On January 29, the The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls opens its latest exhibition – Objects of Wonder and Delight: Four Centuries of Still Life from the Norton Museum of Art.
The show brings together fifty-one works of art from the collection of the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida. The subject matter is still life and the exhibition at The Hyde comprises works in a variety of media including painting, watercolor, collage, sculpture, ceramics, glass, and textiles.
Spanning four centuries, from the Ming dynasty of China to the early twenty-first century, this array of images and objects includes all of the major sub-genres of still life such as tabletop arrangements, flowers, and fruits and vegetables. Arranged thematically, the exhibition illustrates both the diversity and the longevity of the still-life tradition in China, Europe, and the United States.
The exhibition, which runs through April 21, 2011, features some of the most famous artists in Western art history, such as Marc Chagall, Gustave Courbet, William Harnett, Robert Mapplethorpe, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe, Yinka Shonibare, and Andy Warhol.
At 2:30 pm on January 29th, Dr. Roger Ward, chief curator of the Norton Museum of Art and organizer of the exhibition, Objects of Wonder and Delight, will provide a lively presentation entitled Birds Pecking at Grapes and Other Shiny Objects: Four Centuries of Still Life from the Norton Museum. The talk will be a fast-paced account of the evolution of still-life painting in Europe and America, from Antiquity to the present, and how the diverse collection for which he is responsible has been deployed to create this exhibition.
The exhibition was organized by the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida.
Illustration: Marsden Hartley (American, 1877–1943): Flounders and Blue Fish, 1942. Oil on rag board. Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida. Bequest of R.H. Norton.