Adin Murray exhibition opens this week: ADIN MURRAY | Intertidal
Reception: Thursday August 3rd, 2023. 5-7pm at Jane Deering Gallery,19 Pleasant Street, Gloucester, MA.
Continue reading the news from Jane Deering Gallery:
Jane Deering Gallery is pleased to present ADIN MURRAY | Intertidal opening with a public reception on Thursday August 3rd from 5-7pm. As in his two previous series—Horizon and Moon—Murray’s reverence for the spirit of the natural world continues with an exploration of the intertidal waters and the great salt marsh lands of Cape Ann. This new show is intended to give the viewer a peek into the process that Murray employs to create his work. Consisting of preparatory drawings, preparatory oil studies, and three final large format paintings, the exhibition affirms the fundamental stages in the development of a final piece. Adin Murray holds a BA in Art/Biology from Tulane University and an MFA in painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design.
His work is in the permanent collection of the Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester MA and in corporate and private collections in the US and abroad. Murray lives and maintains a studio in Gloucester, MA. This is his sixth show with Jane Deering Gallery. Intertidal runs August 3-20, 2023. Gallery hours: Friday & Saturday 1-5pm; Sunday 1-4pm; and by appointment at 917-902-4359. The gallery is located at 19 Pleasant Street, Gloucester. janedeeringgallery.com .
President Joe Biden takes a selfie with mental health youth action forum participants. Official White House photograph by Adam Schultz. “We’ve invested $1 billion to help schools hire and train 14,000 new mental health counselors in schools across the country. We’re also taking steps to address the harm social media is doing to young people and hold these platforms accountable.” July 31, 2023
Fitz Henry Lane (1804-1865). Boston Harbor. 1854. Oil on canvas. Gift of the Wassermans, 1963. (Provenance: via Kennedy Galleries)
William Ranney (1813–1857). Boys Crabbing. 1855. Oil on canvas. Provenance: via Hirschl & Adler (added to the White House Collection in 1972)
photo: Fitz Henry Lane’s Boston Harbor at the MFA. David Cox. 2016
*I wrote about art at the White House in 2014 which was published here on GMG in 2015:
“What’s the best art inside the White House? No matter what is your artistic preference, Gloucester and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts could top the charts as the City and state with the best and most art ties featured at the White House.
…How does the White House collection work? It is unusual for the White House to accept art by living artists. There are more than 450 works of art in the permanent collection. New art enters the collection after it’s vetted and is restricted to works created at least 25 years prior to the date of acquisition. For the public rooms, the Office of the Curator works with the White House advisory committee–the First Lady serves as the Honorary Chair–and the White House Historical Association. The private rooms are the domain of the First Family. Works of art from collectors, museums, and galleries can be requested for temporary loans and are returned at the end of the President’s final term. The Obamas have selected contemporary art, including abstract art, from the permanent collection, and borrowed work for their private quarters. Besides the Hopper paintings and John Alston’s Martin Luther King sculpture, they’ve selected art by *Anni Albers, *Josef Albers, Edgar Degas, Jasper Johns, Louise Nevelson, *Robert Rauschenberg, Edward Ruscha, and *Alma Thomas.” * indicates works that have been donated to the permanent collection.
Catherine Ryan, 2014
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In celebration of Mass College of Art & Design 150th Anniversary, the MassArt Art Museum honors renown American artist, May Stevens, born in Massachusetts and raised in Quincy by the river and sea, a distinguished Massachusetts College of Art and Design alumna. She died in 2019 at the age of 95. From a body of painterly work spanning six decades, this show spotlights one of Stevens major figurative series and themes centered on three women: her mother, Alice, Rosa Luxemburg, and May herself. Vitrines with archival printed matter, personal documents and photos, and audio stations are thoughtfully interspersed, non intrusive yet vivid. May was as close as family to me. I was her dealer and lucky to speak with her daily for years. It is beautiful installation.
The gallery is open Friday-Sunday. The last chance to visit the May Stevens show is today and tomorrow. Hopefully there’ll be a future survey with another series or major retrospective soon.
“The highlight of the visit to the Edward Hopper House Museum was a special museum mini-tour, conducted in small groups. During the tour, participants were captivated by stories about cycling in the 1890s, as they bonded with Hopper’s prized bicycle. The tour also provided the opportunity to view Hopper’s bedroom, famed for its iconic morning light, fostering a deeper appreciation for the artist’s connection to cycling…”
Edward Hopper in Nyack | Hudson River and Hook Mountain & Nyack Beach Loop, Palisades Park
American Artist Edward Hopper (1882-1967) was born and raised in Nyack, Rockland County, New York. The home he grew up in still stands because local stewards obtained its landmark status in the 1970s and eventually designation as an important historic house museum, The Edward Hopper House Museum & Research Center.
Hopper’s boyhood home on 82 North Broadway was perched on a rise with an unobstructed view downhill to the magnificent Hudson River with easy access to an active waterfront and smack dab in the middle of two worlds.
Stepping out the front door To the Right
To the right, it was a short walk to a cityscape: his father’s store, the train station, and all that was necessary for commerce in a bustling town at the turn of the century.
To the Left
To the left and surrounding streets nearby, it was a short walk to residential neighborhoods with a handsome array of American architectural styles common on the East Coast–but unique town by town.
photos above: Catherine Ryan. 718 North Broadway, Nyack | Edward Hopper. Seven AM. 1948. Whitney Museum
FURTHER LEFT to HOOK MOUNTAIN
Further on to the left (less than 5 miles) it was a quick trip by bike to a range of scenic landscapes: rural, farm and river view estates–until the last stop—the rugged wildness of Hook Mountain, a local icon (and historic landmark for navigation), part of the Palisades park system, with stunning cliff views.
In recent years trail advocates established a complete Hook Mountain and Nyack Beach loop that’s about six miles RT. It’s awesome.
HOPPER PULSE | HALLMARK HORIZONTAL COMPOSITION
We can traverse Nyack’s particular stretch of riverfront geography because North Broadway–on the street where Edward Hopper lived and returned to–bisects the terrain parallel to the river. No matter which direction one ambles, the reassuring view of the Hudson and distant riverbank stays fixed, stretching horizontally as far as the eye can see.
Westchester, Tarrytown across the river (and on a sunny day the Tarrytown lighthouse is visible)
Above: OAK HILL CEMETERY NYACK
Of all the places he resided or visited, he chose to be buried in Nyack. Turns out, you can’t take Hopper out of Nyack.
In Oak Hill Cemetery in Nyack, the grave of Edward Hopper and Jo Nivison are next to his parents and sister, high above the family home on North Broadway, with a view of the Hudson River and the unmistakable distant shore. And sited–fittingly for Hopper–on a corner, at a bend where paths converge.
American theater legend, Helen Hayes (Helen Hayes MacArthur, 1900-1993), owned a riverfront estate across the street and a few blocks down the road from the Hopper family home, humorously nicknamed ‘Pretty Penny’ (in the block of house photos above), and drawn resentfully by Hopper when Hayes commissioned a house portrait through his art dealer or so she wrote. (I may write more about that.) The painting was hung prominently and visible in publicity stills .
Hayes is buried in Nyack’s Oak Hill Cemetery further down Oak hill from the Hopper markers. There are four flat markers flush with the grass for her family. Sadly, her daughter died in 1949 at age 19 from polio before the vaccine.
The grave for American artist Joseph Cornell is located down and off to the right of Hayes.
Edward Hopper in Gloucester
Hopper’s impressions of Nyack are repeated in his art throughout his life.
Time to prepare for the Cape Ann Symphony Pops concert 1 week away July 28, 2023!
FAQs from Cape Ann Symphony:
“We’re expecting a lot of folks to come to Stage Fort Park one week from today to celebrate Gloucester’s 400th with the Cape Ann Symphony. You may be wondering:
With thousands expected, where will we be able to park? Will there be handicapped parking?
There are a number of parking spaces, including handicapped, available at Stage Fort Park. However, they will fill quickly. So you should consider parking at a satellite parking facility and taking a Cape Ann Transportation Shuttle bus to the park. These shuttles will be running continuously from 5pm to 11pm. Parking and shuttle service will be free.
4 Satellite parking locations will be at: Gloucester High School, 32 Leslie O Johnson Road, Gloucester. O’Maley Innovation Middle School, 32 Cherry St. Gloucester. Magnolia woods ‘recreation Area, 474 Western Ave., Gloucester. Rockport Transfer Station Park and Ride, 2 Blue Gate Lane, Rockport.
What about toilet facilities? There are toilet facilities at the park. However not adequate for thousands. So Porta Potties will be conveniently located.
Should I bring a chair? Yes, if you wish. Or a blanket or whatever will work for you while sitting on the grass.
So come on down one week from tonight for a Pops concert not to be forgotten. This Marquee Gloucester 400+ celebration event of the year starts July 28, 8pm. Pack a picnic dinner, bring a lawn chair, and join your family and friends in Gloucester’s Stage Fort Park for a spectacular evening of pops music from the professional musicians of the Cape Ann Symphony!
Cape Ann Symphony Pops concert 2023 FAQs
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Bacterial exceedance and/or precautionary measures were posted for 78 public beaches/swimming sites. Testing is reported out weekly on Fridays.
North Shore beaches impacted after the heavy rain posted July 19, 2023: Beverly, Lynn, Manchester, Nahant, Newbury, Newburyport, Salem, Saugus, and Swampscott.
Rockport is not listed on the state site but was reported on its website and the GDT here. Rockport shares the news on its home page
Be mindful where the water recedes. The Long Beach wrack line Sunday and Monday–at the particular time we walked and that wind & weather–degraded the closer one walked to the creek end (litter trail rough at times: syringes, needles, orange needle cap covers, feminine hygiene products, cigarette tips, etc.). We picked up, and turned back.
Heidi Dallin shares a reminder about the free spectacle July 28, 2023 and a message from Cape Ann Symphony:
“We’re constantly being asked: How did pops concerts begin and why are they called Pops?
According to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Henry Lee Higginson founder of the BSO, proposed a new series of concerts which would “re-create the ambiance of summer evenings in Viennese concert gardens.” Such a series also would provide summer employment for the members of the Boston Symphony, who at that time, had to search for other work over the non-BSO season.
They began as the “Promenade Concerts,” soon became known as “Popular Concerts,” which became “Pops,” with the name officially adopted in 1900. The whole point being to bring to audiences shorter, well known, pieces from the normal classical repertoire together with new popular music of the current age. They are concerts that invariably leave the audience with huge smiles as they exit the concert venue.
On Friday, July 28 at 8pm Yoichi Udagawa and some 70 musicians of the Cape Ann Symphony will continue the tradition, playing outdoors to several thousand folks celebrating Gloucester’s 400th at fabulous Stage Fort Park.
They’ll be on a stage in right field of the ball field left of the large tree and playing shorter pieces by traditional composers such as Tchaikovsky, Copland, Rossini, and hugely popular current musicians including Williams, Anderson and Gloucester’s own Rob Bradshaw.
An audience of thousands is expected to fill the ball park and grass all the way up to the gazebo.
We expect thousands because
It’s so much fun! And it’s free!
For full information, including free parking instructions, please click the POPS INFORMATION button.
For this Marquee Gloucester 400+ celebration event of the year: Pack a picnic dinner, bring a lawn chair, your family and friends to Gloucester’s Stage Fort Park for a spectacular evening of pops music from the professional musicians of the Cape Ann Symphony.
Save the date, share, and see you there!”
Cape Ann Symphony
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Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) was a famous Japanese artist who came from humble beginnings and was active in the Edo period. He was an influential and revered artist and fine arts professor in his own lifetime. Hokusai eked out a living as a printmaker and illustrator, setting off on his own after years with the prestigious Katsukawa School, a premiere teaching and publishing powerhouse specializing in the ukiyo-e style color woodblock prints. A life in art and print publishing is tough going now and it was then. To supplement his income, Hokusai changed his name some 20 times, selling his surname or ‘brand’ to select pupils. He produced three of his most popular bodies of work when he was in his seventies. Hokusai died at 90 impoverished financially though not in obscurity. Students and friends paid for his funeral.
Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence at the MFA, lays out 100 examples of Katsushika Hokusai’s lifework in every period, genre, and medium, his famous woodblock series, new discoveries and rarities, and the Japanese and Western cultural exchanges that impacted his own practice. About 200 works of art by other artists spanning 200+ years demonstrate a sample of Hokusai’s relevance and inspiration to artists he knew or taught, and to artists and movements, generation by generation and around the globe, since his death.
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston established one of the largest and finest Asian art departments in the world in the 1890s thanks to art historian curators, collectors, and benefactors. Highlights are featured with great care because of their fragility and easy rotation because of the depth of the museum’s holdings. The collection was amassed early and driven by four scholars. The inventory acquired by Ernest Fenollosa, an art historian, educator, and later, curator. was eventually purchased by Charles Weld, Boston physician and collector, with the stipulation that it be given to the MFA. The bulk of the MFA’s Hokusai trove were collected by Dr. William Bigelow.
Thanks to the MFA collections, its acquisitions and gifts, and great temporary loans, this exhibition celebrates Japanese art, especially Hokusai, emanating from his most iconic and lasting image, Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), 1830-32. Also known as The Great Wave ( an abbreviated and generalized title that amplified sales) the woodblock print is from Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji, a series so popular the artist increased it to Forty-six. You might not know the man but you likely know that surf.
MFA’s installation–loosely chronological
Japanese artist Katsukawa Shunshō operated the most popular ukiyo-e studio and Hokusai was employed there for over a decade until Shunsho’s death. Eventually Hokusai became an independent artist & teacher. The exhibition unfolds with masterpieces by both Hokusai and Katsukawa Shunshō and with exceptional work by their students and peers. After this introduction to the ‘lineage’ years, the installation is grouped by themes dear to Hokusai juxtaposed with work by artists in the decades following his death in 1849. The broad survey is an introduction to how the Japanese woodblock industry and ukiyo-e art and culture influenced French fashion, design, and the art movements which inspired modern art (and vice versa).
By the time of the Great Wave, Hokusai maximized landscapes which was novel at the time. With so much sea and sky, the color blue in every hue and tone is everywhere. Imported and available by the 1820s in Japan and cheap (unlike ultramarine), the synthetic dark blue pigment known as ‘Prussian blue’ was stable and could be used to create deep, rich velvety blue and great transparency—a game changer for artists and woodblock prints.
installation photos below: Catherine Ryan. Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence. MFA, Boston. March 30, 2023. Pinch and zoom to enlarge. Right click or select “i” for information for captions.
Floating the idea of the floating world
Ukiyo-e prints (images of the floating world) were invented when demand became so great a mass marketing innovation was required. Sellers could not afford to nor fill the orders which became too time consuming and limited by labor costs and pool of artisans. Although woodblock prints were original and labor intensive in other ways, hundreds of single sheets could be pulled in a day. Bright and colorful art for all, disseminated worldwide, ukiyo-e art was an early format example of mass media.
Shunsho | hokusai
Two Shunsho immersive six panel screens
Early Hokusai
fellow ARTISTS
Some students, some famous, some rediscovered- Hokusai II, Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi, Katsushika Taito II. Hokusai’s daughter signed her work Katsushika Ōi
LATE HOKUSAI and prussian blue
Mostly examples from series after 1830s on when he was in his 70s: 36 Views of Mt. Fuji, Large Flowers, Small Flowers, Waterfalls, Remarkable Views of Bridges, Fifty-three Stations on the Tokaido Road. (The far younger Hiroshige born in 1790 produced 10 prints of famous places in 1825 before Hokusai, 69 Stations Kiso Road in 1835, and 100 Views of Edo in 1856 two years before he died in the cholera epidemic.)
japonisme. Impressionism. Post-Impressionism. Art NOUVEAU. late 19th C
Ipswich icon Arthur Wesley Dow
Like Hokusai, Dow (1857-1922) was an artist and influential teacher. He spread the gospel of composition and design, Japanese culture and ukiyo-e art, in America. And similarly to Hokusai, fine arts students gravitated to his own wildly influential instruction book. A Dow woodcut and dory were grouped with Ushibori by Hokusai, from the Mt. Fuji series. See the blue!
20th C
Color woodblock prints by Edna Boies Hopkins, an American artist active in the early 20th C who lived in Japan and France, studied with Dow, and was an influential member of the Provincetown Printmakers are on view. I am proud to write that back in 1986, I co-curated the first Hopkins solo exhibition retrospective since the 1920s and authored the essay and catalogue. The research for the project meant time spent in Ipswich and the Ipswich Historical Society for a close study of Arthur Wesley Dow.
21st C – MITSUI’s lego gREAT wAVE
Christiane Baumgartner’s 2017 monumental woodblock print on Kozo paper, The Wave
RIP Yvonne Jacquette, so glad to see her complex work included, a fittingly zig zag aerial nocturne view of famous NYC bridges no less, Two Bridges III, 2008 woodcut printed in dark ink on Okawara paper and acquired by the MFA before her passing at the end of April.
People were thrilled to encounter Hokusai’s The Great Wave in person and waited in line because of its scale and beauty. Multi-generational families shared the experience and wanted to take pictures which moved me tremendously. Hokusai and his peers, and artists influenced by them, produced series of cherished vistas and visual poems and legends for all price points. The LEGO installation helped ground the show and bring the joy, humor and blockbuster awe that ukiyo-e genre and series did in its time–before movies, photography, animation, easy travel, etc..
The LEGO commission by master builder Jumpei Mitsui riveted visitors of all ages on the days I visited the exhibition (if not in the art press I’ve read since). When you know the price point and target audience for the ukiyo-e art, i.e. the commoner and its arduous, technical process, the LEGO Great Wave homage– colossal, blue, and an exacting marvel of another sort– was a great fit to underscore connections to the past and engage audiences. Its scale and drama heightened the perspective of the crews and the boats in a way that other selections did not.
People looking at art
on view at the MFA, Boston: Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence
On the nose pairings
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Gloucester, Mass. July 4, 2023. Over Under on the weather is unclear but one thing is certain. DPW is there or already been there! photos – Rogers, Stacy Boulevard/Western Ave, Good Harbor Beach.
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photos: C. Ryan. Sunrise views from Gloucester looking out to Twin Lights and from Long Beach to the festive cottages ready for the 4th of July weekend. Below today’s for comparison: Sun rise Smoke Sky Last month. June 7, 2023.
Sun rise Smoke Sky Last month. June 7, 2023
little more yellow that morning. July 2, 2023 fog was in the mix.
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They’re installing at the Cape Ann Museum. Exciting news from Ethan Forman:
“On Friday, June 30, about 100 years after it was painted, “The Mansard Roof” returned to Gloucester, to the Cape Ann Museum, in the city’s 400+ anniversary year.
It and the 1928 painting, “House at Riverdale,” also on loan from the Brooklyn Museum, were unpacked and hung with care by Caroline Gillaspie, assistant curator of American Art at the Brooklyn Museum, and Leon Doucette, assistant curator of the Cape Ann Museum.”
The Art Newspaper published an announcement preview about the upcoming show last week and Vanity Fair hyped the catalogue for a summer read. Looking forward to the many reviews of this special survey in Gloucester after the exhibition opens July 22, 2023.
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OutCyling, a New York city LGBTQ sports community group programmed a dynamite long distance spin hosted by the Whitney Museum and Edward Hopper House that I think will not only sell out fast it will inspire similar routes for many bicycle groups to Hopper’s places.
On what would have been Edward Hopper’s birthday July 22, 2023 at 7:30AM, serious cyclists who signed up for OutCylists Hopper themed event will trace a journey between NYC and Nyack, the two hometowns he held most dear, along the Hudson past surroundings that inspired recurrent motifs and back again, a 60-mile round trip sojourn.
Hopper wasn’t commuting to work and his boyhood home by bike, but he was a cyclist in his youth. On the Nyack stop, the Edward Hopper house is bringing out his 1897 bike!
There’s a history of cycling between Boston and Gloucester, Massachusetts. Imagine round-trip Hopper rides between the MFA and Cape Ann Museum, or Harvard and Cape Ann Museum, or a shorter one from the Addison to Cape Ann Museum. There could be a lengthier one with the Currier or Portland Museum, and multi day itineraries Bowdoin and beyond.
Good Morning Gloucester 