A selection of 18 paintings from the collection of Gari Melchers Home & Studio are on loan to the Lowe Art Museum in Coral Gables, Florida. The paintings are featured in the Lowe’s exhibition An American Master at Home and Abroad: Gari Melchers (1860-1932) on view from November 18, 2021- February 13, 2022. 

Jointly curated with the Lowe Museum of Art, this exhibition surveys more than a half-century of Melchers’ career with key examples of the painting styles he favored, including landscape, genre scenes and portraiture. 

Gari Melchers was exceptionally versatile in his subject matter, being associated with Dutch peasant life, portraiture, the mother and child theme, landscapes, the nude and still life, as well as mural painting. His stylistic approach was equally eclectic, assimilating many of the progressive tendencies circulating around 1900, from academic realism to naturalism, symbolism and impressionism, but always in the service of old-fashioned, time-honored themes. In this way, Melchers amalgamated the old and the new into something uniquely his own. 

www.GariMelchers.org 

Study for The Nativity, wash drawing, by Gari Melchers

Fourteen preliminary sketches and studies executed by local painting legend, Gari Melchers, are on view at Belmont, the Gari Melchers Home and Studio until June 1, 2021.

The collection at Belmont is the largest Gari Melchers inventory of its kind, including hundreds of sketches and studies that document his personal creative methodology. When working out a conceptual plan, the artist considered one or more design elements at a time, such as composition, proportion, form, light, color and perspective. Many of his experimental drawings eventually found their culmination as easel paintings, and the comparison of preliminary to finished works gives one the sense of looking over the artist’s shoulder as he gains new insights, eliminates undesirable pictorial effects and discovers better solutions. What’s also apparent is that his sketches and studies can have so strong a visual appeal due to the spontaneity of the effort that many of his examples can stand alone as works of art.

A version of the original Skaters, owned by PAFA, is on display.

A Gari Melchers’ painting, “Winter,” originally owned by the Mosse family in Berlin, Germany, and looted by the Nazis when they fled the country, has been repatriated to the owner’s heirs. As reported in a 2019 media release, the FBI seized the painting from the Arkell Museum in Canajoharie, New York, who was unaware of its origins.

The painting’s successful restitution has been widely covered in the press. Here is an article sampling.

Gari Melchers painting stolen by Nazis is returned to family of original owners (The Free Lance-Star, October 16, 2020)

Painting returned 87 years after Nazis stole it from a Jewish family in Berlin (CNN, October 16, 2020)

Jewish family’s painting looted by Nazis in 1933 is returned (Associated Press, October 15, 2020)

United States Secures Return of Artwork 87 Years After Nazis Looted it from Jewish Family in Berlin (United States Department of Justice, October 15, 2020)

FBI returns painting stolen by Nazis to owners heirs (Houston Chronicle, October 15, 2020)

Although Gari Melchers Home & Studio, Belmont, reopened to the public on September 14, the museum’s education department continues to produce online content. GMHS Education and Communications Manager Michelle Crow-Dolby is partnering with community members to deliver diverse online educational products.

Two of the most recent initiatives focus on museum programs that currently cannot be offered in person due to COVID-19 concerns:  Preschool Palette and Picturing New Connections. The popular long-running Preschool Palette classes introduce children ages 2-5 to art galleries and process art projects. Since finding art supplies might be challenging for some households, Crow-Dolby opted for a different route for the online offering. She joined forces with children’s yoga instructor and Lafayette Upper Elementary School teacher Christine Garman to produce a video about yoga for children. In the video, Crow-Dolby first reads the book I Am Yoga in Belmont’s Summer House, then Garman leads an engaging yoga class in the Studio room.

Working with Lori Meyers, Regional Director, Fredericksburg Office, Alzheimer’s Association Greater Richmond, VA, Crow-Dolby also presented a recorded Zoom version of Picturing New Connections, a program for people with memory loss, their families, and care partners. Art, photography, music, and taste were all used to explore the theme of visiting county fairs.

In addition, when the garden was in full bloom, local floral and landscape designer Carolyn Helfrich helped create two videos. Helfrich artfully taught viewers the basics of floral arranging as well as how to interpret a painting through flowers.

“While we are thrilled to once again offer on-site tours, I am grateful to my collaborators for sharing their talents and expertise to generate much needed virtual experiences,” summarizes Crow-Dolby. Visit the museum’s LEARN page to explore all their online offerings.

In the Dunes by Gari Melchers

A painting entitled In the Dunes is on display at Gari Melchers Home and Studio, Belmont, as a companion to Melchers’ monumental In Holland through January 3, 2021, thanks to a generous loan by the Sue C. Lang Family Trust.

In 1887, Gari Melchers began experimenting with the concept of rustic figures meeting on the dunes of Holland. The survival of several sketches in Belmont’s archives indicates that Melchers produced numerous iterations for what would become his iconic painting In Holland. In the Dunes is just such an example, an almost exact replica of In Holland though on a far smaller scale. In the Dunes was unknown to experts until it resurfaced in a private auction in Hamburg, Germany, in 2018 and sold to a local Fredericksburg collector. Because of its cursory application of paint it presumably started life as a small-scale study for In Holland, but the artist probably returned to it later, giving it enough finish to stand on its own as an easel painting.