BENTONVILLE - Holly Pyne Connor spent four of her 17 years at the Newark Museum piecing together the major traveling exhibition, Angels & Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art, while carrying out her other duties as curator of 19th century American art at the New Jersey institution.
Having been displayed at the Newark Museum and the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Angels & Tomboys opens for viewing in Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art’s temporary exhibition space today.
The 72-piece collection was shown to sponsors and reporters Thursday. It consists of paintings, sculptures, prints and photographs. Works include landmark paintings by John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Cecilia Beaux and Eastman Johnson, among others.
From Crystal Bridges’ permanent collection, Mary Cassatt’s oil painting, The Reader (1887), also is on display, but it is not part of the traveling exhibition.
The majority of the works, about 50 pieces, is on loan from major institutions across the country.The rest came from private collections and the Newark Museum’s collection.
Connor’s work on the project is some of the most rewarding of her career, she said in a telephone interview.
“It was extremely time-consuming, complicated and involved negotiating multiple loans, organizing a national tour and publishing a book,” Connor said. “I have thoroughly enjoyed researching, writing and lecturing on the topic of 19th century girlhood, a subject that had not previously been explored in an exhibition or catalogue.”
She said she hopes the exhibition paves the way for more in-depth investigations.
The centerpiece of the exhibition, which also is the cover art for the book, is Abbot Handerson Thayer’s Angel (1887), on loan from the Smithsonian. Thayer began painting the portrait of his daughter Mary not long before his wife, Kate, was institutionalized for severe depression. The face of the Angel is said to be a blending of facial features from both his wife and daughter. Thayer also painted a portrait of another daughter, as well as a son.
“Thayer’s despair over his wife and the joy he derived from his children co-existed in his life and in his art,” contributor Barbara Dayer Gallati wrote in an essay for the Angels & Tomboys book.
Kevin Murphy, Crystal Bridges’ curator of American art, said Thayer painted his children as angels “almost as a way to protect them.”
“If they’re angels, they can’t be touched by disease. They’re perfectly pure and the tragedy that sort of engulfed their mother and his wife can’t happen to them,” Murphy said.
Murphy said Thayer’s work is exclusive to museum collections.
“You don’t see them anywhere else, and there are very few of them,” he said.
Crystal Bridges owns a small watercolor by Thayer. His portraits are rare, Murphy said.
Angels & Tomboys runs through Sept. 30. Tickets are $5. Museum members and children 18 and under are admitted for free.
Connor will give a lecture on the exhibition from 4-5 p.m. today at the museum at a cost of $10 for nonmembers. Her address will focus on themes relevant to the exhibition: the impact of theCivil War on families, new feminine types of the late 19th century and Victorian child-rearing practices.
Running concurrent with Angels & Tomboys, Crystal Bridges has on display its collection of historical documents titled Surveying George Washington. The annual exhibition focuses on Washington as a man, rather than a historical figure, and features 20 documents written by the nation’s first president and his contemporaries. All works are on loan from the Harlan R. Crow Library in Dallas.
Documents include a land survey prepared by Washington at age 19 and a copy of the recruiting poster mustering troops for a regiment under Washington’s command during the French and Indian War. The exhibition also includes a first edition of George Washington’s last will and testament, printed from the record of the County Court of Fairfax, Va., in 1800.
For patrons who want a closer look at the documents, officials installed an interactive kiosk outside the dark viewing room. Visitors can move documents, enlarge them and turn pages by touching the screen.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 06/28/2013