How to Lead an Art Tour

-
A

My first ever trip to an art museum was in elementary school. We were taken to the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY. Perhaps it was in 4th or 5th grade.  I saw the museum's major Winslow Homer painting of his Prout's Neck, Maine studio glimpsed through the heavy fog. Even as a kid I'd heard of Homer as my parents had a wonderful print by Homer hanging over our living room couch. "Hey"I thought, "that's the guy we've got at home!" Obviously I was a real art world insider. The musuem's Homer  was and is a terrific painting, the only piece I remember from that early tour. Seeing as I am obsessed with painting rocky shorelines to this day, I know that early museum trip had an impact far greater than I then suspected.

The Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport News, VA, where my show Unbroken Thread: The Art of Philip Koch is showing through Oct. 2 brings a lot of tour groups through its facility to see its exhibitions. Many are school groups. And the tours are led by docents that the museum trains themselves. They recently held a session to help docents get up to speed with things to tell the visiting groups to engage them in the exhibitions. 

Above Janet Rash (at left) who heads up PFAC's Education Department, is enjoying talking with the docents about my show. Here are a few more pictures from that session, with participants taking turns speaking about my paintings. If I'd been there I probably would have learned something. (The photos are 
courtesy of PFAC and were taken by PFAC's intern Teddy Fatiou).



This is by far the largest exhibition I've had with fully 50 paintings, drawings, and pastels.
Below is my The Voyage of Memory.



Below at the right is the oil Eye of the Sea.



And one of my favorites in the show is the tiny Forest Stream below at the left.



Newport News is way down in the Southeast corner of Virginia, right where the huge Chesapeake Bay opens up to the Atlantic (I'm up at the opposite end of the Chesapeake in Baltimore). Heading west from Newport News you eventually hit the Appalachian Mountains. That's where my other Virginia exhibit just opened. It's right outside of Charlottesville in the tiny village of Barboursville. There are vineyards there and people come through to tour those. Many stop at the Nichols Gallery who is running three small solo shows of landscapes through Oct. 30. Here's the announcement card they just sent out:






Popular posts from this blog

Edward Hopper- Looking Out

-
Image
Edward Hopper, Cape Cod Morning,   oil on canvas, 1950,  Smithsonian American Art Museum Above is a painting I've loved for some forty years. I'm fortunate to be able to see it often as it lives in the SAAM in Washington, D.C. . This painting contains a real clue to Hopper's art. I visit there often as it helps me learn how to see better. Often writers will talk about the loneliness of Hopper's paintings or how his figures feel isolated and rarely interact with one another. While there is some of that in Hopper's painting, it begs a question- why is Hopper's art so widely loved? I'd offer a couple of answers. First, he's one of the most talented painters and was able to invent visual equivalents for strong emotions we humans experience as we live our lives.  He saw color combining in unexpected ways and offered up generous servings of the most delicious color combinations. Yum. Usually, as in the SAAM's Cape Cod Morning above, when he paints
Read more

Maier Museum of Art Acquires Work by Philip Koch

-
Image
Philip Koch, Edward Hopper's Studio, Truro,  vine charcoal, 7 x 14 inches, 2020, Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College, Lynchburg, VA I'm happy the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College in Virginia has acquired my drawing above for their permanent collection. The drawing touches on my own history and the role seeing the work of the Edward Hopper played in my own career.  While m y own art is quite different than that of Edward Hopper I count his as my best teacher. A s a young painter  I began by making abstract canvases. But after it seeing his strong light and solid volumes it felt as if Hopper had tapped me on the shoulder saying "You know you really want to be a realist." My drawing was inspired both by my many residencies staying and working in Edward Hopper's studio on Cape Cod and by a particular Hopper painting in the Maier Museum's collection, Mrs. Scott's House . Initially I'd known of the Maier painting through reproductions. It fascin
Read more

Edward Hopper's Poetry of Empty Rooms

-
Image
I've just been invited by Rachael Solomon who is the Program Director of the  Edward Hopper House Art Center in Nyack, NY to have a mini solo show in one of their galleries.. We'll be showing some of my paintings of the interior of Edward Hopper's Cape Cod studio where I've had the great pleasure of enjoying 13 residencies since 1983. The Edward Hopper House Art Center is the boyhood home of the famous American realist artist. So much of what Hopper became stemmed from his early years there. So I'm excited to do the exhibit. It will be coming up in March through May of 2012.   Hopper didn't teach. Yet I learned more about how to become a good painter by studying his work than by any other single thing. Art after all is visual. Words, even beautifully and aptly spoken can get in the way. And Hopper was legendarily tactiturn. I suspect had someone asked Hopper how to paint an empty room, his terse reply would have been "Don't!".  Above is one of h
Read more