Jason Busch, the Alan G. and Jane A. Lehman Curator of Decorative Arts, and Julie Emerson, Ruth J. Nutt Curator of Decorative Arts at the Seattle Art Museum will discuss exciting new ideas in the display of decorative arts and design. This evening event, presented by the Women’s Committee of Carnegie Museum of Art, will offer a sneak peek into the upcoming reinstallation of the decorative art galleries, opening in 2009. Past Meets Present: Innovative Installations of Decorative Arts
Thurs., Oct. 23, 6:00–8:00 p.m. CMA, Call 412.622.3325 to register. LINK

There are three sideboards in existence known to be by Pittsburgh cabinetmakers. Undoubtedly there are more out there waiting to be discovered. One is seen in this short video. Although you can't see them in the video, this sideboard has two carved panels that sat on either side of the mirror. This carving is present on each of the three sideboards. The cabinetmakers of which are William Alexander, Henry Beares and Benjamin Montgomery. The similarities in the carved panels, especially in the Alexander and Beares sideboards are striking, so much so that during an initial inspection it can easily be concluded that the pieces came from the same shop. Another more likely possibility (since the sideboards are signed) is that a talented carver worked for a number of shops. That carver could have been Joseph Woodwell.

This particular sideboard is not known to have a signature. Unlike the other examples, this one contains some egyptian revival details including the feet and black marble in the center. It is also of an unusually large size.

The Henry Beares sideboard is on view at the Carnegie Museum of Art. The William Alexander sideboard can be see in Wendy Cooper's Book, Classical Taste in America.

Can't make it to the Brooklyn Museum of Art? Is the Westmoreland out of reach? Visit our galleries and find some highlights of some of the country's great art museums. Included are selections from the Carnegie, Met, National Gallery and more.

CLICK HERE

The artists whose work will be featured in Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International were announced recently by Douglas Fogle, curator of contemporary art at Carnegie Museum of Art and curator of the exhibition. The show, on view from May 3, 2008, through January 11, 2009, will include some 200 works in diverse media by 40 emerging and established artists from 17 countries. As the pre-eminent international survey of contemporary art in North America, the 55th exhibition in the 112-years-old series continues the historic legacy set forth by previous Carnegie Internationals in presenting new and compelling works by artists from around the world.

Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International Artists

Doug AITKEN, United States, b. 1968
Kai ALTHOFF, Germany, b. 1966
Mark BRADFORD, United States, b. 1961
CAO Fei, China, b. 1978
Vija CELMINS, United States, b. 1938
Phil COLLINS, England, b. 1970
Bruce CONNER, United States, b. 1933
Peter FISCHLI, Switzerland, b. 1952 and David WEISS, Switzerland, b. 1946
Ryan GANDER, England, b. 1976
Daniel GUZM�N, Mexico, b. 1964
Thomas HIRSCHHORN, Switzerland, b. 1957
Richard HUGHES, England, b. 1974
Mike KELLEY, United States, b.1954
Friedrich KUNATH, Germany, b. 1974
Maria LASSNIG, Austria, b. 1919
Sharon LOCKHART, United States, b. 1964
Mark MANDERS, The Netherlands, b. 1968
Barry McGEE, United States, b. 1966
Mario MERZ, Italy, b. 1925, d. 2003
Marisa MERZ, Italy, b. 1931
Matthew MONAHAN, United States, b. 1972
Rivane NEUENSCHWANDER, Brazil, b. 1967
NOGUCHI Rika, Japan, b. 1971
Manfred PERNICE, Germany, b. 1963
Susan PHILIPSZ, Scotland, b. 1965
Wilhelm SASNAL, Poland, b. 1972
Thomas SCH�TTE, Germany, b. 1954
Ranjani SHETTAR, India, b. 1977
David SHRIGLEY, England, b. 1968
Paul SIETSEMA, United States, b. 1968
Rudolf STINGEL, Italy, b. 1956
Katja STRUNZ, Germany, b. 1970
Paul THEK, United States, b. 1933, d. 1988
Wolfgang TILLMANS, Germany, b. 1968
Rosemarie TROCKEL, Germany, b. 1952
Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL, Thailand, b. 1970
Andro WEKUA, Georgia, b. 1977
Richard WRIGHT, England, b. 1960
YANG Haegue, Korea, b. 1971

Feb. 10, 2:00–3:00 PM
Member only, reservation required

From CMOA website:

To realize the ambition to collect “the Old Masters of tomorrow,” in 1896 Andrew Carnegie established the Carnegie International. Tour the collection and discover how artworks purchased in the Internationals reflect not only changing aesthetics, but also political and social issues of the day.

If you've been to the Carnegie Museum of Art recently, you may have noticed some new items in the galleries. Among these is a painting by Asher B. Durand. This kind of landscape painting may be out of fashion, but the thing about Hudson River Paintings, you know a good one as soon as you see it. You also are greeted with an immediate sense of confidence the United States (or artists) hasn't known for some time. Few painters since have been this sure of themselves and the world or celebrated it with such clarity. At the time of creation, the United States was far from being a world power, hadn't known the civil war and could focus all of her energy on building the nation. Unfortunately this meant cutting down the trees and a changing landscape that made scenes like this one fade like passing frames in a film. Hudson River painters like Durand would celebrate nature, humans in nature, and the natural wildness as a feature which distinguished our continent from that of Europe.

...and there's still a week or so to make the trip to Washington DC to see Kindred Spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American Landscape More new items at the Carnegie

Coast of Capri, the only painting by Johan Christian Dahl exhibited by Carnegie Museum of Art seems out of place among paintings advocating grandeur and sublimity. The painting purveys mystic and meditative, as if there is an unknown force behind the scene that even its thoroughness goes beyond grand and sublime.

There is no wonder that Johan Christian Dahl always reminds me of Casper David Frederick. The two men once lived in the same house and exhibited together. Yet the Norwegian painter is more reticent in his words. Unlike Frederick, whose landscape paintings are disguise forms for life voyage and moral advancing, Dahl didn’t bring such austerity above the moody oil surface; instead he dug it into the landscape and let the viewer discover the deep intention that he planted.

While the life of Casper David Frederick has been studied thoroughly, Dahl, who is usually called Casper’s follower, didn’t receive enough attention nowadays. In the description note provided by Carnegie Museum of Art, it is said that Coast of Capri was the work following Dahl two-year’s stay in Italy. However, another source from Sotheby’s states that Dahl got married in June of 1820 and the very next day he left alone to Italy where he remained one year. Thus the two sources disagreed with how long Dahl stayed in Italy. The exact length of his stay in Italy is of great importance here because Dahl’s several most famous paintings were about scenes in Italy.

The earliest homes in Pittsburgh that still stand date to around 1830. Since demolished from this period was “Picnic House” built around 1835 by William Croghan and Mary Croghan Schenley, the granddaughter of James O’Hara. The ballroom from Picnic House is now in the Cathederal of Learning.

Several pieces of furniture exist from the house including a chair at the Heinz History Center and a recamier at the Carnegie Museum of Art. The Carnegie also has a matching recamier and nine other chairs. The pieces have not been identified as being produced in Pittsburgh, and while convention would suggest they came from New York, it was at least technically possible furniture of this quality could have been produced in Pittsburgh.

Our first evidence is a Pittsburgh Cabinetmakers Style guide from 1830 that shows furniture with charateristics of that being produced both in New York and Philadelphia. A copy of the guide is at the Winterthur Library.

It would of course take a skilled painter to create the designs on the furniture from Picnic. There is evidence there were a number of skilled painters skilled at ornamentation, portraits and signage in Pittsburgh at that time.

Most notable of the painters in Charles Lambdin who adverised in 1824 as having been trained by Thomas Sully. A painter named J. Cook advertised himself as a portrait painter as early as 1811. Also in 1811, J. T. Turner advertised all sorts of painting and even lessons. Most notably Turner reports that he was lately of New York. Joseph Jenkins advertised his services as a portrait painter in 1824 and R. B. Harris advertised himself as an ornamental painter in the 1830s. I have no evidence to show that portrait painters like Lambdin ventured into painting ornamentation on furniture, but technically they would likely have the necessary skill and we know other painters, such as Edward Hicks, painted decoration on carriages. Painting then was often seen more as a skilled craft, like cabinetmaking, than a fine art.

The other feature on the furniture from Picnic is gilt and “gilt bronze” as it is referred to in literature at the Carnegie. However, Wendy Cooper in her book "Classical Taste in America" referring to the chair refers to Egyptian ornaments as “cast brass.” I learned recently that what is called "gilt bronze" is usually brass, in chandeliers anyway, so that may be the case here. Inspection of the chaise lounge at Carnegie does appear to have gilt. There were a number of foundaries in Pittsburgh early on, as well as silversmiths and other craftsman who might have been able to produce these ornaments on demand. They could also have easily been imported from Boston or England.

The structure is maple, grain painted to look like Rosewood.

The Carnegie currently has a show "Popular Salon of the People: Associated Artists of Pittsburgh Annuals at Carnegie Museum of Art, 1910–2006" which contains several works by Pittsburgh artist Johanna K. Hailman. Known for painting flowers, Hailman also apparently tried her hand at painting steel mills. Her work along these lines hangs in the show near the master of the Pittsburgh mill, Gorson.

I hadn't been aware of Hailman until recently when I came across her while researching Pittsburgh furniture. Her father, Joseph Ryan Woodwell was also an artist, and her grandfather was a cabinetmaker.

Woodwell operated a furniture workshop and wareroom in Pittsburgh until 1845 when he sold his interest in the business and went into the hardware trade. The hardware store continued to operate until 1954. A Pier table by Woodwell is on display at the Heinz History Center.

The show also includes the work of Lila Hetzel, the daughter of Scalp Level painter George Hetzel.

In conjunction with the 97th Associated Artists of Pittsburgh exhibition, "Popular Salon of the People" is a historical survey featuring the work of more than 75 notable artists who have participated in the annual survey shows. The show includes John Kane, Malcolm Parcell, Aaron Gorson, Samuel Rosenberg, Raymond Cimboli, Marie Kelly, Andy Warhol, Philip Pearlstein, and Jonathan Borofsky.

Looking through old Pittsburgh newspapers on microfilm I came across an ad for a portrait painter named James Lambdin. I had never heard of Lambdin, but the mention of his being a pupil of Thomas Sully in the ad caught my attention. I should have just Googled images, but not ever hearing of Lambdin I mistakenly assumed he was an artist lost to history. I headed to the census records at the library and on my way to the third floor decided to stop and search the auction records as well as catolog for books about Sully, which I hoped would mention Lambdin.

Both produced results that were suprisingly fruitful to me. I didn't need to search census records to see when Lambdin moved to Pittsburgh--he was born here in 1807. I guess amateur historians like myself mistakenly assume most of the people and things, at least as they relate to a European cultural tradition, in early Pittsburgh came from Baltimore or Philadelphia. The newspaper ad was from 1824, not long before Lambdin left Pittsburgh. Lambdin headed South for Louisville and then trading time between Pittsburgh and Mobile, Alabama.

Lambdin then moved to Philadelphia (which may have had more imports like Lambdin from Pittsburgh than we often assume) where he spent most of the remainder of his life.

Its curious that Lambdin studied in Philadelphia under Thomas Sully from 1823-25 and yet placed the ad in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1824. Also his son, George Cochran Lambdin, also a noted artist, was born in Pittsburgh in 1830. Lambdin traveled to Washington and painted many portraits including presidents. he was a professor of fine arts at the University of Pennsylvania and an officer at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

William Russell Smith was a student of Lambdin.

Apparently the Carnegie Museum of Art has two works by James Lambdin, a portrait of Henry Clay and one of Benjamin Darlington. I am not sure whether these works are not on display or I have failed to notice them.

The Carnegie Museum of Art has on display two pieces of furniture that give us some insight into furniture making in Western Pennsylvania. The first is a tall case clock made by Thomas Hutchinson. The face of the clock bears his name and is labled Washington, Pa. The case features many elements known to be hallmarks of Western Pennsylvania furniture including a vine and leaf inlay design.

The earlier furniture such as the case clock seems to be better chonicled that later furniture, made after 1830. The Carnegie also features a sideboard labled as being made by Henry Beares. The sideboard has many features of a Philadelphia piece, although it does seem to have more mass than comparable Philadelphia furniture.

One has to assume it would not be unique. The book Pittsburgh's Commercial Development shows furniture being shipped both to and from Pittsburgh as early as 1835 (the earliest year the book covers. Newspaper ads feature other companies making furniture in Pittsburgh and Allegheny in the 1830s, including the Allegheny Chair at the corner of Ohio Street and "the Diamond" in Allegheny.

Both examples in the Carnegie serve to show that the quality of cabinet making in Pittsburgh from the late Eighteenth Century through the 1830s was fairly sophisticated and even somewhat comperable to what was being made in the East.

Nashville may be a long way from Greece, but the city’s Centennial Park may be as close as you can come without leaving the United States. Also, until the Greek ministry completes its program of restoration and reconstruction of the original Parthenon, the Nashville replica may be the closest you can come to the building as it was built by the Greeks in 400 B.C. anywhere.

The Parthenon, from the Greek word parthenos, meaning maiden or virgin, was built as a home for Athena, the protectress of Athens. While the original Parthenon was used initially as a treasury, it was later used for a variety of religious purposes. It was a Christian Church and a Mosque. In 1687, an ammunition dump inside the building was ignited. The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon and its sculptures.

The structure in Nashville had a little better luck, but its survival into the present time was all but assured. Nashville’s Parthenon was originally built as a temporary structure for Tennessee's 1897 Centennial Exposition to celebrate the state’s 100th birthday. Like the World’s Columbia Exhibition in Chicago five years before to celebrate the anniversary of Columbus’s landing in the New World, the celebration was late. Tennessee became a state in 1796. Originally built of plaster, wood, and brick, Nashville’s Parthenon was rebuilt in the 1920s on the same foundations, but with concrete.

Nashville’s Parthenon replica was built at a time of a rebirth of interest in Greek and classical architecture in the United States. The 1893 World’s Columbia Exposition in Chicago gave birth to the City Beautiful Movement which saw the construction of classical buildings and grand boulevards from Cleveland to San Francisco.

Nashville’s replica is a fine surviving remnant of the movement. The bronze entrance doors on the east and west sides are the largest of their kind in the world. The pediment reliefs were created from direct casts of the originals in Athens.

While visitors to the Parthenon in Greece are treated to a construction site, visitors to Nashville’s replica can enjoy an art museum containing American landscape paintings and an expanse of green known as Centennial Park.

Once known as the “Athens of the South,” Nashville is not the only place where one can get a taste of the Parthenon in the United States. When Steel Magnate Andrew Carnegie stood on a Pittsburgh hilltop pondering an “Athens of the North” which would become Pittsburgh’s cultural center, what he had in mind was a cultural facility that would collect the old masters of tomorrow.


To house them, and perhaps to lend them some continuity from the ages, a neo-classical building in the spirit of the City Beautiful movement was erected to house an art gallery, natural science museum, library and music hall. Later the building would be adapted to include a room based on the Parthenon’s original interior space.

While the original building designed by Longfellow, Alden and Harlow was begun during the World’s Columbia Exhibition in Chicago, the Hall of Architecture, modeled on the Parthenon's cella, or inner sanctuary, was designed and added by Alden and Harlow in 1907, twelve years before Mr. Carnegie’s death.

The expansion further embraced the Greek tradition and provided halls for exhibiting casts of sculpture and architectural elements from Greece and Rome, as well as an opulent music hall foyer that rises 45 feet to an elaborate carved and gilded baroque ceiling atop colossal columns of green Tinos marble from Greece.

Moreover, the Hall of Sculpture is crafted of Pentelic marble from the same Greek quarries that supplied the stone for the Parthenon. The Hall of Architecture, which includes casts of the original Parthenon pediment friezes was created when collections of architectural plaster casts were numerous. Today the collection is unique in America and remains one of the three largest collections still on exhibit in the world. The collection also includes the largest cast in the world, the facade of the French 12th-century Abbey Church of St.-Gilles-du-Gard. While to the unknowing viewer the casts may seem like mere copies of the originals, some of the sculptures cast have deteriorated to the point where the casting actually more closely resembles the original form.

In the Hall of Architecture sits a smaller replica of the Parthenon created by students at Carnegie Mellon University, a school as endeared to Andrew Carnegie as the Museum.

Athens, of course, is named for the Goddess Athena. While a statue of Athena once stood in the Parthenon, today the only place to get a full sense of the building and the sculpture is in Nashville. Other replicas and recreations of Athena exist, but Nashville is the only place where Athena and her house are seen together.

The statue of Athena wasn’t in place for Tennessee’s late birthday in 1897, rather she was unveiled in 1990. Nashville’s Athena was created by artist Alan LeQuire and was modeled on descriptions given of the original. The modern version took eight years to complete.

The original Athena was created by Pheidias, known as the greatest sculptor of classical antiquity. The statue was unveiled and dedicated in 438 or 437 B.C. While it no longer exists, Athena appears on Athenian coins of the second and first centuries B.C. Later, Romans copied the statue in small-scale. Even today on the Acropolis you can see the outline of Athena’s base in the Parthenon.

The honor that Nashville holds may be short-lived, however. On a recent guided tour through the Hall of Architecture in the Carnegie Museum of Art, I thought I heard that a statue of Athena would soon adorn that space.

In any case, Centennial Park in Nashville and the Carnegie Museum of Art are great places to go to learn about Athena and the Parthenon, not to mention the Acropolis Museum in Athens, the British Museum in London, where the original 'Elgin Marbles' the Nashville reliefs were cast from are housed, the Louvre, where a Roman replica of Athena is on display and the Greek and Roman Galleries in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Oh, and if that’s all old hat, you might even consider a journey to see the Parthenon itself.

The current special exhibition at Carnegie Museum of Art provides a rare opportunity to view 75 American drawing and watercolors collected by the first director of Carnegie Institute of Art (John Beatty) during the first two decades of the 20th century. Based on a museum conservator’s comment, ideally paper works should not be exposed under light for more than 16 weeks per year, thus such treasure has never be integrated into the permanent collection in the museum. Among them, there are works by Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, William Glackens, and Frederick Childe Hassam.

The works by Childe Hassam are mostly pencil and ink drawing. He chose different types of paper to provide the prime color for each work: some brown, some black and of course some white. The effect in general is bold and almost graphically decorative. In particular, he took advantage of the inherent contrast between ink and colored paper to emphasize light and shadow: some more protruding, some more coherent, depending on the similarity between color tones.

Homer started his career as an illustrator for Harper’s weekly. His pencil drawings are quite unique and interesting. But in my mind, it is his water-colors that should be valued the most since they have not been equaled ever since. In the current exhibition, the rare occasion provides two works of his famous theme: Proust’s Neck: one in pencil drawing and one in water-color. Both are efficient and foreboding. The water-color, eliminating the view of sea, projects the anxiety of waiting by carefully scaling the people with the nature. In contrast, the pencil drawing is more economical. He did not try to convert the value of colors into black and white, thus the figures in the drawing are exposed to a world rawer and barer.

It surprised me that Frederick Church sketched two mermaids holding a skull, something that is beyond the scope of accuracy and clarity that he’s familiar with. On the other hand, it does make sense that it was the painter who sketched the unseen and magical, endured all the inconvenience and sufferings to paint exotic scenes of both Arctic and South America.

Thomas Moran’s fondness of light effect is obvious on his only drawing in the exhibition. On the same wall, a pencil drawing of trees by Sanford Gifford bears the distinctive hazy and suffuse characteristics.

Lastly, a work by John Beatty’s contemporary and friend Alfred S. Wall also surprised me. As one of the initial trustees to the Carnegie Institute, his oil works are displayed at both Carnegie Museum of Art and Westmoreland Museum of Art. Among Wall family, I like A. S. Wall the most. William Coventry Wall is too meticulous and controlled while A. Bryan Wall is loose in paint brush while tight in subjects. The scene of Western Pennsylvania under A. S. Wall is mundane, un-idealized. It is not totally untamed, yet not luminous or sensational either. Instead, in that small picture on the middle of the wall, Wall painted the diminishing scene of uncultivated nature with traces of human beings, and infused them with a sense of nostalgia.

Such scene may be forever gone in the current Pittsburgh metro area, but through the carefully preserved artworks it can be still be imagined and appreciated, until Oct 7, when they are put back into storage.

The current special exhibition of Carnegie Museum of Art, on one hand, shows the depth of its permanent collection, on the other hand reflects the somewhat disoriented organization of the institution.

The current exhibition, "Masters of American Drawings and Watercolors" features works by Winslow Homer, James McNeil Whistler, Child Hassam, and others. In the present day, museums seldom treat art works in paper with as much weight as oil paintings; yet for Winslow Homer, it is shameful to put those water color works of his Prout's Neck period (currently part of the special exhibition) into storage. Simply put: no other American artists have ever equaled Homer in water color. And works around Prout's Neck of Maine coast are particularly unforgettable. The crashing waves convey the same feelings as in those water color works with yellowish skies or faceless figures: a prudish, almost stoic solitude and objectivity of New Englanders.

In the permanent collection galleries, another work by Homer stands alone. "The Wreck" won the medal for the first Carnegie International Exhibition in 1896. It would be much better if it were displayed with " Watching from the Cliffs" from the special exhibition. They compliment each other and explain what a story Homer is telling: solitude of human beings confronted by the harsh nature, yet restrained in color and sentimentality.

If it is acceptable to separate Homer's works because of limited display space, then it would be perplexing to find out that William Coventry Wall's works are displayed in different rooms. Not many museums have the luxury of say the Met to have a room designated for an artist such as John Singer Sargent or to own five works by Vermeer. How to display works from different painters in one room can be tricky, however, the Carnegie Museum of Art is the only one I have seen to strictly display works based on chronology.

I agree with Sister Wendy when she says that art does not get better, it just gets different. Displaying art work chronologically is the most seemingly logic, yet the most unrealistic way if styles and schools are not differentiated.

The effect, from a visitor's point of view, is that the only thing that is consistent in display is its inconsistency. On one wall, works by Alfred Sisley (typical Impressionism landscape) , Adolphe Bouguereau (" Souvenir"), Frederich Church (a small-scale arctic iceberg painting) and George Hetzel ("Forest Brook" etc.) were packed together just because they were from the same period—all displayed as if they were in a Victorian parlor, stacked like bricks. Viewing these paintings in this manner only provides visitors one notion: art exists in diversity, but how to link them is lost on all but the well-versed art afficianado.

In the Greensburg Museum of American Art or the Butler Museum of Art, both of which are smaller than Carnegie Museum of Art, works are grouped by styles or topics. In the latter museums, landscape paintings of 19 th century are displayed together loosely in a chronological way with focus on Hudson River School painters. It makes sense that in the end there stand a more romanticized work by Thomas Moran, and a soft abstract work of George Inness, both of which paid tribute to earlier Luminism artists.

But in Carnegie Museum of Art, the name of the rooms are usually marked something like "European and American Art from 18** to 18**". The words "European Art" are just too broad and ambitious to fit into one room. British landscape works by John Constable (the one which is displayed does not do justice to the fame of the artist) and later Benjamin William Leader are different from that from German school saying Caspar David Friedrich who is such an important figure yet not included in the display.

Another interesting observation is that the museum is still having a hard time positioning itself in the balance and breadth of collection, nationalism and depth of local artists. It would be much better to display Scalp Level artists together and show how the detailed style of William Coventry Wall contrasts with his Nephew Alfred Bryan Wall's more painterly style in his typical sheep paintings. It is also illuminating to show how the beautiful rural nature of Western Pennsylvania area migrates into an industrialization giant, as vividly shown from forest scene by George Hetzel to paintings about notorious fire in Pittsburgh which brought financial success for William Coventry Wall, to Aaron Harry Gorson's explosive paintings of steel mills at night.

It was when I saw "Panther Hollow" by John Kane that I feel the impulse and urgency that the whole galleries should be re-prioritized and re-arranged. It is true that the images of Panther Hollow did bring a certain intimacy associated with a city that I love more and more each day, yet displaying seven works by John Kane, a local self-taught artist, while archiving works by Winslow Homer is an idea too provincial to be regarded as an honorable tribute to Pittsburgh.