Thursday, January 7, 2021 – ENJOY THE CALM HARBORS
A DAY OF SHOCK, SHAME AND DISGRACE TO OUR COUNTRY AND OUR ELECTION AND SUCCESSION. AN OFFENSIVE ACTION.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2021
The
256th Edition
From Our Archives
HARBORS OF THE WORLD
BOSTON, BALTIMORE, SAG HARBOR, NEW YORK AND MANY MORE SCENES OF OUR CITY WATERWAYS
FROM
THE SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
Charles Manger, Boston Harbor, ca. 1860-1869, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. George Viault, 1970.183 In this painting of Boston Harbor in the 1860s, a ship carrying a passenger sits in the center, while an assortment of seafaring vessels dots the hazy horizon. In the foreground, birds fly low among waves that reflect the colors of the sky. Manger’s use of glowing light and smooth brushstrokes was a popular approach among American landscape painters at the time. This work was completed around the time of the American Civil War when Boston Harbor served as a training camp and coastal defense for the Union army.
Don Resnick, Near Sag Harbor, 1984, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist in memory of Robert and Dorothy Haberstock, 1992.85
William H. Johnson, Harbor, Svolvaer, Lofoten, 1937, oil on burlap, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.893 In 1937, William H. Johnson and his Danish wife, Holcha, made their way north of the Arctic Circle to the settlement of Svolvaer in Norway’s Lofoten Islands. Thickly applied colors capture strong contrasts of light and shadow and animate the rugged terrain and fishing boats in the harbor. In letters to friends, Holcha called the Lofotens “marvelously beautiful” and wrote that her husband climbed the hills every day to capture the scenery in different light and weather. This canvas shows the twin peaks of the “Svolvaer Goat,” a landmark in the islands that remains famous to this day.
Alice Pike Barney, Bar Harbor, ca. 1892, pastel, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Laura Dreyfus Barney and Natalie Clifford Barney in memory of their mother, Alice Pike Barney, 1952.13.10
Werner Drewes, Camden Harbor (no. 166), 1954, color woodcut, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1968.9.20
James McNeill Whistler, Valparaiso Harbor, 1866, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.159
William H. Johnson, Harbor Scene, Kerteminde, ca. 1930-1932, watercolor and pen and ink on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.28
- Thomas James Delbridge, Lower Manhattan, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.51
- Lower Manhattan’s glorious skyscrapers inspired all New Yorkers, including the city’s artists, through the worst hardships of the Great Depression. Looking from the dock of a harbor island, Thomas Delbridge showed the dark mouths of Manhattan’s ferry terminals; above them ever taller buildings climb out of red shadows into gold and white sunshine. The crisply outlined forms evoke such famous structures as the Woolworth Building to the left and the Singer Building to the right without placing the buildings precisely or describing specific details. The skyscraper at the center suggests the mighty Empire State Building as it had stood incomplete before its triumphant opening on May 1, 1931. Even as the stock market foundered and thousands were thrown out of work, New Yorkers had gathered in excited throngs to watch their tallest tower rise. The Manhattan skyscrapers in the painting appear to be pushing back dark clouds, creating an oasis of brilliant blue around the island.
1934: A New Deal for Artists exhibition label
- Herman Maril, Sketch of Old Baltimore Waterfront, 1934, oil on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.187
- Herman Maril opened a window onto the history of his native city in this view of Baltimore harbor. Maril was a modernist painter who simplified the forms in the painting to make “the abstract structure . . . dominant,” yet he retained enough details to situate the scene in a past era. A schooner typical of nineteenth-century shipping is tied up in the foreground, its sails furled after a journey that could have brought it from almost anywhere in the world. The domed Merchants and Exchange building visible in the background stood at the corner of Gay and Water streets in Baltimore’s inner harbor from 1815 until it was razed in 1901.
This painting is thus set before Maril’s birth in 1908, in an era cut off from the artist’s life time by the disastrous fire of 1904 that destroyed Baltimore’s inner harbor docks along with much of the city. Maril’s wife recalled that the artist “took pleasure in looking at the architecture and changes in the city over the years,” particularly enjoying “the harbor where he walked with his father.” Baltimore’s vanished past remained key to Maril’s personal conception of the American scene.
1934: A New Deal for Artists exhibition label
Werner Drewes, Southern Harbor, 1964, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Associated American Artists, 1967.9.1
C. K. Chatterton, Monhegan Harbor, ca. 1920-1948, oil on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Olin Dows, 1983.90.215
Louis Lozowick, Quiet Harbor, 1932, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Adele Lozowick, 1984.132.33, © 1932, Lee Lozowick
James Floyd Clymer, Untitled (Harbor in Winter), before 1974, oil on canvas mounted on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, 1974.89.6
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
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WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
A seagull perched on the seawall.
NOTE THE TRAM TOWER WITH ORANGE COLOR, FROM THE
OLD TRAM REPLACED IN 2009.
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
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