An art exhibition can be seen simply as a collection of paintings and sculptures. Or in the case of American Made: Paintings and Sculpture from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection, now on view at the San Antonio Museum of Art, an exhibition can be a profound statement about what defines a nation and its people.
SAMA Director Emily Bellew Neff introduced American Made during a Thursday preview for members of the media, saying that while the more than 100 works of art on view can be enjoyed as a “visual feast,” rich layers of meaning await.
“If you want to dig a little deeper, you can also … ask questions like what kind of America is pictured? Or what does it mean to be American-made?” The exhibition, Neff said, “can tell — as is appropriate about American art — a million stories.”
Lesser-known names
American Made draws from the collection of Diane DeMell Jacobsen, who for decades has studiously researched examples of American art made over a 250-year period. Though famous names such as Mary Cassatt, Robert Henri and John Singer Sargent are represented in the collection, DeMell Jacobsen saw an opportunity to deepen understanding of what constitutes American art by recognizing the rich ethnic panoply of the U.S.
One painting by Allan Rohan Crite essentializes DeMell Jacobsen’s effort to look beyond the aristocratic portraiture and grand landscapes typical of American art displayed in most museums.
Crite’s 1935 oil painting Play at Dark captures a scene typical of his Boston neighborhood, described on an informational placard as “a space where men and women, Black and white, young and old, intersected in parks and on sidewalks and stoops.”
As the traveling exhibition’s local curator Regina Palm explained, Crite was vocal about stereotypical depictions of Black Americans. “He wanted people to be painted as everyday Americans,” she said. “That’s why we have this lively, beautiful bustling scene of the Roxbury…
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