{"id":2692,"date":"2011-09-12T15:04:52","date_gmt":"2011-09-12T21:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mam.org\/info\/pressroom\/?p=2692"},"modified":"2011-09-12T15:36:53","modified_gmt":"2011-09-12T21:36:53","slug":"milwaukee-art-museum-acquires-john-singleton-copley-masterpiece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mam.org\/info\/pressroom\/2011\/09\/milwaukee-art-museum-acquires-john-singleton-copley-masterpiece\/","title":{"rendered":"Milwaukee Art Museum acquires John Singleton Copley masterpiece"},"content":{"rendered":"

Milwaukee Art Museum Acquires Masterpiece of American Art<\/strong>
\nJohn Singleton Copley portrait part of larger reinstallation of American Collections Galleries<\/em><\/p>\n

Milwaukee, Wis. \u2013 September 12, 2011<\/strong> \u2013 The Milwaukee Art Museum has acquired the portrait Alice Hooper<\/em>, a major colonial American painting by John Singleton Copley (1738\u20131815). Copley is recognized as one of the great American artists of the day\u2014and one of the first native-born painters to achieve success both at home and abroad.<\/p>\n

Alice Hooper<\/a><\/em>, painted by Copley around 1763, depicts the seventeen-year-old daughter of the wealthiest man in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Robert \u201cKing\u201d Hooper. Alice\u2019s father commissioned this portrait to mark his daughter\u2019s engagement to Jacob Fowle, Jr.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlice Hooper<\/em> displays the traits that made Copley desirable in colonial Boston. Copley\u2019s rendering of her fashionable sacque gown dazzles the eye, with its profusion of glinting blue satin and frothy lace spilling from its underdress,\u201d said William Rudolph, curator of American art and decorative arts at the Milwaukee Art Museum. \u201cThe artist lingered on the highlights of Alice\u2019s ruby earrings and choker, revealing the great wealth of her family. Yet her pensive gaze and half-shadowed face allude to her graciousness; she looks modest, rather than proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Rudolph, Alice Hooper<\/em>\u2019s composition is one of a series of women depicted in fantasy garden settings, which all descend from John Faber\u2019s 1691 engraving after Sir Godfrey Kneller\u2019s Duchess of Grafton (ca. 1680).<\/p>\n

The painting also provides vivid evidence of Copley\u2019s working methods. Like many of his colleagues, the artist borrowed costumes and compositions from imported engravings of high-style British portraits. These appropriations were done with the full cooperation of his clients, who wanted to emulate the aristocrats of the mother country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dress itself, although breathtakingly rendered, may not in fact be the property of Miss Hooper, given its remarkable similarity to that worn by several other sitters, and to the artist\u2019s documented habit of copying elaborate gowns from mezzotints,\u201d said Rudolph.<\/p>\n

Copley\u2019s work pleased the Hoopers and led to nine additional commissions for members of Alice\u2019s immediate and extended families, securing Copley\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter winning the Hooper clan\u2019s approval, Copley rocketed into the stratosphere as the go-to artist for fashionable New England\u2014and for clients from as far away as Philadelphia and New York,\u201d Rudolph said.<\/p>\n

The acquisition of Alice Hooper<\/em> coincides with the Museum\u2019s commitment to the expansion of its American art program, including a major reinstallation of its collections in honor of the 125th anniversary of the Museum in 2013.<\/p>\n

The purchase was made possible in part by a donation from the estate of Milwaukeeans Leonard and Bebe LeVine, along with the Virginia Booth Vogel Acquisition Fund, with funds in memory of Betty Croasdaile and John E. Julien, and gift by exchange of Chapellier Galleries, the Samuel O. Buckner Collection, and the Max E. Friedmann Bequest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe portrait of Alice Hooper<\/em> will become one of the Museum\u2019s icons of American art,\u201d said Brady Roberts, chief curator for the Milwaukee Art Museum. \u201cThis is a significant acquisition for the Museum, and without the generosity of Leonard and Bebe LeVine and others, it would not be possible. With Alice Hooper<\/em>, and with the reinstallation of the American Collections Galleries on the Museum\u2019s lower level, we are reimagining the scope of American art at the Museum.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ABOUT THE MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM<\/strong>
\nThe Milwaukee Art Museum\u2019s far-reaching holdings include more than 25,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine as \u201cBest Design of 2001.\u201d For more information, please visit www.mam.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Milwaukee Art Museum Acquires Masterpiece of American Art John Singleton Copley portrait part of larger reinstallation of American Collections Galleries Milwaukee, Wis. \u2013 September 12, 2011 \u2013 The Milwaukee Art Museum has acquired the portrait Alice Hooper, a major colonial American painting by John Singleton Copley (1738\u20131815). Copley is recognized as one of the great … Milwaukee Art Museum acquires John Singleton Copley masterpiece<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mam.org\/info\/pressroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mam.org\/info\/pressroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mam.org\/info\/pressroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mam.org\/info\/pressroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mam.org\/info\/pressroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2692"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/mam.org\/info\/pressroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2694,"href":"http:\/\/mam.org\/info\/pressroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692\/revisions\/2694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mam.org\/info\/pressroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mam.org\/info\/pressroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mam.org\/info\/pressroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}