by Neva Cole, Graphic Designer and Communications Specialist
I’m usually the one asking the Currier staff to volunteer to write a blog post for this or that topic, so it feels a little strange to be on the other side of this. But when I realized that Mother’s Day was approaching and I began to think about which of our staff members I might ask to write about “Motherhood,” it occurred to me that I am now allowed to have an opinion on that topic, being a new mom myself! My daughter, Lila, was born last October and is now seven months old. Becoming a mom has changed my perspective on so many things, and the art in the museum’s collection is no exception.
“The clicking white line [of the road] guides us through madness. The real beauty is in the lines and colors of the journey itself,” artist Allan D’Arcangelo wrote in a 1976 manuscript.
Allan D’Arcangelo American, born Buffalo, New York, 1930 – died New York City, 1998 Holy Family, 1980 Museum Purchase: The Print Fund, 2011
The vantage point of D’Arcangelo’s Holy Family—now on view in the Contemporary Gallery—positions you inside a car and invites you to look out upon an expanse of highway that stretches infinitely forward and backward by means of the rearview mirror. An inclination to speed down this open road is dampened by the yield sign in the foreground. The effect has symbolic significance for the artist, who compared America to a car lacking purpose but nonetheless moving with speed into the future.
D’Arcangelo’s print is on view along with two other prints that draw from America’s sign-dense environment and create symbolic images about the country and national culture.
This Monday, April 23, 2012 marks the birthday of William Shakespeare. To celebrate, we examined Jan de Bray's painting Banquet of Antony and Cleopatra and related it to an excerpt from Act 3, Scene 2 from Shakespeare's tragic play Antony and Cleopatra.
by Talia Broulidakis, Currier Museum of Art Intern
This Earth Day, create unique prints using the UV radiation of the Sun! The Currier's Museum Shop sells SunArt photo paper packets (4"x6" for $7.50 or 5"x7" for $10.50). Read on for detailed instructions for this fun art project for ages 6 and up!
One could say I'm not shy about my birthday, but really, I just can't resist the mnemonic device --"Earth Day is my birthday". I vividly remember the very first Earth Day/Birthday celebration in NYC. The highlight was a performance of Swan Lake, featuring Rudolph Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn.
Earth Day also happens to be Moody Currier's birthday. In the Currier’s collection there are many examples of artists' reflections upon nature, from Albert Bierstadt's landscape painting, Moat Mountain, Intervale, New Hampshire, to Liz Nofziger's, Chocorua, which is found among the Hudson River School painters in our American galleries.
One of the perks of my job as Assistant Registrar is working in the galleries before the museum opens. Either I’m updating locations of the artwork or trying to find that right shade of green to color match an image to the actual painting. As I’m walking through the galleries something always catches my eye. Lately I’ve been drawn to paintings of flowers. Perhaps it’s because I can’t wait to start planting flowers in my garden and need ideas.
New England Photographer Bill Finney talks about his time photographing in Ireland
On his piece titled “Dunguaire Castle” in the Currier’s collection:
Dunguaire Castle (pronounced ‘Dun-gor-ra’) in Kinvara - Co. Galway on the Atlantic Ocean is one of 3 banquet castles in the west of Ireland.
Traveling north from Shannon Airport to the castle is always on the “have to stop list.”
On his connection to Ireland:
I have had the pleasure of visiting Ireland to photograph 30+ times over the years from 1964 to 2009 and always found the weather and light most responsive. Today here on the island in Maine where I live, it is an Irish day - 'soft' (light rain or mist). I have duel American/Irish citizenship taken from my maternal grandfather who emigrated from Co. Meath in the early nineteen hundreds.
In 1990-91 the former director of the Currier Museum of Art, Mac Doty, and I put together an exhibition of the Quin Abbey Franciscan Monastery in the town of Quin - Co. Clare just north of Shannon Airport. The exhibition, which opened at the New England College in Henniker, NH, traveled around New Hampshire for a year with a half dozen gallery stops. This exhibition of 27 matted and framed silver prints now have a home at the Maine Irish Heritage Society in Portland, Maine and will have an opening this June 15, 2012.
The people in the town of Quin and I became close friends and we still correspond at Christmas. On one occasion while setting up for a sunset silhouette of the Abbey I quickly was surrounded by rather large cows and then a women's voice informing me that they were harmless! They certainly weren’t harmless in the way I responded to them! Nothing to do about that!
Art making often involves more than pure emotional and expressive intuition. Frequently, calculated ideas and concepts determine artistic motivations and help shape visual results. The prints on view now through April in our Contemporary Gallery are examples, and are the outcome of thoughtful consideration, premeditated premises and mathematical theorems.
This rotation of prints includes a portfolio of linear compositions by Sol LeWitt that are the interpretation of written instructions, and Terry Winters’ portfolio of pictures and text that illustrate this artist’s parameters for picture making and their visual effect. Don’t miss Agnes Denes’ mathematically derived structure of a space station glistening with metallic powders.
If you have been a follower of our blog, you will know that the Currier has many surprises tucked away in the depths of its storage rooms – even valentines. We have a handful of the fanciful little cards, all given to us in the 1930s and 40s by the family of John W. Sanborn. The cards all date from the late 19th century.
Manufactured valentines became popular in the US during the mid-19th c. and, in fact, the first production valentines (rather than unique, hand-made cards) were made in Worcester, MA by a young woman, Esther Howland, daughter of a stationer. Importing the fancy embossed paper and paper laces popular in English valentines, Miss Howland produced intricate little cards at her home and quickly built her business into a bit of a valentine empire, eventually grossing over $100,000 annually! She and her employees assembled the cards, gluing stamps, ribbons and die-cut flowers to the paper lace and embossed cards, often inserting little printed verses behind doors or windows. In 1881 she sold her business to George C. Whitney, also of Worcester. Mr. Whitney went on to acquire many of his competitor’s valentine companies, opening offices in NY, Boston and Chicago. Eventually, the Whitney Manufacturing Company (1866-1942) expanded to include Christmas and other holiday cards, post cards, books and calendars. The early Whitney cards, two of which are in the Currier’s collection, were very similar to the Howland Valentines and were known for their tender verses. One of our cards contains a long verse lamenting an ‘absent’ love while another simple reads: “Remember the friend of your Childhood.”
The history of the valentine in the US is fascinating and readily available on many websites. To learn more, try the following sites:
Last year, I wrote my first blog entry on a UFO object – Unidentified Found Object. These are objects for which we have found no records and, basically, have no idea why they are in the museum or how they got here. The first UFO we introduced to you was a beautiful Austrian decanter set. There are many more UFOs lurking in our basement, but few of the quality of our decanter set, believe me! One UFO that I find particularly curious is a black felt bowler (or derby) hat.
What makes a painting a masterpiece worthy of hanging in a museum? How does a museum decide what type of art to collect in the first place? And who at the museum dusts all those artworks and hangs them perfectly on the wall? Click a topic below to unlock the secrets of art!
Making a Masterpiece Delve into artists’ motivations and methods. Explore why and how art is made, and how objects become considered masterpieces over time.
The Currier Collects Learn how the museum determines what to collect (and what not) and how gifts and purchases build a museum’s collection over the years.
Behind the Scenes Learn how works of art are packed and shipped, the aesthetics of properly framing a painting, and advances in evaluating works of art.
In the Galleries Discover how objects are selected for presentation, how they are displayed, and how the museum setting differs from the original setting.
