Carter Jones Meyer and Chris Williamson will offer the sixth in their series of virtual tours of the Farnsworth Art Museum. These six zoom sessions will for the most part preview exhibits that open this winter and spring, some of which will center on the importance of and reinterpretation of landscapes. Opening in January will be Re-Indigenizing Sacred Landscapes: From the Wigwam at Cetawamkeag. It will interact with Native Prospects: Indigeneity and Landscape Painting, which travels from the Florence Griswold Museum in Connecticut, arriving in March. This exhibit juxtaposes Thomas Cole’s landscapes with those of native peoples. 

Also opening in January, Capturing Her Environment: Women Artists 1870 – 1930 provides an opportunity to consider works of Gertrude Fiske, Beatrice Whitney Van Ness, Georgia O’Keeffe, Alice Kent Stoddard, and others, almost all from the Farnsworth collection, yet some of whom have yet to be exhibited. The Farnsworth’s second Momentum artist, Anne Buckwalter, will also be introduced in February. For Momentum, the museum selects an exciting contemporary Maine artist for a one person show. In her show Manors, Buckwalter explores how seemingly mundane activities reveal layers of complexity, merging the everyday with a nuanced reflection on identity and personal space. Another highly anticipated exhibition brings this year’s Maine in America honoree Ann Craven to the museum with Painted Time (2020-2024) in May. These shows center the evolving role of women artists in Maine’s rich painting tradition.  

Our first session will take a close look at artist process by examining the current Andrew Wyeth exhibit 1982 and in particular the process that led to his painting Adrift that year and contrasting that with Frances Kornbluth’s Mohegan paintings. Our final session will consider Home Places; Andrew Wyeth in Chadds Ford, which opens in April. This will consist largely of works that have never before been shown in Maine, allowing visitors to gain insight into the other half of Wyeth’s world and his grounding in the built history of both locations. 

Participants will, as always, be encouraged to engage with the works and the class via a combination of “chat” and real time conversation, and follow-up materials will be available after most sessions. The continuing goal will be to expand our ability to engage with art, consider the historical context in which it is produced, develop our ability to notice, improve our visual vocabulary, and perhaps to reconnect with some favorite artists/works while we discover new ones.