A new illustration exhibit at New Britain Museum of American Art is an eclectic and well-selected collection of illustrations from a wide variety of magazines and books from throughout the 20th century.
As enjoyable as it is to look at the artworks, the real fun is matching up the artwork with its title, and trying to figure out exactly what is going on. The exhibit’s extensive catalog fills in some of the blanks — the plots of the stories, the characters and their motivations, what scene this artwork illustrates — but it’s almost more fun to let the imagination run free and make up another story.
“Man Reading to Lady on a Sofa,” Ralph Pallen Coleman’s oil on canvas, which appeared in a 1939 Good Housekeeping magazine, shows a well-dressed man, literally sitting on the edge of his seat, dramatically reading to a pretty woman reclining on a couch. Who is he and what is he reading? Why does she look bored to the point of sleep? Has she been drinking from the carafe of wine on the coffee table?
M. Coburn Whitmore’s “‘Restraint,’ Regan cried. ‘I’m tired of restraint. There’s more to love than the waiting, Bill,'” a 1946 tempera, focuses on an elegantly dressed woman pleading with a man as they wait at a restaurant. If they are in love, why are they waiting? Why does the man look so annoyed? Is he annoyed with her persistence or with something else?
Harvey Thomas Dunn’s “He Would Listen to Her Chatter by the Hour,” a 1911 oil on canvas published in the Saturday Evening Post, shows a cowboy riding with a pretty lady. Does he love her? Does she love him? Does he call her talk “chatter” because she’s dull despite her beauty?
A realistic oil-on-canvas published in True Magazine in 1950, Tom Lovell’s “Rescue,” depicts four soldiers on a mountaintop. What war and what country does this depict? Who is being rescued and who is the rescuer? Why do these men’s shoes have so many holes their toes poke through? Is that fabric on a stick a flag of surrender or a crutch?
Lyman Matthew Anderson’s 1940 oil on canvas “We Were Comrades Again and Happy” is a scene of joy, with a man and a boy laughing as they take a spin in a car. What is these people’s relationship? Did they fight, and if so, why? How did they make up?
The exhibit is made up of 67 works chosen from the museum’s 1,800-plus collection of illustrations. The collection was started by Sanford B.D. Low, who was the first director of NBMAA and was a devoted champion of illustration as art rather than commerce. The collection, and the exhibit, features work by noted artist Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, Howard Pyle, Wendell Minor and former Hartford Art School instructor Murray Tinkelman, whose “steam-powered rhinoceros” is part of his “mechanimals” series.
Some illustrations, like Tinkelman’s, don’t need explanation or just stand on their own. Harry Everett Townsend’s 1911 charcoal “Lincoln with Harriet Beecher Stowe” shows the two champions of emancipation chatting. C.F. Payne’s “Young Bill Clinton,” a 1997 tempera and acrylic on board, depicts the president as a youthful pot-smoking hippy. George Hughes’ “Company Arrives Early,” a 1957 oil on board published in the Saturday Evening Post, is a funny scene of a couple being let into an apartment by a screaming boy, as his undressed parents react with horror.
MASTERPIECES OF THE SANFORD B.D. LOW ILLUSTRATION COLLECTION is at New Britain Museum of American Art, 56 Lexington Ave., until Oct. 2. nbmaa.org.
