February 13-May 13, 2001
The Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art, The American Wing
The first American drawings acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art were by William Trost Richards (1833-1905), an artist associated with both the Hudson River School and the American Pre-Raphaelite movement. A number of these early acquisitions - donated to the Metropolitan in 1880 by the Reverend Elias Lyman Magoon - will be displayed at the Museum this spring, along with recent significant acquisitions and works from a loan collection of Richards's miniatures. William Trost Richards in The Metropolitan Museum of Art will open on February 13.
Born in Philadelphia in 1833, William Trost Richards studied in Florence, Rome, and Paris before settling in Germantown, Pennsylvania. He was recognized initially for his landscapes - especially of the White Mountains of northern New Hampshire and southwestern Maine - but turned his attention to the sea beginning in about 1867. A leading artist of the American Watercolor Society, Richards was esteemed for helping lift the medium into higher prominence.
The exhibition at the Metropolitan will feature works representing the entire range
of subjects for which Richards was known. Noteworthy among his early works will be Palms, a delicate drawing from 1855 which was acquired recently by the Museum. Landscapes from the E. L. Magoon gift of 1880 will include the watercolors Moonlight on Mount Lafayette, New Hampshire (1873) and Lake Squam from Red Hill (1874). Among Richards's luminous and highly realistic paintings of the sea will be the watercolor A Rocky Coast (1877).
Complementing the works in watercolor, graphite, and ink from the Museum's collection will be selections from a private collection of Richards's charming postcard-size watercolors of landscape and marine subjects in Pennsylvania, New England, and the British Isles.
The Web site for the Metropolitan (www.metmuseum.org) will feature the exhibition.
The exhibition is organized by Kevin J. Avery, Associate Curator, Department of American Paintings and Sculpture.
###
November 13, 2000
Press resources