When you think of the Dutch Masters, you immediately think of light – with warm sepia tones on figures and landscapes. Once again, the Academy Art Museum has brought a local private collection out for public view. Norma Redele’s collection of Dutch paintings is on show at the Academy Art Museum, and they’re worth a close look.
Hendrik W. Mesdag, Two Fishing Boats Near Scheveningen, (detail) oil
On Thursday, Mrs. Redele’s family and friends gathered at the Academy for a special opening reception. Curator Anke Van Wagenberg took visitors through the show, and gave a history of the works and the collection.
The exhibit includes works by important artists of the Hague School. Van Wagenberg explained that both the Hague School in the Netherlands and the Barbizon school in France were active just before the Impressionists. These two schools rode on the wave of the industrial revolution, allowing artists to paint outside for the first time ever. With portable easels and paint in tubes, artists were free to pack up their supplies and step outside to paint. Enormously freeing for painters who previously would have to grind up powders and oil on a palette, having tubes of paint changed everything. This period was truly the birth of the Plein Air movement.
The Redeles collected these works over a 25 year span. Their love for the water is evident by the seascapes in their collection, which show similarities between the Dutch and Eastern Shore landscapes. In addition to the art are some objects belonging to Julien Redele, who was knighted by Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands for economic development contributions with the US. Julien Redele was a descendant of landscape painter Hendrik W. Mesdag.
Mesdag to Mondrian: Dutch Art from the Redele Collection - June 2 – September 30, 2012
Academy Art Museum, 106 South St. in Easton, 410-822-2787