The Heckscher Museum of Art

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1 The Heckscher Museum of Art SPECIAL EXHIBITION RESOURCE GUIDE FOR TEACHERS The Heckscher at 90: Then and Now Old Favorites and New Acquisitions May 8 to July 18, 2010 Left: Penrhyn Stanlaws, August Heckscher, 1925, Oil on canvas. August Heckscher Collection Above: Frank Olt, Span Series #12, 2009, Acrylic wash, gesso, and encaustic on linen on panel. Gift of Alexandra and Howard Sutherland WHAT S INSIDE... About the Exhibition...1 Who is August Heckscher? Exhibition-related Vocabulary...4 Pre- and Post-Visit Activities Explore the Select Images from the Exhibition FREE ONLINE ACCESS to all of the Museum s Special Exhibition Resource Guides at Click Education and Educator Resources. 2 Prime Avenue Huntington, NY Tel Fax

2 ABOUT THE EXHIBITION To celebrate our 90th anniversary, The Heckscher Museum of Art presents The Heckscher at 90: Then and Now, featuring approximately 100 works of art from the Museum s Permanent Collection. Since the Museum was founded in 1920, its Permanent Collection has grown to over 2,200 works of art. What will students see? The works of art, dating from 1534 through the present, are in a wide variety of subjects/ genres, media, and styles. Subjects/genres include: portraiture, landscapes, still life paintings, genre scenes and narrative paintings Media include: oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, photographs, photograms, lithographs, engravings, monotypes, marble, bronze, decorative arts (Tiffany lamps, compotes), charcoal, ink Styles include: Realism, Romanticism/Luminism, Cubism, Abstraction How is the exhibition organized and displayed? This exhibition occupies all of the Museum s galleries and is divided into 2 sections: Then and Now. Then galleries Works that were acquired* by the Museum through Includes works from the original collection of August Heckscher. More crowded display of original collection to simulate a similar feeling to the way they were originally displayed in Heckscher s home. Now galleries Works that were acquired* from 2005 through Highlights the wide breadth of the Museum s most recently acquired* works of art. *The term acquired refers to when the works of art were added to the Museum s Permanent Collection, NOT when they were created. Therefore, the Now galleries contain works that were created prior to 2005, but were not acquired by the Museum until the past five years. Each work of art in the exhibition has an acquisition number that indicates when it entered the Collection. For more information on acquisition numbers, see page 4. 1

3 Who is August Heckscher? There are few immigrants who so quickly and remarkable caught the American spirit. As James Flint Curtis, writing for New Age in February 1928, explained, [August Heckscher] stands as a beacon of light on the horizon of our land. Born in Hamburg, Germany, August 27, 1848 the son of a German doctor, August Heckscher was to become one of the foremost capitalists and philanthropists in the United States. One of his enduring gifts was the purchase and development of land in the Town of Huntington, now known as Heckscher Park and home to The Heckscher Museum of Art. August Heckscher attended grade and high school in Germany! and Switzerland, and then began his business career in 1864 with an importing firm in the town where he was born. Three years later when his father died, the young Heckscher took his $500 legacy, buckled it inside his belt and started out to seek his fortune in America. August Heckscher was to fulfill the American dream of financial success and personal accomplishment. Arriving in this country, he went to work in his cousin Richard s coal mining operation as a laborer while studying English at night. Several years later, he formed a partnership with his cousin under the name of Richard Heckscher & Company. The firm concentrated on coal mining and was eventually sold to the Philadelphia-Reading Railroad. August Heckscher then turned his attentions to zinc mining and organized the Zinc and Iron Company, becoming vice-president and general manager. In 1897, it was consolidated with other zinc and iron companies into the New Jersey Zinc Company with Heckscher serving as the general manager. In 1881, August married Miss Anna Atkins of Pottsville, Pennsylvania and they eventually had two children Anna and Maurice. (A portrait of his son Maurice hangs in the background of Penrhyn Stanlaws 1925 portrait of August Heckscher.) In 1904 he resigned his position with the New Jersey Zinc Company and organized the Vermont Copper Company, taking the position of president. He was also to become president of a number of other iron, coal and power companies. August Heckscher later turned his attentions to the real estate field, organizing and becoming president of the Anahama Realty Corporation which conducted extensive operations in New York. His keen vision of the opportunities for building expansion and growth in Manhattan and Long Island led to his reputation as one of the foremost real estate developers of his time. Above: Penrhyn Stanlaws, August Heckscher, 1925, oil on canvas, 47 ½ x 34 ¼ in. August Heckscher Collection

4 Who is August Heckscher? (continued from page 2) The multimillionaire New York real estate developer, iron ore and zinc mining industrialist, achieved his success through hard work and determination. Toward the latter years of his life, August Heckscher began the most important chapter of his career, as a philanthropist. He was especially interested in social issues and child welfare. He created the Heckscher Children s Foundation (now home of El Museo del Barrio) and sought to eradicate slum dwellings in New York City. He advocated the erection of model tenement houses to be rented for as little as $6 a room. Heckscher established playgrounds in lower Manhattan for children and purchased the land that became Heckscher State Park at East Islip, Long Island, a tract of 1,469 acres. In 1918, Heckscher purchased the Prime property adjoining the Historic Old First Church in Huntington, and after artistically landscaping it into a park, at a total cost of $100,000, he turned its control over to a board of self-perpetuating trustees. Heckscher also arranged for an Endowment Fund of $70,000 for its upkeep. Later, an athletic field was added for school children and adults. Months later in 1919, August erected a beautiful beaux-arts fine arts building (now The Heckscher Museum of Art) at a cost of $100,000. He filled the museum with works from his collection including art from the Renaissance, the Hudson River School of landscape artists and early modernist American art. His collection included the best artists of the day such as Ralph Albert Blakelock, George Inness, and Thomas Moran. In 1920 when the museum opened, the works were valued at many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Heckscher dedicated this museum and the park to the people of Huntington, especially the children with the following words, to the little birds that migrate, and to the little children who fortunately do not. A year after this gift, August Heckscher gave significant funds for the erection of the Grand War Memorial on Main Street, to the east of the Huntington Library. August Heckscher passed away on April 26, 1941 at the age of 92. The Long Islander obituary described him as perhaps the finest benefactor that Huntington ever had. In Huntington, Heckscher was known to many as a warm personal friend. During his years when Wincoma (a section on Huntington Harbor) was his home, he took a lively interest in the affairs of the community. August Heckscher was quoted as saying, God in his great kindness has given me wealth which I feel I have neither earned nor deserved. It is my plan to spend much of this for the uplift of children especially. Today, hundreds of thousands of residents and visitors enjoy the lasting legacy created by August Heckscher each time they visit Heckscher Park and The Heckscher Museum of Art. 3

5 EXHIBITION-RELATED VOCABULARY acquisition number: The number assigned to a work of art when it is acquired. Each number is unique to a given work of art. The first four digits of this number refer to the year when it was acquired. (Example: = acquired in 1951.) Hudson River School: A mid-19th century American art movement in which two generations of landscape painters created awesomely dramatic images of America s wilderness - in the Hudson River Valley and in the newly opened West. contemporary: A term meaning current, or of the times. It may refer to a work of art or an artist who is currently living and working. decorative arts: A collective term for such art forms as ceramics, enamels, furniture, glass, metalwork, and textiles, especially when they take forms used as interior decoration. genre scenes: Works of art that depict ordinary scenes from daily life. representational/realistic: A style in which the artist tries to create an image of the subject that resembles the natural world. abstract: A collective term for styles in which the artist interprets the subject and creates a non-representational image focusing on line, shape, and color as opposed to realism. vanitas: A genre, or type, of still-life painting popular in the Netherlands in the early 17th Century (1600s) that is also common in other places and time periods. A vanitas painting contains collections of objects symbolic of death and the transient, or passing, quality of life (Examples: skulls, rotten fruit, flies). lithography: A printing method in which the artist uses a waxy lithographic crayon to draw on a stone. A lithograph is a print created with ink on paper using this method. rayograph: The name that artist Man Ray (American, ) gave to his photograms. photogram: A photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto photo-sensitive or light-sensitive paper and then exposing it to light. The result is a negative shadow image that resembles that of an X-ray. 4

6 PRE- and POST-VISIT ACTIVITIES Virtual Art Collections: Unity and Diversity Grade Level: Middle through High School (adjust as needed) Motivation: Collecting is a popular hobby. Why do you think this is? Do you collect anything? If so, what? Why do you think you collect this particular item? Ask students to bring in several items from their own collections to share with the class. Discuss how collections have both unity (things that are the same about all the items), and diversity (things that are different about each item). Why do collections need a balance between unity and diversity? What would happen if there was no unity or no diversity in a collection? Look carefully at the artwork in the exhibition Heckscher at 90: Then and Now and research the Museum s Collection at (See Collection Highlights on page 10). What unifies the artwork in the collection? What is diverse about it? How was this anniversary year exhibition organized? What does this organization illustrate or highlight about the collection? Procedure: 1. Explain that students will work in teams to create virtual art collections in an online gallery. This will be done at selecting artwork from the 2,200 objects in the Heckscher Museum s Permanent Collection. 2. Each team must first create a Username and Password at Click LOG IN in the upper righthand corner of the homepage and follow the prompts under New User Signup. Once each team has created an account, have all teams Log In. 3. Demonstrate how to Search the Collection for artwork (See page 10 for details). 4. Encourage students to spend time looking through the artwork and brainstorming characteristics that all the artworks they choose (1) will have in common - creating unity and (2) what will be different about them - creating diversity. (Example: time period, subject, style, medium, artist, color, shape). Each team must select at least 1 characteristic that will create unity and diversity for their collection. 5. As teams find works of art they would like to add to their collections, have them click the Add this image to your list of favorites link to the left of the large image. 6. When the first artwork is selected, teams will be asked to name their gallery. All subsequent artwork should be added to this same gallery. 7. When all the art collections are complete, them to one another for review. 8. Hold a vote: Which collection do students feel is the strongest and/or most creative. 9. Discuss the results: What makes these collections strong and/or creative? What is unifying and diverse about the artwork? If the collections were displayed in an exhibition, how might it be organized? How might the method of organizing the artwork change peoples understandings of the collection or highlight certain attributes? 5

7 My Art Collection, My Museum Grade Level: Elementary through Middle School (adjust as needed)!! Motivation: Sample images Left: Fig. 1, outside doors of museum Above: Fig. 2, inside galleries of museum Collecting is a popular hobby. Why do you think this is? Why might people enjoy collecting? Do you collect anything? If so, what? Why do you think you collect this item? Discuss the art collector August Heckscher who founded of The Heckscher Museum of Art in (See biography on pages 2-3.) Look at select artwork from the exhibition Heckscher at 90: Then and Now. What is similar about these works of art? What is different? Discuss and define key terms such as portrait, landscape, still life, sculpture, abstract, and realism (for more terms and definitions, see Exhibition-Related Vocabulary on page 4). Procedure: 1. Discuss: Imagine you are building your own art museum to display your art collection. What would you name your museum and what would it look like? 2. Show students a sample and discuss the outside, or front doors (Fig. 1). Brainstorm ideas as a class. What details may we add to show that this is an art museum? (Examples: name of the museum, door handles, signs.) Emphasize using a variety of colors, shapes, patterns, and using your imagination. 3. Open the sample and discuss the inside, or galleries (Fig. 2). Ask students to identify the types of artwork in the sample, reviewing key terms discussed in the Motivation. Explain that students will glue in two small frames, one large frame, and one pedestal for a sculpture. (If possible, show students an example of a sculpture in-person.) 4. Distribute 12 x 18 white papers (pre-folded or have students fold as shown in Folding Instructions on page 9), pencils, and crayons or other drawing materials. 5. First design and color the doors of the museums. Remind students to include the name of their museums and details such as door handles and signs. 6. Next, distribute glue, one large frame, two small frames, and one pedestal to each student (Templates on pages 7-9). Open the doors and glue these inside the galleries. 7. Draw and color artwork inside the frames and on the pedestals. If desired, review key terms and require students to include the types discussed. 8. Invite volunteers to share their finished museums with the class. 6

8 Small Frame Templates:! 7

9 Large Frame Templates:! 8

10 Folding Instructions: Pedestal Templates:!!!!! 9

11 EXPLORE THE your key to the Museum s Permanent Collection Learn about COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS. George Grosz s Eclipse of the Sun and much more! SEARCH THE COLLECTION of over 2,200 works of art by artist, classification, or date. See artwork that is CURRENTLY ON VIEW. Click thumbnails for large images and detailed information. Select works of art have Huey s Kid-Friendly Information. These guided questions are designed especially for children to learn along with a grown-up. Huey makes it fun for everyone to look and learn together! 10

12 Then galleries Acquisitions from the Museum s founding through 2004 Herman Herzog, The Lure of Norway, undated, Oil on canvas, 18 x 23-1/2 in. August Heckscher Collection

13 Daniel Ridgway Knight, Waiting for the Ferry, 1885, Oil on canvas, 35-3/4 x 50-3/4 in. August Heckscher Collection

14 Max Gaisser, The Alchemist, undated, Oil on wood panel, 15-3/4 x 19-3/4 in. August Heckscher Collection

15 William Holbrook Beard, Give Up That Egg, 1891, Oil on canvas, 16-1/8 x 20-1/2 in. August Heckscher Collection

16 Ralph Albert Blakelock, The Poetry of Moonlight, c , Oil on canvas, 30 x 25-1/4 in. August Heckscher Collection

17 Johann Georg Meyer von Bremen, Mending the Rents, 1886, Oil on canvas, 13 x 9-1/2 in. August Heckscher Collection

18 Now galleries Acquisitions from 2005 through the present Alfred Edwards Emslie, Untitled (Mother and Child at Window), Oil on canvas. Bequest of Theresa A. Cwierzyk and Sidney Gordon

19 George Foster, Untitled (Still Life with Fruit and Bird s Nest), Oil on canvas on board. Bequest of Theresa A. Cwierzyk and Sidney Gordon

20 Red Grooms, Picasso, 1997, Three-dimensional color lithography on rives BFK, 21 x 22 x 12-1/4 in. Museum Purchase

21 Jane Hammond, Presto, 1991, Lithograph on paper, 39-3/8 x 25-5/8 in. Museum Purchase. Friends and Collectors Circle Fund

22 Grace DeGennaro, Nightblooms, 2008, Oil on linen, 48 x 30 in. Museum Purchase

23 Man Ray, Salle a Manger (Dining Room), 1931, Photogravure from rayograph, 10-1/8 x 8 in. Museum Purchase with funds provided by Andrea B. and Peter D. Klein

24 @ Everything you need SPECIAL EXHIBITION RESOURCE GUIDES for TEACHERS Prepare your students before their upcoming School Discovery Program! Guides are developed on a rolling basis and are available free of charge at Simply click on Education and Educator Resources. All guides include exhibitionspecific information including: artist biographies exhibition summaries full-color artwork images vocabulary words pre- and post-visit activities NEW! IN THE KIDS CORNER Each month, the Museum will choose up to 6 lucky young artists to have their artwork displayed in this new online gallery! HOW TO ENTER: Please send a.jpg of your artwork to seekamp@heckscher.org. All entries must include the artist s FIRST NAME, TITLE of the artwork, and AGE of the artist. TEACHERS: SHARE LESSONS & STUDENT ARTWORK Have you taught your students a lesson inspired by an exhibition on view in the Museum? Share it with us and fellow art teachers at Please send a description of your lesson along with.jpg files of student work to seekamp@heckscher.org. All submissions must include teacher s full name, school name, district, and grade level. 2 Prime Avenue Huntington, NY Tel Fax FURTHER QUESTIONS? Please call the Museum s Education Department at Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm, or seekamp@heckscher.org and we would be happy to help! 23