"George Inness: Private Treasures" Beckons at Montclair Art Museum

The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) has quietly conspired with the Montclair Historical Society and some area art lovers to offer “George Inness: Private Treasures at the Montclair Art Museum,” open now through April 1, 2012. Curated by MAM’s Gail Stavitsky, the show is a rare look at nine of Inness’ mature landscapes that are owned by private collectors. “It’s a very intimate show,” Stavitsky said. "These are works that people live with in their homes."

It is also a rare opportunity to see these works from one of America’s foremost 19th century artists in the perfect setting, the museum’s peaceful George Inness Gallery, a 2001 gift from collectors Frank and Katherine Martucci. The Martuccis are represented by two of their Inness works: “Green Landscape,” ca. 1886, and “Autumn in Montclair,” ca. 1894, the year of Inness’ death.

Inness sketched in Montclair and other New Jersey and New York locales. He lived the last nine of his 69 years on a 16-acre farm in Montclair, “The Pines." The exhibit includes a MAM holding, “George Inness Sketching Outside His Montclair Studio,” painted by Inness’ son, George Inness Jr. ca 1889. Inness Sr. was critical in establishing Montclair as an artists’ colony and center of intellectual life.

The farm was like a local example of French Impressionist Claude Monet’s gardens in Giverny; Inness had his property landscaped to inspire his work. Another treasure inspired by Montclair is “Springtime, Montclair," ca. 1893-94, one of two oils loaned by Joseph and Lisa Amato.

(The represented collectors live in New York and New Jersey, including Montclair, Essex Fells, Glen Ridge, and Verona.)

“I didn’t start out with a preconceived idea,” said Stavitsky, who is MAM’s chief curator. “It was serendipity that people owned from the later period. These are outstanding works, including two from Inness’ trip to Italy in the 1870s; you can see the influence of his European travels and his inspiration from the Barbizon School.”

Both the exhibit wall text and a takeaway guide explore the interplay between Inness’ passionately held beliefs and his art. The artist eschewed both the detail of American Hudson River Valley School of artists and the transitory light effects of the Impressionists. Deeply influenced by the writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), Inness’ art is transcendental, an expression of the spiritual—how the divine is manifest in nature and the natural world.

“He’s drawn to nature and an emotional approach. His works are lyrical, poetic, open ended and sometimes elusive,” Stavitsky said. “Especially in the 1880s, they are very modern—they are precursors to the 20th century American modernists Charles Burchfield, Arthur Dove, and Marsden Hartley.”

They are also very beautiful and the perfect complement to MAM’s permanent collection of 18 paintings, two watercolors and an etching—of these, “Niagara Falls, ca. 1885,” can currently be seen in “Patterns, Systems, Structures: Abstraction in American Art,” the recently opened show in other MAM galleries.

In "Private Treasures," the dramatic lighting of "After the Storm," ca. 1877-78, from the collection of Angel and Curt Schade offers the opportunity to see Inness at his most expressive. The placid “Conway Valley," (ca. 1882, from the collection of Susan and Rees Jones), offers a meditative experience. In the aforementioned “Autumn in Montclair,” Inness flattens space and form; he transforms the landscape into the essence of fall.

As winter bears down and the commercial world loudly vies for our attention, the show asks us to contemplate the work of a master and eternal truths.

For directions, museum hours and admissions see Montclair Art Museum. Group tours may be booked by calling 973-259-5136 or by emailing tours@montclairartmuseum.org.

The works are from the collections of Joseph and Lisa Amato, Thomas and Karen Buckley, Douglas R. Ewertson, Susan and Rees Jones, Frank and Katherine Martucci, Angel and Curt Schade, William H. and Judith Turner, and the Montclair Historical Society.