The American Experience
A new exhibition at Debra Force Fine Art will feature a selection of regionalists from across the country
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Art in Newyork City begins to expand on those answers with Coast to Coast: Views of America, a new exhibition that focuses on artwork created across the country.
“We’ve recently acquired a number of great works with regional connections, things that really capture the American Scene and what you imagine when you think of that, such as artists Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood,” says gallery owner Debra Force.“but then we also move to other areas, including
New England, Florida, Pennsylvania and the Southwest. Rather than put these works in a focused gallery show, we are going with a more thematic context that relates to the country as a whole.” Starting with some of the Midwest regionalists, the show includes Curry’s 1930 oil Kansas Wheat Field; Benton’s pen and ink work from around 1937, Party for the Cast, Hollywood; and a magnificent Dale Nichols landscape from the mid-20th century, The Visit (Barn in Winter). “The Nichols painting is a great one.you can really see how
Debra Force Fine Art
modern his approach was. He painted many of the same scenes throughout his life, but this one, given the way he signed it and how it is painted, is from his earlier period,” Force says.“it’s also quite large. It comes from a collection in the Midwest. It’s a wonderful painting.”
Moving to the East Coast, the show will feature a 1913 work from George Bellows, as well as two stunning coastal scenes: Childe Hassam’s 1906 watercolor Duck Island, Isles of Shoals and John Leslie Breck’s late-19th-century work Ipswich, showing a rocky shoreline, crashing waves and a distant boat that sails through the afternoon haze.
Two Winslow Homer paintings are based around the Northeast, including The Plowman, a
watercolor from 1878, showing a farmer guiding a plow as it’s being pulled by a workhorse.the second Homer, depicting two boys fishing, was painted in 1873 and comes from the family that purchased it the year it was completed.“it’s really quite rare to have a painting from that period that’s has been descending down the same family ever since,” the gallery owner says. “It’s almost unheard of, and we’re very fortunate to have one.”
Moving south—past Pennsylvania, which is represented by two works from Andrew Wyeth—to Florida, the show will feature several important works from this region, including works by Milton Avery and Charles Prendergast, who painted Frieze of Figures, Florida in the 1940s.
Force adds:“at the end of his life Charles Prendergast went down to Florida, and he did these small pieces that were sort of vignettes of figures.this one is a great example of some of that work.”
Making a big jump from Florida to the Southwest, the exhibition will include work from Gerald Cassidy, the famous painter and muralist who set up a studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and quickly emerged as one of the great painters of the Southwest. “We don’t get Gerald Cassidy’s works very often, but they are almost always very recognizable and from historic
spots in the Southwest, and this one is no exception,” Force says of Cassidy’s 1924 oil Acoma, the Cathedral of the Desert, New Mexico.the works shows the Acoma Pueblo, which is perched atop an imposing cliff—it’s referred to as the Sky City.“this work really speaks to the area quite well.” Additional works in the show include pieces by Charles Burchfield, William Zorach, Kyra Markham and Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses.
“The interest in American art has waned since 2008 or so, mostly to contemporary art, which was more in vogue at the time. So I think this kind of American art has been a little short shrifted, particularly among young people,” Force says.“but I think audiences are coming back around to it more because it was art that was created here and speaks to us and our country.” Coast to Coast:views of America opens June 15, but interested viewers are encouraged to check the gallery’s website to double check dates, times and gallery hours.