Lisa N. Peters
James Everett Stuart, "Mt. Hood from near the Columbia River," 1916, oil on canvas, 18-1/4 x 30-1/4 inches
Cultural-historical ideas about the nature of mountains are explored in the fascinating exhibition, Alpine Desire, organized by the Austrian Cultural Forum, New York, and the Belvedere Vienna. Ranging over four floors at the former (11 East 52d Street, New York City), the show presents a dynamic dialectic among works created by artists from Austria and the United States that were rendered from the nineteenth century to the present in a wide range of media and aesthetic approaches—from oil and acrylic on canvas to installations to photographic and webcam manipulations. While some works explore the abuses inflicted by man on nature, perceiving “sometimes problematic realities behind the visual,” others question “the contemporary mechanisms of representation.”
Presenting a view of the highest peak in Oregon in the glow of a luminous sunset, James Everett Stuart’s oil on canvas, Mt. Hood from near the Columbia River, 1916 (lent by Spanierman Gallery) is among the more traditional works in the show. As was his practice, Stuart (1852-1941) meticulously inscribed the painting on the back with its subject (Mt. Hood from near the Columbia River, Multnomah Falls to the right of foreground, Oregon), the date he painted it (July 12, 1916), his inventory number (2220), and his price ($2,500). Mt. Hood seems to have been Stuart’s passion. In fact, of all the mountains he portrayed—and there were many, including Western peaks from the Bay area to Alaska—Mt. Hood was perhaps the one he painted most; he rendered it repeatedly from the mid-1870s through the 1920s. (He wrote in his 1924 autobiography of climbing the mountain for the first time in 1881, the year he opened a public studio in Portland.) The high price he placed on this painting, relative to others (we have others in the gallery inventory), also indicates that Mt. Hood may have been Stuart’s most lucrative subject.
Mt. Hood reflected in Trillium Lake, Oregon
Although Stuart can be considered a journalistic artist, who recorded Western scenery for posterity, his painting of Mt. Hood fits well in this conceptual exhibition, as this meticulously labeled image seems likely to be a composite and fanciful view. I don’t believe one can see both Multnomah Falls and Mt. Hood at the same time (please let me know if this is the case); the evergreens in the mountain’s foothills have been replaced by Stuart with imaginary and spectacular rock formations, more like those belonging to a desert or lunar landscape than to the Pacific Northwest; and the mountain’s color is heightened to an unnatural fluorescence that seems to emanate from within. In fact, Stuart’s views of Mt. Hood seem to have gone increasingly in this romantic direction as his career progressed, suggesting that despite his specific notations, he may have created such works in his studio in San Francisco. The painting can be seen as less a topographic record than as a work that encapsulated what American audiences associated with the sublime and transcendent qualities of the mountains of the Western United States; like other works in Alpine Desire, the painting brings to mind the mechanism of representation by which works of art reflect their cultural-historical context.
That interest in Stuart’s work is growing is revealed in two terrific blog posts, recently written by Stephanie Lile, education director for the Washington State Historical Museum, in which Lile details the research on and the conservation of a painting by Stuart of Mt. Rainier that belongs to the Rainier Brewing Company and is now on view at the museum. Step-by-step photographs document the cleaning and restoring of the painting in one post, while in the other Lile discusses this “mountainous mystery” and the artist. Stuart’s art and career have yet to be the subject of a scholarly exploration, and such a consideration is long overdue. This subject is especially of interest to me because I grew up in Portland and spent my winters skiing on Mts. Hood and Bachelor.
See other works by James Everett Stuart on the Spanierman Gallery website, and if you have a painting by Stuart in your collection, please let me know: lpeters@spanierman.com.
February 11, 2011 at 5:43 pm
I like Stuarts painting, would fit perfectly in my livingroom.
Never heard from the guy, but I like his style, thanks.