On this crisp and eventually sun lit autumn day, I traveled yet again to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to pay a visit to the Charles Demuth Foundation's Museum. The occasion was a two-fer: 1) my monthly outing with my ex- and his (and MY) beloved grandmother (it's a tradition that we established over a decade ago, and which has outlasted our relationship by over three years now -- Something’s slip away and others are just too important to lose), and 2) the exhibition commemorating the 25th year of the foundation.
Charles Demuth (1883-1938) is an American artist who grew up in Lancaster, and the Foundation is blessed to own his home and use it as their gallery space. It's a modest storefront structure, with a quaint sideyard reached through a covered alley. The gallery has all of three rooms in which to create and display works of art. Whatever it concocts is the antithesis of the urban museum blockbuster show; and perhaps, as much as I love Demuth, is a metaphor for his place in the lexicon of early 20th century artists (watercolors being his most prolific medium). And yet, his associations with other artists of that time period (Alfred Steiglist, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O'Keefe, Arthur Dove) will always keep for him a place in the wider world of American artists.
And I for one simply LOVE his work. As someone who has worked with watercolor as a medium, I can appreciate his technical prowess. But more than that, I also love his aesthetic sense of color and composition.
After visiting the exhibition, we were joined by my ex-'s college roommate and mutual friend for a cup of coffee at a local coffee house. (I found the leaf on the sidewalk on our walk between the museum and the coffee house.)
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