When we decided to devote a full day to touring the three attractions that comprise the
Teflair Museums -- the
Telfair Academy, the
Jepson Center for the Arts and the
Owens-Thomas House -- we were a little disappointed to learn the Owens-Thomas House was temporarily closed for repair work.
Lee Ann and I had had our eye on the Owens-Thomas House since our first visit, but weren't able to include it into our schedule ... until this trip. Alas, perhaps another time. We decided to go ahead and check out Telfair and Jepson anyway (access to all three places comes with the purchase of one ticket), and both of us enjoyed each stop.
The Telfair Academy, the oldest public art museum in the South, houses displays you'd find in a typical classic art museum -- older paintings and sculptures. It was designed by British architect William Jay and built in 1818-19 for Alexander Telfair, son of Revolutionary War patriot and George Gov. Edward Telfair.
Alexander's time at the new home wasn't very long; he died on Oct. 8, 1832, after which his sister Mary Telair took it over. She bequeathed the estate to the Georgia Historical Society, which took possession after her death in 1875 before converting it into the museum it is today.
The Telfair's permanent collection are works acquired largely by the academy first director, Carl Brandt, who served from 1883 until his death in 1905, painter Gari Melchers, who served as Telfair purchasing agent from 1906 to 1916.
I came to really appreciate Brandt and Melchers' decisions; they inspired me to photograph a lot of the paintings. I offer below a sampling of some of the academy's works available for appreciation. I have never studied the art of photographically reproducing works of still art. I'm sure there is a skill required for taking such pictures -- e.g., finding the perfect angle and avoiding glare (direct or reflective) from nearby artificial or natural/window light -- so as to reproduce them in optimum form. In the case of paintings or anything that is framed, that would include reproducing and representing the frame itself without having to impose harmful crops or have it appear in a skewed or unnatural order.
My primary goal was to avoid glare, which annoys me most when I see photographs of art taken by people in a hurry. I succeeded most of the time with framed paintings, but it sometimes required doing something detrimental to the frame. I apologize for that.
To see a larger, sharper version of an image, simply click on the image. To view a
full gallery of photos I took at the academy, click on the link in this sentence.
Photo geek stuff: All photos here were shot with a Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di PZD VC lens. All compositions were bracketed for three exposures, very few of which were melded into one frame using Photomatix high-dynamic range (HDR) software. The vast majority of images in this post were processed as single frames.
Above: This display introduces the Telfair family responsible for the home and, ultimately, the museums.
Above: Outside near the entrance to the Telfair on this day was this staffer, kindly stopping to pose for a picture, dressed in period garb.
Above and next three below: Rooms on both sides of the entry hallway feature rooms decorated as the Telfair most likely looked in its days as a home.
A view of the underground floor (above) of the museum, with a focus (below) on the sculpture in the center background. The original of this copy of Hermes Belvedere (unknown artist) is at the Museo Pino-Clementino Museums in the Vactican.
Above: French painter Alfred Smith's 1904 oil of an elevated view (from a nearby bridge) of a quay and road in his native Bordeaux. The museum obtained the painting in 1908.
Above: American Edward Redfield painting this winter scene in Center Bridge, Pa., circa 1920, the year the museum acquired it.
Above: Artist Julian Story was born in England in 1857. In 1888, he painted this battle scene representing the aftermath of the Battle of Crecy in August 1346 during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). Edward, the dark-armored Price of Wales, pays homage to slain King John of Bohemia, whom Edward admired as an adversary. King John lay in a white tunic under his white steed. The king chose to fight in the war in support of France -- despite being completely blind -- and perished along with an estimated 4,000 other soldiers in the battle. In 1889, the painting won Story a third-class medal and honorable mention at the Paris Salon and a silver medal at the Paris Universal Exposition. Telfair's then-director, Carl Brandt, purchased the painting at the exposition that year.
Above: One of the academy's most profound pieces is this circa 1895 oil on canvas -- by Italian artist Cesare Laurenti. The work is symbolically divided in half by a section of the frame. Laurenti explained the meaning of La Parabola to Telfair director Carl Brandt: It is, he said, "the presentation of human life ... the race toward pleasure until clouds of weighty thoughts and sorrow come to disturb the serenity of the young soul." He went on to explain that the first part (on the left) represents a lively feast in which two young men invite the crowd to participate in music and other merriment, and one of the men is about to kiss the cheek of the woman as she prepares to cross the threshold into the house. The second part, on the right, is at the door of a church where inside, "suffering souls seek relief." The man, dressed in priestly garb, represents faith.
Above: Dutch painter and American immigrant Anthony Johannes Thiem had a knack for capturing reflections, and this work, Rain in the South, is one such example. It was part of the Johnson Collection on loan from Spartanburg, S.C., and on display on the upper level.
After a successful early career as an impressionistic landscape painter in the Northeast, American Lawrence Mazzanovich moved in mid-life to Tryon, which is near the South Carolina border in south central North Carolina, to get a fresh start. The result was a series of softer and gentler works often focusing on the rolling hills of the Piedmont and hazing mountain peaks, such as this undated piece, View from Tryon, also part of the Johnson Collection. I included it here because even in my short time in North Carolina, I am familiar with the Tryon name. It is the name of a major east-west thoroughfare in Cary and the southside of Raleigh.
Artist J.J. Shannon, best known for his society portraits, was born in New York City in 1862 but went to London at the age of 16 and soon became one of the top portrait painters in England, where he lived for the rest of his life. He often painted with fellow expatriates George Hitchcock and Gari Melchers (who purchased works for the Telfair from 1906-1916). Shannon's portrait of Hitchcock (above) shows the artist (before 1909) in a garden surrounded by poppies.
Flowers were among Hitchcock's favorite subjects, as illustrated in Hitchock's work below, Early Spring in Holland. Hitchcock was born in 1850 in Rhode Island and move to Europe in 1879, bouncing around several locales before settling in 1883 in Holland, where he and Melchers founded the Egmond School in North Holland, to which Shannon and Walter MacEwon (second photo below) were attracted.
Above: Walter MacEwon, born in Chicago in 1860, got into painting on a quirk of fate. A destitute painter acquaintance came to him seeking a loan, and MacEwon agreed, taking the borrower's paints and brushes as collateral. The borrower never returned, so MacEwon began to dabble in the craft. In 1877, he went to Europe and within three years had established studios in Paris and Holland. He returned to the United States in 1939 when war broke out in Europe. He died four years later. This work, The Lacemakers, was painted circa 1895-1900 and was a gift to the Telfair from Mr. and Mrs. George A.S. Starke and family in 1992.
Above: I finish with a portrait that I would think the Telfair Museums treasures and reveres immensely because of both the subject and artist. The Telfair's board of trustees commissioned its first director, Carl Brandt, to paint this portrait of the museum's founding benefactor, Mary Telfair, and he finished it in 1896. Brandt chose to paint Mary as she appeared 15 years before her death. Brandt integrated two key symbolic features into the painting. 1) Mary's left hand rests on the pages of an open book, a tribute to her intellect and love of literature. 2) A profile likeness of the god Apollo appears on the face of the cameo at her throat (to best appreciate this, you'll have to click on the image and enlarge it), symbolic of her love of poetry. Her feet rest on a red cushion probably to offset how, at 5 feet tall, her feet would not naturally reach the floor.
Next up: Jepson Center for the Arts, Savannah
Previous posts in this series:
Savannah at night
Savannah in daylight
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