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ANDOVER, Mass. — Two new shows opened this month at the Addison Gallery of American Art — one titled Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the 19th Century, and the other titled Young America: the Daguerreotypes of Southworth and Hawes.
Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the 19th Century provides a critical examination of images made of and by African Americans and their role in establishing and fostering racial identity during a period of radical social change. On display January 14 through March 26, 2006, the exhibition features more than seventy portraits in various media, ranging from paintings, photographs, and silhouettes to book frontispieces and popular prints.
The exhibition includes images dating from the beginning of the American Revolution through the close of the 19th century when the Supreme Court upheld the 1896 decision that ended the era of post-Civil War political gains by establishing state’s rights to legal segregation of the races. These remarkable images are often unexpectedly candid about the aesthetic desires and social goals of both their makers and their sitters.
“This exhibition will change the way we view the images of African Americans in the 19th century,” says Brian Allen, director of the Addison Gallery. “In recent years, a number of cutting-edge African American artists have tackled issues of race and American identity in their work. They very often relied on the use of historical source material and the subversion of archaic media. The Addison’s scrutiny of this little known, yet uncannily familiar, racialized imagery creates a new interest in the politics of 19th-century American art and the role of race in our visual vocabulary.”
Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the 19th Century is organized by the Addison Gallery of American Art and guest curated by Gwendolyn Dubois Shaw, Associate Professor of History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania. It is generously supported in part by Foley Hoag, LLP, Vivian and James Beard, The Middlesex County Chapter of Links, Inc., and other contributors in memory of Charles J. Beard, II (PA ’62).
Young America: The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes, which will be on display at the Addison Gallery of American Art January 28 through April 9, 2006, represents the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of the fine art portraiture of Albert Sands Southworth (1811-94) and Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808-1901). During the infant stages of photography, these two men drew the elite and famous of the time to their Boston studio. The finest practitioners of daguerreotype, their twenty-year partnership elevated the medium to the level of art and produced an unmatched body of work documenting mid-19th century America. This is the only New England showing of this major touring exhibition.
In partnership from 1843 through 1863, Southworth & Hawes took portraiture beyond common commercial photography. In service of a selective clientele that consisted of national and international celebrities, politicians and the intellectually elite, the photographers took extraordinary pains with each commission to adjust pose, expression, hair and lighting. Working with large 8 x 6-inch plate sizes, they produced images that were technically more challenging but aesthetically more beautiful, creating a distinctive style of portraiture that exploited the full range of the beauty of the process.
Young America features numerous portraits of notable subjects including statesman Daniel Webster and literary figures Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Harriet Beecher Stowe.
“This exhibition brings together, for the first time, pictures recognized as national treasures of early American Art,” says Allen. “Southworth’s & Hawes’ understanding of the nature of photography and their masterful application of it is a testament to their genius, earning them a place among the very best photographers at a time when the medium was just beginning.”
Young America: The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes was organized by the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, NY and the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York, New York. The exhibition and related programs are made possible by a major lead grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. The project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Major support is also provided by M&T Bank and Nixon Peabody LLP, with additional support from Frank and Mary Arisman; Furthermore: a program of the J.M Kaplan Fund; and other individual donors.
The Addison’s presentation has been generously funded by the Mollie Bennett Lupe & Garland M. Lasater Exhibitions Fund, and by Alan G. Schwartz, PA ’48, and Steven L. Schwartz, PA ’77.
The Addison Gallery of American Art, located on the campus of Phillips Academy in Andover, is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Sunday 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on Monday. Admission is free to all. The Addison Gallery also offers free education programs for teacher and groups. For more information, call 978-749-4015, or visit the website at www.addisongallery.org.
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