Presents

Curators:  Janice Hodson and Louis Doherty
at the
New Bedford Art Museum

June 5 – September 11, 2010

A Hare in Rum
By Peggi Medeiros

John James Audubon loved New Bedford and the city loved him back. He called it his “beautiful New Bedford” and made extensive visits in 1805, 1839, 1840, 1842 and 1844. At one point he seriously considered buying land and settling here. One of his closest friends, John Page, lived on South Sixth Street. Audubon knew all of our great families from Arnold to Howland to Robeson – and members of those families bought his great books and his less well known oils. Thanks to James Arnold and Andrew Robeson, the New Bedford Free Public Library owns two rare treasures – the Arnold Double Elephant Folio of Birds of America and the Robeson Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America.

James and Sarah Arnold with their daughter Elizabeth are New Bedford’s finest example of how great wealth can be used to create a cultural circle. As did most of New Bedford’s Quakers, they soon left the Society of Friends joining the Unitarian Society. They had the means and leisure to create gardens, host masques and balls, collect art, and travel in Europe. They opened their home frequently for social and cultural events. Former President John Quincy Adams was a guest of James Arnold on two occasions. Zephaniah Pease quotes a description of his second visit in 1843. “And our third visit was to Mr. and Mrs. Arnold, in the same house where we met an evening party in September 1835. The year after which they went to Europe, and traveled there three years. Their house was then graceful and comfortable, and furnished with elegance and at great cost. It is now embellished with many articles of exquisite luxury from Italy, so that it is like a second princely palace.”

According to Waldemar H. Fries comprehensive book, The Double Elephant Folio: The Story of Audubon’s Birds of America, James Arnold, Esq. was the 74th of 82 American subscribers to Audubon’s masterpiece, The Birds of America between 1832 and 1838. Originally the book cost $1,000, which translates to $21,211.75 in 2009 figures. A master salesman, Audubon made sure his subscribers completed their sets by rationing the most desirable birds. Each of the installments contained one of the most coveted large birds (for example the eagle or snowy owls), one medium sized bird and three small. Each of the four, double elephant folio volumes bound by the owner weighed sixty pounds. I believe that Arnold probably had his copy in what is today the office of the Wamsutta Club. The core of the 1821 Arnold Mansion that Audubon knew well is still in largely intact at 427 County Street.

As an international sensation after the publication of Birds of America, Audubon returned regularly to a New Bedford that had become a center of great wealth “dragged up from the sea”. New Bedford was the perfect place to obtain subscribers – a cosmopolitan, elegant city ready to lionize him. Audubon, a master showman and shrewd publisher, toured America selling subscriptions to the smaller, affordable version of Birds of American, a major success that eventually brought his family financial security. During his later visits to New Bedford in he also found subscribers for his last project, the Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. Audubon also sold a series of oil paintings based on his Birds of America images.

Meanwhile John Page had been attempting to help his friend with specimens. It seems that Page had met Audubon in Boston where they became close friends. Page introduced Audubon to his wife’s family, the Almy’s. William Almy living most of the year in the city helped Audubon obtain subscribers and invited him to Thanksgiving dinner with the Page/Amy family.

By October 21, 1841 John Page was trying to help Audubon find specimens for the Quadrepeds.

“My dear Sir,
I hope you are alive, although I have had misgivings, as I have not heard from you since my last, which was a great while ago, but you are so busy with quadrupeds that you have no time to give to bipeds. In the first place, I have had D. Brigham and all the boys in the regions round about under orders to catch a hare, but no have could be caught until yesterday. I have felt mortified that I could not [obtain] one before, but I used every means that I could devise to get one. But now I have a good lookin' fellow, which Brigham says is in first rate order, and I have put him into a keg of rum and send him today by Godfrey's express, with orders to deliver him immediately to your home. I have not been able to get the other beasts . I hope the hare will be what you want, but I have my doubts……”

It’s uncertain if a portrait of the hare in rum made it into the Quads. There is a
lovely swamp hare that is a definite possibility.

John James Audubon knew this city winter and summer. He walked in moonlight, danced with pretty Miss Dana, strolled the famous Arnold garden and caught a lobster from the Fairhaven Bridge. It is only fitting that in 2010 the city will rediscover the glory of his life and work.

 

 

 

Funded in part by

 

 

 

Birds of the Enlightenment
Predecessors and Contemporaries of J.J. Audubon
Tom Puryear - Curator

 

Everyone knows or assumes they know John James Audubon and his work. It is easy to be sure that he was the first artist to study birds and turn them into high art. Not true and Birds of the Enlightenment: Predecessors and Contemporaries of J.J. Audubon proves the point brilliantly.

 

 

New Bedford Art Museum Guest Curator, Tom Puryear, has assembled a collection of over 75 wood cuts, hand-colored engravings and lithographs from both sides of the Atlantic to bring guests of the New Bedford Art Museum a broad sampling of the publications that preceded and then competed for attention with Audubon’s majestic images.

This exhibition includes original bird illustrations from some eighty different publications that involved more than twice that many artists, editors, engravers, writers, printers, and illustrators who gave direction to this endeavor.

Mr. Puryear notes in his Curator’s statement, “[Audubon] was, however, by no means the first to produce crisp and accurate images of birds for sale to an increasingly curious public. He was also, in many ways, the culmination of a trend begun in the late Italian Renaissance, around 1560, to accurately document and classify the apparent chaos of life that surrounds mankind in the natural world. Dozens of publications intent upon organizing and describing the natural world appeared from the middle of the 16th century to the end of the 18th. These are the early years of scientific inquiry. We call this period The Enlightenment.”

 

 

Vault Series: Portraits
Joan Backes - Curator

 

"Fact and Fiction" by Robin Tewes

 

Joan Backes noted recently, “Vault Series: Portraits includes the work of sixteen contemporary artists.  These artists live and work in different regions of the United States, as well as in Berlin and Indonesia. Some have long and distinguished careers, some are mid-career artists, and some are young artists with promising careers.

This exhibition includes the traditional media of painting, drawing, collage, and printmaking.  It includes new technology with video.  These artists’ works range from self-portraits, to portrait studies for future paintings, to portraits of others, to experimental portrait drawings and collage, to portraits of family members, to portraits involving the use of memory.”

Ms. Backes went on to say, “The portrait has been an art form since ancient times.  It has been used to record the likeness, personality, and mood of the sitter.  In western art the most famous portrait may be the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. Yet portraiture can be traced to those made in the Vilhonneur grotto in France thought to be 27,000 years old.  Portraits were made to document and to save the likeness of historic figures such as kings, queens, emperors, and gods.  Artists have also depicted scenes from everyday life showing families, other artists, writers, inventors, etc. Often these works include personal belongings that tell the viewer more about the subject.”  

 

Self-portrait by Fred Bell