Art about and at Vassar

Gillian Barlow
The Vassar College Art Gallery
1987
watercolor on paper
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Barbara Bosworth
Vassar Campus - European Beech
2003
gelatin silver print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Barbara Bosworth
Vassar Campus - Norway Spruce
2003
gelatin silver print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Clarence Kerr Chatterton
Vassar Art Gallery
ca. 1915
oil on canvas
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Lois Conner
Vassar Campus - Eastern White Pine
2004
gelatin silver print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College,
Poughkeepsie, New York

Lois Conner
Vassar Campus - Norway Spruce
2004
gelatin silver print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College,
Poughkeepsie, New York

Eleanor Daniels
Shakespeare Garden - Vassar College
1989
oil on canvas
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Gregory Conniff
Vassar Campus - New York Ferns and Canadian Hemlocks
2005
inkjet print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Gregory Conniff
Vassar Campus - Purple Beech
2005
inkjet print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Tim Davis
Man descending Staircase with Painting
2010
pigment print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Frank Gohlke
Vassar Campus - Apple Trees
2006
gelatin silver print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Frank Gohlke
Vassar Campus - White Oak
2006
gelatin silver print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Jim Dow
Vassar College Library Window
2008
C-print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Violet Oakley
Study for West Wall, Vassar College Alumnae House 
1924
watercolor and gouache on paper
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Jim Dow
Vassar College Library Card Catalog
2008
C-print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Marjorie Farrell
Vassar Sunlight
1989
gelatin silver print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Tony Smith
Equinox
1968
steel
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

    There is nothing more acceptable unto the Ingenuous world than this noble eluctation of truth, wherin agaynst the tenacitie of prejudice, custome and prescription this centurie now prevayleth. What Vaticans of new works after ages will behold and in what a new world of knowledge the eyes of our posteritie may bee happy, were half a resurrection to behold, and is a cold thought unto those who who cannot hope to see this exantlation of truth, or that obscured virgin half out of the pitt. Which might make some desire a commutation of time in their beings, or rest content with a metempsuchosis whereby they might hope for this happinesse in their third or fourth selves, and behold that in Pythagoras which they now foresee in Euphorbus.*

    The world which tooke six days to make will take above six thousand yeares to make out; meanetime old truths voted downe beginne to take their places, and new ones arise upon us, wherin there is no confort in the happines of Tullies Elizium, and cold satisfaction to bee had from the ghosts of Aristotle or the ancients. Men disparage not Antiquitie who wisely exalt new enquiries, and make not them the judges of truth butt fellowe enquirers of it. Who can butt honour the endeavors of Aristotle and the noble start which Learning and Arts had under him, or lesse than pitty the slender progression therof upon that notable advantage? While many centuries were lost in repetitions and transcriptions sealing up the booke of knowledge. And therefore rather than to continue such tautologie in writing and merely to swell the leaves of knowledge by trite and fruitlesse repetitions, to cuckoe out the same note in all ages, nor adventure at essayes beyond the leaves of others, some had rather men would write like Helmont or Paracelsus, and would endure the monstrosities of some opinions for divers singular notions requiting such aberrancies.

– Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) 

*Ipse ego nam medina Troiani in tempore belli Panthoides Euphorbus eram

Art Chantry

Art Chantry
Moods for Mallards
1982
lithograph (record sleeve)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
Ready for War
at Alonzo Cretini's Salon Politique, Seattle
1982
screenprint (exhibition poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
Eleanor Marx by Leonard Angel at the Bathhouse Theatre, Seattle
1984
screenprint (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
him by e.e. cummings
at the Bathhouse Theatre, Seattle
1985
screenprint (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
The Balcony by Jean Genet at New City Theater, Seattle
1985
offset-lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
Required Etiquette
1987
offset-lithograph (record sleeve)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
Teriyaki Asthma
1989
offset-lithograph (record sleeve)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
Flaming Lips: Drug Machine
1989
offset-lithograph (record sleeve)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
The Derelicts: Don't Wanna Live
1991
offset-lithograph (record sleeve)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
The Full-Custom Gospel Sounds of the Reverend Horton Heat
1993
offset-lithograph (CD jewel-case with paper liner)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
Jack O'Fire
1993
offset-lithograph (record sleeve)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
Art Chantry at Seattle Art Museum
1993
screenprint (exhibition poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
SIN at the Weathered Wall, Seattle
1-Year Anniversary
1994
 screenprint (dance party poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
The Insomniacs
1994
offset-lithograph (record sleeve)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
The Holidays: "Every Day is a Holiday!"
1994
screenprint (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
An Evening with Kenny G
Kane Hall, UW Campus, Seattle
1994
screenprint (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

from The Consolation of Philosophy

Boethius complaineth, that all things are governed by Gods providence, beside the actions and affayres of men

 

    None from thy laws are free,

Nor can forsake their place ordain'd by Thee.

    Thou that to certaine end

Govern'st all things; denyest thou to intend

    The Acts of men alone,

Directing them in measure from thy throne?

    For why should slipp'ry chance

Rule all things with such doubtfull governance?

    Or why should punishments,

Due to the guilty light on innocents?

    But now the highest place,

Giveth to naughty maners greatest grace,

    And wicked people vexe

Good men, and tread unjustly on their necks,

    Vertue in darknesse lurkes,

And righteous soules are charg'd with impious works.

    Deceites nor Perjuries

Disgrace not those, who colour them with lies,

    For, when it doth them please

To shew their force, they to their will with ease

    The hearts of kings can steare,

To whome so many crouch with trembling feare.

    O thou that joyn'st with love

All worldly things, looke from thy seat above

    On the earthes wretched state,

We men, not the least work thou didst create,

    With fortunes blasts doe shake;

Thou carefull ruler, these fierce tempests slake,

    And for the earth provide

Those laws by which thou heav'n in peace dost guide.

– Boethius (AD 476-524), translated by Michael Walpole (1609)

Charles Spencelayh

Charles Spencelayh
My Pet
1890
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Charles Spencelayh
Sunset
ca. 1895
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Charles Spencelayh
Dog's Head
1897
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Charles Spencelayh
The White Rat
1899
oil on canvas
Manchester Art Gallery

Charles Spencelayh
Vernon Spencelayh, the artist's son
1917
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Charles Spencelayh
Polly Not Forgotten
ca. 1920
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Charles Spencelayh
Alderman Price, Mayor of Rochester
1922
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Charles Spencelayh
Mrs. Price,
Wife of Alderman Price, Mayor of Rochester
1922
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Charles Spencelayh
Sure to Catch
1932
oil on canvas
Newport Museum and Art Gallery, Shropshire

Charles Spencelayh
No Watermark
1933
oil on canvas
Tate Britain

Charles Spencelayh
Dig for Victory
1941
oil on canvas
Birmingham Museums, West Midlands

Charles Spencelayh
Self Portrait at age 79
1944
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Charles Spencelayh
His Daily Ration
1946
oil on canvas
Nottingham City Museums and Galleries, East Midlands

"I shan't be in London till July.  I shall certainly study the Spencelayhs.  Last year it seemed to me his invention was flagging a little though his great talents were unimpaired."  – from a letter dated 2 June 1946

"The Spencelayhs.  Ed and I went to examine them.  All are sold or in our after luncheon mood we would have celebrated the great inflation by buying you one.  All three exquisite.  One just junk called Grandfather's Treasures.  The other two of the old man who features so often in his later work, with the familiar red bandana handkerchief.  One, The Passing of Time, with a photograph album, grandfather clock in background, apples ripening on top of door-case.  The masterpiece of nomenclature and symbolism is the old man seated with hands folded on calf bound Bible, look of earnest faith in his eyes, an oleograph of Christ behind his head, an empty bird cage.  The title, Not Alone.  I would dearly have liked to have that."  – from a letter of mid-June 1946

Charles Spencelayh
A Cure for Everything
ca. 1947
oil on canvas
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

"Three Spencelayhs at the Academy – up to standard but not remarkable.  The best, The Empty Chair – not Dickens's.  The Bread Ration, an elderly artisan looking quizzically at his loaf, 'Give us this day our daily bread' on the chimney piece.  Rather a poor The Telegram.  Impossible to tell whether it is good or bad news – one assumes bad on general grounds, but the face is downcast and the line of moustache hides the line of the mouth.  It could hardly be a son killed in the war.  It might be a football-pool success.  He has changed his address from Manchester and now lives in a village in Northamptonshire – St Mildred, Bozeat, Wellingborough."  – from a letter dated 10 May 1947

Charles Spencelayh
Key to Eternity
1950
oil on canvas
Swanspool House, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire

Charles Spencelayh
Fingerprints
1953
oil on canvas
Russell Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bournemouth, Dorset

"Three Spencelayhs in the Academy.  Compositions as beautiful as always and many familiar details – the red and white spotted handkerchief, the guinea, the fiddle but his old eyes are dim and his old fingers numb and there is not the fine finish of 25 years ago.  None sold either."  – from a letter dated 2 May 1954 

Charles Spencelayh
The Scent
before 1958
oil on canvas
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, Lancashire

[from newspaper clipping enclosed in a letter] – "Nearby hangs a picture by a 91-year-old painter, Charles Spencelayh, who is going blind.  The name of his work: My First Painting and My Last.  It shows the interior of a room with his first painting on an easel.  A guttering candle stands on a table."  – 2 May 1957  

– texts from letters of Evelyn Waugh to Diana Cooper (mutual fans of Spencelayh), as published in Mr. Wu & Mrs. Stitch: The Letters of Evelyn Waugh & Diana Cooper, edited by Artemis Cooper (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991)