The Gilcrease

I have often visited the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa since the 90s. It rarely disappoints. Honestly, Tulsa has some great art. I saw the Moran retrospective there in 1998, which was amazing - tons of watercolors on view - made my head spin. Like I said before the Gilcrease is the best place to study Moran's work with over two-thousand of the artists' works in the collection all purchased from Moran's daughter Ruth's estate in 1948.

Below, me in front of Shoshone Falls on the Snake River, Idaho, 1900, one of Moran's last great pictures.















below, another great picture from 1891, Spectres from the North, Moran's recollection and homage to Frederic Church's 1862, Icebergs, now in the Dallas Museum of Art. I stuck myself in for scale. It is a bit smaller than the Shoshone Falls, which is roughly 6x11', Spectres is only 6x9' very similar in scale to Church's Icebergs which is about 5x9.5'
















Gilcrease made his money in oil and began collecting in 1922. The musuem holds Native American artifacts, western and American history paintings, and American historical objects and documents they tout the only certified hand written copy of the Declaration of Independance. Alexandre Hogue, a Texas painter, who decamped to Oklahoma to teach in Tulsa in 1945, evidently designed the first Gilcrease museum. There are great examples of his work both at the Philbrook and Gilcrease.

They also own this great painting by Hogue, Crucified Land, which speaks to the great Drought Stricken Area, painting here in Dallas.















The Whistler I mentioned from the Gilcrease.

Nocturne, The Solent, 1866, Gilcrease purchased it in 1948. The only great Whistler anywhere near here.












There are also works by Eakins, Sargent, Homer, Bierstadt, Taos school painters, and many more. Unfortunately on this trip they only had a western themed installation so many of the general American Favs were not on view. Tulsa is also known for great architecture, particularly art deco. I will post on that next.

More Moran

Like a broken record...

last weekend, I visited the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, OK. It was not my first visit, but it is a great place to view art of the American West. They own, arguably, the best collection of works by Thomas Moran anywhere.

Below, a great watercolor of the Cliffs at Green River, WY









This best illustrates Moran's use of toned paper and gouache (pronounced kind of like guawash- opaque white, or Chinese white for highlights). It is an excellent example of the field sketches and how Moran could use these for finished oils back in the studio.

below American Fork Canyon, Utah.















Moran made these sketches like the one above, as general notes on color and form, so that he could recreate the scene back in his studio. I like the sawn logs in the foreground of this watercolor. Ummm, log.
















Anyway... there were about 8 watercolors on view, which is pretty amazing, but should be the obligation of this institution. Thomas Gilcrease bought over 1,000 of Moran's field sketches in 1948 from his daughter Ruth, so eight is still fairly fractional.

I was most excited to see the Garden of the Gods watercolor. I have been looking at it in a book and it is about 3x4" so to see the full 9x12" watercolor in person was amazing.

I guess this was taken from west of the gateway rocks coming down from Glen Eyrie. It is just a guess, if I am wrong.














The Gilcrease has the best painting by J. A. M. Whistler in the region, Nocturne, The Solent, and a great Alexander Hogue, along with many other great works of American art. Unfortunately, they were not on view on this visit.