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"

One Brandywine, Many Wyeths

In mid-January, on a business trip to Pennsylvania, I tacked on an extra day or two for museum exploration around Philadelphia.

What a treat it was to visit the Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pa., home to an extensive collection of paintings by N.C., Andrew and Jamie Wyeth, additional Wyeth family painters and other artists.

With thanks to the museum P.R. department for a media ticket, I was treated to views of several dozen N.C. Wyeth canvases known since childhood via the pages of adventure books "Treasure Island" and "Kidnapped" or "Robin Hood."

Though renovations are underway this winter, their permanent collection items on view were impressive, starting with a large room dedicated to the most senior Wyeth, N.C.

The third floor gallery features several of the artist's earliest work including his breakthrough commissions and follow up material that vividly captured literature enjoyed by millions. Over here, pirates! Over there, shipwrecks! Around each corner seemed a new yet familiar surprise awaiting discovery.

Many of these large, colorful illustrations remind me of the Dallas-based artist Bart Forbes -- a painter and illustrator known for his Olympic art commissions and paintings created for the U.S. Postal Service (my introduction to Forbes, when I was a teenager, included comparing his sports portraits to some of Wyeth's illustrations and paintings of literary characters).

One canvas that was new to my eyes was N.C. Wyeth's "Death of Edwin" with a young man drawing his last breath atop some hay. This jumped off the canvas for me as it reminded me of a favorite painting by Andrew, one of N.C.'s sons.

My expectations were elevated for the next gallery, which is dedicated to Andrew, an artist who I met briefly while working with with the P.R. account team for the High Museum of Art expansion.

The museum's new-in-2005 galleries in a Renzo Piano-designed building were filled with Wyeths, creating one of my all-time favorite exhibitions. Upon arrival at Brandywine, I was curious which of the Atlanta exhibition works would be on view.

It made me very happy to spot Andrew's work titled "Spring" featuring a hillside covered with dead, damp grass and just two remaining patches of snow, with one pile of powder sporting the likeness of "Old Man Winter" gazing skyward.

Having just seen "Death of Edwin" in the previous gallery, for the first time I noticed Andrew's possible homage to his father's illustration via the melting snowman (my guess is this comparison is commonly drawn but it was new to me).

I also enjoyed learning about the people and location depicted in the large Andrew Wyeth canvas titled "Snow Hill" featuring a May Pole-like structure and several adults enjoying winter play.

My best guess was the men and women included the artist's siblings, but this thinking was quickly corrected by a helpful staff member who explained the dancers instead include the artist's models and one "blank space" perhaps as a placeholder for Andrew's other source of inspiration, his father.

The hilltop setting is only steps from the current Brandywine site.

Gallery three included a handful of works by Jamie Wyeth -- the third generation of American painters -- and works by other Wyeths including Andrew's sisters.

The museum also presented a temporary exhibition titled "Natural Selections: Andrew Wyeth Plant Studies" -- my favorite in this room was the sycamore-inspired "Summer Freshet Study" which reminded me of spring in my parents' backyard in Edmond, Okla., where they planted four sycamores that are now enormous (for this writer, Wyeth is the best sycamore painter anywhere).

The Brandywine staff shared that the 2005 partnership with the High is getting recharged later this year as the museums are teaming up for a new exhibition titled "Rural Modern: American Art Beyond The City" on view initially at the Brandywine from Oct. 29 to Jan. 22, 2017 (the dates for the High exhibition remain "to be announced").

I hope to return to Chadds Ford during the spring or summer when the Brandywine offers tours of both N.C. and Andrew's studios and several other indoor and outdoor experiences.

When visitors find themselves near the Brandywine campus, I recommend a stop at the nearby eatery Hank's Place just across the highway. This place is hopping with great food and conversation (Andrew Wyeth himself dined there, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer).

Images include items from the Brandywine River Museum website and/or photos in the museum by Nicholas Wolaver. Image of "Spring" by Andrew Wyeth via this site.