New Bedford Whaling Museum Exhibit Covers 19th Century Landscapes

NEW BEDFORD, MA — Re/Framing the View: Nineteenth-century American Landscapes is on display in the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s Wattles Gallery from October 28, 2022 – May 14, 2023. The SouthCoast of Massachusetts is home to stunning private collections with demonstrated strengths in nineteenth-century American landscape painting. This groundbreaking exhibition will draw together over one hundred twenty-five objects, including masterpieces from the Museum collection – many rarely or never before exhibited; six institutions: RISD, MFA, Boston, Long Island Museum, New York Historical Society, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Boston Athenaeum, and six stunning private SouthCoast collections. Artists in the exhibition include Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, William Bradford, John F. Kensett, Martin Johnson Heade, Frederic Edwin Church, Albert Bierstadt, Jasper Cropsey, George Inness, Francis Silva, Sanford Robinson Gifford, and Edward Mitchell Bannister.

These nineteenth-century American artists are well known for their depictions of nature and the outdoors, for their commitment to creating a national “school” of painting, and for their documentation and idealization of scenery ranging from the imagined and pastoral to the dramatic and sublime. While some were members of the so-called Hudson River School and Luminist movements, others operated on their own — capturing the American scene and majestic nature in all its vividness and color.

Re/Framing the View presents a layered interpretation of the cultural and historical meanings of nineteenth-century American landscape paintings. Curated by Naomi Slipp, the Douglas and Cynthia Crocker Endowed Chair for the Chief Curator, the exhibition celebrates masterful depictions of nature and the outdoors, and uses three lenses to contextualize these works in relation to contemporary concerns. Re/Framing the View explores, 1) environment and ecology; 2) gender; and 3) racial identity and Native presence and absence. The exhibition aims to recast canonical American landscape paintings through a careful consideration of the roles women played in picturing nature – via still life, needlepoint, watercolor, and decorative arts, and the ways in which environmental degradation, Federal policies towards Native Americans, and racialization are either pictured or erased in American scenes. The realities of women’s opportunities in the arts are elaborated upon through paintings and prints by Fitz Henry Lane and Mary Mellen; Asher B. Durand and Lucy Maria Durand Woodman; Evelina Mount, Adelheid Dietrich, and Claude Raguet Hirst; and Mary Nimmo Moran and Ellen Day Hale.

Organized around thematic sections and incorporating decorative arts, popular visual and material culture, and photography, as well as works of contemporary art by Elizabeth James-Perry, Paula Winokur, and Deb Ehrens, the exhibition re/frames traditional narratives about nineteenth-century landscape, pointing out the hidden historical meanings, and relating them to the pressing issues of today. The exhibition promises to be an exciting and timely invitation to view truly incredible paintings that are held in private hands or hidden in storage, and also explore the many meanings of the American landscape, both historically to nineteenth-century viewers and today for twenty-first century audiences.

Re/Framing the View is complemented by a slate of public programs and a 206-page hardcover exhibition catalog that includes essays by Chief Curator Naomi Slipp; and contributions from Jennifer Stettler Parsons, Associate Curator at the Florence Griswold Museum; Boston University American Studies PhD Candidate Astrid Tvetenstrand; Darienne Turner (Yurok Tribe), Assistant Curator of Indigenous Arts of the Americas at the Baltimore Museum of Art; and contemporary artist Elizabeth James-Perry (Aquinnah-Wampanoag); one-hundred-twenty-three full-color plates of work in the exhibition; and a bibliography.

This major publication and landmark exhibition have been made possible by funding from the William M. Wood Foundation, Cynthia and Douglas Crocker, Victoria and David Croll, KAM Appliances, Louis M. Ricciardi and Elizabeth M. Soares, Mary Jean and William Blasdale, an anonymous donor, and other individual supporters.

More details can be found at on the museum's website.

Opening Events

• Member’s Preview: 10/26/22, 5:30-7:30pm
• Press Event 10/27/22, 10:00am-12:00 noon
• Opening Public Program: 10/27/22, 5:30-7:30pm - “Reading American Landscapes: Environmental Allusions,” Reception and lecture by Naomi Slipp, Chief Curator, NBWM
• Exhibition opens to the general public at 9am on 10/28
• Public program: 2/9/23, 5:30-7:30pm, “Wampanoag Lifeways,” reception and lecture by representative of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe
• Public program: 4/20/23, 5:30-7:30pm - “Reading American Landscapes: Women and the American Scene,” Reception and lecture by Naomi Slipp, Chief Curator, NBWM
• Exhibition closes EOD on 5/14/23
• Related Family programs, check website

About the New Bedford Whaling Museum

The New Bedford Whaling Museum ignites learning through explorations of art, history, science, and culture rooted in the stories of people, the region and an international seaport. The cornerstone of New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, the Museum is located at 18 Johnny Cake Hill in the heart of the city's historic downtown and is open daily 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. The Museum is open until 7 p.m. every second Thursday of the month (on AHA! nights). Closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Admission is free for Museum members and children aged three and under; adults $19, seniors (65+) $17, students (19+) $12, children and youth $9. For more information, visit www.whalingmuseum.org.

This post was contributed by the New Bedford Whaling Museum