dove, Martin Johnson Heade, Georgia O'Keeffe and other major artists.
The GRAM has proved itself at being quite adept at securing works that not only rarely travel but when they do arrive here and uncrated they present a truly breath-taking opportunity to view the scope and scale of their presentation.
Also opening on Sunday is the America Near and Far: Photography from the Collection, 1870 – 1930 – a series of geographically focused photographic images that illustrate the America vision of land from Michigan to California via thirty photographs from the Museum’s permanent collection.
While many folks have placed their value and focus on the portrait as a way to preserve the memory of a person in time, these images are often as well a sot of portrait offering sometimes the only glimpse into who the land was during this period in our American History.
It is a thrilling sight to see these images out for the public to view since due to preservation concerns, typically photographs of this age are almost never left out for extended periods of time due to concerns of fading.
Names like William Henry Jackson, Timothy O’Sullivan, F. Jay Haynes and many others adorn the museum’s walls including Ansel Adams’ Monolith: Face of Half Dome, Yosemite, which is a signature piece of this exhibition and worth the price of admission alone.
If you are scratching your head about the Sunday opening, well, you are not alone.
The Sunday opening is indeed something new for the GRAM who is already well verse in the power of Sunday programming as they have hosted lectures, films and even classical music concert on this day with great success.
“The weekend exhibition opening is a model many other museums follow, and one GRAM is trying out for the first time this year,” says Dana Friis-Hansen, GRAM Director and CEO, “Many Members, especially those with children, were unable to attend during the evening or workweek. This new exhibition opening timeframe gives Members a larger window to take advantage of their membership benefits and to see Masterpieces of American Landscape Painting 1820–1950 (a full day earlier), while giving the public a full Sunday to see the exhibition as soon as it officially opens.”
These exhibitions will run until January 12, 2014, but if you are like me, you will want to make haste. Time flies and these paintings will be departing almost as quickly as the time they represent.
Admission: Free
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