LOS ANGELES-The
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) recently acquired a rare painting by
Abbott Handerson Thayer "that represents a crucial link between the
modernist abstract painting and nineteenth-century landscape painting,"
according to LACMA Curator Bruce Robertson. The painting, Mount Monadnock,
is one of four paintings Thayer made late in his career of Mount Monadnock, a
mountain that provided a vision of solace for the artist and his family near
their home in New Hampshire.
Thayer is
one of the most distinctive late nineteenth-century American artists, among
those of an international aesthetic. Trained in New York and Paris, he quickly
made a reputation as a portrait painter. He was a central player in the
development of the Society of Artists, in which Childe Hassam, Chase, and
other European-trained artists transformed the ideals of American painting at
the end of the 1870s.
By the end
of the century, however, Thayer moved permanently to Dublin, New Hampshire,
where he concentrated on two kinds of poetic subjects: portraits of women and
landscapes, particularly views of Mount Monadnock.
Beginning
in 1917, as if sensing his powers were fading, the artist began a monumental
series of views of the subject, all of them roughly four by five feet. Of the
four in the series, LACMA's version is the most freely painted and in the
best condition. The surface of the painting is marked by a miraculous freedom
and control, all contained within very simple, large areas of tone. The
variety and range of brushstrokes is unparalleled-from the small dabs that
mark the spruce trees near the mountain's summit, to the long thin white
strokes of snow released from the branches of the tree, to the odd floating
stroke of dark blue in the trees, to the black spots spattering the ground
beneath them. This freedom derives from Thayer's study of Chinese calligraphy
and also, surprisingly, the science of animal camouflage.
Mount
Monadnock
is now on display in LACMA's American art galleries. LACMA's collection of
American art is one of the most significant in the country. In addition to
this new masterpiece, works on view include Cliff Dwellers by George
Bellows; Daniel in the Lion's Den by Henry Ossawa Turner; Mrs.
Edward L. Davis and her Son, Livingston by John Singer Sargent; Mother
About to Wash her Sleepy Child by Mary Cassat; and The Cotton Pickers
by Winslow Homer.
For
additional information, press images, or to arrange an interview with Bruce
Robertson, please contact the press office at 323-857-6035.
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LACMA's
permanent collection includes approximately 100,000 works spanning the history
of art from ancient times to the present, making it the premier encyclopedic
visual arts museum in the western United States. The museum uses its
collection and resources to provide a variety of educational and cultural
experiences for its visitors. In addition, LACMA offers an ever-changing
series of outstanding special exhibitions of the work of the world's leading
artists, as well as lectures, classes, family activities, film programs, and
musical events.
