STARTS
2010-09-25 00:00:00
Ends
2011-01-16 23:59:59
Location
Romancing the West
Romancing the West: Alfred Jacob Miller in the Bank of America Collection
In early 1837, Alfred Jacob Miller (1810-1874), a Baltimore artist working in New Orleans, traveled with an expedition to the Rocky Mountains and the annual gathering of the fur trade.
Miller spent six months in the West, and his experiences supplied the raw material for his art for the rest of his career.
The 30 works on paper in this exhibition, not seen in public since 1964, are mainly intermediary steps in Miller’s process of art-making from field sketches to commissioned finished works.
Miller depicted American Indians and mountain men, wildlife, and the western landscape in various media, but mostly in watercolor. Far more than just laying out Miller’s preferred subjects, this exhibition explores the artist’s patrons, methods, and ideas of his art. It also encourages us to reconsider our own understandings of the West, past and present.
After opening at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the exhibition will travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Romancing the West: Alfred Jacob Miller in the Bank of America Collection is organized by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and is made possible by the Bank of America Art in our Communities™ program. Additional support is provided by the Campbell-Calvin Fund and Elizabeth C. Bonner Charitable Trust for exhibitions.