Fenimore Art Museum
Encyclopedia
The Fenimore Art Museum is a museum located in Cooperstown
, New York
, USA, operating under the auspices of the New York State Historical Association
. It presents changing and permanent exhibitions of American Folk Art, North American Indian
art and artifacts, Hudson River School
and 19th-century genre paintings, and American photography
.
The Museum was moved to its present location — Cooperstown, New York overlooking Lake Otsego — in 1939 due to a gift from Stephen Carlton Clark
. Much of the American Fine Art Collection was donated by Clark, a generous art connoisseur.
The museum also has a great deal of material associated with James Fenimore Cooper
, Cooperstown’s most famous native son, and his family. This includes furniture, portraits and paintings, personal effects and books owned by Cooper, as well as manuscripts and first editions of his writings.
The Fenimore Art Museum is closely associated with The Farmers' Museum
, also in Cooperstown.
, was founded in 1899 by five New Yorkers interested in promoting a greater knowledge of the early history of the state. They hoped to encourage original research, to educate general audiences by means of lectures and publications, to mark places of historic interest, and to establish a library and museum to hold manuscripts, paintings, and objects associated with New York State. From 1926 until 1939, the Association’s headquarters was in Ticonderoga, New York
in a facsimile of John Hancock’s
house in Boston
.
In 1939, Stephen Carlton Clark
offered the Association a new home in the village of Cooperstown. Clark took an active interest in expanding the holdings and turned over Fenimore House, one of his family’s properties as a new headquarters and museum. The collections and programs continued to expand and a separate library building was constructed in 1968. In 1995, an 18000 square feet (1,672.3 m²) wing was added to Fenimore House to hold the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection, one of the nation’s premier collections of American Indian art.
between 1938 and 1960. Clark purchased 18th- and 19th-century landscapes, genre paintings, and portraits that represented the history of New York
State, but because of the artists’ stature, reflect early American culture in general. Artists represented in the Fenimore Art Museum's Fine Art collection include William Sidney Mount
, Thomas Cole
, Asher B. Durand, Benjamin West
, Gilbert Stuart
, and Eastman Johnson
.
The museum also features a collection of "life masks" by John Henri Isaac Browere
that were cast from the faces of famous Americans. The masks include Thomas Jefferson
, John Adams
, John Quincy Adams
, DeWitt Clinton
, and Dolley Madison
.
The photography collection includes over 120,000 examples with holdings of both professional and amateur photographers from the 19th century.
The museum is currently exhibiting John Singer Sargent
: Portraits in Praise of Women through December 31, 2010. This exhibit features about 25 paintings of American women, including two preparatory sketches for Sargent's infamous Portrait of Madame X
. The exhibit is divided into three thematic sections - Women of Fashion, Women of Mystery and Women of Substance.
and the pioneering collector and author Jean Lipman form the collection’s core. Artists include Edward Hicks
, William Matthew Prior
, Ammi Phillips
, Thomas Chambers
, John Brewster, Jr.
, and Eunice Pinney. The museum’s 20th-century folk art holdings have grown gradually, spurred on by major gifts such as two Grandma Moses
landscapes in 1967 and purchases like Ralph Fasanella’s
Dress Shop in 1983. In recent years, works by 20th-century folk artists Queena Stovall
and Mario Sanchez
have been added to the collecion.
In 1995, the Fenimore Art Museum embarked upon a new era with the addition of a spectacular new American Indian Wing designed to house the extraordinary gift from Eugene and Clare Thaw of their collection of American Indian art. The collection has continued to grow as new objects are added by the Thaws and other donors, and today numbers almost 850 objects. Each new object reaffirms the Thaws’ commitment to the beauty and artistry of American Indian art, and thus strengthens the philosophical foundation of the collection: that the aesthetic power of American Indian art is equivalent to that from any culture.
The collection can be seen in changing galleries and in the Study Center, an open storage space. Since acquiring the Thaw collection, the Fenimore Art Museum has reached new audiences by touring exhibitions, hosting symposiums, publishing new research, and collaborating with American Indian curators and specialists for museum programs and exhibitions.
Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection is traveling to the following locations with more venues to be announced.
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (Mar. 7, 2010 - May 30, 2010)
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN (Oct. 24, 2010 - Jan. 9, 2011)
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN (Dec. 4, 2011 – Feb. 12, 2012)
The exhibition explores the extraordinarily diverse forms of visual expression in American Indian heritage. Organized by geographic culture
areas, the objects were chosen both for their high artistic quality and to provide insight into the complex cultural, aesthetic and spiritual
meanings embedded in the art. The objects date from well before first European contact to the present, and celebrate the continuing vitality
of American Indian art.
“The collection has long been recognized as a national treasure. This traveling exhibition gives us the opportunity to finally share these
significant works with a much larger, national audience,” said Paul D’Ambrosio, Vice President and Chief Curator at the Fenimore Art Museum.
A 120 page, full color catalog will accompany the exhibition.
This exhibition has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic
Genius.
Cooperstown, New York
Cooperstown is a village in Otsego County, New York, USA. It is located in the Town of Otsego. The population was estimated to be 1,852 at the 2010 census.The Village of Cooperstown is the county seat of Otsego County, New York...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, USA, operating under the auspices of the New York State Historical Association
New York State Historical Association
The New York State Historical Association is a private, non-governmental educational organization founded in 1899 to encourage research, educate general audiences, and start a library and museum of manuscripts, artwork, and other objects associated with the history of New York State, USThe...
. It presents changing and permanent exhibitions of American Folk Art, North American Indian
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
art and artifacts, Hudson River School
Hudson River school
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism...
and 19th-century genre paintings, and American photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
.
The Museum was moved to its present location — Cooperstown, New York overlooking Lake Otsego — in 1939 due to a gift from Stephen Carlton Clark
Stephen Carlton Clark
Stephen Carlton Clark, Sr. DSM, was an American art collector, newspaper publisher, benefactor and founder of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.-Biography:...
. Much of the American Fine Art Collection was donated by Clark, a generous art connoisseur.
The museum also has a great deal of material associated with James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo...
, Cooperstown’s most famous native son, and his family. This includes furniture, portraits and paintings, personal effects and books owned by Cooper, as well as manuscripts and first editions of his writings.
The Fenimore Art Museum is closely associated with The Farmers' Museum
Farmers' Museum
The Farmers' Museum is located in Cooperstown, New York, and is probably the second-best-known attraction in the town, after the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum....
, also in Cooperstown.
History
Fenimore Art Museum’s parent organization, the New York State Historical AssociationNew York State Historical Association
The New York State Historical Association is a private, non-governmental educational organization founded in 1899 to encourage research, educate general audiences, and start a library and museum of manuscripts, artwork, and other objects associated with the history of New York State, USThe...
, was founded in 1899 by five New Yorkers interested in promoting a greater knowledge of the early history of the state. They hoped to encourage original research, to educate general audiences by means of lectures and publications, to mark places of historic interest, and to establish a library and museum to hold manuscripts, paintings, and objects associated with New York State. From 1926 until 1939, the Association’s headquarters was in Ticonderoga, New York
Ticonderoga, New York
Ticonderoga is a town in Essex County, New York, USA. The population was 5,167 at the 2000 census. The name comes from the Mohawk tekontaró:ken, meaning "it is at the junction of two waterways"....
in a facsimile of John Hancock’s
John Hancock
John Hancock was a merchant, statesman, and prominent Patriot of the American Revolution. He served as president of the Second Continental Congress and was the first and third Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts...
house in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
.
In 1939, Stephen Carlton Clark
Stephen Carlton Clark
Stephen Carlton Clark, Sr. DSM, was an American art collector, newspaper publisher, benefactor and founder of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.-Biography:...
offered the Association a new home in the village of Cooperstown. Clark took an active interest in expanding the holdings and turned over Fenimore House, one of his family’s properties as a new headquarters and museum. The collections and programs continued to expand and a separate library building was constructed in 1968. In 1995, an 18000 square feet (1,672.3 m²) wing was added to Fenimore House to hold the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection, one of the nation’s premier collections of American Indian art.
Fine Art
The American paintings in the Fenimore Art Museum’s collection were largely assembled by Stephen Carlton ClarkStephen Carlton Clark
Stephen Carlton Clark, Sr. DSM, was an American art collector, newspaper publisher, benefactor and founder of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.-Biography:...
between 1938 and 1960. Clark purchased 18th- and 19th-century landscapes, genre paintings, and portraits that represented the history of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
State, but because of the artists’ stature, reflect early American culture in general. Artists represented in the Fenimore Art Museum's Fine Art collection include William Sidney Mount
William Sidney Mount
William Sidney Mount was an American genre painter and contemporary of the Hudson River School.-Biography:...
, Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century...
, Asher B. Durand, Benjamin West
Benjamin West
Benjamin West, RA was an Anglo-American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American War of Independence...
, Gilbert Stuart
Gilbert Stuart
Gilbert Charles Stuart was an American painter from Rhode Island.Gilbert Stuart is widely considered to be one of America's foremost portraitists...
, and Eastman Johnson
Eastman Johnson
Eastman Johnson was an American painter, and Co-Founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, with his name inscribed at its entrance...
.
The museum also features a collection of "life masks" by John Henri Isaac Browere
John Henri Isaac Browere
John Henri Isaac Browere was an artist in New York in the early 19th-century. He created life masks of Thomas Jefferson, Gilbert Stuart, Lafayette, J.Q. Adams, Edwin Forrest, and other notables.-References:...
that were cast from the faces of famous Americans. The masks include Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
, John Adams
John Adams
John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
, John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...
, DeWitt Clinton
DeWitt Clinton
DeWitt Clinton was an early American politician and naturalist who served as United States Senator and the sixth Governor of New York. In this last capacity he was largely responsible for the construction of the Erie Canal...
, and Dolley Madison
Dolley Madison
Dolley Payne Todd Madison was the spouse of the fourth President of the United States, James Madison, and was First Lady of the United States from 1809 to 1817...
.
The photography collection includes over 120,000 examples with holdings of both professional and amateur photographers from the 19th century.
The museum is currently exhibiting John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
: Portraits in Praise of Women through December 31, 2010. This exhibit features about 25 paintings of American women, including two preparatory sketches for Sargent's infamous Portrait of Madame X
Portrait of Madame X
Madame X or Portrait of Madame X is the informal title of a portrait painting by John Singer Sargent of a young socialite named Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, wife of Pierre Gautreau. The model was an American expatriate who married a French banker, and became notorious in Parisian high society...
. The exhibit is divided into three thematic sections - Women of Fashion, Women of Mystery and Women of Substance.
Folk art
Stephen C. Clark’s major purchases of private collections such as those of modernist sculptor Elie NadelmanElie Nadelman
Elie Nadelman was an American sculptor, draughtsman and collector of Polish birth.-Early years:...
and the pioneering collector and author Jean Lipman form the collection’s core. Artists include Edward Hicks
Edward Hicks
Edward Hicks was an American folk painter, a distinguished minister of the Society of Friends, and he also became a Quaker icon because of his paintings.-Early life:...
, William Matthew Prior
William Matthew Prior
William Matthew Prior was a noted Boston artist, known especially for his portraits, especially of family members.-References:* on Artnet* from Antiques & Fine Art magazine...
, Ammi Phillips
Ammi Phillips
Ammi Phillips , a self-taught New England portrait painter, is regarded as one of the most important folk artists of his era.Phillips was born in Colebrook, Connecticut, and began painting portraits as early as 1810...
, Thomas Chambers
Thomas Chambers
Thomas Chambers was an English administrator and factor of the Honourable East India Company who served as the Agent of Madras from 1658 to 1661 or 1662.- Tenure as Agent of Madras :...
, John Brewster, Jr.
John Brewster, Jr.
John Brewster Jr. was a prolific, deaf itinerant painter who produced many charming portraits of well-off New England families, especially their children...
, and Eunice Pinney. The museum’s 20th-century folk art holdings have grown gradually, spurred on by major gifts such as two Grandma Moses
Grandma Moses
Anna Mary Robertson Moses , better known as "Grandma Moses", was a renowned American folk artist. She is often cited as an example of an individual successfully beginning a career in the arts at an advanced age. Although her family and friends called her either "Mother Moses" or "Grandma Moses,"...
landscapes in 1967 and purchases like Ralph Fasanella’s
Ralph Fasanella
Ralph Fasanella was a self-taught painter whose large, detailed works depicted urban working life and critiqued post-World War II America.-Early life:...
Dress Shop in 1983. In recent years, works by 20th-century folk artists Queena Stovall
Queena Stovall
Queena Stovall was an American folk artist sometimes called "The Grandma Moses of Virginia."Born Emma Serena Dillard in Amherst County, Virginia, she married at age nineteen and began painting at age sixty-two. She completed forty-seven paintings before her death. The Fenimore Art Museum holds her...
and Mario Sanchez
Mario Sanchez
Mario Sanchez is a squash player from Mexico. He was one of the leading hardball squash players in North America in the late-1970s and 1980s.- External links :*...
have been added to the collecion.
Thaw Collection of American Indian Art
Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian ArtIn 1995, the Fenimore Art Museum embarked upon a new era with the addition of a spectacular new American Indian Wing designed to house the extraordinary gift from Eugene and Clare Thaw of their collection of American Indian art. The collection has continued to grow as new objects are added by the Thaws and other donors, and today numbers almost 850 objects. Each new object reaffirms the Thaws’ commitment to the beauty and artistry of American Indian art, and thus strengthens the philosophical foundation of the collection: that the aesthetic power of American Indian art is equivalent to that from any culture.
The collection can be seen in changing galleries and in the Study Center, an open storage space. Since acquiring the Thaw collection, the Fenimore Art Museum has reached new audiences by touring exhibitions, hosting symposiums, publishing new research, and collaborating with American Indian curators and specialists for museum programs and exhibitions.
Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection is traveling to the following locations with more venues to be announced.
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (Mar. 7, 2010 - May 30, 2010)
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN (Oct. 24, 2010 - Jan. 9, 2011)
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN (Dec. 4, 2011 – Feb. 12, 2012)
The exhibition explores the extraordinarily diverse forms of visual expression in American Indian heritage. Organized by geographic culture
areas, the objects were chosen both for their high artistic quality and to provide insight into the complex cultural, aesthetic and spiritual
meanings embedded in the art. The objects date from well before first European contact to the present, and celebrate the continuing vitality
of American Indian art.
“The collection has long been recognized as a national treasure. This traveling exhibition gives us the opportunity to finally share these
significant works with a much larger, national audience,” said Paul D’Ambrosio, Vice President and Chief Curator at the Fenimore Art Museum.
A 120 page, full color catalog will accompany the exhibition.
This exhibition has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic
Genius.