This Month at Maryhill
Greetings,
The rain, the snow, the brisk west winds — none of it can blunt the excitement building here for the March 15 opening of our 2009 season.
Learn more, later in the newsletter, about the first exhibit of the season, focused on the Hudson River School.
To get you and the show off to a rousing start, we’ve packed the agenda that day with informative activity for all. At 2 p.m. you can meet the collector of all work in the show, Dr. Michel Hersen, and learn about his passion for the work.
Curator Lee Musgrave guides first-day visitors on an informative walk through the exhibit at 3 p.m. And at 1, 2 and 3 p.m., just for Family Fun, children under 17 can create their own Hudson River-style landscapes using unconventional materials.
Join us from 4 to 5 p.m. that day for a reception. And if the subject matter doesn’t get you excited, then maybe the mulled cider and spice cake will.
That’s because, at Maryhill Museum, we appeal to all sorts of tastes.
Mark your calendar. We expect to see you here.
Colleen Schafroth
Executive Director
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| Photography Sandra Leibman, Maryhill Museum Staff |
Museum News
Mark Your Calendar for Hudson River School Exhibit Opening
Two months plus, and counting, until Maryhill Museum reopens with a stunning exhibit of work from the Hudson River School. The debut show of the 2009 season, Hudson River Sojourn, draws its 34 paintings entirely from the collection of Dr. Michel and Victoria Hersen.
Dr. Hersen will join Maryhill’s curator of exhibits, Lee Musgrave, for talks on opening day, March 15. They will discuss the Hudson River School, a body of landscape painting that emerged from artists active mainly in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Their subject matter? As one might infer, it included the natural world of the Hudson River Valley in New York state, as well as the Catskill, Berkshire and White Mountains. Later artists of the Hudson River School chose as their subjects the wild lands farther west.
The exhibit features paintings by such artists as Jasper Francis Cropsey, Asher Brown Durand, William McDougal Hart, David Johnson and Jervis McEntee.
Marked by striking use of light and a romanticized, reverential regard for the wild, the work of the Hudson River School represented humanity as a benign and respectful intruder in the landscape.
“We are delighted to be able to loan these paintings to Maryhill Museum of Art,” says Dr. Hersen.
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John Henry Hill (1839–1922), Late Summer in the Catskills, 1857, oil on canvas, 8.5”x8.5” arched top.
Hudson River Sojourn: From the Collections of Dr. Michel Hersen and Mrs. Victoria Hersen.
Photography Paul Foster. |
To preview more paintings in the exhibit, and learn more, go to the museum's website.
LOOKING AHEAD
Stories of the Hudson River School Pique Family Fun in May
From 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 16, local storyteller Teddy Cole and award-winning arts educator Mary Cooper will guide children under 17 on an adventurous exploration of art from the Hudson River School. Hands-on learning activities promise young people a new appreciation of storied art on exhibit elsewhere in the Museum. One paid adult admission earns free admission to Family Fun activities for young people under 17.
Behind the Scenes
Arthur G. Dunn Guild Builds Support for Maryhill
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| Members of the Arthur G. Dunn Guild and artist Tom Hererra with his sculpture, Queen for a Day. The work was completed in 2006 to celebrate the anniversary of Queen Marie’s dedication of the museum, and purchased by the Guild for Maryhill. In the back row, from left to right, are Cathy Dickson, Tom Hererra, Bill Dickson and Kim McGinnis. Seated in the front are Char Dunn McGinnis and Karen Smith. |
Sam Hill loved—and lived in—Seattle, and Seattle loves Hill’s legacy, the Maryhill Museum of Art.
For the past quarter century, the Arthur G. Dunn Guild has provided a focal point for the affection.
Through its efforts over the years, the Guild has raised more than $75,000 to support capital projects at the Museum. Along the way, longtime supporters of the Museum have had a lot of fun, and recruited new supporters, some of whom have yet to see the Museum, but have learned to appreciate it from a distance.
President of the Guild for the last decade, Char Dunn-McGinnis says Ruthmarie Gratzer started the Guild in the early 1980s as a way to unite Seattle-area supporters, with two chief goals in mind. Raise money. Build awareness.
So far, so good.
The Guild was named in honor of Dunn-McGinnis’s late father. Arthur G. Dunn Jr., a Seattle attorney and longtime Maryhill board member, died in 1998.
The Guild organizes a couple of fund-raising events each year. Upwards of 60 members actively take part, in such “fun-raising” activities as the Mad Hatter’s Party and the “Who Killed the Taxman?” Party.
Its efforts have left a visible impact on Maryhill Museum of Art.
“Each year we ask the director what she feels would be the best thing to have funded by however much money we’ve collected,” Dunn-McGinnis says.
Past investments include the oak gallery benches, a restoration of the Sam Hill Globe and the Lord Frederic Leighton painting Solitude, purchase of The Grace Blue heron sculpture on the museum grounds, and republication of John Tuhy’s biography of Sam Hill, The Prince of Castle Nowhere.
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| Frederic Leighton (British, 1830 – 1896), Solitude. 1890. Oil on canvas. Collection of Maryhill Museum of Art. |
Maryhill, to Dunn-McGinnis, is so much more than a museum. That’s what she tries to convey to other supporters of the arts who may wonder why they should get enthused about a place in remote Klickitat County, Washington.
She’s a convincing recruiter.
“It’s not so much the building or the collections or the history, but when you go and stand on the property and the wind hits your face, it’s a mystical experience,” she says.
“I tell people to go down and visit, and they come back and say they had no idea,” she says. “I have people who are new members of the Guild, who are becoming supporters and friends, who have never been to Maryhill.”
Yet.
Learn more about The Arthur G. Dunn Guild or visit their website at www.dunnguild.org.
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