Picturing the Americas to Open at Crystal Bridges

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art will host a new exhibition, “Picturing the Americas: Landscape Painting from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic,” opening Nov. 7.

“Picturing the Americas” is the first exhibition to explore the evolution of landscape painting from the early 19th century to the early 20th century in an inclusive, hemispheric context, and Crystal Bridges is the only U.S. Venue to host the exhibition, according to a press release from Crystal Bridges.

“Picturing the Americas” was organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and the Terra Foundation for American Art. The exhibition arrived at Crystal Bridges from the Art Gallery of Ontario and will then travel to the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, according to the press release.

It was co-curated by Peter John Brownlee, curator of the Terra Foundation for American Art; Valéria Piccoli, chief curator of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo; and Georgiana Uhlyarik, the Art Gallery of Ontario’s associate curator of Canadian art.

“This exhibition gives visitors a platform to go beyond territorial boundaries and expand conversations and connections to landscape painting across the Americas,” Crystal Bridges executive director Rod Bigelow said in the press release. “It’s an honor to be the only U.S. museum where visitors can see this stunning exhibition, which connects deeply with the mission of Crystal Bridges to celebrate art and nature.”

“Picturing the Americas” features more than100 oil paintings, watercolors and prints from well-known American landscape painters, Frederic E. Church, Martin Johnson Heade, and Georgia O’Keeffe, as well as masters from both North and South America, such as Jose Maria Velasco (Mexico), Juan Manuel Blanes (Uruguay), Lawren Harris (Canada), and Tarsila do Amaral (Brazil). 

“This exhibition brings together iconic works from different parts of the hemisphere, causing us to pause and consider what it means to be “American” in the most-expansive sense of the word,” Crystal Bridges curator Mindy Besaw said in the press release. “Throughout the journey, visitors will see how landscape painting across the Americas corresponds with emerging settler nations asserting their independence. As the colonies matured into nations, artists moved toward painting more personal representations of the landscape. 

“The exhibition also helps us reflect on ways nature has shaped our identities and confronts a history of contentious colonization,” Besaw said.

The exhibition will be on display until Jan. 18. General admission is $10 and free to ages 18 and under.