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An Enduring Legacy: American Impressionist Landscapes from the Thomas Clark Collection
November 15, 2009 - March 28, 2010
On November 15, 2009, The Hyde Collection opened its fall/winter exhibition, An Enduring Legacy: American Impressionist Landscapes from the Thomas Clark Collection. Running through March 28, 2010, the exhibition presents sixty-eight paintings from the private collection of Saratoga County, New York resident Thomas Clark.
For the past twenty years, Clark has been amassing a significant grouping of pre-1940 American Impressionist landscape paintings with more than 100 works in the collection. Considered one of the finest private collections of this genre in upstate New York, it is a testament to the enduring legacy of Impressionist painting in American art.
The collection comprises representative examples from the last great generation of landscape painters who emerged both during and in the aftermath of the American Impressionist movement (1880-1920). These artists were the students and/or sketching partners of the seminal figures in the development of Impressionism in America, such as William Merritt Chase, Willard L. Metcalf, John Henry Twachtman, and Robert Henri.
The painters represented in this collection were primarily concerned with capturing the effects of light, color, and atmosphere achieved by painting directly from nature -- out-of-doors -- rather than in the studio. Though not as well known as their Impressionist predecessors, this generation of landscape painters flourished in areas such Old Lyme, Connecticut; Cape Ann, Massachusetts; New Hope, Pennsylvania; and Woodstock, New York, as well as areas of Vermont and California. The works in the Clark Collection offer a comprehensive treatment of these regional schools of Impressionist activity in America.
About fifty painters, including Maurice Braun, Arthur C. Goodwin, Emile Gruppé, Hayley Lever, Frederick John Mulhaupt, E. Bruce Nelson, George Loftus Noyes, and Harry Aiken Vincent will be featured in the exhibition. The landscapes selected for the exhibition vary greatly in scenic subject matter from snow-filled views to sun-drenched hillsides and waterways, as well as harbor scenes and cityscapes.
The exhibition is curated by Erin B. Coe, chief curator and deputy director of The Hyde Collection and will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with a forward by the collector and an essay by the curator. Admission is free for members and by donation for all others. Suggested donation is five dollars.
Clark has announced his intention to donate his remarkable collection to The Hyde where it will greatly enhance the Museum's already significant holdings of American art.
To view the exhibition Curator's Biography please click here.
To view the Collector's Statement please click here.
To view images of paintings in the exhibition please click here.
To view sample pages from the exhibition catalogue please click here.
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