Object Lessons
Palmer Museum of Art highlights Pennsylvania’s place in the still life genre
Recently opened at the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State is Object Lessons:american Still-life Painting in the Nineteenth Century. The exhibition brings together 22 works that highlight the genre’s rich and various traditions, touching on themes from the brevity of life to nature’s bounty. Drawing primarily from the museum’s permanent collection, the exhibition is complemented by rarely seen loans from private collections.
Object Lessons serves as a continuation of the Palmer’s mission to explore different periods and styles in American art. Director of the museum Erin Coe says,“this exhibition places masterworks from the collection in dialogue with loans from private hands to better understand the development and cultural significance of still life painting in the 19th century, when the genre was at its height of popularity.” Many of the works also have a local Pennsylvania connections. Artists like William Michael Harnett,albert F. King, Rubens Peale, John Frederick Peto and Severin Roesen were at the forefront of the still life genre and also lived and worked in the state, which Palmer’s curator of American art Adam Thomas notes was “a fertile ground for still life painting activity in the 19th century.”
German-born Roesen took up residence in Pennsylvania in 1857, and he completed many of his sumptuous florals in his studio in Williamsport. His Flower Still Life with Nest of Eggs will be on view in the exhibition. Charles Caryl Coleman’s Still
Life with Peach Blossoms serves as a focal point in Object Lessons. On loan from Art Bridges, it is a visually striking piece measuring 71 by 25 inches.“this 1877 painting calls attention to the global cross-currents of the Aesthetic Movement and complements Elihuvedder’s so-called Japanese Still Life of 1892,” explains Thomas. Coleman and Vedder were close friends and traveled throughout
Europe together in the latter part of the 19th century.
Art Bridges, a non-profit founded in 2017 by Alice Walton, provides support for the exhibition. with that support, the museum will use touchscreen technology to supplement the exhibition for the first time, providing unique engagement for visitors to the gallery .thomas says, “for the occasion, we’ve incorporated the expertise of specialists in horticulture, botany and entomology from across the university.” Object Lessons hangs through December 16.