Gustave Wolff

1 introduction C ritics of his time celebrated Gustave Wolff’s landscapes “of great expanses beneath heavy skies,” luxuriantly painted in thick strokes. So it is fitting that when Wolff came to Manhattan he chose to settle at its highest point in the north- ern extremity of Washington Heights where he would be closest to the sky. The neighborhood was named after the fortification of Fort Washington, built by Revolutionary forces at a crowning eleva- tion to defend the city from British invaders. In Wolff’s time, the area became a picturesque amal- gam of Victorian homes built along country paths, on wooded slopes, overlooking the Harlem and Hudson Rivers. Wolff took full advantage of the genteel Impressionist subject matter the scenery offered and created compositions of elegant fig- ures wandering through sundrenched fields. The region’s industrial docks, marinas, riverside fac- tories, and viaducts provided the artist with alter- nate subjects, which he readily recorded with the Realist vision and moody sensitivity of the Ashcan School. Wolff’s great technical skill enabled him to portray with equal beauty the rural and urban aspects of his environment and to oscillate between the Impressionist and Ashcan styles with a unique versatility. I have truly enjoyed exploring the world of Gustave Wolff and am delighted the Wichita Art Museumhas selected himas the subject for an exhi- bition. It is important that we remain committed to enlarging the compass of art historical scholarship and I am proud to help bring this brilliant body of work forward to a growing national audience. J e n n i f e r C . K r i e g e r Managing Partner, Hawthorne Fine Art, LLC cur ator’s statement O ne of the most rewarding functions of curato- rial work is the opportunity to show the art of an undeservedly forgotten figure whose art still has the power to engage us, give us pleasure, and make us think. Thanks to a visit to the Hawthorne Fine Art gallery in New York, this curator encoun- tered the paintings of Gustave Wolff, whose career Hawthorne had led the way in reviving. The paint- ings seemed most appropriate for an exhibition at the Wichita Art Museum. The Museum collection has important holdings in Impressionist art, most notably its Mother and Child by Mary Cassatt. Yet the Cassatt is an unusual Impressionist painting in that its focus is on the formal and psychologi- cal relationships between the two figures. More typically, Impressionist paintings feature scenes of urban leisure or street life, of rural landscape, or of the margin between—the emerging sub- urban developments. The Museum is fortunate to have fine works representing both the urban and rural Impressionist subject, but little that explores those often anxious spaces between. Given the current Museum interest in developing a collection of paintings by Guy Carleton Wiggins, an Impressionist whose feature subject was the streetscape of central Manhattan, it is especially poignant that Gustave Wolff focused on the sub- urbs around Wiggins’ New York. Thus, an installa- tion of Wolff’s paintings adjacent to the Museum’s permanent collection of Impressionist art allows the visitor a fully-rounded view of the subjects and scenes of Impressionism, including the con- trast between the bustling and correspondingly brightly-colored Manhattan views of Guy Wiggins, and the suburban New York views of Gustave Wolff, characterized by carefully balanced compositions, subtle color harmonies, and an air of calm and ease touted as a tonic for the complications of urban life. S t e ph e n G l e i s s n e r , P h . D . Chief Curator, Wichita Art Museum G u s t av e W o l f f ( 1863 –1935 ) t An Impressionist Eye for New York