American Seascapes
“The Capture of H.B.M. ‘Macedonian’ by the U.S. Frigate ‘United States,’ October 25, 1812,” circa 1840-50.
The exuberant paintings of Thomas Chambers are admired by scholars and collectors of 19th-century American painting. But have there been any major Chambers exhibitions? Not one, at least not until now, with the extraordinary survey of nearly 50 paintings at the American Folk Art Museum.
The exhibit, “Thomas Chambers (1808-1869),” confirms that there is nothing quite like the starchy hybrid of academic and folk art painting plus painted decoration that Chambers devised.
“Packet Ship Passing Castle Williams, New York Harbor,” circa 1838-45.
In the late 1930s, the New York art dealers Albert Duveen and Norman Hirschl started turning up some intriguing paintings in the antiques shops and country fairs of New York and New England. The works felt ahead of their time, as if the artist had grasped that reality was, in the end, a geometry-based situation, much as early 20th-century painters would. Unfortunately none of the canvases were signed.
“View of Nahant (Sunset), Boston,” circa 1843.
Then one day the pair came across a large and ambitious painting in this style that had both a title and signature. It depicted the U.S.S. warship Constitution defeating the British vessel Guerrière in the War of 1812. It was signed T. Chambers. In 1942, Mssrs. Hirschl and Duveen organized an exhibition of their finds at the MacBetth Gallery in New York. They titled it “T. Chambers, Active 1820-1840: First American Modern.”
Chambers aimed to please. His works are like chorus lines singing and dancing their hearts out, ever so slightly off-key and out of step. Every part contributes vocally and vigorously to the whole.
“Delaware Water Gap,” circa 1840-50.
Art was both Chambers’s great ambition and his means of survival and he painted as many as 10 copies of a popular scene. Chambers knew that his clients – who were members of the nascent middle class, not the elite – didn’t have much time either, or much experience buying paintings.
“Landscape with Mount Vesuvius New York, Boston, or Albany,” circa 1843-60.
Chambers’s vivid paintings communicate impatience. Maybe Chambers didn’t have time for the delicacies of one-point perspective and consistent, atmospheric spatial illusion; it was easier to fit the image together in a series of flatish planes, letting mountains upholstered in trees meet a river’s mirrored surface with a nearly straight line and small jolt. It also made a stronger impression more quickly.
“Threatening Sky, Bay of New York,” circa 1835-50.
N.Y. Times
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