September: National Museum of Wildlife Art
Shepard Alonzo Mount (American, 1804-1868) Oil on Panel JKM Collection W1999.081
Good Hunting Ground, 1880-1881
Arthur FItwilliam Tait (British, 1819-1905) Oil on Canvas JKM Collection W1997.015
William Jacob Hays (American, 1830-1875) Oil on Canvas JKM Collection M1995.151
Wilhelm Kuhnert (German, 1865-1926) Oil on Canvas Gift of The Robert S. and Grayce B. Kerr Foundation W1995.041
Two Lions, After Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1810
Theodore Gericault (French, 1791-1824) Oil on Canvas JKM Collection, Natl Museum of Wildlife Art W1998.010
Arthur Wardle (British, 1864-1949) Oil on Canvas JKM Collection JL2005.036 This work was exhibited at the British Royal Academy in 1901, during the last year of Queen Victoria's reign. One way to read this work is to thik of it as an allegory of the power of the Empire, represented by the woman, over her colonies, represented by the leopards. Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, set a trap with leopards to kill the next mortal to cross his path. An innocent woman fell into the trap and prayed to Artemis, goddess of hunting, to save her. When Dionysys saw what he had done, he cried tears of wne, dying the stone purple. The woman's name was Amethystos and the stone is known today as amethyst.
Gyrfalcons Striking a Kite, 1856
Joseph Wolf (German, 1820-1899) Oil on Canvas Generously donated by Cornelia Guest and the Robert S. and Grayce B. Kerr Foundation W2011.019 Wolf was among the first artists to be directly influenced by Charles Darwin. In his massive and dynamic canvases, Wolf collapsed the divide between art and science. His work melded a keen naturalist's knowledge, borne of many hours studying skins and specimens at London's Museum of Natural History, with a post-Darwin determination to observe and depict animals in their natural habitats. Falcony refers to the hunting of game by trained falcons or hawks. Do you see evidence that this work features trained falcons instead of wild ones?
Deer in a Forest Glade (aka Pascha), 1912
Richard Friese (German, 1854-1918) Oil on Canvas Private Collection T2013.048 In this painting, Friese depicted Pascha, a large stag shot by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1910. The Kaiser commissioned Friese to paint Pascha as the Kaiser had last observed him, pawing the ground, preparing a bed for the night. The emphasis on recording the stag in its habitat, performing a natural behavior has clear ties to Darwin's theories and shows deeply ingrained his vision of nature had become by the early 1900s. As a mature artist, Friese was known for paintings of red deer, moose, and the European bison (or wisent), animals he was privileged to see on royal hunting preserves in Germany.
Carl Rungius, (American, b. Germany, 1869-1959) Oil on Canvas KJM Collection M1987.024
Carl Rungius, (American, b. Germany, 1869-1959) Oil on Canvas JKM Collection M1987.117
Out of the Shadows, c. 1918 Study for New York Zoological Society's Alaskan Brown Bear)
Carl Rungius, (American, b. Germany, 1869-1959) Oil on Canvas JKM Collection M1987.101 With addition landscape studies gifted by the Robert S. and Grayce B. Kerr Foundation, Widener Charitable Limited Partnership, and the Soka'piiwa Foundation.
Leonard Baskin (American, 1922-2000) Linden Wood and Stain JKM Collection W1999.077
Black Peacocks with Japanese Persimmons, C. 1940
Jessie Arms Botke (American, 1883-1971) Oil and Gold Leaf on Panel JKM Collection W1998.015 At age fourteen, Botke enrolled in classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. She left the Institute and began taking jobs painting decorative friezes. In 1911, she moved to New York to work at Herter Looms, where she deisgned tapestries. Botke's abstracted scenes of birds celebrate the colors and patterns she saw in nature. She and husband Cornelius settled on a ranch outside of Los Angeles. The couple built their own aviary, where they kept peacocks and pheasantes. This work combines her love of avian forms and her background in tapestry design.
Georgia O'Keeffe Oil on Canvas This purchase made possible by previous donations from Sandy Scott and the Widener Charitable Limited Partnership, with additional assistance from Adrienne and John Mars, Anne and John Marion, Ann and Richard O'Leary, Chuck D. Miller, Peggy and Lowry Mays, and the Robert S. and Grayce B. Kerr Foundation. M2007.033 O'Keeffe attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1905-1906 and the Art Students league in New York in 1907, studying with William Merritt Chase, but quit painting for a while, until being inspired by Alon Bement, who was teaching a course in 1912 on the principles of Arthur Wesly Down (Rockwell Kent's instructor). O'Keeffe wrote about this painting, "... it is so different than the other things and I think one of the best." Antelope emphasizes the organic relationship between bone and earth. We know that someday the skull will decompose back into the dirt, providing nourishment for plant life that will, in turn, nourish another pronghorn.
Cheneau (Owl) and Decorative Leaf From Pennsylvania State Education Building, 1931
Carl Paul Jennewein (German, 1890-1978) Copper Gift of the 2014 Collectors Circle M2014.023.001-004 Moden artists often relied on classical mythology to provide subject matter for their work. Jennewein depicted owls to decorate the pediment of the State Education building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In Greek myth, the owl was a companion to Athena, goddess of wisdom, and has come to symbolize knowledge all on its own - the wise owl. These owls are stylized, meaning the artist chose to depict them non-naturalisically. Moden artists often looked to the art of other cultures for inpiration. The simplified forms of African masks and Egyptin statues were great influences.
Cheneau (Owl) and Decorative Leaf From Pennsylvania State Education Building, 1931
Carl Paul Jennewein (German, 1890-1978) Copper Gift of the 2014 Collectors Circle M2014.023.001-004 Moden artists often relied on classical mythology to provide subject matter for their work. Jennewein depicted owls to decorate the pediment of the State Education building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In Greek myth, the owl was a companion to Athena, goddess of wisdom, and has come to symbolize knowledge all on its own - the wise owl. These owls are stylized, meaning the artist chose to depict them non-naturalisically. Moden artists often looked to the art of other cultures for inpiration. The simplified forms of African masks and Egyptin statues were great influences.
Joseph Stella (Itallian, 1877-1946) Oil on Canvas Museum purchase with additional funds honoring the National Museum of Wildlife Art Collections Committee M2013.029 In Greek mythology, Zeus transforms himself into a swan and seduces the mortal Leda, who later gives birth to Helen and Pollux. Helen, the epitome of beauty, instigated the Trojan War. Stella saw the myth of Leda and the Swan as a metaphor for divine intervention in human creativity. In Stell's eyes, the beautiful art we produce is evidence of divinity flowing through us. Look at the lower left corner of this work. What do you see? The pencil marks are called the underdrawing, a guide Stella created before he began to apply paint. Do you see any other areas of the work that look unfinished?
Paul Jouve (French, 1878-1973) Bronze JKM Collection JL2006.045 Paul Jouve's Walking Panther is called a bas relief, or low relief, sculpture. Bas reliefs are very flat and are usually meant to be hung on a wall. Paul Jouve enjoyed success in his early 20s when his sculptures were featured on a monumental door at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900. He travelled widely from Tangiers to Vietnam and sought to combine the French animalier tradition of sculpting wild animals with the foreign styles he encountered abroad. His life and work exemplifies the internationla influence that is a hallmark of modernism.
Robert F. Kuhn (American, 1920-2007( Acrylic on Board JKM Collection JL2008.011
Wilhelm Kuhnert German, 1865-1926 Oil on Canvas JKM Collection JL1999.130 IUCN Red List Status: Vulnerable Peak Population: 3-5 million Current Population: 415,000 African elephants once numbered in the millions through Africa, but by 1990, uncontrolled hunting for their ivory tusks drove the number in the wild to less than 500,000. African elephants have larger ears than their Asian counterparts; the surface area of the ears helps keep them cool. Both males and femails grow tusks. In addition to tusk poaching, habitat loss has led to conflicted between humans and hungry elephants who eat crops in search of food. I 1988, the U.S. Congress passed the African Elephant Conservation Act, establishing a fund to help protect, conserve, and manage African Elephants. An international bad on the ivory trade followed and the African elephant population started to rebound. In recent years, however, the demand for ivory has grown in Asia causing an increase in poaching.