Montclair, New Jersey.- The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) proudly presents “George Inness: Private Treasures”, opening Sunday, November 6th, as the first special exhibition to be held in the George Inness Gallery, a gift of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Martucci. The gallery is the only space in the world dedicated to the work of George Inness (1825-1894) and customarily houses an installation of rotating selections from the Museum’s renowned collection of America’s greatest landscape painter. “George Inness: Private Treasures”, on view through April 1, 2012, will consist of 10 works, nine from private collections as well as one from the Montclair Historical Society. The local lenders are from various towns in New York and New Jersey, including Montclair, Glen Ridge, Essex Fells, Verona, and Irvington. Additionally, “George Inness Sketching Outside His Montclair Studio”, a painting from the Museum’s collection by Inness’s son, George Inness, Jr., will be on display.
Inness, often called the “father of American landscape painting,” was a visionary artist whose renderings of nature were profoundly personal and inspired by his belief in Swedenborgianism, the philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772). According to the teachings of the Swedish scientist-mystic Swedenborg, God speaks to humanity through nature, connecting the spiritual and material worlds. Inness referred to this spiritual dimension as “the reality of the unseen.” Inness’s considerable contribution to American art at the turn of the century greatly influenced 20th-century art movements, and brought recognition to American artists in their own right as peers of their European counterparts.
Inness settled in Montclair in 1885 and the town of Montclair was frequently the subject of his art. As a nationally and internationally recognized artist during his lifetime, Inness’s presence attracted other well-known artists, helping to establish the town’s reputation as an intellectual community and artists’ colony, one of the earliest in the country. In addition to the Museum’s holdings of 18 paintings, 2 watercolors, and an etching, Inness is well represented in local collections. The forthcoming exhibition provides a rare opportunity to view significant works that span the artist’s career from his productive trip to Italy in 1870–74 to the year of his death, in 1894. The lyrical, intimate landscapes of the 1880s and 90s reveal Inness at the height of his expressive powers as the artist employed softly brushed, broadly generalized forms to evoke the mystical unity of material and spiritual existence. A master of essentials, Inness felt that a literal copying of nature would record only its transitory and fragmentary aspects. He therefore evolved a harmonious, eternal style of broad, expressive brushwork that unifies all aspects of the pictorial composition.
The Montclair Art Museum was one of the country’s first museums primarily engaged in collecting American art (including the work of contemporary, nonacademic artists) and among the first dedicated to the study and creation of a significant ethnographic art collection. This pioneering spirit still reverberates in the Museum’s pursuit and presentation of high-quality art that characterizes and celebrates America’s diversity. The collection has grown to over 12,000 works. The American collection, which began with a gift of 30 paintings from William T. Evans, a Montclair civic leader, comprises paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, and sculpture dating from the 18th century to the present, and features excellent works by Benjamin West, Asher B. Durand, George Inness, John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as younger and emerging artists such as Louise Lawler, Chakaia Booker, Whitfield Lovell, and Willie Cole. The Museum’s superb holdings of traditional and contemporary American Indian art and artifacts represent the cultural achievements in weaving, pottery, wood carving, jewelry, and textiles of indigenous Americans from seven major regions—Northwest Coast, California, Southwest, Plains, Woodlands, Southeast, and the Arctic. The collection was begun by Annie Valentine Rand and carried on by her philanthropic daughter Florence Rand Lang, one of the Museum’s founders, and continues to grow with commissioned works, gifts, and purchases that celebrate the vitality and modernity of traditional forms and beliefs. Among the contemporary American Indian artists represented are Tony Abeyta, Dan Namingha, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Allan Houser, Bentley Spang, and Marie Watt. The Museum’s extensive education programs serve a wide public and, often in collaboration with cultural and community partners, bring artists, performers, and scholars to the Museum on a regular basis. MAM’s Yard School of Art is the leading regional art school, offering a multitude of comprehensive classes for kids, teens, adults, seniors, and professional artists. One of the first museums to be accredited by the American Association of Museums, the Montclair Art Museum welcomes more than 65,000 visitors annually to its acclaimed exhibitions and programs. The expansion and progress of the Museum has been made possible by the participation, generosity, and farsightedness of its founders, trustees, members, and friends. Their support has helped to make the Montclair Art Museum the vital institution it is today. Visit the museum’s website at … http://www.montclairartmuseum.org