Bruce W Chambers Contributor (3 results)

hardcover. Condition: New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title!

hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Spanierman Gallery, LLC [Published Date: 2023]. Hardcover, 151 pp. Catalog published in conjunction with the 2003 retrospective exhibition at Spanierman Gallery. In very good condition/ NO dust jacket. Glossy illustrated Paper over Boards have light bumping to edges and corners and light overall scuffing. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. Includes 45 full color plates and detailed catalog entries for 44 works, encompassing provenance, exhibition history, and bibliographical references. Essays by Richard J. Boyle, Bruce W. Chambers, and William H. Gerdts Preface by Ralph Sessions and foreword by Ira Spanierman; Selected bibliography; Index to Illustrations. [From Preface] After decades of neglect following his death in 1925, Willard Metcalf is today rightly recognized as one of the greatest interpreters of the American landscape. Much of his reputation rests on paintings from the last twenty years of his life, when he concentrated on intimate views and sweeping vistas of the rural New England that he knew so well. By this time, Metcalf had found the means to express a singular vision, and while he sometimes edited his compositions, his canvases captured the essence of the New England countryside with a compelling naturalism and powerful sense of place. It should not be forgotten, though, that Metcalf painted for half a century. He was adept in several mediums, and, in addition to his oils, was a fine muralist and illustrator, even if he was not particularly enamored of some of the work that he undertook to support himself. Critical and financial success did not come quickly or easily either, but he was dedicated to his art and achieved recognition among his peers years before he was widely known to the public. In order to get a true sense of the extent of his accomplishments, then, it is necessary to place his later landscape work in context. This exhibition takes a retrospective view by including paintings from all phases of his career. Metcalf was, in fact, remarkably talented from the start, as a precocious sixteen-year-old apprentice. His steady progress can be charted through his early work along the New England coast in the late 1870s to his sojourn in the Southwest a few years later. The paintings that he completed during his study and travel in Europe and North Africa in the 1880s confirm his increasing strength and self-confidence, while his work from the 1890s and first few years of the twentieth century evidences the virtuosity and craftsmanship that culminated in his later success. Spanierman Gallery has long been involved in the revival of interest in Metcalf, and so I am especially pleased to have had the opportunity to organize this exhibition, calling upon the gallery's extensive records and resources. The Metcalf Catalogue Raisonne Project, which has been sponsored by Spanierman Gallery since 1991, and the painstaking research compiled by Elizabeth de Veer have informed this undertaking from the beginning. In addition, a previous Metcalf exhibition held at the gallery in 1995-96, provided an important precedent. As Ira Spanierman relates in his Foreword, Willard Metcalf's paintings strike a personal chord with all those of us who are fortunate enough to see and study them over an extended period of time.

hardcover. Condition: New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title!