Handled With Care
Barbara Prey draws inspiration from Shaker master crafts.
It’s been 250 years since the United Society of Believers, more commonly called Shakers, arrived in America from England. They made by hand most of what they needed — tools, baskets, tubs, cleaning and measuring devices — and sold those items to the outside world.
A leading repository of their creations is Hancock Shaker Village (Pittsfield, Massachusetts), which in 2018 invited artist Barbara Ernst Prey to create 10 large watercolors of anything on its property that engaged her attention. She has loaned six of the resulting works to NBMAA’s show, which also features items from Pittsfield that all have handles and have survived in good condition.
The New Britain Museum of American Art (NBMAA, Connecticut) is presenting the exhibition “Handled with Care: Shaker Master Crafts and the Art of Barbara Prey” through October 6, 2024.
Birds and Beasts of the Studio
In a series of studies and watercolors Walton Ford imagines encounters between big cats and humans, largely based on true stories.
Walton Ford is renowned for monumental watercolors that reflect his fascination with how we imagine wild animals, often subverting the historical conventions of animal painting in unforgettable ways.
An exhibition currently on display at the Morgan Library & Museum opens with works inspired by Ford’s decades of visits to the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. To this day, Ford explores that institution’s rich archives, field studies, documents, and taxidermy specimens. The drawings confirm that his artistry is rooted in scientific research and an attention to detail.
Particularly compelling are the sections of the show devoted to Ford’s studies and watercolors that imagine encounters between big cats and humans, largely based on true stories. Illustrated here is one in a series about a black panther that escaped Zurich’s zoo and spent weeks alone in the countryside before being caught and eaten by a farmer.
Also on view are books Ford has loaned, from travel diaries to volumes of natural history, folktales, and fables. The exhibition closes with a display of relevant pieces selected by Ford from the Morgan’s holdings, accompanied by wall texts he has written. It includes memorable images of animals created by such masters as Rembrandt, Audubon, and Delacroix.
The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City is presenting “Walton Ford: Birds and Beasts of the Studio” — a celebration of the American master’s 2019 gift to the Morgan of 63 studies and sketches, now shown publicly for the first time. It will be on view through October 20, 2024.
