|
|
Norfolk, Virginia:
2007 North American
|
|
|
Walter P. Chrysler, Jr's generosity provided Norfolk with a world-class collection of art and antiquities found at the Chrysler Museum of Art (CMA). As a teenager he began collecting art, creating an extensive collection of paintings, sculpture, glass works from the Renaissance, Baroque, Impressionist, Modern and multiple other artistic movements. |
Recent Acquisition
The CMA's collection continues to grow. They have acquired an extraordinary 19th-century British narrative painting. Home was created in 1855 by Sir Joseph Noel Paton, one of the leading British Victorian painters and a principal member of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in Scotland. Paton’s subject was inspired by contemporary history: the Crimean War.
Title: Home, ca. 1855
Artist: Sir Joseph Noel Paton (Scottish, 1821-1901)
Museum Purchase and Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. by exchange
Image Courtesy & Permanent Collection: Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
Scotland native Paton attended the Royal Academy in London. Dissatisfied with the city he returned to Scotland in 1846, where he settled for the rest to his life. Though based in Edinburgh Paton regularly showed his works at the Royal Academy and built a long and productive professional relationship with Queen Victoria and the royal family. In 1866 Victoria granted him the highest position in the Scottish arts establishment by appointing him the Queen’s Limner for Scotland. One year later she knighted him. When he died in 1901 Paton was mourned as one of Scotland’s most beloved artists.
Home represents a major, early triumph in Paton’s career. He first showed it at Buckingham Palace in April 1856, where Queen Victorian saw it. A few weeks later he exhibited it at the Royal Academy: it was his first submission there. Newspaper and journal reviewers unanimously praised the painting, and the writer John Ruskin described it as a “most pathetic and precious picture.” Queen Victoria referred to it in her journal as the most exciting picture in the exhibition. Soon after she commissioned Paton to paint a slightly smaller replica of it, which is now in the Queen’s Collection at Buckingham Palace.
Special Exhibitions at the CMA
The CMA has several special exhibitions currently on or planned for 2007, such as Behind the Seen Revisited, A Century of Great Photography from the Virginian-Pilot, Soul Sanctuary: Images of the African American Worship Experience and From Goya to Sorolla: Masterpieces from the Hispanic Society of America
Behind the Seen Revisited: through January 2007
Title: In the Hills, 1920-21
Artist: Leon Kroll (American, 1884-1974)
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
Image Courtesy & Permanent Collection: Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
In 2005 the CMA organized an exhibit of works that aren't necessarily on display and called that exhibit Behind the Seen. It was a hit with visitors who encouraged the CMA to do it again. The CMA will meet this demand with a series of Behind the Seen exhibitions that will highlight groups of related works of art pulled from Museum storage. One such exhibit is on display until January 2007. It focuses on American paintings and drawings from the late 19th century to 1950, featuring such noted American artists as Frank Benson and Philip Leslie Hale, Walt Kuhn and Reginald Marsh.
Title: American Beauty, 1934
Artist: Walt Kuhn (American, 1877-1949)
Bequest of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
Image Courtesy & Permanent Collection: Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
A Century of Great Photography from the Virginian-Pilot:
October 20, 2006 - January 7, 2007
A city's daily newspaper is said to be "the first draft of history," whether that city is New York, London, Toronto or Norfolk. For over 100 years The Virginian-Pilot and its forebears used photography to visually record and interpret history as it happens.
Title: Iron Jaw RELLA, the 20th Century Marvel, Pulls By Just His Bare Teeth,
a 1938 Dodge E 5-Passenger Car and
Dodge Truck loaded with Bathing Beauties,
August 22, 1938
Photographer: H. D. Vollmer (American, 1892-1971)
Courtesy of Sargeant Memorial Room, Norfolk Public Library
Image Courtesy: Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
The exhibit surveys the photographs which have effectively detailed the stories of Norfolk, the surrounding region, and the nation. The exhibit focuses on the work of staff photographers of earlier eras and those still working today.
Title: Ralph Milliard of the Norfolk Tides waits for the sky to clear at Harbor Park
before the season opener against the Durham Bulls.
The sun set on these circular moving storm clouds just before the game started.
The Tides lost 5-4, Norfolk, April 9, 1998
Photographer: Nat Meyer (American, b. Vietnam, 1973)
Courtesy of The Virginian-Pilot
Image Courtesy: Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
Soul Sanctuary: Images of the African American Worship Experience:
December 13, 2006 – March 18, 2007
Title: Deaconess Marsha Jackson, a member of the St. Paul Voices Choir
lifts her arms in praise at St. Paul Baptist Church,
Capitol Heights, Maryland, 2004
Photographer: Jason Miccolo Johnson (American, b. 1956)
© 2006 Jason Miccolo Johnson, Soul Sanctuary (Bulfinch Press)
Image Courtesy: Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
Soul Sanctuary is a multidimensional journey into the heart of the black worship experience through the eyes of photographer Jason Miccolo Johnson. The exhibit takes its title from Johnson’s photographic book.
Title: Liturgical dancers leap into “sanctified air” during the ceremonial
groundbreaking service for the new Metropolitan Baptist Church,
Largo, Maryland, 2003
Photographer: Jason Miccolo Johnson (American, b. 1956)
© 2006 Jason Miccolo Johnson, Soul Sanctuary (Bulfinch Press)
Image Courtesy: Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
The exhibit captures the spirit of the black church through images of baptisms, weddings, funerals, annual day celebrations, ecstatic soloists, choir directors, prophetic preachers, angelic liturgical dancers, and peaceful moments of prayer and praise.
From Goya to Sorolla: Masterpieces from the Hispanic Society of America:
March 11, 2007 - June 11, 2007
|
Almost 70 works of art by 19th and 20th Century Spanish masters will be loaned to the CMA from the acclaimed collection of Spanish art owned by the Hispanic Society of America in Manhattan. The exhibit marks the 100th anniversary of the Society’s founding. |
|
|
|
Beginning with Francisco Goya the exhibit will include the great figurative and landscape painters to the 19th century, from classicism to Impressionism, and culminating in a spectacular group of early 20th-century Joaquin Sorolla masterpieces featuring a monumental portrait of Louis Comfort Tiffany. |
MacArthur Memorial
General Douglas MacArthur had a long association with the City of Norfolk and it is the fitting place for a memorial to this great American hero. As Charlie Knight, Curator of the MacArthur Memorial says, "Gen. MacArthur's mother, Mary Pinkney Hardy MacArthur, or "Pinky" as the General called her, was born in Norfolk. The Hardy family mansion "Riveredge" stood across the Elizabeth River from downtown Norfolk in what is now the Berkley or South Norfolk section. Pinky was born in the house in March 1852 and was married to Arthur MacArthur there in 1875. Arthur MacArthur III, the General's older brother and later a Captain in the U.S. Navy was born in the house in 1876. The large three-story Georgian-style brick house was built in the late 18th Century by the Herbert family. Riveredge remained in the Hardy family until 1907. Its later owners included the Norfolk & Portsmouth Belt Line Railroad and Colonna's Shipyard. The house fell into disrepair in later years, being gutted by fire in the late 1940s; the empty shell was demolished in 1951 to make way for a small city park. The dedication of Mary Hardy MacArthur Park in November 1951 was attended by Gen. MacArthur, accompanied by his wife and son."
Title: Trench Diorama, World War I Gallery, MacArthur Memorial
The image is of the trench diorama in the World War I gallery.
World War I was a war of many technological advances in warfare.
As casualties mounted from tactics that lagged far behind the technology,
the war turned into a static one with the troops
fighting from trenches, with barbed wire stretched across
the intervening "No Man's Land" between the opposing lines.
The device in the foreground of the image is a trench periscope, which enabled officers
and troops to see the opposing lines without directly exposing
themselves to hostile fire. In this gallery the periscope is used as a
viewer for several WWI photographs.
Image Courtesy: The MacArthur Memorial
|
The Curator of the MacArthur Memorial continues, "While Douglas was himself born in Little Rock, AR, in 1880, he wrote in his Reminiscences "the Norfolk papers covered me beautifully with headlines reading, 'Douglas MacArthur was born on January 26, while his parents were away.'" The General and his mother were very close and she was a huge influence on him, and in fact when Douglas went to West Point in 1899 Pinky went also, staying at a nearby hotel. The two remained close until her death in Manila, Philippines, in 1935." |
|
Adding, "The MacArthur Memorial consists of four buildings and occupies an entire city block in downtown Norfolk, VA. The Memorial proper is the circa 1850 Norfolk City Hall and the Rotunda of the building is the final resting place of Gen. Douglas MacArthur and his wife Jean. There are 9 permanent galleries in this building which chronicle the General's life and career, beginning with his father's Civil War service and the General's childhood continuing through World War I, World War II and Korea, and through into retirement. There is also a separate theatre building that houses a 150-seat auditorium which shows a 25-minute film about the life of Gen. MacArthur and also has two special exhibit galleries."
Title: Norfolk Skyline
Image Courtesy: Norfolk CVB
"In 1961 MacArthur selected Norfolk over Milwaukee - his father's hometown - and Little Rock, Ark. - place of his birth - as the repository for all of his papers, memorabilia, etc. In his deed of gift with the City of Norfolk in February 1961 wherein he gave to the city all of his papers, military paraphernalia and the numerous gifts received by him throughout his career, his affection for his mother and her home are apparent. It reads in part "Whereas the Mother of the Donor [Gen. MacArthur] was a native Virginian, her family home having been located on the Elizabeth river within the present boundaries of the City of Norfolk, and the people of said City have heretofore manifested their interest in the Donor by acquiring and constructing a garden on the site thereof, dedicated to the memory of his Mother; and Whereas while the exigencies of a military career have heretofore prevented the Donor from acquiring a fixed domicile, he has always considered Virginia his spiritual home, and desires that upon his death his remains be interred in the City of Norfolk, together with the remains of his wife."
Charlie Knight concludes, "The Memorial opened to the public on January 26, 1964 - the General's 84th birthday. The plan was for the General to officially dedicate the Memorial on Memorial Day of that year, [which is traditionall held on the last Monday in May], but he died April 5, 1964, at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, DC. He was laid to rest in the Rotunda of the Memorial on April 11. His wife Jean MacArthur died January 22, 2000, at the age of 101."
Harrison Opera House
Title: Harrison Opera House
Image Courtesy: Norfolk CVB
|
|
Norfolk is a naval town. In 1938, President Roosevelt ordered military buildup during the run-up to the Second World War, doubling the town's population. The city drew up a plan for recreation, and Norfolk Center Theatre was built and used as a USO to entertain the army and navy personnel. The Center Theatre, which was originally designed by Clarence Neff, was refurbished in 1993 and became the Harrison Opera House. |
Title: Harrison Opera House Entrance, Norfolk
Image Courtesy: Virginia Opera
Virginia Opera was founded in 1974, and it was decided that the first production would be staged at the Center Theatre on January 24, 1975 with two performances of Puccini's La Bohème.
Title: Harrison Opera House Stairs, Norfolk
Image Courtesy: Virginia Opera
The 2007 season features Handel's Agrippina and Cav/Pag [ Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci].
Title: Harrison Opera House Interior, Norfolk
Image Courtesy: Virginia Opera
The City of Norfolk
Title: Cruise Ship at Nauticus Pier
Image Courtesy: Norfolk CVB
In 1607 three English ships landed at Cape Henry. The colonists proceeded up the river and established Jamestown, which was the first permanent English settlement in America. It took over one hundred years before a royal charter, from George II, in 1736, that Norfolk and its surrounding areas became a borough and had its first Mayor. During the War of Independence, 1776, Norfolk was destroyed. First the British opened fire and the colonists themselves completed the job, not wanting the British to occupy Norfolk. It wasn't rebuilt until the British blockade was lifted in 1783.
Title: Nauticus: Exterior of the National Maritime Center
Image Courtesy: The National Maritime Center Nauticus
There are many special sections of the city to enjoy, such as Granby Street and Ghent.
|
Historic Ghent at first was located some distance from what was Downtown Norfolk. As the city grew the area became a residential area and its name was changed after the Treaty of Ghent; signed in Belgium to end the War of 1812. Like many areas it has changed over time and is now a thriving artistic community with boutiques, cafes, shopping and it also remains a place to call home. |
|
Title: Pagoda Garden Tea House and Gallery
Image Courtesy: Norfolk CVB
Throughout the year Norfolk hosts many exciting events and 2007 isn't any different. The 25th Annual Norfolk Jazz Festival will take place in August and in June the 31st Annual Harborfest is scheduled.
Title: USS Wisconsin
Image Courtesy: The National Maritime Center Nauticus
Well done Norfolk! The city has much to entice art aficionados anytime but especially next year as Norfolk, Virginia is International Art Treasures Web Magazine's choice as the 2007 North American City of Culture.
