Sheldon Treasures, Fall 2022

Sheldon Treasures August–December 2022 Learning Guide

Sheldon Treasures August–December 2022 In this gallery installation, we highlight the museum’s extensive holdings of American landscape paintings.

Hung chronologically from 1826 to 2008, this selection of works shows a gradual transformation in depictions of the environment as artists moved from the studio to plein air (outdoors) and began to reconsider their approaches to landscape through form, color, and perspective.

Exhibition support is provided by Assurity, Kim Robak and William Mueller, Rhonda Seacrest, Sutton Dermatology + Aesthetics, and Union Bank & Trust.

Sheldon Treasures August–December 2022

THOMAS COLE Catskill Mountains Landscape

THOMAS DOUGHTY Hudson River

ROBERT SELDON DUNCANSON Untitled (Woodland Scene)

MARGUERITE ZORACH Provincetown, Sunrise and Moonset

JOHN SLOAN Rio Grande Country

MARSDEN HARTLEY Mount Katahdin, Autumn, No. 1

FAIRFIELD PORTER ALBERT BIERSTADT River Landscape

GEORGE INNESS

Long Island Landscape With Red Building

JANE FREILICHER My Cubism

The Farmhouse

ROCKWELL KENT Headlands, Monhegan

RACKSTRAW DOWNES Barn on the Rio Grande I

WILLIAM GLACKENS Mahone Bay

THOMAS COLE

Bolton le Moors, United Kingdom 1801–Catskill, NY 1848 Catskill Mountains Landscape Oil on panel, circa 1826 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gift of A. Bromley Sheldon U-267.1959

Back to Contents

In Catskill Mountains Landscape, Thomas Cole paints a mountain range at dawn just as the morning light burns off fog in the distance.

Near the foreground, a small, lone figure dressed in red gazes at a dead tree that is dramatically sunlit.

Cole, an English-born painter, is considered to be the father of the Hudson River school, a

THOMAS COLE

group of artists who embraced the unspoiled

Catskill Mountains Landscape

vistas of the Hudson Valley—just north of New York City where they had studios— as their inspiration. Influenced by British landscape painters as well as the aesthetic theory of the sublime, an emotional response that transcends rational thought and words, Cole often painted tiny figures taking in the monumental splendor of their environment.

Back to Contents

THOMAS DOUGHTY

Philadelphia, PA 1793–New York, NY 1856 Hudson River Oil on canvas, circa 1932 Nebraska Art Association Nelle Cochrane Woods Memorial N-170.1963

Back to Contents

In this painting, Thomas Doughty portrays an idyllic sailing scene in the Catskills from a perspective that places us, as viewers, above the trees to encounter the wide expanse of the Hudson River. Much like Thomas Cole’s figure in Catskill Mountain Landscape, the sailboat is dwarfed by its majestic, natural surroundings.

Doughty is regarded as one of the first

THOMAS DOUGHTY

American artists to specialize in landscape

Hudson River

painting. A native Philadelphian who lacked formal artistic training, Doughty developed his style by copying the work of European masters housed in local private collections.

His paintings primarily consist of serene lake and river views inspired by his explorations of the eastern United States. Doughty is a transitional figure in the history of American landscape painting, melding the intimacy of English pastoral landscapes with the untamed wilderness of the Northeast, a region also depicted by his immediate successors, Cole and the Hudson River school.

Back to Contents

ROBERT SELDON DUNCANSON Fayetteville, NY 1821–Detroit, MI 1872 Untitled (Woodland Scene) Oil on canvas, 1860/65 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-3115.2012

Back to Contents

In this painting by Robert Seldon Duncanson, a winding path leads the viewer through a wooded area toward an open clearing.

Duncanson was the first African-American artist to receive national and international recognition. Born into a family of painters, he first worked as a house painter in Monroe, Michigan. During the 1850s, he began to paint on canvas, specializing in landscapes in the style of the Hudson River school. His

ROBERT SELDON DUNCANSON Untitled (Woodland Scene)

works ranged from observations of scenery to imaginary compositions that often referred to literary themes. By 1863, and for the remainder of the Civil War, Duncanson traveled to Canada, where he influenced a generation of younger artists.

Back to Contents

ALBERT BIERSTADT

Solingen, Germany 1830–New York, NY 1902 River Landscape Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 1867 Nebraska Art Association Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Abraham M. Adler N-137.1961

Back to Contents

Albert Bierstadt immigrated to America with his family at a young age but returned to his native Germany in the 1850s to study art at the Düsseldorf Academy. Over the course of his lifetime, Bierstadt made several excursions to the American West, where he produced hundreds of drawings and studies that he later

ALBERT BIERSTADT River Landscape

translated into finished canvases in his studio.

In the 1860s, Bierstadt created a number of paintings featuring dramatic sunrises and sunsets set against towering trees and awe-inspiring geological formations. River Landscape is a fictive amalgamation of several possible locations within California’s Yosemite Valley or possibly the area around Lake Tahoe. Influenced by Manifest Destiny, the nineteenth-century belief that westward expansion of the US was divinely justified, River Landscape serves today’s viewers as a reminder of the lands, cultures, and lifestyles taken from Indigenous communities and tribal nations in the Americas.

Back to Contents

GEORGE INNESS

Newburgh, NY 1825–Bridge of Allan, Scotland 1894 The Farmhouse Oil on canvas, circa 1894 Nebraska Art Association Given in loving memory of Lorraine LeMar Rohman by Melanie R. Waites, Carl P. Rohman II, Stephen L. Rohman, and G. Peter D. Rohman N-674.1985

Back to Contents

In George Inness’s nearly impenetrable painting The Farmhouse, tonal variations of greens and yellows subtly reveal a muted pastoral landscape. In the center, Inness depicts a figure walking across a lush field while the titular structure barely appears on the edge of the canvas. Rather than striving for replication, his painting suggests reality with soft, indefinite forms, characteristics later associated in the early nineteenth

GEORGE INNESS

century with tonalism.

The Farmhouse

Inness’s atmospheric effects and colorism stem from his interest in the Barbizon school, a group of European artists known for their fresh, loose brushstrokes and focus on nature as subject. He was also influenced by the writings of philosopher and mystic Emanual Swedenborg, who believed there is correspondence between the spiritual and the natural worlds. For Inness, attempting to convey religious meaning in his landscapes was more important than a realistic depiction of a particular place. In The Farmhouse, Inness wants to immerse the viewer in a sublime state.

Back to Contents

ROCKWELL KENT

Tarrytown, NY 1882–Plattsburgh, NY 1971 Headlands, Monhegan Oil on canvas, 1909 Nebraska Art Association Nelle Cochrane Woods Memorial N-244.1971

Back to Contents

In Rockwell Kent’s Headlands, Monhegan, waves crash and recede from the craggy coastline of a remote island as the sun begins to set. Beginning in 1905, Kent lived for periods of time on Monhegan Island, off the coast of Maine. When not working as a well driller, lighthouse keeper, or fisherman, he sketched and painted the Atlantic Ocean as it collided with the island’s rocky terrain.

ROCKWELL KENT

Monhegan’s harsh winds and uneven ground

Headlands, Monhegan

made it especially difficult to paint and sketch outdoors.

Kent’s landscapes of northern territories such as Alaska, New England, Newfoundland, and Greenland are often dramatized by long shadows and crepuscular skies. His broad, expressive brushstrokes and crisp borders capture Monhegan’s rugged, windswept headlands, a popular destination for visiting artists including Kent’s mentor, Robert Henri.

Back to Contents

WILLIAM GLACKENS

Philadelphia, PA 1870–Westport, CT 1938 Mahone Bay Oil on canvas, 1910 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-193.1938

Back to Contents

Although usually associated with early twentieth-century artists of the Ashcan school and their realistic portrayals of urban subjects, William Glackens more often depicted leisure scenes in cafés, parks, restaurants, and at the beach. He painted this canvas during the summer of 1910 while he and his family vacationed on Nova Scotia’s Mahone Bay, a popular destination

WILLIAM GLACKENS Mahone Bay

for American tourists. Also around this time, Glackens abandoned the darker palette of his earlier paintings and adopted the bright, high-keyed colors of French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who would remain a singular influence through the remainder of Glackens’s career.

Back to Contents

MARGUERITE ZORACH

Santa Rosa, CA 1887–New York, NY 1968 Provincetown, Sunrise and Moonset Oil on canvas, 1916 Nebraska Art Association Nelle Cochrane Woods Memorial N-229.1968

Back to Contents

Marguerite Zorach captured the subtle effects of morning light shimmering over the waters of Cape Cod Bay off the coast of Massachusetts by painting both the sun rising at left and the moon setting at right. Her interest in auroral light is similar to Rockwell Kent’s fascination with dusk in Headlands, Monhegan.

Zorach’s decisions to flatten this three-

MARGUERITE ZORACH

dimensional scene and to reduce the

Provincetown, Sunrise and Moonset

landscape to bold, bright planes reveal her understanding of the cubist construction of space and fauvist use of color championed by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse respectively.

Zorach’s grasp of the period’s most current trends in painting was widely recognized—her paintings were included in the 1913 Armory Show, the controversial exhibition in New York that introduced European modernism to the American public.

Back to Contents

JOHN SLOAN

Lock Haven, PA 1871–Hanover, NH 1951 Rio Grande Country Oil on canvas, 1925 Nebraska Art Association Nelle Cochrane Woods Memorial N-341.1975

Back to Contents

I like to paint the landscape in the Southwest because of the fine geometrical formations and the handsome color…The piñon trees dot the surface of the hills and mesas with exciting textures…Because the air is so clear you feel the reality of the things in the distance.

—John Sloan Beginning in 1919, John Sloan and his family spent their summers in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

JOHN SLOAN Rio Grande Country

His time in the Southwest away from teaching at the Art Students League in New York was spent painting vast landscapes, nearby pueblos, and Native American rituals he encountered. In Rio Grande Country, Sloan paints the rolling red hills near his home, slightly tilting the mountainous background upward to extend the sightline of the viewer.

Rather than employing a visual perspective that dissolves elements in the distance, his use of a high horizon line helps establish and define the faraway mountains.

Back to Contents

MARSDEN HARTLEY

Lewiston, ME 1877–Ellsworth, ME 1943 Mount Katahdin, Autumn, No. 1 Oil on canvas, 1939–1940 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust H-232.1943

Back to Contents

After spending years traveling the globe, Marsden Hartley returned to his native Maine in 1937. With the intent of establishing himself as “the painter of Maine,” Hartley set out to depict the state’s highest peak, Mount Katahdin. To do so, Hartley made the arduous journey to the base of the mountain in October 1939, spending eight days creating sketches that he would use as references for

MARSDEN HARTLEY

finished works. Inspired by Paul Cézanne’s

Mount Katahdin, Autumn, No. 1

numerous renditions of Mont Saint-Victoire, Hartley painted approximately eighteen works representing Mount Katahdin over a span of three years.

In this painting, Hartley breaks up the landscape into four discernible areas, each a different distance from the viewer.

The choppy blue water of Katahdin Lake is closest to the viewer, followed by a scarlet forest of autumnal trees. Behind them the imposing, backlit Mount Katahdin rises under a bright sky strewn with clouds. Unlike Cézanne’s painterly technique that scarcely distinguishes land from sky, Hartley’s use of contrasting colors allows viewers to perceive greater depth between areas.

Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from Les Lauves, 1904–1905, oil on canvas, 25 1/8 x 32 1/8 inches, Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 38-6.

Back to Contents

FAIRFIELD PORTER

Winnetka, IL 1907–Southampton, NY 1975 Long Island Landscape With Red Building Oil on canvas, circa 1962 Nebraska Art Association Gift of the artist’s estate N-580.1981

Back to Contents

In 1949, Fairfield Porter moved his family of seven to a house in Southampton, Long Island, a few hours east of Manhattan. Unimpressed by most of the nonobjective, abstract art of his day, Porter made paintings inspired by French postimpressionists Édouard Vuillard

FAIRFIELD PORTER

and Pierre Bonnard, who favored intimate

Long Island Landscape With Red Building

domestic scenes and landscapes in vivid colors. Their paintings, along with Porter’s, do not appear staged or composed, rather, they simply depict moments of everyday life.

In Long Island Landscape With Red Building, Porter paints an ordinary scene in his quiet, seaside village. On the side of the road, we encounter a small parking lot beside a bright red building where livestock feed and supplies were sold. In the distance, gathered daubs of paint represent hills, trees, and faraway structures. Porter’s deft use of color captures the warm temperature of a Long Island summer’s day. While his paintings may appear literal, Porter is most interested in the peculiar effect of light in his scenes and invites the viewer to discover passages of abstraction in his work.

Back to Contents

JANE FREILICHER

New York, NY 1924¬–New York, NY 2014 My Cubism Oil on linen, 2004 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust U-6992.2022

Back to Contents

A button of color can make the world shake.

—Jane Freilicher Fairfield Porter met Jane Freilicher in 1952 when he reviewed her first gallery exhibition for ArtNews. They quickly became friends through their shared affinity for painterly figuration and admiration of artists Édouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard. In 1965, Freilicher and her family moved to a penthouse apartment in lower Manhattan, where she converted a rooftop greenhouse into her

JANE FREILICHER

painting studio. Surrounded by windows that

My Cubism

overlooked mid-rise buildings along Twelfth Street and Fifth Avenue, Freilicher painted still lifes that meld with the cityscape.

In My Cubism, pale pink petunias and yellow nasturtiums tower over the bustling scene below. Behind the flowers, nondescript buildings stack on top of one another and dissolve into the twilight sky. Whether in Manhattan or her second home in Long Island, Freilicher used windows to compose ambiguous spaces that vacillate between inside and outside.

Back to Contents

RACKSTRAW DOWNES

born Pembury, United Kingdom 1939 Barn on the Rio Grande I Oil on canvas, 2008 University of Nebraska–Lincoln Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust and the Olga N. Sheldon Acquisition Trust U-6866.2019

Back to Contents

Rackstraw Downes is a quintessential pleinair painter. His hyperreal, panoramic views of New York City, rural Maine, and various

RACKSTRAW DOWNES Barn on the Rio Grande I

parts of Texas are all painted outside in situ.

Unlike previous artists, who depicted the majesty of the outdoors, Downes presents an unvarnished, wholly accurate depiction of his environment.

For Barn on the Rio Grande I, Downes paints an arid morning landscape in Presidio, Texas, where he lives part-time. Two sketches of the scene in Sheldon’s collection show him working through the composition two years before completing the painting. In one drawing, he attached additional pieces of paper on both ends to extend the curved horizon line. His painstaking process can take years and involves hours of sketching and painting outdoors: I work longer on [the drawings], because they save me time on my big paintings. You figure things out. It is very hard to work on a large canvas outdoors, working perceptually. You can’t see around it, you can’t see over it. You can’t relate the left hand to the right hand. It is very hard to see the whole thing. So if you work smaller, it’s easier to get from the left hand into the right.

— Rackstraw Downes

Back to Contents