After the Hunt by William Michael Harnett is pictured. MARIA S. YOUNG / TIMES PHOTO
The 11-week run of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s latest major exhibition is in its final days and provides local audiences with a rare opportunity to view dozens of paintings and other works by an eclectic group of Americans ranging from the legendary 19th century ornithologist John James Audubon to 1960s pop art icon Andy Warhol.
Audubon to Warhol: The Art of American Still Life will be open in the museum’s Dorrance Galleries through Jan. 10. Adult admission costs $25, with discounts available for seniors, children and students. Visit www.philamuseum.org or call 215–235–7469 for information.
“This, I think, is one of the most spectacular, but also accessible exhibitions we have presented in recent years,” said the museum’s executive director and CEO, Timothy Rub. “The still life is indeed a great American subject. As a genre, it has been around far longer than the country itself, but it would be fair to say that we as Americans have made it our own.”
Although the term “still life” generally refers to art depicting essentially inanimate objects, such as fruit, flowers, dead animals and table settings, the genre is inclusive of a limitless array of subjects including the very familiar and the exotic. Audubon composed brightly colored and intricately detailed paintings to document his research of American birds. Warhol created images of Campbell’s soup cans and Brillo pad boxes as commentary on 20th century consumer culture.
Curator Mark D. Mitchell described it as “an exhibition of a thousand stories. Every object has a world to offer us, a world to discover, a world to explore, meanings far beyond their often simple, but not always simple subjects.”
The subjects rendered in the exhibition offer a unique perspective on American culture. It encourages viewers to recognize the beauty of everyday objects and to connect with the thoughts and feelings that objects represent to people.
“Each of us has a character that’s reflected in our experience with these things,” Mitchell said.
The exhibition has a strong Philadelphia connection through the works of Charles Willson Peale, the colonial-era naturalist who was a leading figure in the nation’s first generation of still-life painters and whose three sons also became noted artists.
The exhibition features works by more than 100 artists, including Georgia O’Keefe and Andrew Wyeth.
“It is the first major show of its type that covers the subject in more than three decades,” Rub said. “It brings together a great, great group of masterpieces to show the scope and breadth of the genre. It also brings a lot of new information and interpretation to bear on what is an old and sometimes seemingly familiar subject. It breathes new life in wonderful ways into something we are already familiar with.”
“They invite us in on a very personal level,” Mitchell said. “There are so many ways in. If you love flowers, there are ways in. If you love birds, there are ways in. No matter what your interest is, railroads. (There is) a huge gamut of sources, subjects and opportunities to see different, to look differently. And maybe when you come out, you see the world around you a little differently.” ••
Dustin Wingate observes the exhibition. MARIA S. YOUNG / TIMES PHOTO
An array of masterpieces: Audubon to Warhol: The Art of American Still Life will be on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Jan. 10 and features legendary artists like Georgia O’Keefe and Andy Warhol. MARIA S. YOUNG / TIMES PHOTO
