In Review
In October 2013, the Memorial Art Gallery will mark the centenary of its founding. And the gallery is celebrating with yearlong festivities, culminating in the opening of its new Centennial Sculpture Park next October. The permanent collection of 12,000 works spans 50 centuries of world art. The gallery’s director, Grant Holcomb, and curators have chosen the “MAG Top 100”—a hundred works of special note. Here is a sampling. To see the full list, visit http://magart.rochester.edu/PRT2070.
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1914Memory William Ordway Partridge Emily Sibley Watson, founder of the gallery, selected sculptor William Ordway Partridge to create a memorial for her son, James George Averell, who died in 1904 of typhoid fever. The figure of a robed woman cradling a funeral urn is sculpted from Carrara marble; a portrait relief of Averell is located on the base. (Photo: Memorial Art Gallery) |
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ca. 1885Stained Glass Window Tiffany Studios This window was created by Louis Comfort Tiffany for the Corn Hill home of Rochester tycoon William Kimball, owner of the Kimball Tobacco Factory. The house was demolished in the mid 20th century, when Interstate 490 was built; Harold Rand ’34 rescued the window. (Photo: Memorial Art Gallery) |
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1984Dr. Caligari Wendell Castle This sculpture, made from curly cherry veneer, ebony, and gold-plated brass, was inspired by The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a silent horror film from 1920. Based in Rochester, Wendell Castle is a leading figure in American craft and art furniture. He has been commissioned to create a monumental cast-iron sculpture as an anchor installation of the new Centennial Sculpture Park. (Photo: Copyright Wendell Castle Inc.) |
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ca. 1852Peeling Onions Lilly Martin Spencer When Lilly Martin Spencer could not find patrons for her depictions of allegorical and literary subjects, she turned to an area more accepted for a woman artist: domestic scenes. In this oil-on-canvas painting, she shows a cook wiping away tears with the back of her hand—simultaneously showing female labor and playing off sentimental images of women. (Photo: Memorial Art Gallery) |
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1900–1905Sullivan Street Everett Shinn This oil-on-canvas scene of a poor, immigrant neighborhood in Greenwich Village, with Washington Square Park’s trees just visible at the end of the street, is a good example of Everett Shinn’s depiction of the bleaker sides of urban life. (Photo: Memorial Art Gallery) |
