An American Odyssey: The Warner Collection of American Painting opens at the Frick Art & Historical Center in Pittsburg, Penn., this Saturday. This exhibition features 50 paintings by American artists from the nation’s early years of independence through the dawn of the 20th century, and includes major artists and movements from the Peale family and Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828) to American Impressionists like Childe Hassam (1859–1935) and Theodore Robinson (1852–1896), with beautiful Hudson River School works falling in between. The exhibition will remain on view through May 25, 2014. Admission is free.
The Warner Collection is one of the most significant collections of American art formed in recent decades, and the breadth and variety of works represented are both artistically and historically illuminating. The paintings included in the exhibition have been selected from the collection of American businessman and philanthropist Jonathan “Jack” Warner. Former CEO of Gulf States Paper Corporation and the founder of the Tuscaloosa Museum of Art, Mr. Warner has been a passionate collctor of American art for more than 40 years. Through his personal philanthropy and that of The Warner Foundation, Mr. Warner and his wife, Susan, actively support the exhibition of American art at institutions throughout the country.
At The Frick Art Museum, the works are installed in a chronology that encompasses major themes explored by artists. Portraiture, still life, landscape, and genre painting are represented with major groups of works by Hudson River School artists and American Impressionists as well as with significant groups of work by individual artists such as Winslow Homer (1836–1910) and Mary Cassatt (1844–1926).