To correlate with the James W. Michener Museum’s upcoming exhibition, “George Sotter: Light and Shadow” these sessions will explore aspects of 19th and 20th century American Art that are important to the landscape tradition in the United States from the Hudson River Valley through the Impressionists. Artists such as Thomas Cole and Albert Bierstadt helped to shape our national identity with visualizations of picturesque settings, sublime mountain ranges, and an endless horizon. At the end of the 19th century, Impressionists depicted the landscapes in dialogue with French Impressionists and within a shifting global context of industrialization and modernization. George Sotter, affiliated with a New Hope art colony, represented many stone buildings and locations within driving distance of the Michener. The exhibition will raise one of his recurrent motifs, the nocturne, which we will contextualize within modern art.
George Sotter Light and Shadow presented and organized by the James A. Michener Art Museum with Valerie Ann Leeds, Ph.D., Guest Curator. July 29-December 31, 2017