Yet another reason to visit Williamstown, Mass. this summer: The Prendergast In Italy exhibition at the Williams College Museum of Art, which I mentioned here in passing several weeks ago, was
unveiled this weekend. I drove up for the opening on Friday.
Disclosure: I am a lender of a small, very atypical work in the exhibition — the first and probably the last time that will occur. At the dinner for lenders, I was seated among the curators — Nancy Mowll Mathews, the chief organizer of the exhibition; Elizabeth Kennedy, Curator of Collection at the Terra Foundation, WCMA’s intellectual and financial partner on the show; and Susan Davidson, senior curator of the Guggenheim, which will put the show on view in Venice, but not New York anymore. We gossiped about American art, among other things.
But back to the show, which has more than 60 views of Venice, Rome, Siena, and Capri, as well as various sketchbooks, letters, and photographs. They are beautifully colorful, mostly, and far more varied than you’d imagine.
Aside giving visual pleasure, Prendergast’s work in Italy, which he visited in 1898 and again in 1911, was critical to his
career. A show of his work at MacBeth Gallery in 1900, cemented his reputation. As Mathews writes in the catalogue, it consisted mainly of watercolors of Venice and was described as “one of the most interesting and unconventional exhibitions now on view” — a pretty mean feat considering that Venice had been portrayed by artist after artist for more than 20 years and was a stale subject by 1900.
Well-grounded in Modernism (I am eager to see which works of his are in the upcoming Cezanne and American Modernism exhibit), and aware that his sense color was a strongpoint, Prendergast developed a unique style. No one would mistake a Prendergast for anything else.
It’s weird then, that his style seemed to be a dead-end. It didn’t lay groundwork for an artistic advance, and — to my knowledge — he has no “followers,” no well-known artist who cites him as a key influence. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a wonderful artist, though.
It’ll be interesting to read what critics say now, about this exhibit.
WCMA has a website devoted to the exhibition, with an interactive map of Venice, among other things. And The Boston Globe published an article about the development of the show last week (here). But go to Williamstown, if you can. Prego.
P.S. And while you’re there, of course visit the Clark Art Institute to see Dove/O’Keeffe: Circles of Influence, which I wrote about here a few weeks ago.
Photo Credits: Canal – Venice, 1989-99, Abby and Alan D Levy (top); Fiesta-Venice-S. Pietro in Volta, 1898-99, Williams College Museum of Art (bottom).