"John Francis Murphy and Chauncey Foster Ryder: Among Tonalism's Many Faces" Exhibition
Spanierman Gallery
This event has ended.
The exhibition presents the work of two painters who created softly toned, suggestively painted scenes of rural landscapes, evoking quiet, meditative moods. Although the two artists were born fifteen years apart and had many differences in their approaches, both exemplified the attitude of American Tonalism at the turn of the twentieth century, expressing an ineffable quality in nature beyond the restless scuffle of everyday life. At the same time, their works convey the diversity of the art belonging within the Tonalism idiom.
Born in Oswego, New York, near Lake Ontario, John Francis Murphy (1853-1921) grew up in Chicago and studied at the Chicago Academy of Design. After moving to New York in 1875, he turned from a descriptive style in the manner of the Hudson River School to a more suggestive approach, emphasizing his emotional responses to nature in a style consisting of limited hues and softly edged forms. By 1880 critics were referring to him as the “American Corot,” acknowledging the impact on his art of the French Barbizon school, with its acute sensitivity to mood and atmosphere. Painting in his studio in the winter, he rendered images from his memories of the country, creating misty atmospheric landscapes often infused with a golden tinted light that softens and harmonizes forms.
Chauncey Foster Ryder (1868-1949) was born in Danbury, Connecticut, and grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, before moving to Chicago in 1891, where he attended the Art Institute and Smith’s Academy. During a trip to Paris, from 1901 to 1907, he studied at the Académie Julian and exhibited at the Paris Salon. By 1907 he had returned to New York, where he joined the group of tonalist artists who congregated in Old Lyme, Connecticut. Instead of working from memory in the typical tonalist manner, Ryder’s usual practice was to paint directly from his subjects, yet his primary aim was not to capture the dispersive effects of light and atmosphere in the impressionist manner, but rather to convey the feelings that his forms evoked and to find enduring and restful qualities in nature.
[Image: John Francis Murphy "Landscape with Stream" (1894) oil on canvas 8 x 10 in.]
Media
Schedule
from May 06, 2010 to June 05, 2010