ART IS BLOOMING IN THE LOCKHART GALLERY by Libby Clay

ART IS BLOOMING IN THE LOCKHART GALLERY

by Libby Clay

We have had hints of the coming spring, in the yellowing of the willows, the peeping through of crocuses and scilla and in the honking of V-formation geese.  For reinforcement, spend a few minutes in the Lockhart Gallery, where spring, and even summer, has already arrived.  Thanks to the sponsorship of The Council, we have a beautiful garden that we don’t even have to tend. Pick yourself a bouquet.

The kimono-clad woman in Spring (76.22), painted by Charles Webster Hawthorne, greets us as we enter, and offers us freshly picked daffodils and narcissus.  Perhaps this painting reminded George Eastman of his own garden, for it is from his collection.

If you prefer, let yourself enter the woodland setting of M. Wendy Gwirtzman’s Spring.  Stand back a bit and let the rhythms of the tulips and the rocks soothe you.  The fir tree in the left background invites you to go deeper into the woods to savor the solitude.

Do you smell roses?  It must be coming from Jeanne Lindsay’s Rose Garden next door.  You are suddenly immersed in roses, with thorns so benign that you can gather an armful of fragrance without being pricked.  Both Jeanne and Wendy are dear friends of the Gallery, and the sharing of their talents has helped many a would-be artist create their own gardens.

By the way, species of roses have been in cultivation for  than 3000 years in gardens in China, Persia, Egypt and the Greek Islands.  They have been used as food, medicine, decoration and perfume.  Queen Elizabeth I took the Tudor rose as her personal emblem and the Empress Josephine had 250 varieties at Malmaison.  Ninety percent of our cultivated roses are of foreign origin, and even the so-called wild roses are escapees from early gardens.

The iris garden is located at the back of the gallery.  Lowell Nesbitt’s lithograph, Iris (75.259), is startlingly realistic, and is from his series of over 400 flower subjects.  Nesbitt, born in Balti, is known as a photo realist, and he intends the viewer to see a monumental flower with an impersonal eye.

To the left is Elmer Macrae’s Purple Iris (77.144), a lovely watercolor painted in 1916.  His iris spring sunward with great energy.  In Greek mythology, Iris was the messenger of the gods, appearing to mortals in the form of a rainbow.

Macrae studied with John Twachtman at the Art Students League and later succeeded him as leader of the artists’ colony centered at the Holley House in Cos Cob, Connecticut.  Cos Cob became one of the leading centers of American Impressionism. Ironically, MacRae was later one of the principal organizers of the 1913 Armory show, which diverted attention from the Impressionists to  modern art movements.Karl Schrag, master printmaker and painter, explores the mysterious quality of nature with his Iris, Pale Sea and Sky (71.49) in gouache on paper.  His velvety iris have been plucked and confined to a vase, while the sea rolls free in the background.  We are invited to daydream about vacation days to come.

Iris, also known as “flags,” were favorites of American colonists.  Thomas Jefferson once requested that his sister send him some by mule from Monticello to his Lynchburg residence.

Flowers are also represented here in two media unusual for the Gallery.  One, a lacy valentine, shows meticulous work with scissors and glue, as well as a keen eye for design.  The faint fold-marks hint that someone once received (and kept) this special gift.  Next to it hangs a “painting” done in needlework. A background of black flannel is a perfect stage for the profusion of flowers executed in both needlepoint and crewel embroidery.  Look closely at the number of tiny French knots that form the centers of the blooms, and imagine the number of hours it must have taken to create this.

Agnes Jeffrey’s Flowers in a Vase (87.40), from circa 1850, was also featured in the 1994 “Art in Bloom.” It shows an old-fashioned bouquet gracefully arranged in a cornucopia-shaped pressed glass vase, and is in the tradition of botanical illustration.  Miss Jeffrey, born in Edinburgh, first studied there and in London, and by the 1830s had developed a remarkable proficiency.  In 1838 she sailed for America and, via the Erie Canal, joined her brother in Canandaigua.  She made her living teaching art in Canandaigua and later Rochester.  One of her pupils was the great benefactress of the Memorial Art Gallery, Emily Sibley Watson.

Helen Wolcott Hooker was another Rochester flower painter.  She would have had no trouble finding inspiration for her Basket of Flowers (44.74), for her father, Henry E. Hooker, operated a nursery in Rochester.  She may have executed some of the sketches for the catalog furnished by the nursery.

At one time, the Hooker land extended along East Avenue from Goodman to Oxford Street, all the way back to what is now Monroe Avenue.  Imagine 40,000 roses blooming on East Avenue! Henry Hooker laid out and planted numerous streets on his property, notably Brighton Street, which he lined with cut-leafed birch trees.  He also planted the famous magnolias on Oxford Street.

Marie Via collected the quotations which enhance the walls of this exhibition. One, from Ralph Waldo Emerson, seems particularly apt. “The earth laughs in flowers.”  Enjoy the Lockhart!

Sources: Material was liberally borrowed, with permission, from wall signage by Marie Via and Libby Clay for the May 1994 “Art in Bloom.” Information about individual flowers was supplied by Joan Baden, also in 1994.