A journey through American art

Friday
We drove up to Dayton today to visit the Dayton Art Institute, in particular a special exhibition “For America: paintings from the National Academy of Design”. Founded in 1825, the National Academy of Design has long been a leading artistic voice in America as an honorary artists’ society, school, and museum. This exhibition tells the story of the National Academy, from the early 19th century into the 21st., and features works by many of its prominent members along with portraits or self portraits of many of the artists, since a portrait was a requirement for membership, making it a most interesting and somewhat unique exhibition. Going in a clockwise direction from top left, my collage shows the main entrance, with the soaring sculpture, Pathway by John Safer. Next is the scene from the cafe where we had some lunch. Under that is a self portrait by N.C Wyeth,1940, and his painting, Blubber Island, Maine, 1938. Bottom right was one of my favorites, The Lake, about 1923, by Ernest L. Blumenschein, born in Pennsylvania and died in New Mexico. The two bottom portraits are both by Gertrude Fisk, from Massachusetts (1879-1961) - the central painting a self-portrait (1922), and lower left, representative of her mature style, Jade, about 1918. The remaining two paintings are by Walter Ufer, born Louisville Ky 1876 and died Albuquerque New Mexico 1936. The self portrait is undated. The central picture is entitled Jim, and depicts Jim Mirabel, a member of the Tahoe’s Pueblo, and Ufer’s friend, domestic employee and model. I love looking at art, and it’s something I wish I could do. One of my aunts used to paint, and my cousin and her daughter are both artists, but that skill seemed to pass me by!
Having seen the exhibition, we had some lunch in their cafe, unfortunately not up to the standard of other art museum cafes we’ve been to, and then wandered round the rest of the museum, including European art, Indian art and Asian art. It was a good way to pass a rather gloomy, (though still mild) day. We have another two special exhibitions to see in the coming weeks, “Winslow Homer to Georgia O’Keeffe: American paintings from the Phillips collection”, at the Taft Museum in Cincinnati, and “Paris 1900: City of entertainment”, at the Cincinnati Art museum.
Typically, once we were finally home - we timed our return badly, so it coincided with rush hour (!) - the skies began to clear, and it was quite a pretty evening sky!