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American Masters from Bingham to Eakins: The John Wilmerding Collection

May 9, 2004 – February 6, 2005
East Building, Mezzanine, Northwest

Martin Johnson Heade, Sunlight and Shadow: The Newbury Marshes, c. 1871/1875, oil on canvas, John Wilmerding Collection, 2010.74.1

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

Overview: 51 works by 26 American artists from the collection of John Wilmerding were presented in this exhibition, which included landscapes, marine paintings, portraits, still lifes, and figure paintings. Among the artists whose work was represented were George Caleb Bingham, Thomas Eakins, William Stanley Haseltine, Fitz Hugh Lane, John Marin, John Frederick Peto, and William Trost Richards. Drawings and watercolors by Frederic Edwin Church and other artists depicted Mount Desert Island, Maine, from the 1840s to the early twentieth century. In conjunction with the exhibition, Wilmerding announced that all of the works would remain at the National Gallery of Art and that George Caleb Bingham’s Mississippi Boatman would be an immediate gift.

On October 10, 2004 Wilmerding and exhibition curator Franklin Kelly were joined by other experts in American art for a public discussion about the development of American art scholarship and collections.

Organization: The exhibition was organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Franklin Kelly, senior curator of American and British paintings at the National Gallery, was curator.

Attendance: 177,897

Catalog: American Masters from Bingham to Eakins: The John Wilmerding Collection, by Franklin Kelly et al. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; in association with Lund Humphries, 2004.

Bingham, George Caleb
American, 1811 - 1879
Church, Frederic Edwin
American, 1826 - 1900
Eakins, Thomas
American, 1844 - 1916
Haseltine, William Stanley
American, 1835 - 1900
Heade, Martin Johnson
American, 1819 - 1904
Lane, Fitz Henry
American, 1804 - 1865
Marin, John
American, 1870 - 1953
Peto, John Frederick
American, 1854 - 1907
Richards, William Trost
American, 1833 - 1905

Download a free PDF of the exhibition catalog (PDF 59.23MB)