The Joslyn

Six busy months went by in a flash of teaching, painting, arts festivals and so on. And no museum visits.

But a month or so ago I had business in Omaha and time enough after its conclusion to visit the Joslyn Art Museum, set on a hill not far from downtown Omaha. The museum opened in the 1930s, a gift to the city from Sarah Joslyn in memory of her husband George, who had been the wealthiest man in Nebraska through a number of business interests, particularly what was known as pre-printed news--basically news features provided to small town newspapers with limited reportorial resources. The museum was originally going to be a concert hall, and does include a large auditorium, but galleries were included to house two Omaha art collections, Art Institute of Omaha and Friends of Art. Other donations and major purchases followed and make up the current collection.

The building itself is a beautiful example of Art Deco architecture, with soaring spaces and a lot of

Joslyn Entrance (photo: Eric Gunther)

light. The galleries containing the majority of works I was interested in seeing--European painting mostly--are to the left of the entryway. Time being limited I spent more time there than in the remainder. The collection has works by a number of well-known artists, including Rembrandt, El Greco, Veronese, Bouguereau, Monet, and Renoir. They also have American works from Eakins, Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Thomas Hart Benton, and Jackson Pollock. It's certainly an impressive (and not inclusive) list of artists that the museum owns. Although small, the Joslyn is first-class, especially for a regional institution. It's well worth the visit if you happen to be in Omaha.

In no particular order, here are a few of my favorites from the collections.

Rembrandt von Rijn, "Dirk van Os," ca 1658

One painting that I definitely wanted to see was the portrait "Dirk van Os," ca 1658, by Rembrandt. The museum had acquired it as a Rembrandt work in the 1940s only to see it deattributed to the School of Rembrandt, which dramatically reduced interest. It went to storage, where it remained. But a few years ago after restoration and removal of ancient varnish it has been declared by Rembrandt after all. In keeping with the wealth and prominence of the sitter, the painting itself is rather large. When I saw it the frame was rather ornate, with faded gilding, but the painting has been recently reframed in the Dutch 17th century manner with a beautiful restrained result. In this late masterpiece, Rembrandt shows the viewer his mastery of every phase of portraiture, from skin tones to composition. To my eyes some of the painting has either been damaged or not so well painted, particularly the hands. But it's entirely possible that what I saw was restored damage. Certainly the features and expression are entirely believeable as being by the master's hand, as are the clothing and cane. The face has that inner glow that so many of his late works possess, which also convinced me that this is a genuine Rembrandt.

Another wonderful painting that I found was "Giorgio Cornaro with a Falcon" by Tiziano Vecelli

Titian, "Giorgio Cornaro with a Falcon," 1537

(Titian), painted in 1537. The great Venetian was a master of portraiture as well as figurative or historical works, landscapes and more. I hadn't known there was an example of his work in the Joslyn, but stumbled onto it, to my real delight. Titian's long career and unmatched mastery made him influential well beyond his own lifetime. Later artists--Rembrandt, Velazquez, many more--were clearly schooled in his works. Like many artists, his work began with a somewhat tight style, highly polished in multiple glazed layers and featuring beautiful colors. His reds in particular gained enormous admiration. But like so many others his late years featured softer edges and more muted color. This work, dating from his middle age, was recently restored at the Getty Foundation and shows Titian's beautiful skin tones and superb draftsmanship. According to the museum, this portrait was commissioned on Cornaro's reaching his majority and election to the Great Council of Venice. He was apparently an avid falconer. If there had been more time, I would have loved to spend more time studying this one closely, and I'll come back again for that, no doubt.

Plaster version of "The Little Dancer"

Another surprise was finding yet another "Little Dancer" sculpture. There seems to be hardly a museum in the world that doesn't own one of these. Yet the odd thing about the bronzes out there is that they weren't made in Degas' lifetime. The original was tinted wax, more closely resembling flesh, and of course the little dancer wasn't the prettiest of girls, unlike the more classically beautiful girls and women in traditional sculpture of the day. The bronzes were indeed copied from the original wax sculpture you can say they were by Edgar Degas, I suppose. This one is plaster, but looks identical to the bronzes and the museums says it was possibly a prototype for those. The bronzes were cast under the authority of the estate, but to be more clear maybe they ought to be designated as being "from a cast of the original," perhaps.

William Bouguereau, "Le Printemps," 1886

Although for some William Bouguereau is too academic and too polished--rather like classical marble sculpture--but I enjoy seeing his work. The Joslyn has a lovely work by the great French painter entitled "Le Printemps" which displays all of the features that make Bouguereau's work what it always is: a beautiful nude. One of this painter's great skills was the rendering of flesh tones, and that mastery is clearly evident in this allegorical painting depicting springtime as a beautiful young woman surrounded by cupids and displayed in an attractive landscape. This is a fairly big painting, nearly life size, which provides the viewer with an opportunity to see Bouguereau's mastery of anatomy and drawing. Each of the cupids is in a completely different position that each place very different demands on the artist. The effect seems clearly intentional to me--perhaps he was showing off a bit. One of the great things about Bouguereau is how much he gives the viewer to see, which is why I enjoy his work. Nonetheless, he has been scorned by many as too formal and even too cold, while other people have resented the nudity. But artists know talent when they see it. Claude Monet, who was a contemporary was once asked who was France's greatest painter and he answered promptly, "William Bouguereau."

The collection also rich in American painters, including Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Hart Benton, Albert Bierstadt, Robert Henri, and Grant Wood. We'll conclude this post with a few Americans.

One group of American painters I've particularly liked are the Ashcan School, an unorganized group of painters who showed rough scenes of eveyday life in New York about a century ago. Unlike the more elevated subject matter of academic art, and even impressionism, Ashcan art showed dingy streets and the sooty reality of their world. They mostly knew one another but weren't actually a formal movement or a school in reality. Among them were Robert Henri, William Glackens, John Sloan, George Bellows, and George Luks. Robert Henri is well known for his teaching and books, but Sloan and Bellows in particular were exemplars of the style. Bellows is also well known for his boxing images like "Stag at Sharkey's" a wonderful painting in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Joslyn has a fine city sunset by John Sloan that I had never seen before. It is a prime example of the Ashcan style, entitled alternatively Sunset, West Twenty-third Street (23rd Street, Roofs, Sunset), dated 1906.

John Sloan, "Sunset, West Twenty-third Street," 1906

Although this one isn't large, it is arresting with New York buildings silhoutted against a vivid sky of orange-red clouds. I was particularly captured by the confident brushy color of the clouds. Sloan's strokes are broad, confident, and bold and the colors are still fairly bright after more than a century. It's a bit strange to think that this sort of scene was new and pretty unknown to most people in America in those days. Everyone was used to rural landscapes, and pastoral views. These kinds of city scenes with their angular looks and grubby ambience were probably jarring to many in those days. 

Grant Wood, "Stone City, Iowa," 1930

It seems only fitting to end this post with an Iowa painter. The Joslyn owns "Stone City Iowa"  painted in 1930 by Grant Wood. Wood's "American Gothic" was painted that same year and is perhaps the most famous and most parodied work by an American. To me and to most others, Wood has a style that is completely his own and completely in tune with the 1930s and with Art Deco: graceful stylized shapes, simplified but beautiful compound and repetitive curves, and meticulous composition. In this painting he shows all of those and more. We see Stone City down in the valley on the other side of the river, as a few buildings and a giant empty quarry beyond. The red buildings at the bottom of the hill draw the eye to the bright blue of the river and to the lighter yellow uphill on the other side. The perspective draws the eye out into a distant horizon. That treatment alone shows a subtle and telling mind at work. We're in the dark half of the landscape, looking down at a town gone bust. According to the museum's account Wood later made it the site of a summer artist colony. Stone City was not far from Anamosa Iowa, Wood's hometown.

This was my first visit to the Joslyn Art Museum but it definitely won't be the last. If you're in Omaha you should take the time to see the collection. They have much more there than the works mentioned above. There is a Jackson Pollock, donated by Peggy Guggenheim, and there are more contemporary works, even two quite attractive giant blown glass works by Dale Chihuly, the famous American glassmaker whose factory produces works he designs. Without question there will be a next time and more time.