Author: Catherine

posted content / cell phone photos mine, unless otherwise credited (thumbnail portrait of Catherine at MFA, Boston ยฉ David Cox photo) https://www.cryanaid.com/

Was Lassie on Edward Hopper’s mind in 1939, too?

Posted on by Catherine

Illustrations: The short story, Lassie Come-Home by Edward Knight with illustrations by Arthur D. Fuller*, was an instant must-read-and-share when it was first published in the popular magazine, The Saturday Evening Post on December 17, 1938. Edward Hopper painted Cape Cod, Evening in 1939. *The illustratorโ€™s signature is tough to read without the credit beneath the byline. (Scroll down to see and read the story pages or to print a PDF. It’s a great read!)

You may know the memorable and unbreakable bond of the boy and his dog which Lassie Come-Home describes, and the small and epic journeys.

The short story, Lassie Come-Home by Edward Knight with illustrations by Arthur D. Fuller, was an instant must-read-and-share when it was first published in the popular magazine, The Saturday Evening Post on December 17, 1938.

Edward Hopper painted Cape Cod, Evening in 1939.

The short story is set in England and opens with a small family of three in recurring and searing pain: Two parents who have fallen on hard times and are under great emotional strain struggle to comfort their only child because they sold the family dog. Their beautiful collie, “Lassie”, is so devoted to their son, the dog runs away from the new owner straight back to the boy over and over again. Under the circumstances, any and every solution is untenable. His parents’ misplaced anger, adult exchanges, and silence confuse the boy. Their anguish and love is palpable.

Out of desperation, Lassie is removed to Scotland which they believe will be an insurmountable distance to cover.

It’s not. And no wonder a legend is born!

The first Lassie novel was published in 1940. Swift adaptations followed. It’s easy to see how the story resonated with American audiences during the Great Depression, even perhaps the great American artist, Edward Hopper.

If not Lassie herself, it’s tempting to consider the intergenerational communication and couple dynamics explored in Knight’s story as themes Hopper noticed, too.

“…Then they heard his opening of the door and the voice stopped and the cottage was silent. That’s how it was now, the boy thought. They stopped talking in front of you. And this, somehow, was too much for him to bear. He closed the door, ran out into the night, and onto the moor, that great flat expanse of land where all the people of that village walked in lonesomeness when life and its troubles seemed past bearing…”

Lassie Come-Home, Edward Knight, The Saturday Evening Post, 1938 Dec. 17

Both used punctuation in titles. Knight offset the story’s title with a vital hyphen, Lassie Come-Home (command-comfort) that might have caught Hopper’s attention. Hopper used commas often for emphasis–as in Cape Cod, Evening.

Beyond the Great Depression, 1938 may have appeared especially distant, simpler, on first pass. Yet, with international tensions rising year by year and the horrors of WWI just a generation past, neither 1938 nor 1939 were simple. Jan Struther, another UK author, broached topics of peacetime, lengthy stasis, and looming loss in the popular Mrs. Miniver pieces, published in The Times London newspaper (1937-39 ), at the same times as Lassie. Reader’s Digest distribution was international beginning in 1938.

In Cape Cod, Evening 1939, Hopper’s dog reacts, hears something, like a whippoorwill, or so the story goes. (Lloyd Goodrich’s Hopper bio, 1971; also Gail Levin, 1995) Levin’s book takes time to introduce the reader to Hoppers’ friends, and so we understand the grief from the loss of their friend Harriet Jenness who died “in early July of 1939. It was she who had firmed up the Hoppers’ courage to build in the first place and provided a roof till theirs was done.” (Levin, 1995.)

Cape Cod, Evening is constantly changing because it’s laden with enigmatic motifs. It’s late summer and fall. Unsettling and calm. Are the man and woman taking a momentary break together (as with the son and father walking in the Lassie story) or engaged in a forced desist (as with the parents going silent in the Lassie story)? Active fight or passive summer ennui? And what about that evergreen Hopper forest at the edge? Is it a cool and reachable retreat? Are the trees leaning, falling? Is the sea of dry grass sunlit and waving or scorched and still? And why no path? The man and woman are lost in thought. Worried? Families will have to have difficult conversations. Some won’t return. And what about the significance of that star dog with the striking fur?

Hopper was 35 at the onset of WWI, registered, but not called for duty. He was 57 in 1939.

1939

Edward Hopper paintings dated 1939: Bridle Path (Bruce Museum of Art, CT), Ground Swell ( NGA collection), Cape Cod, Evening (NGA collection), and New York Movie (MoMa). As a group, they make a strong case that Hopper was thinking about 1939 in 1939.

World War Two

Edward Hopper and Jo Hopper were on the Cape when war broke out.

On August 29, 1939, friends dropped by their summer home in Truro and Jo Hopper noted in her diary how the woman said, “…Sheโ€™d been to England last week. Said they all prepared for warโ€”everyone has his funkhole ready for an air raid.” On August 30 she added “E.” went to town on errands and picked up a magazine:

“Augu. 30. Still raining. After lunch E. went to P.O. & bought back kerosene, Readers Dig, postcard from Ginny at fair + the note from D R.โ€”to see us Sept. 18 at 11. Onion soup & banana salad for lunch & tummy ache over dishes. E. so tired. Standing up at canvas. Canvas seems standing still. But Iโ€™ve seen that happen before…”

Josephine N. Hopper, Aug. 30, 1929 diary page. Provincetown Art Museum Collection, 2016. “Donation by Laurence C. and J. Anton Schiffenhaus in honor of their mother Mary Schiffenhaus (a close and personal friend of Josephine and Edward Hopper)”

On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland, and England and France declared war on Germany just two days later.

On September 3, Jo mentions art and war :

“…Eโ€™s 2 canvases*. Sailboat without sky as yet. Tonight Bertha Frank & Edgar Cobb came up to say good bye for the season. Everyone else in Truro had their supper dishes washedโ€”but we hadnโ€™t begun yet. E. was still working when they arrived. Heโ€™s been plenty interrupted today. We didnโ€™t swimโ€”it looked so cold. Ginny said not cold but very dirty + water full of pink jelly fish.

So war is declared today & yesterday we saw that over into Poland. E. had a Times yesterday & we saw that. How Nat. news dwarfs everything. Why Pittsburgh festivities. Why anything. E. said he could drive an ambulance. I hope not. We most of everything need to get well…”

Josephine N. Hopper, Sept. 3, 1939. *Ground Swell and Cape Cod, Evening

star dogs

Examples of dogs in famous visual arts and letters abound before Lassie. During WWI, the soon to be famous german shepherd puppy Rin Tin Tin was rescued from the battlefield by Lee Duncan, and brought back to the United States. He was trained exceptionally well then on a hunch for the Silent Movie era. The original Rin Tin Tin’s first Hollywood movie was a bit part in 1922. He starred in so many box office hits, when he died in 1932 his death ‘stopped the presses’. Generations of Rin Tin Tin descendents followed, representing his public legacy if not his agility and acting chops. Other shepherds were used in later vehicles. For more about Rin Tin Tin’s global fame and impact and Duncan’s life–he did not trademark the name– see Susan Orleans biography, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend. (Also her short piece The Dog Star, New Yorker, Aug. 2011 and a preview excerpt NY Times Oct. 2011.) I doubt Hopper would add a German Shepherd in a 1939 painting.

And before Rin Tin Tin? There would be no Dorothy without Toto. Frank Baum wrote the The Wizard of Oz in 1900. The production of the movie adaptation made news ahead of its release August 29th, 1939. (It failed to earn a profit until re-releases decades later.)

Jack London’s Buck in The Call of the Wild debuted in 1903.

The Whitney Museum holds an early portrait drawing by Edward Hopper (1882-1967) of a contented dog–framed in a doghouse door naturally–dated 1893.

Edward Hopper Cape Cod, Evening 1939 was acquired by the National Gallery of Art in 1982.

Beach Grass, architecture, Color, composition, And…

I think about Wyeth and Chase a lot when I look at Hopper’s Cape Cod, Evening. Same when I encounter any one of the three.

Wyeth

A decade after Cape Cod, Evening, American artist and fan of Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, completed Christina’s World, 1948 (Museum of Modern Art, New York).

William Merritt Chase

Dry grass dunes and vegetation in the Hamptons on Long Island by American artist William Merritt Chase, art world famous in his day, and one of Hopper’s esteemed fine art professors. Photos: C. Ryan. Installation views from the William Merritt Chase exhibition at the MFA in 2017. Shinnecock Hills of Southampton seen in two works: Bayberry Bush 1895 (Parrish Art Museum) and Seaside Flowers (Crystal Bridges) The photo with the supercharged green is how it’s often depicted, but not how I experience this Chase series in person. (Chase painted a bevy of great dogs in other works.)

The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post’s tag line “Founded 1728 by Benj. Franklin”

Select to enlarge pages and pinch or zoom. PDF below. Lassie Come-Home by Edward Knight with illustrations by Arthur D. Fuller. The Saturday Evening Post. December 17, 1938

The issue also featured a Norman Rockwell on the cover, a serialized Agatha Christie installment, an investigative long read about universal healthcare– illustrated with a Farm Security Administration (FSA) photograph by Arthur Rothstein in Arkansas, circa 1935–and several classic ads. New Yorkers Jo and Ed Hopper did not eat at home much, and when they did…beans were a big draw. The prominent full page color Heinz ad was on the inside cover of this issue. I do not know the illustrator of the Gulfpride Oil ad, but it’s great. For more information about the FSA and Arthur Rothstein with a timeline continue reading here ; for more about Roy Stryker & the origins of the FSA and Gordon Parks continue reading here; and for more about the FSA and Howard Liberman continue reading here.

-by Catherine Ryan

cryanaid.com Edward Hopper All Around Gloucester

**First published 8/26/2023 on the occasion of National Dog Day. August 26 is International Dog Day. **

Was Lassie on Edward Hopper’s Mind in 1939, too by Catherine RyanDownload

Was Lassie on Edward Hopper’s mind in 1939?

Posted on by Catherine

**August 26 is International Dog Day**

Illustrations: The short story, Lassie Come-Home by Edward Knight with illustrations by Arthur D. Fuller*, was an instant must-read-and-share when it was first published in the popular magazine, The Saturday Evening Post on December 17, 1938. Edward Hopper painted Cape Cod, Evening in 1939. *The illustratorโ€™s signature is tough to read without the credit beneath the byline. (Scroll down to see and read the story pages or to print a PDF. It’s a great read!)

You may know the memorable and unbreakable bond of the boy and his dog which Lassie Come-Home describes, and the small and epic journeys.

The short story, Lassie Come-Home by Edward Knight with illustrations by Arthur D. Fuller, was an instant must-read-and-share when it was first published in the popular magazine, The Saturday Evening Post on December 17, 1938.

Edward Hopper painted Cape Cod, Evening in 1939.

The short story is set in England and opens with a small family of three in recurring and searing pain: Two parents who have fallen on hard times and are under great emotional strain struggle to comfort their only child because they sold the family dog. Their beautiful collie, “Lassie”, is so devoted to their son, the dog runs away from the new owner straight back to the boy over and over again. Under the circumstances, any and every solution is untenable. His parents’ misplaced anger, adult exchanges, and silence confuse the boy. Their anguish and love is palpable.

Out of desperation, Lassie is removed to Scotland which they believe will be an insurmountable distance to cover.

It’s not. And no wonder a legend is born!

The first Lassie novel was published in 1940. Swift adaptations followed. It’s easy to see how the story resonated with American audiences during the Great Depression, even perhaps the great American artist, Edward Hopper.

If not Lassie herself, it’s tempting to consider the intergenerational communication and couple dynamics explored in Knight’s story as themes Hopper noticed, too.

“…Then they heard his opening of the door and the voice stopped and the cottage was silent. That’s how it was now, the boy thought. They stopped talking in front of you. And this, somehow, was too much for him to bear. He closed the door, ran out into the night, and onto the moor, that great flat expanse of land where all the people of that village walked in lonesomeness when life and its troubles seemed past bearing…”

Lassie Come-Home, Edward Knight, The Saturday Evening Post, 1938 Dec. 17

Both used punctuation in titles. Knight offset the story’s title with a vital hyphen, Lassie Come-Home (command-comfort) that might have caught Hopper’s attention. Hopper used commas often for emphasis–as in Cape Cod, Evening.

Beyond the Great Depression, 1938 may have appeared especially distant, simpler, on first pass. Yet, with international tensions rising year by year and the horrors of WWI just a generation past, neither 1938 nor 1939 were simple. Jan Struther, another UK author, broached topics of peacetime, lengthy stasis, and looming loss in the popular Mrs. Miniver pieces, published in The Times London newspaper (1937-39 ), at the same times as Lassie. Reader’s Digest distribution was international beginning in 1938.

In Cape Cod, Evening 1939, Hopper’s dog reacts, hears something, like a whippoorwill, or so the story goes. (Lloyd Goodrich’s Hopper bio, 1971; also Gail Levin, 1995) Levin’s book takes time to introduce the reader to Hoppers’ friends, and so we understand the grief from the loss of their friend Harriet Jenness who died “in early July of 1939. It was she who had firmed up the Hoppers’ courage to build in the first place and provided a roof till theirs was done.” (Levin, 1995.)

Cape Cod, Evening is constantly changing because it’s laden with enigmatic motifs. It’s late summer and fall. Unsettling and calm. Are the man and woman taking a momentary break together (as with the son and father walking in the Lassie story) or engaged in a forced desist (as with the parents going silent in the Lassie story)? Active fight or passive summer ennui? And what about that evergreen Hopper forest at the edge? Is it a cool and reachable retreat? Are the trees leaning, falling? Is the sea of dry grass sunlit and waving or scorched and still? And why no path? The man and woman are lost in thought. Worried? Families will have to have difficult conversations. Some won’t return. And what about the significance of that star dog with the striking fur?

Hopper was 35 at the onset of WWI, registered, but not called for duty. He was 57 in 1939.

1939

Edward Hopper paintings dated 1939: Bridle Path (Bruce Museum of Art, CT), Ground Swell ( NGA collection), Cape Cod, Evening (NGA collection), and New York Movie (MoMa)

As a group, they make a strong case that Hopper was thinking about 1939 in 1939.

Edward Hopper and Jo Hopper were on the Cape when war broke out.

On August 29, 1939, friends dropped by their summer home in Truro and Jo Hopper noted in her diary how the woman said, “…Sheโ€™d been to England last week. Said they all prepared for wayโ€”everyone has his funkhole ready for an air raid.” On August 30 she added “E.” went to town on errands and picked up a magazine:

“Augu. 30. Still raining. After lunch E. went to P.O. & bought back kerosene, Readers Dig, postcard from Ginny at fair + the note from D R.โ€”to see us Sept. 18 at 11. Onion soup & banana salad for lunch & tummy ache over dishes. E. so tired. Standing up at canvas. Canvas seems standing still. But Iโ€™ve seen that happen before…”

Josephine N. Hopper, Aug. 30, 1929 diary page. Provincetown Art Museum Collection, 2016. “Donation by Laurence C. and J. Anton Schiffenhaus in honor of their mother Mary Schiffenhaus (a close and personal friend of Josephine and Edward Hopper)”

On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland, and England and France declared war on Germany just two days later.

On September 3, Jo mentions art and war :

“…Eโ€™s 2 canvases*. Sailboat without sky as yet. Tonight Bertha Frank & Edgar Cobb came up to say good bye for the season. Everyone else in Truro had their supper dishes washedโ€”but we hadnโ€™t begun yet. E. was still working when they arrived. Heโ€™s been plenty interrupted today. We didnโ€™t swimโ€”it looked so cold. Ginny said not cold but very dirty + water full of pink jelly fish.

So war is declared today & yesterday we saw that over into Poland. E. had a Times yesterday & we saw that. How Nat. news dwarfs everything. Why Pittsburgh festivities. Why anything. E. said he could drive an ambulance. I hope not. We most of everything need to get well…”

Josephine N. Hopper, Sept. 3, 1939. *Ground Swell and Cape Cod, Evening

star dogs

Examples of dogs in famous visual arts and letters abound before Lassie. During WWI, the soon to be famous german shepherd puppy Rin Tin Tin was rescued from the battlefield by Lee Duncan, and brought back to the United States. He was trained exceptionally well then on a hunch for the Silent Movie era. The original Rin Tin Tin’s first Hollywood movie was a bit part in 1922. He starred in so many box office hits, when he died in 1932 his death ‘stopped the presses’. Generations of Rin Tin Tin descendents followed, representing his public legacy if not his agility and acting chops. Other shepherds were used in later vehicles. For more about Rin Tin Tin’s global fame and impact and Duncan’s life–he did not trademark the name– see Susan Orleans biography, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend. (Also her short piece The Dog Star, New Yorker, Aug. 2011 and a preview excerpt NY Times Oct. 2011.)

And before Rin Tin Tin? There would be no Dorothy without Toto. Frank Baum wrote the The Wizard of Oz in 1900. The production of the movie adaptation made news and was released August 29th, 1939. It failed to earn a profit until re-releases decades later.

Jack London’s Buck in The Call of the Wild debuted in 1903.

The Whitney Museum holds an early portrait drawing by Hopper of a contented dog–framed in a doghouse door naturally–dated 1893.

Edward Hopper Cape Cod, Evening 1939 was acquired by the National Gallery of Art in 1982.

Beach Grass, architecture, Color, composition, And…

I think about Wyeth and Chase a lot when I look at Hopper’s Cape Cod, Evening. Same when I encounter any one of the three.

Wyeth

A decade after Cape Cod, Evening, American artist and fan of Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, completed Christina’s World, 1948 (Museum of Modern Art, New York).

William Merritt Chase

Dry grass dunes and vegetation in the Hamptons on Long Island by American artist William Merritt Chase, art world famous in his day, and one of Hopper’s esteemed fine art professors. Photos: C. Ryan. Installation views from the William Merritt Chase exhibition at the MFA in 2017. Shinnecock Hills of Southampton seen in two works: Bayberry Bush 1895 (Parrish Art Museum) and Seaside Flowers (Crystal Bridges) The photo with the supercharged green is how it’s often depicted, but not how I experience this Chase series in person. (Chase painted a bevy of great dogs in other works.)

The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post’s tag line “Founded 1728 by Benj. Franklin”

Select to enlarge pages and pinch or zoom. PDF below. Lassie Come-Home by Edward Knight with illustrations by Arthur D. Fuller. The Saturday Evening Post. December 17, 1938

The issue also featured a Norman Rockwell on the cover, a serialized Agatha Christie installment, an investigative long read about universal healthcare– illustrated with a Farm Security Administration (FSA) photograph by Arthur Rothstein in Arkansas, circa 1935–and several classic ads. New Yorkers Jo and Ed Hopper did not eat at home much, and when they did…beans were a big draw. The prominent full page color Heinz ad was on the inside cover of this issue. I do not know the illustrator of the Gulfpride Oil ad, but it’s great. For more information about the FSA and Arthur Rothstein with a timeline continue reading here ; for more about Roy Stryker & the origins of the FSA and Gordon Parks continue reading here; and for more about the FSA and Howard Liberman continue reading here.

-by Catherine Ryan

cryanaid.com Edward Hopper All Around Gloucester

**First published 8/26/2023 on the occasion of National Dog Day. August 26 is International Dog Day. **

Was Lassie on Edward Hopper’s Mind in 1939, too by Catherine RyanDownload

Geoffrey Bayliss New exhibition opening at Jane Deering Gallery on Thursday August 24th

Posted on by Catherine

Save the date announcement from Jane Deering-

Jane Deering Gallery is pleased to present GEOFFREY BAYLISS | white, and black on white

opening with a public Reception on Thursday August 24th, 2023 from 5-7pm. This is Baylissโ€™s fifth solo show with the gallery and celebrates his Ink drawings, monotypes and recent experimental sculpture โ€” all media in the sophistication of white and black.

About the artist.

Geoffrey Bayliss, a native of Gloucester, holds a BA in architecture from Columbia University. He has studied with artist Celia Eldridge, sculptor John Bozarth, printmaker Coco Berkman, and artist Charlotte Roberts. His work is held in numerous private collections in the US. Baylissโ€™s work was recently featured at OMG Art Faire, Kingston NY โ€” the first contemporary art fair in New Yorkโ€™s Hudson Valley.

Continue reading:

geoffrey-bayliss-_-white-and-black-on-white.-at-jane-deering-gallery-2023Download

Did you see the sunbeam rainbow? And the red sprites and night lightning on the ocean horizon? Long Beach #GloucesterMA #RockportMA

Posted on by Catherine

Gloucester and Rockport views all in one summer day, 8/13/2023: 5 P.M., 5:01 P.M., 5:15, 5:16 (w/Salt Island), 5:16 (turned), 5:58, 6:00 P.M., 6:12, 6;13, 6:25 (sunbeam rainbow shines on Twin Lights), 6:26, 6:27, 6:28, 8:22, 9:30 P.M. Note the ‘big sky’ scale of clouds compared with a car, homes, roofs, Salt Island, etc

photo block 5pm-930pm observed sky: The many weather moods in 4 hours on August 13, 2023. Capped off with red (sprites) and white lightning visible from Long Beach 9-10:00 P.M. The lightning looked a bit like far off fireworks. Red and orange bursts and dashes registered some on cell phone (4 sec video clips below). Bet there were some beautiful night and day photos!

sunbeam rainbow

Rainbow and crepuscular rays- Rainbow streaks shine on Thacher Island.

video snippets below

7 seconds (tough to see: look for red in the middle of the frame at about 4 sec mark. May need to enlarge to full size to bypass the ‘play’ button)

10 seconds- look for dashes in the middle of the frame. White flicker on left was a drone

4 seconds- If this frame were split in 3 vertical strips, about 2 seconds in concentrate on the the left 1/3 to see a pinkish red pulse. Earlier in the evening there were sweeping arcs of diffused lightning

Did you see the red and white lightning on the ocean horizon tonight? Long Beach #GloucesterMA #RockportMA

Posted on by Catherine

August 13, 2023.

Gloucester and Rockport views all in a summer day. Photo block 5pm-930pm observed sky: The many weather moods in just 4 hours. Capped off with red (sprites) and white lightning visible from Long Beach 9-10:00 P.M. The lightning looked a bit like far off fireworks. Red and orange bursts and dashes registered some on cell phone (4 sec video clips below). Bet there were some beautiful photos tonight!

8/13/2023: 5 P.M., 5:01 P.M., 5:15, 5:16, 5:58, 6:00 P.M., 6:12, 6;13, 6:25 (rainbow), 6:26, 6:27, 6:28, 8:22, 9:30 P.M. Note the big sky scale of clouds compared with a car, homes, roofs, Salt Island, etc

sunbeam rainbow

Rainbow and crepuscular rays- Rainbow streaks shine on Thacher Island.

video snippets below

7 seconds (tough to see: look for red in the middle of the frame at about 4 sec mark. May need to enlarge to full size to bypass the ‘play’ button)

10 seconds- look for dashes in the middle of the frame. White flicker on left was a drone

4 seconds- If this frame were split in 3 vertical strips, about 2 seconds in concentrate on the the left 1/3 to see a pinkish red pulse. Earlier in the evening there were sweeping arcs of diffused lightning that .

Art in August: Rocky Neck Cove Gallery and Cultural Center #GloucesterMA party …

Posted on by Catherine

Final weekend for Women Talking **Closing party Sunday April 13, 2023 3-5pm**

Last Chance: Group show ‘women talking’ at the Cove Gallery

Closing soon: Group show at the Rocky Neck Cultural Center ‘In Motion’

In Motion at the Cultural Center at Rocky Neck is on view through August 20, 2023

Rocky Neck

Art in August: Adin Murray on now. Geoffrey Bayliss upcoming. Jane Deering Gallery #GloucesterMA

Posted on by Catherine

LAST CHANCE – ADIN MURRAY

Adin Murray’s sixth show, Intertidal, at Jane Deering Gallery–on view through August 20, 2023–includes a compact and glowing group of landscape preparatory drawings ($1200), oil studies ($2500), and large paintings ($8000-$12,000) focused on coastal wetlands, real and not so real, in settings familiar and still, whether fall or spring, day or night, clear or misty.

Murray hews his moon and horizon motifs inland for this new series. And why not? Murray resides and works on Cape Ann and encounters the stunning Great Salt Marsh at every bend, its constantly changing conditions a natural wonder.

Red dots: collectors have purchased ‘Intertidal’ works across all three media processes.

Aaron Fink

In the flat files, ask to see a classic new series on paper by Aaron Fink inspired by the vicissitudes of a big melty pop of juicy watermelon and abstraction that serves up a slice of life’s shifting moods. Fink maintains studios in Boston and Rockport.

Geoffrey Bayliss

Upcoming: Geoffrey Bayliss white, and black on white opens August 24, 2023.

Summer twinkle: Blue sky, paper lanterns and some enchanted evenings. Fireworks. Rockport Illumination 2023

Posted on by Catherine

Reminder! Rockport’s annual Illumination is Saturday, August 12, 2023. 9pm Fireworks. Flyer below.

photos: paper lanterns downtown Rockport, Senior Center, Post Office, Library, storefronts, porches, Dock Square

As pretty as a picture! Perhaps Rockport Art Assoc and Cape Ann Museum can hang a selection to time with the annual Rockport Illumination (from their collections and new work by living artists responding to the art, illumination, and the summer celebration).

Hear what some of the cast says about why you should come see Frozen Jr. at the Cape Ann YMCA!

Posted on by Catherine

Showtimes tomorrow and Friday!

“Some of the cast took over the camera from our Counselor/Videographer, the talented Martina Gallo. Enjoy!”

Heidi Dallin

The Cape Ann YMCA Presents Disney Frozen Jr. performances tomorrow! And Friday!

Printable flyer

from-heidi-dallin.-cape-ann-ymca-presents-frozen-august-2023Download

Opening Reception: ADIN MURRAY | Intertidal. Solo art show at Jane Deering Gallery August 2023

Posted on by Catherine

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.ย  As in his two previous seriesโ€”Horizon and Moonโ€”Murrayโ€™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.ย  The gallery is located at 19 Pleasant Street, Gloucester. janedeeringgallery.com .

Jane Deering Gallery. works from the exhibition can be viewed at:
https://www.janedeeringgallery.com/adin-murray-intertidal

printable here:

press-release-.-adin-murray-_-intertidal-.-august-3-20-2023Download

Queenย Elsa Arrives Aug 3 and Aug 4! See the cast intro video! Cape Ann YMCA Presents DISNEY FROZEN JR. Musical!

Posted on by Catherine

Heidi Dallin shares the showtime reminder and the cool cast intro hype

This our cast intro video. Everyone made their hats. They are part of the Oaken costume!ย 

Heidi Dallin

Printable flyer

from-heidi-dallin.-cape-ann-ymca-presents-frozen-august-2023Download

White House Art: Fitz Henry Lane and William Ranney paintings in President Biden’s Selfie in the Blue Room

Posted on by Catherine

July 31, 2023

The Blue Room (reception site)

President Joe Biden takes a selfie with mental health youth action forum participants. Official White House photograph by Adam Schultz. “Weโ€™ve invested $1 billion to help schools hire and train 14,000 new mental health counselors in schools across the country. Weโ€™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 (1813โ€“1857). Boys Crabbing. 1855. Oil on canvas. Provenance: via Hirschl & Adler (added to the White House Collection in 1972)

Read more about the The Blue Room here by the White House Historical Assoc. and this short video tour:

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:

โ€œWhatโ€™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. 

โ€ฆHow 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 Presidentโ€™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 Alstonโ€™s Martin Luther King sculpture, theyโ€™ve selected art by *Anni Albers, *Josef Albers, Edgar Degas, Jasper Johns, Louise Nevelson, *Robert Rauschenberg, Edward Ruscha, and *Alma Thomas.โ€ย * indicates works that have been donated to the permanent collection.

Catherine Ryan, 2014

Power of May Stevens Shines in Exhibition at MassArt Art Museum

Posted on by Catherine

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.

http://www.cryanaid.com

Many cyclists and blue skies! Whitney Hopper Ride to Edward Hopper House in Nyack a ‘resounding success’

Posted on by Catherine

If like me you were wondering about the Edward Hopper bicycle event, check out this delightful follow up article by Mike Hays with photographs by Andrea Swenson for Nyack News and Views about the inaugural Whitney Hopper ride. What a beautiful day they had for it!

“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 Hopperโ€™s prized bicycle. The tour also provided the opportunity to view Hopperโ€™s bedroom, famed for its iconic morning light, fostering a deeper appreciation for the artistโ€™s connection to cycling…”

Mike Hays. Find the complete article here

Dressing up? Check out Pink ‘Barbie’ at Bananas! #GloucesterMA

Posted on by Catherine

What to wear? Bananas Gloucester has options. Barbie is a regular there.

Bananas. 78 Main St. Gloucester, MA (978) 283-8806

You can take Hopper out of Nyack, but you can’t take Nyack out of Edward Hopper’s Art

Posted on by Catherine

Edward Hopper was born on this day July 22, 1882.

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 fatherโ€™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 stopโ€”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 Nyackโ€™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.

For example, here are two pairs comparing Edward Hopper’s Gloucester works and Nyack.

Land across the Hudson | land across Gloucester Harbor–this is one way I identified Hopper’s site in Gloucester.

Hill down to the Hudson from a perpendicular street (North Broadway/his boyhood home) | Hill in Gloucester.

See http://www.cryanaid.com

Travel tips for Cape Ann Symphony Pops concert at Stage Fort Park.

Posted on by Catherine

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

No Swimming! Long Beach, Manchester, Beverly, Newburyport, Salem…

Posted on by Catherine

**Update: Long Beach cleared and open for swimming**

see Mass.gov Current Public Beach Postings here

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.

Gloucester bathing beaches Testing here

Gloucester’s info is a little buried on the website. https://gloucester-ma.gov/205/Bathing-Beaches

Mass.gov Annual Beach testing Summaries for entire state

Summary annual reports about the water quality at swimming beaches per year 2010-2022 here

COUNTDOWN to Cape Ann Symphony Pops concert. Why are they called pops?

Posted on by Catherine

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

At the MFA Boston: Hokusai Inspiration and Influence with other legendary artists & teachers such as Ipswich’s Arthur Wesley Dow

Posted on by Catherine

Exhibition at the MFA Hokusai Inspiration and Influence 2023

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 Shunshล operated the most popular ukiyo-e studio and Hokusai was employed there for over a decade until Shunshoโ€™s death.  Eventually Hokusai became an independent artist & teacher.  The exhibition unfolds with masterpieces by both Hokusai and Katsukawa Shunshล 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 โ€˜Prussian blueโ€™ was stable and could be used to create deep, rich velvety blue and great transparencyโ€”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 ลŒi

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