Library Director Joe Da Rold and Board President Anne Robinson with Winslow Homer's 'Looking Over the Cliff'.
'Looking Over the Cliff', a watercolor by American painter Winslow Homer and one of the finest and most noteworthy in the fine art collection of the Plainfield Public Library is being featured in an exhibit mounted at the Art Institute of Chicago entitled 'Watercolors by Winslow Home: The Color of Light.'
Da Rold and board members Anne Robinson (board president), and Carol Anderson-Lewis are traveling to Chicago at their own expense to preview the exhibit and take part in ceremonies honoring lenders to the exhibit.
Director Da Rold and the Library Board have been working with the exhibit curator at the Art Institute since October of 2006. The library’s painting will be one of 130 watercolors, drawings and oil paintings in the exhibit.
Under tight security, the painting left Plainfield last week and arrived in Chicago on Wednesday in the middle of a winter storm that delivered 15 inches of snow.
Homer’s imagery of two women standing together is repeated in many of the works from his Cullercoats (England) series. This painting from the Library's collection has found great popularity in art circles and has been exhibited widely, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Whitney Museum in New York City, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, and the Center for the Fine Arts in Miami. Da Rold say that he and the Board are especially proud to be participating in this exhibit because the Art Institute of Chicago is recognized as one of the great museums of the world.
A color reproduction of 'Looking Over the Cliff' appears in the 2001 book, “The Watercolors of Winslow Homer” by Miles Unger. An image of the same work will soon be appearing in a catalog being prepared by Harvard University Art Museum, entitled “American Paintings at Harvard: Artists Born from 1826 to 1856,” in juxtaposition with a wash drawing by Homer in their own collection.
The Plainfield Public Library owns three original artworks by Winslow Homer. They were donated to the library in 1931 by Benjamin F. Day, who had spent his boyhood in North Plainfield before moving to New York City. The library also owns more than 50 original engravings that were published in Harpers Weekly magazine in the mid-1800’s.
Da Rold, who is also Chairperson of the Plainfield Cultural & Heritage Commission, says he is always delighted when the quality of the library’s art collection is recognized. In 2002, the U.S. Department of State borrowed one of the library’s paintings by John F. Carlson to hang in the American Embassy in Stockholm.
In his fourteen years as Library Director in Plainfield, Joe has developed the collection with works of local artists. Many are on public view in the conference rooms on the lower level of the library. The images of many of the library’s paintings can be seen on its website at www.plfdpl.info.
Winslow Homer was born in Boston in 1836 and died in Maine in 1910. He began his career as a free-lance magazine illustrator in 1857 and won praise for many of his paintings, his watercolors in particular. His first mature oil paintings, dating from 1862, were of Civil War subjects. In these, he was concerned with the effect of light and shade, much like the early French Impressionists of the same period. Homer's work took him to many locales which appear frequently in his paintings. In addition to the coasts of New England and Cullercoats, he also painted in the West Indies, and Long Branch, New Jersey.
-- Dan Damon
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