This fall Reynolda House Museum of American Art will present a period installation of Frederic Church’s masterpiece, “The Andes of Ecuador,” in the West Bedroom Gallery, on view from September 26, 2009 through May 30, 2010. The painting, the largest and most ambitious work of Church’s early career, was completed in 1855, following the 27-year-old artist’s first trip to Columbia and Ecuador.
Frederic Edwin Church, The Andes of Ecuador , 1855. Oil on canvas, 48 x 75 inches. Original purchase fund from the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, ARCA Foundation, and Anne Cannon Forsyth 1966.2.9
The vast panorama combines Church’s interest in both the scientific and the spectacular. Profoundly influenced by the journeys of Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin to South America, the success of “The Andes of Ecuador” encouraged Church’s detailed scientific approach to landscape painting and enabled him to adopt a new theatrical exhibition strategy—to display his major canvases alone, swathed in velvet curtains, for an admission fee.
The museum will recreate the way these so-called “Great Pictures” were presented to the public in “Andes of Ecuador: Science and Spectacle,” a special exhibition of the work. Such contextualization will allow visitors to investigate the intersections between art, science, and spectacle in Church’s work while specifically considering the impact of Darwin as the museum celebrates the 150th anniversary of the publication of “On the Origin of Species.”
Also on view in the exhibition will be a first edition of “On the Origin of the Species,” once owned by Charles H. Babcock, alongside other books by Darwin and Humboldt. A pair of 19th century opera glasses will be on view, and visitors are invited to use a modern pair to observe the details and scope of the painting. An enlarged reproduction of a stereograph picturing an 1864 installation of Church’s “The Heart of the Andes” at the Metropolitan Fair in New York City will give visitors a better sense of this period-style installation.
Gallery Talks
Postdoctoral Fellow Jennifer Raab will lead gallery talks based on her research of Frederic Church and “The Andes of Ecuador” on Thursdays, October 15 and 22, and November 12 at noon. As curator of this exhibition, she will discuss the influence of Darwin and Humboldt’s explorations on the artist, the cultural implication of the painting’s details, and the public reaction to Church’s dramatic displays during the mid-19th century.
The gallery talks are free to members and students, free with museum admission to non-members. For information, please call 336.758.5150 or visit reynoldahouse.org
About Reynolda House
Reynolda House Museum of American Art is one of the nation’s premier American art museums, with masterpieces by Mary Cassatt, Frederic Church, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O’Keeffe and Gilbert Stuart among its permanent collection. Affiliated with Wake Forest University, Reynolda House features traveling and original exhibitions, concerts, lectures, classes, film screenings and other events. The museum is located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in the historic 1917 estate of Katharine Smith Reynolds and her husband, Richard Joshua Reynolds, founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Reynolda House and adjacent Reynolda Gardens and Reynolda Village feature a spectacular public garden, dining, shopping and walking trails. For more information, please visit reynoldahouse.org or call 336.758.5150
