FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 7, 2006
CONTACT: Katie Reilly / Marketing Coordinator
(802) 447-1571 Fax (802) 442-8305
From November 16, 2006 through February 16, 2007 at the Bennington Museum Season’s Greetings: Winslow Homer and Thomas Nast Wood Engravings will be on exhibit. This exhibition features works of popular art from the nineteenth century that depict how Americans more than one hundred years ago celebrated and enjoyed the fall and winter seasons. The artists represented, Winslow Homer and Thomas Nast, were two of the most adept and insightful illustrators for the popular nineteenth-century periodical Harper’s Weekly. Homer started his artistic career around 1857 as a freelance illustrator, honing his skills of observation. He later went on to great fame as a painter. Nast is noted as a powerfully satirical political cartoonist, but he was also the person, more than anyone else, who invented the way we picture Santa Claus today. Each picture in the exhibition is a window into a world now almost forgotten.
In addition to a collection of over forty original wood engravings of seasonal themes by Homer and Nast, Season’s Greetings will also include two original Winslow Homer watercolors. These watercolors are excellent examples of the type of work Homer created after finishing his career as a freelance illustrator in the mid-1870s. In the summer of 1873 Homer began using the aqueous medium to create charming images of children at play in and around Gloucester Harbor. One of the watercolors on view in Season’s Greetings, executed in 1874, depicts Gloucester Harbor at sunset with large sailing vessels floating calmly below orange tinged skies. By 1875 Homer had ceased making illustrations, and watercolors would be a mainstay throughout the rest of his career.
The opportunity to see this large collection of wood engravings, on loan from Professor Jay G. Williams, along with two exquisite Homer watercolors, which haven’t been publicly exhibited in nearly fifty years, is a treat you shouldn’t miss.
This exhibit can be viewed with regular museum admission. By purchasing a membership at the museum you will receive unlimited free admission to the museum as well as free and discounted admission to classes and events. The Bennington Museum is located at 75 Main St. (Route 9) one mile west of the intersection of Routes 7 and 9 in downtown Bennington, Vermont. Open daily except Wednesdays from 10 am- 5pm. For more information, visit the website at www.benningtonmuseum.org. or call 802-447-1571