May uCurate Winner: American Beauty

American Beauty_May winner 1

American Beauty, uCurate submission from Tiffany

Put your hands together for Tiffany, winner of May’s uCurate prize. Tiffany incorporated a number of themes into her two-room exhibition, American Beauty. Of her exhibition, Tiffany says:

“The beauty of Americana is showcased via various landscapes, time periods, mediums, and palettes. From the first gallery filled with the modern richness of Cubist, Abstract Expressionism, mixed with more “classical” landscapes provides a bold overview. Transitioning from the first room, painted yellow, into the second room, painted a more traditional gray, we step into a world of American scenes, seascapes, cold landscapes, baseball, and urban landscapes.”

Start curating for your chance to win next month’s prize, a Made in the USA exhibition catalogue.

American Beauty_May winner 2

American Beauty, uCurate submission from Tiffany

The Snow Roller

Rockwell Kent, The Road Roller, 1909

Rockwell Kent, The Road Roller, 1909. Oil on canvas, 34 1/8 x 44 1/4 in. Acquired 1918. The Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Every time I come to work in the snow, I think of this painting. While living in Dublin, New Hampshire, a place far more acquainted with snow than DC, Rockwell Kent painted what he himself referred to as his “best known example of that winter’s work.” Moving powerfully down the driveway of the house he shared with his friend Gerald Thayer, the roller packed the snow on the roads to make way for horse-drawn sleighs. This is one of the few paintings Kent preceded with a preliminary sketch, housed in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Anticipating Fall Colors

Marsden Hartley, Mountain Lake–Autumn, ca. 1910, Oil on academy board 12 x 12 in. Gift of Rockwell Kent, 1926. The Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Marsden Hartley inscribed this work for his friend Rockwell Kent in 1912, who later gifted it to Duncan Phillips. Phillips wrote to Kent, “The Hartley is so fine a picture that I hesitate to accept it but the reason you give is a good one, namely that in our Gallery many people will enjoy it to the artist’s benefit and to our mutual satisfaction.” It was one of Phillips’s favorite works. You can find it on view now in the Dining Room.