By Mary Gow
Arts Correspondent
Around 1890, when renowned artist Thomas Waterman Wood (1823-1903) turned his eye to making a generous gift to his hometown, he already had a spectacular art collection to bequeath. But Wood decided to expand what was already in his hands to give the people of Montpelier an even richer visual arts experience. He traveled to Europe multiple times, painting full-size master copies of masterpieces including J.M.W. Turner’s stunning “The Fighting Temeraire.” Wood also traded with and received gifts from other leading artists of the day to further enrich the collection with their artworks.
On Aug. 8, 1895, the artist gave 42 paintings, watercolors, and etchings in trust to the city of Montpelier, establishing the Wood Gallery of Art — the first art museum in Vermont. The collection grew through Wood’s remaining lifetime and beyond.
This year marks the T.W. Wood Gallery & Arts Center’s 125th anniversary. Six concurrent exhibitions in Montpelier — three at the museum and three in other venues — celebrate this extraordinary gift to the city. The themed exhibitions are all drawn from the T.W. Wood’s permanent collections and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) artwork in its care.
From Wood’s fabulous “The Quack Doctor,” his 1882 genre painting depicting a slick cure-all salesman’s visit to Montpelier, to Hazel Jackson’s powerful “Roman Oxen” block print, the exhibitions show off the depth and breadth of these exceptional collections. These exhibitions are a rare opportunity to see so much of this artwork at one time.
The exhibitions are curated by Phillip Robertson, artist and educator, who has a long association with the Montpelier museum and extraordinary depth of knowledge of T.W. Wood, his peers, and the individual pieces. Robertson, former executive director of the T.W. Wood now serves on the board of trustees, and is adjunct faculty member in fine arts at Northern Vermont University-Johnson and Community College of Vermont.
Robertson will lead small tours, by reservation only, at T.W. Wood on several Saturdays. Along with his terrific knowledge and appreciation of the art, he knows lots of delicious details — local residents who modeled for Wood and show up in multiple paintings, Wood’s trades with friends and colleagues, the artist’s vantage point in painting his 1875 “View of Main Street, Montpelier.”
Born in Montpelier in 1823, Wood was the son of a local cabinetmaker.
“He started painting furniture in his father’s business. His first paid job was painting numbers on legislators’ seats in the State House,” Robertson said.
“He taught himself to paint portraits, transitioned into genre painting, taught himself how to make etchings, and became a master printmaker. He rose through the ranks of the 19th-century art world including becoming president of the American Water Color Society and president of the National Academy of Design,” Robertson said.
Wood’s professional career was based in New York City, but he and his wife frequently visited Montpelier.
At the T.W. Wood Gallery, “Realism and Narrative” and “Thomas Waterman Wood and the Landscape” feature many paintings and some sculpture from Woods’ original gift and pieces added during his lifetime.
Wood’s 1894 self-portrait with Rembrandt-inspired lighting and features, which he painted in three days and was ready for the Montpelier museum’s original opening is among them.
Genre painting, paintings of everyday people in everyday life, was among Wood’s fortes. “The Quack Doctor,” usually on display in the State House, is here with its fabulous details of the local crowd assessing the pitch of the traveling snake oil salesman. There’s plenty of wit in it — note the passing ducks and the purveyor’s partially obscured name on the wagon. The label shares the wonderful story of the rediscovery of this long missing masterpiece.
Wood was not known as a landscape painter, but many of his peers were and he collected their work for Montpelier. His view of Montpelier and “Benjamin’s Falls,” depicting a local cascade, are exhibited along with a rich selection of works by Hudson River School painters including George McCord and Asher Durand.
In the Wood’s WPA Room are paintings including Joseph Stella’s 1937 “Skyscrapers,” Ron Slayton’s “The Idea” and Allen Hermes’ “Black Rooster.” The Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a 1930s Depression-era federal jobs project that employed artists around the country. This extensive body of U.S.-funded work is owned by the government. Each state holds a portion of the works. The T.W. Wood Gallery cares for the 90 pieces in Vermont’s portion — paintings, prints and sculpture.
The Vermont History Museum is exhibiting Vermont’s full collection of 37 WPA prints altogether for the first time ever. The prints take viewers around the country with rural and urban subjects; they consider war and peace, industry and agriculture, everyday scenes including balcony crowd at a theater. Vermont is represented by a trio of Ron Slayton’s prints and Luigi Lucioni’s etching “Stowe Hollow.” The number of WPA American artists whose country of birth was not the United States is among the surprises here.
At Montpelier City Hall, a selection of Wood’s etchings is presented in the City Hall Showcases in the main hallway. Wood was a master printmaker, his work appearing in publications including Harper’s Weekly.
“The Preparatory Sketches of Thomas Waterman Wood” are scheduled for Kellogg Hubbard Library: Some may be viewed in-person, others will be accessible through a forthcoming video. For his genre paintings, Wood did extensive and often meticulous sketches of details that would appear in them. These selections take viewers behind the scenes to see elements that went into his larger works.
A seventh exhibition, “A Sympathetic View: The Paintings of African-Americans by Thomas Waterman Wood,” originally scheduled for this fall at the Card Room at the State House, has been postponed to 2021. Wood is known for his empathetic and dignified paintings of Black Americans.
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