Currently Showing

Fantasies and Fairy-Tales:
Maxfield Parrish and the Art of the Print

Coming Soon

April 27 – August 1, 2010
Alex Dzigurski: Poet of Land and Sea

For those of you who had enjoyed seeing Dzigurski’s paintings, Moonlight, Carmel and Seascape, in our South Wing, you’ll enjoy the full range of the artist’s vision in this selection of eighteen works from the artist’s estate. The New York Times wrote of Mr. Dzigurski, “Few marine painters have been able to tell the story of the sea so beautifully. His water is wet, deep and alive . . . [he] is always the poet of the sea.” The Chicago Tribune noted, “Few painters of the American scene have had his meteoric rise to universal popularity.”

To view images of the exhibition, click here.

May 4 – July 25, 2010
Fifty Miniatures by Wes and Rachelle Siegrist

This husband-and-wife team from Townsend, Tennessee, has captured the attention of viewers not with large canvas but with miniature paintings. So exquisitely crafted the Siegrists’ works are often mistaken for tiny photographs; they usually measure less than nine square inches. Previously, the Norton has included the Siegrists’ works in four earlier exhibitions: Art and the Animal, Art of the Rainforest, Blossom – Art of Flowers, and Paws and Reflect: Art of Canines.

To view images of the exhibition, click here.

FIRST SATURDAY TOUR:
The Valentine's Tour
February 6 @ 2 p.m.

Come and hear the tales of other hopeless romantics represented in our gallery. We’ll even share direct quotes from famous artist’s long-lost love letters, like this one from a letter by cowboy artist Charles Marion Russell to his wife when they were once separated by a great distance:

“I’m afraid if you would drop in now you would get smothered with kisses [originally written out as a bunch of XXX’s]; Don’t show my letter to anybody. They might think I am spooney, but I feel that way. I guess you think I’m loco-ed from writing love letters to you, but I think we’d both do better by using more of that stuff and from now on, I’m going to try it. Maybe I’ve fallen in love the second time. I guess it’s all right, if it’s the same woman. And it is.”

After this docent-led tour, we will understand what French writer Romain Rolland means when he says, “One makes mistakes: that is life. But it is never quite a mistake to have loved.”

On the first Saturday of each month, the Norton offers a special tour at 2 p.m. All tours meet in the lobby. No reservation is required, though groups of 10 or more are asked to call ahead. This tour, like all tours and admission to the Norton, is free of charge.

--Jennifer DeFratis, Tour and Special Events Coordinator

 

 

Author To Present John James Audubon in Words and Pictures
at R.W. Norton Art Gallery

Just down the hall from one of the most rare works of John James Audubon at R.W. Norton Art Gallery, a leading expert on the writer and bird artist will “paint” his own revealing portrait of the man who largely made his reputation in Louisiana.

At 2 p.m. on February 20, Danny Heitman, author of A Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House (Louisiana State University Press: 2008) and columnist at The Baton Rouge Advocate, will present “John James Audubon in Words and Pictures.” Heitman, whose work was the first-ever book-length treatment of Audubon in Louisiana, admires not only the artist’s breathtaking images, but also the descriptive imagery of the Frenchman who fell in love with America and its winged world.

“Audubon was also a great nature writer, and if he had never drawn a single picture, the artist would be known today for the way he was able to capture nature with words,” Heitman remarks.

As a part of his presentation, Heitman will discuss Audubon’s sojourn in Louisiana, when Audubon was nearly penniless. Hired to tutor a plantation family’s teenage daughter, he spent his spare time roaming the nearby woods and waters, and painted, by his account in his journal, “62 Drawings of Birds & Plants, 3 quadrupeds, 2 snakes, 50 Portraits of all sorts…”

“Audubon traveled widely, but he said of all the places he visited, Louisiana was his favorite place in the Union,” Heitman remarks.

Audubon’s work in Louisiana would eventually lead to his masterpiece, The Birds of America. It was published in 1826 in England in the massive double elephant folio size.

The Norton daily displays one of only 134 copies of the five-volume epic known to exist. It also preserves a royal octavo first edition of the work; Audubon’s Ornithological Biography, published in 1839; and another first edition of The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, published 1845-48. Heitman will discuss those works. “I hope my talk about Audubon’s art and his writing will help throw fresh light on the Norton’s Audubon treasures,” he says.

A Summer of Birds was adapted as a documentary that premiered on Louisiana Public Broadcasting in December 2009. Because of strong viewer response, a re-broadcast is set statewide for March 2010.

Heitman is a frequent speaker about Audubon. He was selected last year to participate in a National Endowment for the Humanities symposium on Audubon at Indiana University at Bloomington. A Summer of Birds will be available for sale at the Norton. The author will sign copies after his presentation.

--Gary Ford, Staff Writer

 

TIPS FROM KIP:
Garden Tools of the Trade

Ah, February, the month for true love and trowels.

As a gardening gift for Valentine’s Day, drop a hint to Mr. (or Ms.) Wonderful for a new tool or accessory, such as gloves, a stylish straw hat, or a gardening bench with spaces for accessories.

You know most of the tools you need, but I’ll suggest two more. A dandelion weeder is perfect for hard-to-remove weeds. For anything that needs a quick snip, I always keep a pruner/clipper in my back pocket.

While you wait for your hint to work, whip your current tools into shape for another year with these steps:

• Make sure they’re clean. Wash metal and wood with soap and water, and dry with a cloth.
• Whisk rust away with sand paper, steel wool, or a wire brush.
• Sharpen the metal edges with a flat-edged file. It’s worth it to install a vice on your workbench to anchor the tool.
• Remember to wear safety glasses when you work with files or power tools.
• Rub the metal parts with an oil rag.
• Wooden handles can dry out and crack. Rub your handles with linseed oil so you won’t pick splinters instead of flowers.

So your beloved went the same old flowers-and-chocolate route? Search out garage or estate sales, where you’ll often find inexpensive garden tools that need only a little care. Scrub off years of dirt, whisk away the rust, oil metal and wood, and give your garden new life with a vintage tool.

--Kip Dehart, Landscape Director

 

 

 

EMILY ON EDUCATION

VOICES FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Donn G. Thompson,
U.S. Army Air Force, Europe

Mr. Thompson completed thirty missions as a bombardier in a B-24 in the European Theater. Aboard the ship on his voyage home he could see how all the veterans had aged.

You could tell the guys who had just gotten there, who were about halfway through their missions, and the guys who were finished—because the guys looked older and worn out and the others looked fresh. You aged a hell of a lot there. But anyway, I came back on that ship and we were about two weeks getting back on the ship and the North Atlantic was rougher than heck. The first thing I saw after I got out on deck was the Statue of Liberty over there. You didn’t want to but several of us just started to crying and couldn’t help it.

The native of Bernice, Louisiana, spent a career in the U.S. Air Force. He is among nearly 500 men and women from the Shreveport area who graciously gave their time to tell us their life stories of service and sacrifice. We’re presenting these stories as part of our Oral History Project, an ongoing effort to interview veterans of conflicts from World War II to the present. We also continue to collect interviews from eyewitnesses to the civil rights struggle, pioneers of the energy industries, and those who created “the Shreveport sound” in music.

If you or someone you know would like to share stories with us, please call (318) 865-4201, or contact ohp@rwnaf.org.

--Gary Ford, Staff Writer

BEHIND THE SCENES:
Byron Smith,
Carpenter

In the Norton’s Rodin Gallery, no doubt, you’ll stop to admire the wonderfully craggy face of the master himself, rendered in bronze by Paul Paulin. There, you just may decide the pedestal on which it rests is as much a work of art in its own right. Along with other examples of our beautiful woodwork, the pedestal is the creation of Byron Smith, our talented carpenter. Byron has helped produce pedestals, cabinets, desks, chair rails, and moldings throughout the museum, as well as the coffered ceiling and barrel vault that grace the new library space. Even as a child, he loved this sort of work, sneaking out his daddy’s tools to build birdhouses. Despite this unauthorized usage, his father encouraged him to develop his gifts, and today Byron is capable of undertaking the entire process of creating gorgeous woodwork from milling the rough lumber all the way to the finished and waxed product. Among the woods he’s used here at the Norton are walnut (his favorite), which he used for the Revere Bell base, white oak, Brazilian cherry, canary, and cocobola, the one he feels is the prettiest but also the most difficult to handle. You can see his artistry with this particular wood in the pedestal beneath the bust of Rodin in our Rodin Gallery. Fortunately, Byron loves working with even the hardest woods, saying that his work is both “challenging and fun” because “every day is different”. We can all enjoy the masterful results.
--Museum Staff

DID YOU KNOW:

Did you know the beautiful hue used to color love tokens such as hearts and flowers was often made of bug guts? The pigment for that color is derived from ground-up insects called cochineals, who give their all to create a carmine dye and a particular red lake (a type of paint). However, it’s not the only source of those beautiful red tones reproduced on your candy boxes and Valentine’s cards. Many ancient creation myths describe the earth as red, a fair assessment, since one of the most widespread pigments on the planet’s surface is iron oxide, which turns red when exposed to air. No wonder man chose red ocher, i.e., red earth, as the first pigment for his creativity. In fact, archeologists discovered fragments of red ocher and a basalt pestle near Nazareth in a sepulcher dating from 90,000 B.C. Over time, artists have mixed this universal material with binders that included brine, urine, soot, tar, buttermilk, snake fat, orchid sap, fat from kangaroo tails, and, relatively recently, linseed oil. It’s still the most popular of all colors.

Not all reds were as plentiful and easy to use as red ocher. Some others were downright dangerous. The mineral cinnabar, a sulfide that forms in mercury mines, produced a blood-red pigment that proved as highly toxic as it was popular. The Chinese, convinced that the element was filled with the force of life, mixed ground cinnabar into their elixirs of immortality. Elsewhere, the magnificent red hues found in the frescoes of Pompeii are cinnabar-based. In Byzantium, royalty reserved the exclusive right to the mineral. Anyone using it without imperial permission was put to death. By the Middle Ages, it was chiefly reserved for monks creating illuminated manuscripts. They were advised to use a crumb of earwax in the pigment to keep it from foaming when mixed. Elsewhere, the Romans invented red lead, also highly toxic. Searing heat, they noticed, turned lead a beautiful orange-red tone. Like so many toxic shades, red lead was banned in the 19th century.

Some painters turned to red lakes, which were mostly created from vegetable dyes derived from substances such as madder. The only plant that produces a true red, madder tints the milk of animals that feed on it. When the Egyptian pharoah Tutankhamun died, Egyptians dyed the bandages wrapping his mummy with madder. Always popular in Western art, it has brought a blush to works from Roman frescoes to Renoir portraits. Other red lakes were derived from brazilwood, kermes (an insect) and the afore-mentioned cochineals. These produced a broad range of red shades, but lacked the brilliance and staying power of other pigments, so artists selected them carefully and sparingly. Beginning in the 19th century, most painters turned to synthetic pigments, which were easier to acquire and held their color longer.

--Everl Adair, Director of Research and Rare Collections

INFORMATION, PLEASE:

The Norton displays a remarkable collection of 18th and 19th century silver, and, like you, must deal with the occasional issue of tarnish. Since you may encounter this problem with your own silver, we thought we would share some advice on cleaning silver that conservator Susie Seeborg of Southern Art Conservation, LLC in Baton Rouge gives us. Tackle tarnish in its early stages, she says. It’s quite difficult to banish it after it darkens into a dingy black coating. Frequent light cleanings are both safer for your silver and take far less time than waiting until the silver is heavily tarnished. If you polish often, use a cotton polishing cloth impregnated with a mild abrasive, which is the least abrasive form of polishing. A light polishing once a year with such a cloth should keep your silver bright. Susie recommends Hagerty Silver Duster, or Birks Silver Polishing Cloth.

If the tarnish is too advanced for a cloth, Susie suggests applying precipitated chalk suspended in distilled water. With a cotton swab, work gently, since the chalk requires little pressure to remove light corrosion. Cleaning all chalk from crevices takes time. To complete the job, rinse several times with a squirt bottled filled with distilled water, and dry the metal with ethanol or acetone.

Be cautious with commercial polishes that may contain additives not beneficial to objects. However, Susie uses Hagerty’s Silversmith Polish successfully. Avoid using general metal polishes on silver, she points out. Designed for harder metals, they’re too abrasive for silver. Beware of silver dips. They can dull the surface and etch away surface detail.

We hope this helps any of you curious about the best way to treat your silver. If you have any other questions, or need further information, please Contact Us and we will do our best to find the answers you need. Happy polishing!

--Everl Adair, Director of Research and Rare Collections

In honor of Valentine’s Day, we feature two artists with one great love story – Thomas and Mary Moran. Originally from Bolton in Lancashire, England, the Moran family, consisting of father Thomas, Sr., mother Mary Higson Moran, and sons Edward, John, Thomas, and Peter, immigrated to America around 1844, settling in Philadelphia. While all of the children were well-educated in art, Thomas became the best known. At sixteen he was apprenticed to a wood engraving firm, a place that would later influence the print work of both him and his wife, who was also an artist. In 1861, he returned to England where he fell under the influence of the great French landscape artist Claude Lorrain. In addition, the radical new techniques of the English painter, J.M.W. Turner, likely inspired Thomas when he undertook an expedition to Yellowstone in 1871 and painted the first magnificent scenes of its majesty. A member of the latter period of the Hudson River School, Thomas emphasized the grandeur of nature as the hand of God writing upon the earth. He also employed Turner’s exploding colors and atmospheric perspective to pack a visual wallop. Moran’s Yellowstone paintings contributed to the establishment of the nation’s national park system. His western works so impressed some members of Congress that they paid the-then whopping sum of $10,000 for his Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which was exhibited in the U.S. Capitol. The Norton displays three Thomas painting: Sunset, La Rita, New Mexico, shown above; View of Philadelphia from Belmont Plateau, Fairmont Park; and the grisaille work, Deep in a Forest.

Unlike many male artists of his time, Thomas believed that talent was not limited to one gender. Most of his contemporaries expected wives to abandon any of their own artistic abilities and take care of the household. That’s likely why the best-known 19th century female artists, Mary Cassatt and Cecilia Beaux, never married. Thomas met his wife, Mary Nimmo, whose family had immigrated from Scotland, when they both attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. After their wedding, Thomas encouraged his bride’s artistic efforts, just as she encouraged his. When he brought home an etching press, he prepared six plates and instructed Mary to experiment with them while he was on a trip with his brother, Peter. When he returned, he was so impressed with her work that he sent four of the etchings to the New York Etching Club. She was promptly elected to membership. Mary signed her etchings “M. Nimmo Moran” or “M.N. Moran”, ensuring that her work was judged on merit alone. As a result, she often found herself the only female member of many male-dominated art societies, like the New York Etching Club and the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers. With Thomas’s support, Mary went on to be one of the foremost 19th century landscape etchers.

--Everl Adair, Director of Research and Rare Collections

FROM THE VAULTS:
Bacchus and Adriadne
Artist Unknown

Like many institutions, the Norton maintains some materials that are specifically for use in its educational program rather than intended for display. Before chromolithography made color prints widely available, the best way for students to study masterworks from other cities or countries was through the study of copies. Many fine artists got their start as copyists, including Rosa Bonheur. Bonheur began copying the paintings in the Louvre as a form of self-study at the age of 14. By the age of 19, she was supporting her family through commissioned copies. Later, of course, she became famous for her own original art. The Norton has one of the 19th century copies of a Renaissance master, in this case, the Bacchus and Ariadne by Titian, the original of which is in the National Gallery in London. Bacchus and Ariadne was one of a cycle of paintings Titian created for Alfonso d’Este, the Duke of Ferrara, to decorate the Camerino d’Alabastro, a private room in his palazzo. The subject matter was based on a myth told by Roman poets Catullus and Ovid. Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, helped Theseus defeat the Minotaur and then sailed away with him, expecting to be his bride and queen. However, Theseus abandoned her on the island of Naxos; his departing ship is visible in the far left of the painting. Bacchus, the god of wine, is leading a group of revelers behind his chariot drawn by two cheetahs when he sees and immediately falls in love with the distraught Ariadne. In time, he raises her to heaven and turns her into a constellation, an event prefigured in the painting by the crown of stars, or corona, in the sky above Ariadne’s head. Though our unknown 19th century painter lacked Titian’s genius, he has left us a beautiful device to teach the compositional techniques and iconography of the master to all who wish to learn.

--Everl Adair, Director of Research and Rare Collections

*Art featured in from the vaults is NOT currently on display in the museum.

FIRST SATURDAY TOURS
Regularly scheduled tours are offered on the first Saturday of every month at 2 p.m. No reservation is required for these First Saturday Tours. Groups of 10 or more are asked to call ahead so preparations may be made to accommodate the group on these particular tours. All tours, like admission to the Gallery, are free to the public. The next First Saturday Tour The Valentine's Tour will be on February 6th at 2 p.m.

GROUP TOURS
Eighteen group tours are offered at the Norton ranging from the 19th Century French Art History Tour to the Cowboy Artists Tour. Group tours are available by appointment year-round for groups of 10-30 and last approximately 45 minutes.

OUTREACH PROGRAM
The purpose of the community Outreach Program is to take art and art education to people through interactive presentations. Community Presentations consist of PowerPoint presentations to civic groups and assisted living facilities.

For more information on the programs offered or to schedule a tour or presentation, click here.

 

SATURDAY SPEAKER SERIES
One Saturday each month, the Norton will host a local, regional, or national expert speaking on a variety of subjects in formats ranging from formal presentations to informal seminars to walking tours. Upcoming speakers will cover a broad range of subjects including gardening, popular literature and film, influential historical and cultural figures, musical history and interpretation, and food in art. All events are free to the public. The next Saturday Speaker will be Danny Heitman, author of A Summer of Birds, on February 20 at 2 p,m. He will present
John James Audubon in Words and Pictures.

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
The R.W. Norton Art Foundation is pursuing interviews with those who were involved in America's effort to win World War II, whether in the military or on the home front. Each interview will be digitally recorded by the Gallery to be stored and used for historical purposes, and each interview subject will also be given a copy of this recording to share and preserve his or her memories for family and friends.

If you are interested in participating in or would like more information about the Oral History Project, please click here.

SUGGESTIONS AND IDEAS?
To offer us feedback or to suggest what you’d like to see in upcoming issues, please click here.

GALLERY LOCATION AND HOURS:
4747 Creswell Avenue
Shreveport, LA 71106
318-865-4201
www.rwnaf.org
Tuesday through Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday 1 - 5 p.m.
Closed Mondays and National Holidays

Copyright © 2010 by R. W. Norton Art Gallery