“This landscape of ice skaters on Clove Pond is by William J. Glackens and was completed around 1916. Glackens often painted New York City and Clove Pond likely represents what is today known as Clove Lakes Park in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Staten Island. Glackens was an American Realist painter and one of the founders of the Ashcan school. Four of his paintings are in the White House Collection.”
This has been a favorite piece of those following us on Pinterest! You can order your very own reproduction of this piece here https://bit.ly/2ypORnD. Every sale benefits the museum!
“The Charter Oak is a symbol of the spirit of independence that began the American Revolution. In 1687, Connecticut stood alone in New England in defying James II’s orders to relinquish a 1662 charter that had given the colonies self-government. Legend has it that the candles went out suddenly at the showdown meeting and the charter vanished – into a hole in an ancient oak tree down the street which was said to have been a council tree of the Native Americans who watched for its leaves to appear in the spring to indicate the proper time for planting corn. When the tree was felled by a violent storm in 1856, a counting of its rings determined it to be almost a thousand years old.”
The painting depicts the grand old tree with a fence just beyond it and the tiny figure of a woman to its left.
You can order your very own reproduction of this piece online here – https://bit.ly/2WqCyz3! This piece is a part of the Florence Griswold Museum collection. Every sale benefits the museum!
The 2020 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is happening April 23 through May 3rd! The Historic New Orleans Collection will have their tent set up with Michael P. Smith reproductions available for purchase. We print hundreds of reproductions each year for this event. If you’re in New Orleans, stop by the tent to browse the beautiful and historic pieces by Michael P. Smith. Can’t go to the festival? Visit us online at RequestAPrint to browse our galleries, order pieces you love and have them shipped to you directly. Every sale financially benefits the museum! https://www.requestaprint.net/thnoc/index.php
Who was Michael P. Smith? During his nearly forty-year career, photographer Michael P. Smith (1937-2008) immersed himself in the larger world of New Orleans’s musical culture. At public events, from music festivals and concerts to street parades both mournful and celebratory, Smith was there with his Nikon cameras and, in later years, a tape recorder. Beyond his public presence, Smith earned the trust of musicians and churchgoers who let him into their private lives. These relationships allowed him to create a photographic record bearing witness to often elusive cultural and spiritual events. Though documentary in style, his photographs transcend the mere description of their subjects, pushing viewers to consider the cultural diversity of the world around them.
“Draper was commissioned as a Lieutenant JG in the Naval Reserve in June 1942. His first assignment was with the Anti-Submarine Warfare Unit in Boston. He transferred to the Art Section in Washington DC and shortly thereafter was sent to Alaska where he spent over five months in the Aleutian Island Chain Painting a series of 42 oils including Kodiak, Dutch Harbor, Umnak, Adak and Amchitka. He was present at the initial occupation and also the Japanese attack on Amchitka Island. He depicted the attack with bombs bursting and shells flying within close range of his foxhole. In making this series of paintings he ran into difficulties peculiar to the climate of the Aleutian such as eccentric winds blowing his canvas into the air like a kite and conditions of arctic weather that made painting only possible by wearing gloves to keep his hands from freezing.”
“In 1837, at the age of fourteen, Cropsey won a diploma at the Mechanics Institute Fair of the City of New York for a model house that he built. That same year he was apprenticed to the architect Joseph Trench for a five year period. After eighteen months, Cropsey, who had shown an early proficiency in drawing, found himself responsible for nearly all of the office’s finished renderings. Impressed with his talents, his employer provided him with paints, canvas, and a space in which to study and perfect his artistic skills. During this period Cropsey took lessons in watercolor from an Englishman, Edward Maury, and was encouraged and advised by American genre painters William T. Ranney (1813-1857) and William Sidney Mount (1807-1868).”
“This landscape of ice skaters on Clove Pond is by William J. Glackens and was completed around 1916. Glackens often painted New York City and Clove Pond likely represents what is today known as Clove Lakes Park in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Staten Island. Glackens was an American Realist painter and one of the founders of the Ashcan school. Four of his paintings are in the White House Collection.”
