I’ve written before in the course of other posts about the pleasures, and treasures, to be found in small art museums.
By small, I mean compared to the large museums we associate with major metropolitan areas. These smaller museums are sometimes in those same cities, but more often are in smaller cities or towns.
I had the pleasure yesterday of visiting the Montclair Museum in Montclair, New Jersey, about 30 miles outside of New York (correction: 17 miles, see this post’s comments).
Most small museums, and many larger ones, have their origin as the collection of an individual. In this case museum co-founder William T. Evans started the ball rolling with a donation of 36 paintings to the Municipal Art Commission of Montclair in 1909. The museum has a short history on its web site that is a textbook case in how art museums like this are established.
The museum’s collection now includes pieces by John Singer Sargent, William Merritt Chase (above, lower right), Edmund Tarbell, J. Alden Weir and Thomas Eakins (above, top right); as well as strong pieces from the Hudson River School, represented by Thomas Cole, Jasper Cropsey and a particularly striking work by Ashser B. Durand, Early Morning at Cold Spring (image above, top left).
I was impressed in the latter painting, not only by Durand’s skill at rendering large scale subjects, filling them with lush detail and moving your eye around the canvas as if on a guided tour, but also by the contrast between his detailed passages, areas of suggested detail and other areas in which he confidently executed large shapes with broad, painterly brushstrokes. After having recently seen large scale landscapes by Corot and other painters of the Barbizon School, I couldn’t help by draw comparisons.
The museum also has items from Surrealism (Man Ray’s hilarious Indestructible Object), Modernism, Abstract Expressionism and 20th century works by African-American artists.
The real star of the collection, though, is a dedicated gallery containing nine works by Montclair’s native son, George Inness, who not only settled in Montclair, but painted many of his well known works there.
The paintings in the collection cover a good range of the artist’s career and life and are arranged around the gallery chronologically. You can follow his progress from his early 20’s (at which point he looked more like a junior member of the Hudson River School than his mature self), through a developing period in which he was obviously highly skilled and accomplished at handling large scale, complex landscapes in a straightforward and painterly manner, deftly handling intricate detail in the process (Delaware Water Gap, image above, bottom left), to the more recognizable paintings of his mid and later career, in which he exhibited the stylized rendering he is noted for (the only style of Inness painting I have encountered in other museums.) The paintings continue up to just a couple of years before Inness’ death, in which his images dissolve into a poetic haze of tonalist color, and what appear to be indistinct smears of color at close range magically transform into representational images at a distance.
This is a remarkable little gallery of his work, and if you appreciate Inness, is worth a visit to the museum on its own. Combined with the museum’s other treasures, it’s a noteworthy destination if you’re in the New York area.
Another sharp contrast between museums like this and the huge scale museums in major cities is the comfortable atmosphere and warm personal approach. We met a few members of the museum staff and one of the new volunteers, and found them charming, friendly and obviously proud of the treasures their museum had to offer.
If you’re ranging about the northeast, you should try and check out the New Britain Museum of American Art. A new-ish home for the collection, it has a strong emphasis on American illustration.
Hi Charlie, wonderful post as always! like Bram, I too have a suggestion for a museum. If you’re ever here in San Diego, take a look at the Timken museum, it’s small, it’s free and it houses works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Larguilliere, Claesz, Eastman Johnson, B.West, Copley, Hals and others, along with a collection of Russian Icons.
http://timkenmuseum.org/
That is totally excellent! It reminds me both of the Charles Schulz Museum and Airport (paraphrasing, but it’s something like that and there IS an airport….) in Santa Rosa, and of the way I used to go to local art galleries (sadly we didn’t have any museums) on my own during junior high and high school, just to look at all the cool art. Since they changed all the time, it was ALMOST like having a museum….
I’ll go out of my way just to see one nice painting. A Sargent a Chase and an Eakins, and not too far out of the way. Thanks, I have a nephew who goes to school in Montclair. I think I’ll pay him a visit.
Lovely works with thoughtful comments; a pleasure to view and read.
This is a wonderful perspective on the Montclair Art Museum. Having visited the museum several times, I second Charley’s appreciation of the small museum. It often hosts blockbuster exhibitions and has a very impressive collections of Native American art, contemporary Americans, and 19th century American works.
If you’re in the area check it out!
As an employee of the Montclair Art Museum, I am of course especially gratified by your observations. We pride ourselves on just the qualities you mention, especially our intimate setting and personal touch, which we hope enhance visitors’ experiences of our American and Native American collections. I would also point out to readers that we are actually just 17 miles from NYC, with bus and train service nearby. Also plenty of free parking, a real plus in Montclair. For anyone wishing to explore further the artistic life in Montclair, I recommend montclairarts.org.
Thank you for the wonderful information. I have always wanted to go to Montclair Art Museum. It seems to be a great day trip for new yorker. And I loooooove Inness. I would definitely go there this month.
Thanks again