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April 2006  

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Painting Summer in New England

Title: Harbor # 9, 1999
Artist: Alex Katz (American b. 1927)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 96 x 240 in.
© Estate of Alex Katz/ Licensed by VAGA, New York.
Photo: courtesy Pace-Wildenstein, New York 
Image Courtesy: Peabody Essex Museum

Summertime in New England is a popular topic for artists both past and contemporary, capturing the warmth of the weather and the beauty of the landscape of the northeastern United States.

Frank Weston Benson

Title: Summer, 1909
Artist: Frank Weston Benson (American 1862-1951)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 36 1/8 x 44 ˝ in.
Permanent Collection: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.
Gift of Isaac C. Bates. Photograph by Erik Gould.
Image Courtesy: Peabody Essex Museum

American Impressionist Frank Weston Benson's most famous work is entitled Summer and was completed in 1909. Benson painted two of his daughters and two friends in the beautiful oil. It has an ethereal feel one can sense the heat of the beautiful day spent relaxing together.

The Peabody Essex Museum has found an intriguing way for visitors to enjoy the warmth of a New England Summer, both in 2006 and of times past, in the renditions by some of America's most loved artists like Benson's Summer which is a highlight of Painting Summer in New England at the PEM.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi

Title: The Swimmer, ca. 1924
Artist: Yasuo Kuniyoshi (American 1892-1953)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 20 x 30 in.
Permanent Collection: Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio.
Gift of Ferdinand Howald.
© Estate of Yasuo Kuniyoshi/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Image Courtesy: Peabody Essex Museum

Okayama, Japan native Yasuo Kuniyoshi moved to the USA in 1906 and after working a series of odd jobs enrolled at the Los Angeles School of Art Design. He won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1935. His earlier works featured an earth-toned palette. Later he would add cool crisp blues bringing a sense of brilliance to his canvases.

Kuniyoshi is most closely associated with landscapes and still life works.

Maxfield Parrish

Luminous colors are oft associated with Parrish, one was named for him, "Parrish blue". His style was truly unique, most critics find it hard to place him in one category or another. Parrish was an innovator.

Norman Rockwell

Title: Going and Coming, 1947
Artist: Norman Rockwell (American 1894-1978)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 16 x 31˝ in. each.
© 1947 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN. All rights reserved.
Image Courtesy: Peabody Essex Museum

Americana is Norman Rockwell. The illustrator of hundreds of covers for the Saturday Evening Post magazine. Coming and Going was on the August 30, 1947 cover of the magazine and is a key part of this exhibit celebrating summer in the USA.

As Dan Monroe, Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Peabody Essex Museum observes, the aim is to "'delight, astound and surprise,' as Painting Summer in New England invites us to explore the richness of imagery that can be understood as ‘New England’ as well as the remarkable range of expression that the term ‘painting’ encompasses.”

Over one hundred paintings from eighty-three artists, from the 1850s until present day, are on view in Salem, Massachusetts at the Peabody Essex Museum. These artists are a who's who of American talent, from Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Childe Hassam, Andrew Wyeth, Stuart Davis, George Bellows, Edward Hopper, Lois Dodd, Alex Katz, and Fairfield Porter

Painting Summer in New England
Peabody Essex Museum:
April 22 - September 4, 2006