Artist As Narrator

As many of you know, we helped source works of art for an exhibition at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art in 2005.  I do want to thank all of our friends and clients who so graciously loaned their works for this important exhibition.

Many of our viewers have asked to see images of the works we sold that have been included in the exhibition.  Below is a description of the exhibit that the Oklahoma City Museum of Art posted on its web site along with the 11 works of art we secured.  While this is only a small sample of the works on display, it may whet your appetite to see more.  A fully illustrated color catalog can be purchased directly from their Museum Shop (for your convenience, I have included a link):

OCMA - Museum Shop

Artist as Narrator: Nineteenth Century Narrative Art in England and France explores the visual interpretations of prose, poetry, legends, and myths through paintings, prints, and drawings, illustrating the close relationships between the written, oral, and visual arts in nineteenth-century England and France. The exhibition is organized by the Oklahoma City Museum of Art and curated by Chief Curator Hardy George, Ph.D., who found inspiration for this exhibition during his studies at the Courtauld Institute, University of London. “As a graduate student studying the paintings of Turner, I was fascinated with the formal qualities of his work,” said George, “and as I got to know his work, I realized there was a narrative aspect to it. At this time, there was not a great interest in Victorian art. Since, however, the interest in nineteenth-century narrative painting has increased and I believe merits a renewed examination.”

Artist as Narrator shows some of the highest achievements of narrative art as well as works displaying the first signs of its decline. At the same time, the exhibition satisfies the impulse in all of us to search for story and meaning in art. Nineteenth-century narrative art reflects the tastes of a middle class created by industrialization and the growth of the city. In the exhibit, French and British narrative art exhibited in the Universal Exhibitions in London, Manchester, and Paris, where art was displayed along with the latest mining, transportation, and factory machinery, will be explored.

Artist as Narrator includes over 100 paintings, prints, and drawings and is arranged in six sections: paintings inspired by literature; paintings based on Greco-Roman mythology; paintings depicting religion and history; paintings of rural life; paintings of new urban subjects; and prints exemplifying a mix of these subjects. Key artists in the exhibit include French artists, such as Gustave Moreau, Julien Dupre, Louis Marie de Schryver, Emile Munier, Jean Beraud and Odilon Redon; Pre-Raphaelite artists, such as John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti; and British classical genre artists, such as Frederic Leighton, Edward John Gregory and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

Lending museums include The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Speed Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Yale Center for British Art. A Museum-produced catalogue and audio guide accompany the exhibit.

The Inasmuch Foundation is the presenting sponsor. Season sponsors are Chesapeake Energy Corp., GlobalHealth, Kirkpatrick Family, MidFirst Bank, The Bowers Foundation, Cox Communications, Devon Energy Corporation, Kerr-McGee Corporation and The Oklahoman. Exhibition sponsors are Oklahoma Arts Council and Oklahoma Humanities Council. Education sponsors include Sarkeys Foundation and Sonic, America’s Drive-In Education Endowments. This exhibition is organized by the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.