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Mansion Made for Art and Artists
What better showcase for the character of American art than
the National Academy townhouse. |
By
Nancy A. Ruhling |
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The striking facade of the National Academy Museum.
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Anna Hyatt's bronze Diana of the Chase graces
the rotunda.
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Chuck Close, Self Portrait, 1988, spit-bite aquatint.
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Ben Aronson, Evening, San Francisco, oil on panel,
NA diploma presentation, 2005.
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William Merritt Chase, At Her Ease, oil on canvas,
NA diploma presentation, 1890.
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Louise Bourgeois, Untitled (Germinal), 1967 (cast
1995) bronze, dark and polished patina, 6 1/2 x 8
1/2 x 8 1/2 in. National Academy Museum, New York
1998.3
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National
Academy
Museum & School
of Fine Arts Events |
February
9 – April 30
Treasures From Olana: Landscapes by Frederic
Edwin Church
For Spacious Skies: Hudson River School Paintings
From the Henry and Sharon Martin Collection
Recent Acquisitions of
Contemporary Art
May 11 – June 18
The 181st Annual Exhibition of Contemporary
Art
May 15
National Academy Museum Gala
National Academy
Museum, NYC
212.369.4880; www.nationalacademy.org |
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At
the National Academy Museum & School of Fine Arts, the art
experience begins long before the glass front doors of the exquisite
Beaux-Arts Manhattan townhouse that it calls home are opened.
The show starts outside on the Fifth Avenue sidewalk, where
the early-20th-century mansion, a limestone facade that rises
like a sentinel in the blue-and-white sky, waits in perpetual
pose, its bold bow front putting its best profile forward.
At the very least, some artist should paint it. Or take its
picture.
And hang it with the other artwork during the Academy's
181st Annual Exhibition, the oldest continual contemporary show
in the country. This year, the show, which runs May 11 through
June 18, will showcase new works by some 120 established and
emerging American artists and architects.
More than 120 paintings, sculptures, prints, and works on paper
will fill the galleries of the six-floor townhouse, taking prominent
places on the walls of this magnificent onetime private residence
whose interior architecture is a work of art in and of itself.
The prestigious show, much like the Academy itself, is one of
Manhattan's best-kept secrets and, like the much celebrated
Whitney Biennial, offers a treasure trove of works that have
never been seen together before.
“This is one of the most important shows that we do; it's
important because it stands for the membership. Academicians
recommend many artists, young and old, for the show so that
people will be introduced to artists whom they haven't
known before,” says Annette Blaugrund, the Academy's
director. “It's an opportunity to see artists from
all over the country in one place.”
Since its founding in 1825, the Academy, an honorary association
of professional artists, has played a vital role in the development
of fine arts in America by organizing shows, including the Annual
Exhibitions, that began in 1826, and instructing artists in
its School of Fine Arts, which is next door. In the beginning,
the works of members and nonmembers were featured together,
but as the scope of the show grew, the Academy has given each
group an exclusive biennial. “During the 19th century,
there were few locations other than the Academy for exhibiting
contemporary art,” Blaugrund says, adding that the academicians
were not immune to the controversy surrounding contemporary
art and were in some instances as reluctant as the public to
accept or recognize the work of avant-garde artists. For this
reason, “each new generation of artists rebelled against
the Academy, but many of these artists eventually joined.”
Just as with the prestigious Royal Academy of Arts in London,
the Academy members are elected for life by their peers; today
there are about 360 of them. The school – the oldest in
New York – emphasizes traditional instruction in the fine
arts, including painting, sculpture, drawing, anatomy, perspective,
and printmaking. Through the years, the Academy ranks have become
a who's who of the art world and have included everyone
from Thomas Hart Benton, John Singer Sargent, Thomas Eakins,
Albert Bierstadt, William Merritt Chase and Frederic E. Church
to Elaine de Kooning, Will Barnet, Jacob Lawrence, Robert Rauschenberg,
Wolf Kahn and Chuck Close. Each member is required to donate
one work to the Academy, which now has more than 7,000 pieces
of art, one of the nation's largest institutional collections
of American art from 1826 to the present.
Being elected to the Academy is “the equivalent of becoming
a Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters in France,”
Blaugrund says. “It's a sign of recognition and
accomplishment.”
Will Barnet, who has been an Academy member since 1974, says
that he loves going to the annual exhibitions to study the works
because “painting is my language of expression. The Academy
stands as a historical symbol of a love for painting as a medium
of expression. There is no better place than the Academy for
modern painting. Because the show is large, I suggest taking
a careful good look at the paintings you really like and focusing
on them. That's what I do. It's like having a good
dessert.”
For Academy member Wolf Kahn, a landscape painter, the Academy
and its Annual Exhibitions make contemporary art more democratic.
“The Academy represents the general public's perception
of what art's about,” says Kahn, who has been a
member since 1979. Thank God there is such a place!”
Part of the appeal of the Annual Exhibition, aside from the
caliber of the artworks, is seeing them exhibited in the townhouse,
where the parquet-floored galleries are inviting and intimate.
That's not surprising considering that the mansion itself
was made for art and artists: It was Archer Milton Huntington,
heir to a shipping and railroad mega-fortune, and his wife,
the sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington, who in 1939 - 40 deeded
their home and other properties to the Academy, which took up
residence in 1942. The Huntingtons hired the celebrated designer
and architect Ogden Codman, co-author with Edith Wharton of
the seminal 1897 tome The Decoration of Houses, to convert the
mansion to galleries.
It is fitting that the most visible and visually arresting art
piece is Anna Hyatt Huntington's 1922 bronze sculpture
Diana of the Chase, which is the first work that visitors see
as they enter the lobby. Set like a sundial in the center of
a globelike circle of black-and-white Belgian beige French marble,
the eight-foot-tall mythological huntress has been frozen in
time, her empty bow pointing skyward toward the soaring rotunda
as she follows the path of the arrow she has just sent flying.
“Among art historians, the Academy is in the top ten in
New York City in terms of American art,” Blaugrund says.
“The National Academy occupies a venerable place in the
history of American art. It maintains an accredited museum that
both preserves the past and represents the present, and through
its students, the future.”
Blaugrund, contemplating the 181st Annual Exhibition, gazes
out the French doors of her fifth-floor office, where the townhouse's
limestone balustrade, the sky and trees frame the view of nature's
breathtaking work titled Central Park in Spring. “It's
a fabulous building with a fabulous collection,” she says.
“As an art historian, it has been my privilege to work
with many of the artists because they raise my consciousness
about art in a way that's different from the context of
the history of art.” |
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| Nancy
A. Ruhling, a freelance writer based in New York City, writes
frequently about art, antiques and interior design. |
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Photo
credit
Courtesy of National Academy Museum & School of Fine Arts
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