Tales from the American West: The Rees-Jones Collection

Tales from the American West: The Rees-Jones Collection came to the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth in early September of 2015 and runs until February 21st. Trevor Rees-Jones is a Dallas collector who became interested in art when he visited the Amon Carter as a child (called the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art at the time); how fitting that his wonderful collection of art from the American West is now being exhibited to the public for the first time at the very museum that inspired him. 

“Pointing with Pride to His Record, 1924,” Joseph Henry Sharp, Rees-Jones Collection

Rees-Jones (b. 1951) is a philanthropist and attorney who grew up in Texas and is best known as the founder and chairman of Chief Oil and Gas.  His collection consists of 19th and 20th Century paintings, watercolors, sculptures and prints of the American West from well-known western artists like Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell, as well as E. I. Couse, Henry Farny, Thomas Moran, and others.  With landscapes, portraits, action scenes on the frontier, and portrayals of the everyday, Tales from the American West really does encapsulate a view of the great American West.

“Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, 1895,” Thomas Moran. Watercolor on paper, Rees-Jones Collection

Within the exhibition is a set of nine Henry F. Farny (1847-1916) paintings and watercolor works.  The French born and European trained artist started off as an illustrator for children’s books and magazines.  When his family emigrated from France to the United States in 1853, settling in Pennsylvania, Farny became enthralled with the Indians at a Seneca reservation near his home.  Later, in 1859, his family moved to Cincinnati, and there in the west is where Farny found the subject matter that would alter his career. 

These Farny works are a display of the artist’s infatuation with the American Indian, often displaying several figures within a sprawling landscape, and a representation of his mastery of the watercolor medium.  Opaque watercolor is notoriously difficult to work with, and the amount of detail that can be seen – repeating patterns, delicate vegetation and rock formation, facial features – is really astounding.

The piece “Protecting the Emigrants, 1906” by Charles Schreyvogel is on display in the exhibition. It is an action scene on the often-dangerous plains; three cowboys on horseback fire back towards the viewer as they retreat, gun smoke and dust flying in the air.  Schreyvogel was a self-taught painter who grew up in New York with his poor immigrant family.  In the late 1800’s he made several trips to the western territories to collect Indian artifacts and study the land.  His work is often compared to the action scenes of Frederic Remington.

"Protecting the Emigrants, 1906” Charles Schreyvogel, Rees-Jones Collection

Rees-Jones began his collection in 2007.  Since then, the collection has grown to over 23,000 items; everything from original works by revered western artists, to rare books, photography and maps make up the still growing assemblage of artifacts of Western Americana.  Tales from the American West: The Rees-Jones Collection is just a peek into the mammoth high-quality collection, and even though the exhibition is a small assortment of pieces gathered through a love of accumulating works from a treasured era, the exhibition manages to capture the atmosphere and legacy of the American West.  My only complaint is that there wasn’t more to see.

“The Belated Traveler, 1905–06,” Frederic S. Remington, Rees-Jones Collection

The strategically curated show propels the viewer into a different time period, an all-but-forgotten America.  This is a great show in our own backyard, and it leaves on the 21st of next month.  As always, every show at the Amon Carter is free; don’t miss this one.  

-M.P. Callender

Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic

Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic, currently on display at the Modern Museum of Art in Fort Worth, highlights the artist’s fruitful 14-year career.  Every body of work, a snapshot from each series, is represented within the exhibition to give the viewer a comprehensive walk through Wiley’s oeuvre, thus far.

Kehinde Wiley (b. 1977) is fascinated with the intimacy of the portrait.  Anyone unfamiliar with his work quickly learns the artist is enamored with the portrayal of the human form, of another person depicted within an artwork as the focus; so enamored, in fact, he has spent the entirety of his efforts as a working artist on it.  His work questions the power of the sitter, the individual the viewer observes, oftentimes standing on the shoulders of history as he smartly appropriates work from the masters like Manet, Van Dyck and Titian, removing the recognizable historic figure and replacing it with a contemporary sitter – young men and women of color in fashionable clothes.  This became Wiley’s signature style as he was artist in residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. 

"Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps", Brooklyn Museum

Wiley is taking models of color from all over the world in their ordinary clothes and elevating them to a position of power by painting them in a classical style, creating an appeal for both the high art connoisseur and those who are not involved in the art world; his references are recognized in both spectrums.  Besides one large portrait of Michael Jackson (an appropriated image of “Equestrian Portrait of King Philip II, 1628,” by Paul Ruben) all of Wiley’s subjects are unknowns.  They are not presidents, royalty, or war heroes; they are the urban youth, many of whom Wiley finds on the street. 

"Anthony of Padua" Seattle Art Museum / "Princess Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha" 

The paintings, the majority of them very large works on canvas, are a collision of the photo-realistic subject and the painstakingly detailed background.  The backgrounds, either repeating colorful patterns or vast landscapes, are largely done by Wiley’s studio assistants, a trend that points back to the practices of the Renaissance that has become increasingly regular with modern artists and their studios.  Stained-glass windows, 14-carat gold icons, and bronze portrait bust works also display how young people around the world are existing in their space. 

"St. Gregory Palamas" Collection of Edward Tyler Nahem, New York / "Houdon Paul-Louis" Brooklyn Museum / "Saint Remi" Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris

A New Republic begins with Wiley’s early works, the paintings focusing on African American men in Harlem.   The exhibition then pulls the audience through the artist’s exploration of the portrait and what it can do as he explores its history and traditions within culture. The exhibition illustrates that Kehinde Wiley’s body of work is more than simply a contemporary amalgamation of no-name models and historic painting techniques.  Upon initial view the pieces are large, colorful, bright, and engaging, but Wiley’s paintings do more than please the eye and decorate a space.  As the viewer looks for what is actually happening on the canvas, the artworks reflect issues of race and inequality in contemporary society, they question authority, nobility and stature, they deal with gender roles and fashion. 

The exhibition invites the audience to question what each portrait has to say and what the portrait as a painting approach can accomplish.  It is a fantastic show and we highly recommend seeing it.  Better hurry, this one leaves the Modern this weekend!

-M.P. Callender

Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter's Eye

Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter's Eye is currently showing at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth.  The Kimbell is no stranger to exhibiting works by masters of the Impressionist movement; pieces by artists like Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Monet and Pissarro have been on display and are in the museum’s permanent collection.  With The Painter’s Eye, which opened in November and runs until February 14th, the curators Mary Morton (National Gallery, Washington, D.C.) and George T.M. Shackelford (Kimbell), show the very best work of the lesser known Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894). 

Gustave Caillebotte (pronounced kai-yah-bott) was born into an upper class family and because of the support from his family’s investments, selling his artwork was neither a necessity nor a motivator as it was for the other Impressionists.  Although he was a great champion and patron of the movement, he has been coined the lesser-known Impressionist because the majority of his life is a mystery; he didn’t leave behind any legers or journals, though there are letters, and he died at 45. 

"Paris Street; Rainy Day" The Kimbell Art Museum / Art Institute of Chicago image

Arguably his most famous work “Paris Street; Rainy Day (1877),” is owned by the Chicago Art Institute, and people recognize it as an iconic piece but rarely know who painted it.  It is an encapsulating piece for the artist; cropped subjects much like a photograph, the utilization of geometric lines to pull the viewer’s eye into the scene and across the canvas, a view of bustling Paris. 

The Painter’s Eye sets out to highlight the importance of Caillebotte’s work, focusing on the years Caillebotte was most connected with the Impressionists, the period between 1875 and 1882.  The show is organized by subject or series, “River Views,” “Suburban Views,” “Looking Out,” “Looking In;” each propelling the audience’s gaze where Caillebotte wanted it, taking them to a Parisian boulevard, a quiet and tension filled luncheon, or a game of bezique. 

"Gateaux"/ "Fruit Displayed on a Stand"  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts

My personal favorite was the still life section.  While not the highlight of Caillebotte’s work or any Impressionist’s for that matter, though they all did still life paintings, these pieces were both beautiful and rough.  There were depictions of fruits on a stand at market, sugary sweets in bright colors aligned on a table (something that looked like a 19th Century Wayne Thiebaud) and there were works with ducks hanging and butcher shop meats; a great juxtaposition of subject matter done with the beautiful commingling hand of Caillebotte, one where Realism continues to blur and morph into the Impressionistic. 

"The Floor Scrapers" Musée d'Orsay, Paris

“The Floor Scrapers,” is another show stealer.  It is Caillebotte’s first major work that he submitted to the academic Salon, which turned down the work.  It is an image of three bare-chested workers on their knees scraping the varnish off the wood floor of a room.  The rejection of this piece led Caillebotte to turn to the Impressionists, who welcomed him into their circle. 

Though The Painter's Eye will not heave Gustave Caillebotte into the ranks of the household name Impressionists, it is a fantastic show that puts the spotlight on an underappreciated and very talented artist with the exhibition of some wonderful paintings.  This is a show worth seeing. 

-M.P. Callender