FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
EXPERIENCE THE MAJESTY, POWER, AND BEAUTY OF THE OCEAN
THROUGH SALT-AIR SCENES FROM THE CHRYSLER MUSEUM COLLECTION
—First new exhibition of 2016 showcases paintings and drawings
by 19th-century master seascape artist William Trost Richards—
William Trost Richards (American, 1833–1905), Tower on the Cornish Coast, ca. 1880s–90s, oil on canvas, gift of George Klauber
NORFOLK, VA. (December 2015) — The Chrysler Museum of Art’s newest exhibition explores the talent
of one of America’s greatest painters of coastal views. Seascapes by William Trost Richards presents
40 vibrant and colorful drawings, watercolors, and oil paintings by this prolific artist. The exhibition will
be on view in the Museum’s Focus Gallery (G. 229) January 9 through May 1, 2016. Admission is free.
“The Chrysler is very fortunate to have such a large collection by this distinguished artist,” says Alex
Mann, the Museum’s Brock Curator of American Art, who created the exhibition. Thanks largely to a
generous gift in 1994 from the painter’s granddaughter, Edith Ballinger Price (1897–1997), the Museum
owns more than 100 of Richards’ works, including handsome pieces from all phases of his career. For
this exhibition, Mann selected the finest pictures of sprawling beaches and craggy cliffs, probing the
artist’s favorite subject—the water.
Born in Philadelphia in 1833, William Trost Richards came of age and attended his first art classes during
the years in which Hudson River School landscape painters like Thomas Cole and Asher Durand enjoyed
wide public praise. After studying all elements of the natural world, he found that the colors and shapes
of rocks and waves provided his richest source for pictures. In 1874 he began summering in Newport,
Rhode Island, eventually building a house nearby on a bluff overlooking the ocean. He was also a prolific
traveler, visiting and painting the coastline throughout New England, as well as in Italy and the British
Isles. Wherever he went, Richards recorded striking views. Many of these journeys are featured in the
Chrysler’s show.
“This exhibition demonstrates the tremendous variety of
Richards’ style and work,” says Mann. “The pen and ink
sketches are so simple and fresh, while the larger watercolors
are conscientiously detailed. He could do it all.”
This mixture of sketches and finished pieces allows visitors to
trace the artist’s working process. Also on view are some of
Richards’ materials and equipment, including his camp stool,
his palette, and his paint box, still filled with paint tubes more
than a century old.
Many of the works in this exhibition are on public display for
the first time. One notable work is a previously unstretched
and unvarnished oil-on-canvas painting of rocky cliffs and
crashing waves that was restored to museum-quality
exhibition standards by the Chrysler’s conservation team.
“It was a delight to clean these paintings and watch their rich
colors come to life,” says Mark Lewis, the Chrysler’s
Conservator of Paintings. Lewis, with the assistance of his
National Endowment for the Humanities conservation
fellows, treated more than a dozen of the works included in
this show.
William Trost Richards (American, 1833–1905)
Conanicut, ca. 1890s
Ink on wove paper
Gift of Edith Ballinger Price
Critics and peers praised Richards’ mastery of color and his
understanding of the visual interplay of sunlight, wind, and water. Knowing that no two rocks or waves
are identical, he approached every seascape as an entirely fresh challenge, and his curiosity about the
natural world did not lessen with age. As the works in this exhibition demonstrate, the artist undertook
some of his most ambitious travels very late in life, always searching for one-on-one encounters with the
grandeur of barren cliffs and pristine beaches. America’s population doubled between 1870 and 1900,
and these images of pure nature found particular favor with residents of rapidly-growing cities, many of
them, like New York and Boston, on the waterfront.
Seascapes by William Trost Richards inaugurates a season of exhibitions about land and sea at the
Chrysler Museum of Art. “These intimate drawings and watercolors will be a perfect foil to the largeformat, often abstract photographs in Edward Burtynksy: Water, our winter keynote exhibition,”
Museum Director Erik Neil says. “Burtynsky’s works explore the complicated and often problematic
tensions between nature and man, between essential resources and industry. By contrast, Richards’ love
for the sea is more idealistic, a search for wild beauty in remote places.”
Edward Burtynsky: Water opens to the public on February 12. Two other related exhibitions will also be
on view. In New Light on Land (opening January 28), exceptional landscape photographs from the
Museum Collection explore how nature has inspired innovation and creativity since the advent of the
medium. And in Cities: Departure and Deviation (opening January 30), artist Norwood Viviano
transforms population data into precise glass graphs that illustrate both urban growth and flight.
Admission to each of these exhibitions is free.
Visit the Museum’s website, chrysler.org for details on exhibitions and related programming and events.
ABOUT THE CHRYSLER MUSEUM OF ART
The Chrysler Museum of Art is one of America’s most distinguished mid-sized art museums, with a
nationally recognized collection of more than 30,000 objects, including one of the great glass collections
in America. The core of the Chrysler’s collection was given to the Museum by Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., an
avid art collector who donated thousands of objects from his private collection to the Museum. In the
years since Chrysler’s death in 1988, the Museum has dramatically enhanced its collection and extended
its ties with the Norfolk community. The Museum, expanded in 2014 to add additional gallery spaces
and amenities for visitors, now has growing collections, especially of American art, contemporary glass,
and 21st-century works. The Chrysler also mounts an ambitious schedule of visiting exhibitions and
educational programs and events each season.
In 2011, the Chrysler opened a full-service glass Studio adjacent to the Museum. This state-of-the-art
facility features a 560-pound capacity glass furnace, a full hot shop, a flameworking studio, nine
annealing ovens, and a coldworking shop. In addition, the Chrysler Museum of Art administers two
historic houses in downtown Norfolk: the Moses Myers House and the Willoughby-Baylor House.
The Chrysler Museum of Art, One Memorial Place, Norfolk, and its Perry Glass Studio at 745 Duke St.,
are open to the public Tuesday through Sunday. The Historic Houses on East Freemason Street are open
weekends. General admission is free at all venues. For more information on the Chrysler Museum of Art,
visit chrysler.org.
###
For more information, interview assistance, or high-resolution images, contact Amber Kennedy at The
Meridian Group at (757) 340-7425 or Amber@TheMeridianGroup.com.