Don't Be Late! Hurry For Final Days of the High Museum's Informative 'Cross Country' Exhibition

Maynard Dixon "Tardy, Randsburg, California" on view in "Cross Country" at the High

Readers in Atlanta, there's still time!

Well, four days remain. Don't be late like me with this review post!

Now through Sunday, locals and visitors can still make it to the High Museum of Art for a look at the winter-spring exhibition "Cross Country: The Power of Place In American Art, 1915-1950."

The exhibition -- which I enjoyed during its media day but then failed to write-up until now -- is worth a special trip to Midtown.

Edward Hopper's "Light at Two Lights"

Guests embark on an artistic journey through rural America of the early 20th Century with peeks by region including the South, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and West (the image atop this post features the westernmost point in the exhibition).

Artists captured the space between thriving American cities with insightful and often touching looks at farming, hunting, horsemanship and the sprawling landscapes on which countless "real life" or plain scenes unfolded.

As noted in an early 2016 post, and according to the High's press release, "['Cross Country'] builds upon an exhibition of 67 artworks organized by the Brandywine River Museum of Art." Atlanta visitors are treated to more than 200 works including 70+ from the High's permanent collection. 

Exhibition catalog w/140+ images.

The galleries for this show include a mix of brand name American artists and several lesser known photographers and painters. In the months since spending a morning with the art, I've enjoyed learning more detail on each work and artist through the 208-page catalog that bears the title of the smaller Brandywine exhibition, "Rural Modern: American Art Beyond The City." 

Sidebar: I purchase/read many exhibition catalogs only to quickly sell them, but "Rural Modern" is one that will remain in my library for its 140+ glossy color illustrations and accompanying text. Great read!

Listed here, and dropped in as images for this post, are some of the "must see" artists and artworks from "Cross Country" on view through May 7:

• N.C. Wyeth's In a Dream I Meet General Washington
• Georgia O'Keeffe's vivid Lake George - Autumn and the wintry rural Barn With Snow
• Edward Hopper's nautical Light at Two Lights 
• Jacob Lawrence's Firewood #55 on loan from the Smithsonian 

  

  Andrew Wyeth's "Black Hunter"

• Andrew Wyeth's tempera on panel portrait Black Hunter (right)
• Patsy Santo's End of the Trail portraying a deer shot dead by a hunter
• Paul Sample's Tardy, Randsburg, California with a young student running to his rural school (see top of this post)
• Maynard Dixon's monumental Southwestern landscape Red Butte with Mountain Men (see below -- gorgeous!)
• Thomas Hart Benton's Tobacco Sorters on loan from Crystal Bridges 
• Grandma Moses' folksy and sweet Bringing in the Maple Sugar
• Grant Wood's Appraisal which may provide one answer to the ageless riddle "why did the chicken cross the road?"

It was also fun getting reacquainted with Hale Woodruff's Talladega Murals now back in the High after a multi-year cross-country field trip of their own following the museum's restoration work (a project I was privileged to help publicize in 2012-13). These six massive canvases are themselves worth a special trip to the museum. 

Get over to the High if you can and enjoy "Cross Country." You'll be glad you did!

Images via WikiArt and High.org

Maynard Dixon's "Red Butte with Mountain Men"

Jacob Lawrence's "Firewood #55"

Grandma Moses' "Bringing in the Maple Sugar"

Georgia O'Keeffe's "Lake George - Autumn"

Georgia O'Keeffe's "Barn with Snow"

Grant Wood's "Appraisal"

N.C. Wyeth's "In a Dream I Meet General Washington"