The Great Hall of American Wonders Opens Today at American Art
Nobody knows how to throw a dinner party better than the 19th-century Renaissance man Charles Willson Peale.
Peale, a scholar, an artist, an inventor, a dentist, a doctor, a poet, a naturalist (you name it, he did it) held a party in 1802 on a chilly February night in Philadelphia. It was a fine affair. Notable for one dramatic detail, Peale’s friends and family sat graciously at table, sipping wine and laughing, inside the belly of a mastodon skeleton.
Today, a new exhibition entitled, “The Great American Hall of Wonders,” opens at the American Art Museum and two paintings by Peale, Exhumation of the Mastodon make their Washington, D.C. debut. Apparently, at least one of the lenders of these iconic works was hard pressed to release it to the Smithsonian Institution. The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia initially told the curator that it couldn’t possibly part with its portrait of Peale. Too special, they said. But fortunately for the show, it did.
Peale plays a pivotal role in the complex story that curator Claire Perry, formerly of Stanford University and now an independent scholar of 19th-century American culture, is telling. On view are some 160 objects that include paintings and drawings, sculptures, prints, survey photographs, zoological and botanical illustrations. And, most unusual for an art museum—some half dozen, or so, patent models that pay homage to the museum’s building, once home to the original U.S. Patent Office. All of which, the curator employs to document the tale of how a young nation took up the Great Experiment in democracy and came to see ingenuity as its most important asset.
“Perry paints a picture of the early United States in psychic distress as the Founding Fathers died and left common citizens to carry forward our Great Experiment in democratic self-government,” writes the museum’s director Elizabeth Broun in the exhibition book of the same title. “There was quite simply, no model to follow, no book of instructions on how to mold a disorganized rabble into a citizenry.”
“Americans believed,” said Perry at a press preview earlier this week, “that the people of the United States shared a genius for invention.” Peale’s dinner party is emblematic of the kind of seat-of-the-pants, free-wheeling spirit that emboldened the nation as it pursued the sciences with unprecedented zeal. Everyday citizens crowded lecture halls and devoted themselves to the sciences. Inventors applied for hundreds of thousands of patents. And artists and photographers and illustrators began to document the country’s seemingly endless bounty.
Charles Wilson Peale - News
The Artist in His Museum, Charles Willson Peale, 1822. Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Gift of Mrs. Sarah Harrison (The Joseph Harrison Jr. Collection) Nobody knows how to throw a dinner party better than the 19th-century
The first mass-produced American clock, a locomotive prototype, and Charles Willson Peale's iconic self-portrait, “The Artist in His Museum,” are part of a major exhibition showcasing American innovation on view at the Smithsonian Museum of American
He is the image's painter, Charles Willson Peale. And he is welcoming us into the museum he created in early-19th-century Philadelphia. Peale's painting, “The Artist in His Museum” (1822), is meant to serve a similar welcoming function in this
Perry said she drew inspiration from Charles Willson Peale, a painter and naturalist from Maryland who founded one of the first museums in Philadelphia, because he insisted that invention, not the revolutionary generation, was the key to building the
Artist Charles Willson Peale, depicted here, believed innovation was every citizen's responsibility. By the middle of the 19th Century, increasing numbers of women were submitting patent applications for timesaving devices for homemakers.
Charles Wilson Peale, Founding Father of ... - Lines and Colors
Today is the 4th of July. Here in the United States, it’s a holiday on which we celebrate our freedom from having to spell the word “color” with a superfluous “u”.
It’s also a day in which we celebrate the “Founding Fathers”, individuals who cast the documents and governmental structure on which the country is based.
One of the key figures in early American painting, Charles Wilson Peale, was known in particular for his portraits of the Founding Fathers and other figures from the American Revolution.
Peale was himself a member of the Sons of Liberty, a group of pre-independence rebels who helped mobilize resistance to British colonial rule, and are perhaps best known for the acts of the "Boston Tea Party" a protest against the government backed corporate monopoly and lack of representation in parliament (often misunderstood and against type as a revolt against high taxes by the modern so-called "Tea Party", but I digress) .
Peale went on to serve in the Pennsylvania Militia during the American Revolutionary War, attaining the rank of Captain, and later was a member of the Pennsylvania state Assembly.
Through this time he met and painted a number of important figures who are prominent in the nation’s early history, including Benjamin Franklin (images above, second down), Thomas Jefferson (third down), John Hancock, Alexander Hamilton and, in particular, George Washington (above, fourth down), of whom he painted almost 60 portraits.
Peale studied under the noted American portrait painter John Singleton Copely, and later with American expatriate Benjamin West in England. He taught painting to his brother, James Peale, a noted painter of still life and miniatures.
Peale also trained most of his 10 children to paint landscape and portraiture, and named many of them after great artists of the past. At least three of them became artists of note in their own right. Raphaelle Peale, noted for his still life paintings, Rembrandt Peale, a portraitist who also painted an elder George Washington after being introduced by his father, and Rubens Peale, who with his brother Rembrandt took up his father’s mantle as museum director.
Charles Wilson Peale, a naturalist as well as an artist, is credited with founding the nation’s first museum, with botanical, biological and archeological exhibits, as portrayed in his self portrait above, top.
Charles Wilson Peale - Bookshelf
Charles Willson Peale, art and selfhood in the early republic
"--Charles C. Eldredge, author of "Tales from the Easel: American Narrative Paintings "This is an invaluable critical study of Charles Willson Peale--clear, ...Mr. Peale's Museum, Charles Willson Peale and the first popular museum of natural science and art
Depicts how Charles Willson Peale helped revolutionize the concept of museums by designing his museum for everyone, not just specialistsCharles Wilson Peale
Charles Wilson Peale
Charles Willson Peale and his world
Gold Information Directory
Charles Willson Peale - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Charles Willson Peale (April 15, 1741 – February 22, 1827) was an American painter, ... Peale was born in Chester, Queen Anne's County, Maryland, the son of Charles ...
The Charles Willson Peale Family Papers"
Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) painted more than one thousand portraits of the elite ... Charles Willson Peale, the patriarch of the family, was not only an ...
charles wilson peale Search for China WholeSale Oil Painting
Wholesale oil painting from Xiamen, wholesale picture frame, wooden moulding, mirror.
Charles Willson Peale Online
Charles Willson Peale [American Colonial Era Painter, 1741-1827] Guide to pictures of works by Charles Willson Peale in art museum sites and image archives worldwide.
Charles Willson Peale: Biography from Answers.com
Charles Willson Peale (born April 15, 1741, Queen Anne's county, Md. — died Feb. 22, 1827, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.) U.S