Antarctic Photography Opens at the Bruce Museum Oct. 28

A new exhibition is opening on October 28 at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich called  Antarctic Photography: Selections from Gondwana: Images of an Ancient Land.  This exhibition features a selection of large-format photographs by Diane Tuft, a New York-based mixed-media artist and photographer.

Wind Formation, Victoria Lower Glacier. Photograph by Diane Tuft

In 2012, Tuft traveled to Antarctica after receiving a grant from the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. Her images chronicle the extraordinary results of that expedition with stunning photographs that capture Antarctica’s raw, untouched splendor with colors, textures, and compositions that verge on the surreal. 

The exhibition will also include a few specimens, on loan from Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History, representing some of the amazing life forms recently found in the Antarctic waters.

Snow Folds, Scott Base Pressure Ridges

Photograph by Diane Tuft

The selected images are highlights of Tuft's 2014 book Gondwana: Images of an Ancient Land,named for the mega continent that once contained what is now Antarctica, and present her vision of the continent as a living abstract reflection of hundreds of millions of years of Earth’s history. This exhibition runs through February 1, 2015. For more information about the Bruce Museum  https://brucemuseum.org.  The museum is open Tuesday - Sunday 10 am - 5 pm. Doors close 1/2 hour before closing, Last admission 4:30 pm .  For area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

Diane Tuft

Diane Tuft is a New York-based mixed-media artist who has focused primarily on photography since 1998. She earned a degree in mathematics at the University of Connecticut before continuing her studies in art at Pratt Institute in New York. She has always been fascinated by the mystery of what exists beyond the visible; capturing this through her camera—often traveling to the world s most remote places to do so—has been a guiding principle of her work. Tuft has had solo exhibitions at Marlborough Gallery, Ameringer-Yohe Gallery, and Pace Gallery in New York City, as well as The Kimball Art Center in Park City, Utah. Tuft's work can be found in the permanent collection of The Whitney Museum of American Art and The International Center of Photography in New York City, as well as numerous private collections and museums throughout the country.

Pasture to Pond: Connecticut Impressionism

Pasture to Pond: Connecticut Impressionism  at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT,  runs through June 22, brings American Impressionism back to its roots, according to the Museum’s Executive Director, Peter C. Sutton.

Davis_Uplands 

Charles H. Davis, (American, 1856-1933) 

Summer Uplands, n.d. 

 “The history of art proves that Connecticut has long been one of the most fertile states for the creation of new art movements,” says Peter Sutton. “In no small measure it was the birthplace of American Impressionism.”

Drawn from the permanent collection of the Bruce, private collectors, area museums, and the trade, this exhibition of more than 25 works of American Impressionism speaks to the quality and beauty of this perennially popular art, and to Connecticut’s important role in its creation.

Before the turn of the 20^th century, Connecticut was a logical birthplace for American Impressionism, as artists sought a nearby, rural respite from the burgeoning urban and rapidly industrializing world. While their artistic predecessors, the landscape painters of the Hudson River School, had championed dramatic landscapes of panoramic sweep and awe-inspiring majesty, the artists who came of age after the calamity and chaos of the Civil War sought a more intimate, bucolic and orderly landscape.  They found these reassuring views among the farms, rolling hills, rivers and picturesque shoreline of Connecticut.

Metcalf_Autumn 

Willard Leroy Metcalf, (American, 1858-1925)

While steeped in pre-Revolutionary history, Connecticut was readily accessible by train to these escaping urbanites, many of whom had winter studios in New York City.  Artists’ colonies sprang up in Cos Cob and Old Lyme and landscapists took to recording favored sites in places like Branchville, Farmington, Mystic and the Litchfield Hills.  The names of these artists – John H. Twachtman, J. Alden Weir, Childe Hassam, and Willard Metcalf – are among the most famous landscapists in American art history.  While some, like Robinson, made regular pilgrimages to France to paint alongside the great French Impressionist Claude Monet, others learned the style second hand, and collectively they made it a uniquely American manner.

“Several of the artists featured in the show exhibited in the famous Armory Show in New York in 1913, which is generally regarded as the watershed moment that introduced Modern Art and the likes of Marcel Duchamp to America,” says Peter Sutton.  “It is with pleasure then that we remember with this exhibition an era of enduring local creativity and the celebration of the beauty of our own special corner of New England.”

Crane_Harvest Moon 

Bruce Crane, (American, 1857-1937) 

Pasture to Pond: Connecticut Impressionism is generously underwritten by People’s United Bank, a Committee of Honor co-chaired by Leora Levy and Alice Melly, a grant from the Connecticut Office of the Arts, and The Charles M. and Deborah G. Royce Exhibition Fund.

And when you go, don’t forget your cell phone:  This exhibition, like many others at the Bruce, will be accompanied by a compelling cell phone audio tour guide program, Guide by Cell, generously