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<title>GDMS Model: Thayer Show at NMAA</title>

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<title>Abbott Handerson Thayer</title>

<agent type="creator" role="curator">Richard Murray</agent>

<agent type="provider" role="publisher">National Museum of American Art</agent>

<subject>American art</subject>

<subject>Abbott Handerson Thayer</subject>

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<title>Abbott Thayer: The Nature of Art</title>

<p>Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921), is recognized today for his ethereal angels, portraits of women and children, landscapes, and delicate flower paintings. A New Englander who expressed the spiritual in much of his work, he was known as a "soul painter." In his own time, his work was praised by critics even as it was popular with the public and sought after by collectors.

<fig idref="r20011231180001"><caption>Painting: Virgin Enthroned</caption></fig>

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<title>Thayer's World</title>

<p>

Thayer was born into a distinguished Boston family. In the 1880s and 1890s he was a leader in the New York art world. While he carried on a lively trade in portraits, he also began to paint allegorical figures, which had gained popularity among collectors with a taste for subjects from classical antiquity and the European Renaissance.

<fig idref="r20011229092408"><caption>Painting: Brother and Sister</caption></fig>

</p>

<p>

In 1891, his first wife Kate Bloede Thayer died; her loss changed Thayer's art and his outlook on life in virtually every respect. Her family, intellectually and artistically distinguished German emigres, had introduced Thayer to the romantic world of literature, music, and philosophy. The spiritual and idealist aspects of German philosophy, and its American counterpart in New England, transcendentalism, provided consolation. This idealism also prompted him to paint extraordinary figures that seemed to embody the perfection of beauty.

</p>

<p>

In 1901, Thayer left New York and settled in Dublin, New Hampshire, joining a colony of artists, writers, scientists, and cultural figures living at the foot of Mount Monadnock. Rejecting the commercialism and the hectic pace of urban life, he built a family compound within the Dublin colony. He married his long-time friend, Emma Beach, and with his three children, they lived and worked in a complex of studios, barns, houses, gardens, and unheated sleeping huts. During this time he turned to more contemplative and even enigmatic subjects: portraits of close friends and family, meditative views of Mount Monadnock, and a series of angels.

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<title>Abbott Thayer: The Nature of Art</title>

<p>

Thayer was an amateur naturalist and a passionate bird-lover. He believed that his professional training in color, value, and design, combined with observation of nature, gave him the tools to understand how animals disguise themselves from predators. He devoted considerable time and energy to defining, promoting, and defending his ideas on the subject.

<fig idref="r20011230210006"><caption>Painting: Peacock in the Woods</caption></fig>

</p>

<p>

Thayer developed a love for the mountain that overlooked his studio. Through his efforts to protect the forests on the slopes of Mount Monadnock he became a staunch conservationist. To support that work, he founded the Thayer Fund which, through the National Audubon Society, paid for wardens to protect bird sanctuaries up and down the east coast.

</p>

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<title>Ideal Figures</title>

<p>

Thayer's angels are his best-known paintings. An art critic mused: "They come near to us, there is a lovely hint of the human and intimate in them, yet they are not of the earth; they have a mystic air, and a glance that fathoms the beyond." Thayer did not try to explain these paintings, saying only that the wings were meant to lift the figure out of the commonplace. He employed unusual means to bring expressive power to these figures: he manipulated the paint with brooms, scrapers, his fingers, and even the paint tube.

<fig idref="r20011231180002"><caption>Painting: Stephenson Memorial</caption></fig>

</p>

<p>

For Thayer, these winged figures had personal meaning. The first angel was a portrait of his daughter Mary and was painted, possibly as a symbol of hope, at the time of his first wife's mental illness. His later winged figures become figures hovering over a landscape, perhaps protecting the forests of Mount Monadnock he so loved.

</p>

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<title>Half-Draped Figure</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

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<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly</rights>

<description>Like many artists trained in the tradition of the French school, Thayer used the nude figure to evoke the golden age of the classical past. Here, the brushed-in beginnings of a lyre suggest that the figure is Erato, the muse of lyric poetry.</description> </divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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<title>Minerva in a Chariot</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly</rights>

<description>Thayer worked on three mural commissions in 1894 and 1895. Only

one, Florence Protecting the Arts, at Bowdoin College in Maine, was completed.

For both the Boston Public Library and the Library of Congress he proposed

depicting Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and the arts. Seen

horizontally, this painting was probably a study for the Boston mural. Seen

vertically, the angel-like figure underneath Minerva was likely a study for the

Washington panel.</description>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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<title>Woman in a Grecian Gown</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

<physdesc type="medium">oil resin</physdesc>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Phillips Academy, Addison Gallery of Art, Gift of an Anonymous donor</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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<title>Woman in Green Velvet</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Phillips Academy, Addison Gallery of American Art, Gift of Mrs. Arthur H. Savage</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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<title>Girl Arranging Her Hair</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

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</div>

<title>Angel</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly</rights>

<description>The first and best-known of Thayer's angel paintings, it is at once a

portrait and an allegory of hope and spirituality. As his daughter Mary

posed for the figure at the age of eleven, her mother was exhibiting the

first signs of mental illness. The Renaissance-inspired frame, called a

"tabernacle" type, was designed by the American architect Stanford

White especially for this painting. </description> </divdesc>

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<title>Virgin Enthroned</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly</rights>

<description>Thayer used his children – Mary in the center, Gerald and Gladys at

her sides – as models for this painting. Its composition is based on the

Renaissance type called a "sacred conversation," in which donors and

saints are depicted on either side of the Virgin Mary. Contemporary

critics hailed it as a masterpiece of religious painting; few understood

that the painting represented Thayer's children.</description> </divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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</div>

<title>Stevenson Memorial</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly</rights>

<description>Thayer's most enigmatic painting is his tribute to the Scottish writer

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). The author's name and coat of

arms originally appeared across the top, but Thayer later painted them

out, leaving only the mysterious word VAEA, which refers to the

mountain in Samoa where Stevenson was buried. The bright, winged

figure seated against a dark background evokes angelic goodness

surrounded by the shadows of evil and death, dualities that Stevenson

explored in his writing. </description>

</divdesc>

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<title>Boy and Angel</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Knox and Clifton Funds, 1925</rights>

<description>Thayer acutely felt the loss of young men and women from World

War I and the influenza pandemic that was brought back by soldiers

who had survived. In this painting he provides solace in both figures:

the boy seeking a brighter future and the angel leaning over him as the

protector of unspoiled youth. The painting is signed and dated three

times: 1918, which marked the end of World War I; 1919, the year

Thayer exhibited it at his retrospective exhibition at the Carnegie

Institute in Pittsburgh; and April 2, 1920, identifying it as one of

Thayer's last works.</description>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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<title>Monadnock Angel</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Philips Academy, Addison Gallery of American Art, Gift of anonymous donor</rights>

<description>Thayer produced late in his career several large paintings of an angel

hovering over scenic areas and wildlife refuges Thayer sought to

protect. Mount Monadnock had been threatened with commercial

development, and the preservation of its forests became a personal

cause for the artist. </description>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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<title>Angel of the Dawn</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">St. Anselm's Abbey School, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Charles Plunket</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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<title>My Children (Mary, Gerald, and Gladys Thayer)</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly</rights>

<description>My Children is the first version of a memorial to the Scottish writer

Robert Louis Stevenson. Thayer posed his children as he had in

Virgin Enthroned. Mary holds a wreath, the traditional symbol for

fame. Although the painting may appear to be unfinished, Thayer

signed it and inscribed it "never to be retouched, not one pinpoint."</description> </divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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<title>Portrait of Bessie Price</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Mr. and Mrs. Willard G. Clark</rights>

<description>In 1896, Bessie Price joined other members of her Irish family

working in the Thayer household. She became a model for several of

Thayer's best-known paintings – A Young Woman(1898) and the

Stevenson Memorial(1903)– both in this exhibition. This first

portrait of her, reminiscent of Italian Renaissance examples, won the

prestigious Thomas B. Clarke prize at the National Academy of

Design in New York in 1898.</description>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

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</div>

<title>Study of a Young Woman</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer78_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

<title>Study for Boy and Angel</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

<physdesc type="medium">pencil and ink</physdesc>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Jean Reasoner Plunket, granddaughter of the artist</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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<title>Study of Right Hand</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

<physdesc type="medium">pencil</physdesc>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Jean Reasoner Plunket, granddaughter of the artist</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

<physdesc type="medium">pencil</physdesc>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Jean Reasoner Plunket, granddaughter of

the artist</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer81_1b.jpg" title

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<title>Portraits and Self-Portraits</title>

<p>

Thayer was much sought after for his portraits. His visual vocabulary from the 1880s referred to earlier American portraits, including those by the eighteenth-century Bostonian, John Singleton Copley. During this period, Thayer posed young women in light dresses against dramatic, dark backgrounds. Over time, his portraits evolved from depictions of an individual into character studies. The titles of these works rarely included the name of the sitter.

<fig idref="r20011229092410"><caption>Painting: Portrait of Jennie Remmington</caption></fig>

</p>

<p>

Thayer also made numerous self-portraits. Early examples show him as elegant and self-confident. After his first wife's death in 1891, he began to probe his own personality and mental states. Late in his career, he worked on a series of stark self-portraits, in which the balding, sometimes haggard artist presents himself full-face, devoid of any softening distractions.

</p>

</section></rescon>

</res>

</resgrp>

<title>Brother and Sister (Mary and Gerald Thayer)</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly</rights>

<description>This portrait shows Thayer's children one year after their mother was

hospitalized for extreme depression. Mary had posed two years

before for the first and most famous angel painting. Her brother

Gerald (born 1883) became his father's assistant and, like his father,

an ornithologist.</description>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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="fig" targettype="image/jpg"/>

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</div>

<title>Self-Portrait</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Jean Reasoner Plunket, granddaughter of the artist</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

</resptrgrp>

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<title>Self-Portrait</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

<time><date type="created">Self-Portrait</date></time>

<physdesc type="medium">oil on plywood</physdesc>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

</resptrgrp>

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</div>

<title>Miss Jennie Remington</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">John Remington Zelenik</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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<title>Portrait of the Artist's Daughter, Mary</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

<physdesc type="medium">pencil</physdesc>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly

</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

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</div>

<title>Still Life and Concealing Coloration</title>

<p>

Thayer's surviving still lifes describe the essentials of a flower in a bowl or on a table, and are filled with subtle colors and the diffused light made popular by French impressionists. These works appear to be quickly and easily painted, and the fluid application of paint suggests a very different process than the more painstaking approach he used for his angels and ideal figures, which often took years to complete.

From his earliest attempts at painting, Thayer was drawn to animals and nature, finding subjects in the forests and streams of New England. His careful observation of nature and thorough academic training in the laws of color and values led him to study how animals use natural camouflage to conceal themselves from predators. With his son Gerald, he published his theories as Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom (1909).

<fig idref="r20011230210001"><caption>Painting: Roses</caption></fig>

</p>

<p>

Thayer claimed that nature camouflaged animals by placing their darkest colors on their backs to counter the sunlight falling upon them, and their lightest colors closest to the dark ground. The fractured outlines and patterns, mimicking native habitats, would cause the animal to disappear when placed against the appropriate background.

</p>

<p>

The book drew considerable criticism, particularly from President Theodore Roosevelt, also an amateur naturalist. Roosevelt and others rejected Thayer's argument that the purpose of all animal coloration, no matter how conspicuous, was for the purpose of concealment. Some of Thayer's ideas were applied to camouflage during World War I.

<fig idref="r20011230210009"><caption>Painting: Copperhead Among Dead Leaves</caption></fig>

</p>

</section></rescon>

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</resgrp>

<title>Roses</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly</rights>

<description>The fluid application of paint lovingly describes these flowers, of which a critic said, "A bowl of roses in Thayer's hands becomes more than a flower-piece; it is a glimpse into the very center of beauty."</description>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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<title>Roses</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">David H. Koch</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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<title>Flower Studies</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly</rights>

<description>This study of white water lilies and tall trumpet-shaped lilies in red and

white shows how Thayer worked out details of flowers before setting

them into a final composition. The lilies are painted over traces of a

landscape design that can be seen underneath the flowers.</description> </divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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<title>Still Life</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Indianapolis Museum of Art, Gift of the Gamboliers</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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</resptrgrp>

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</div>

<title>Waterlilies</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">James F. Dicke Family</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

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="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

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</div>

<title>Peacock in the Woods</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<agent type="creator" role="collaborator">Richard Meryman </agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the heirs of Abbott H. Thayer </rights>

<description>Thayer and his student Richard Meryman created this painting as an

illustration for Thayer's book Concealing-Coloration in the Animal

Kingdom (1909). More than a demonstration of the principles of

natural camouflage, Peacock in the Woods is an excursion into

optical complexity, wildlife art, and impressionist painting.</description> </divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer63_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/ornithology.jpg" title

="fig" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

<title>Male Wood Duck in a Forest Pool</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<agent type="creator" role="collaborator">Richard Meryman</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the heirs of Abbott H. Thayer</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer62_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

<title>Hooded Warblers</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Gerald H. Thayer</agent>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Gladys Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

<physdesc type="medium">watercolor, stencil, and oil on wood</physdesc>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the heirs of Abbott H. Thayer</rights>

<description>Painted by Abbott Thayer's son and daughter, this depiction of the

Hooded or Yellow-Throated Warbler and its background

demonstrates natural camouflage. The bird on the overlay has the

same color and pattern as its background, which is painted on the

underlying panel. You can demonstrate this by placing your mouse

over the image, and you will see the form of the bird appear in the

mask.</description>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer60_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

<title>Copperhead Snake on Dead Leaves</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<agent type="creator" role="collaborator">Rockwell Kent</agent>

<agent type="creator" role="collaborator">Gerald H. Thayer</agent>

<agent type="creator" role="collaborator">Emma Beach Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

<physdesc type="medium">watercolor with copper overlay</physdesc>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the heirs of Abbott H. Thayer </rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer53_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/coloration.jpg" title

="fig" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

<title>Winter, Monadnock</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

<physdesc type="medium">watercolor, gouache, and chalk</physdesc>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer50_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

<title>Blue Jays in Winter</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the heirs of Abbott H. Thayer </rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer51_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

<title>Roseate Spoonbills</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the heirs of Abbott H. Thayer</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer64_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

<title>Landscapes and Mount Monadnock</title>

<p>

Thayer's early landscapes were sunny views of hills dotted with cattle. At the turn of the century, he developed a broad style with fresh, brisk brushwork. He combined thinly painted washes and thick brushstrokes to create the illusion of great distances.

<fig idref="r20011230210101"><caption>Painting: Spring Hillside</caption></fig>

</p>

<p>

After 1900, Thayer focused on views of Mount Monadnock, the grand presence above his home and studio in Dublin, New Hampshire. Thayer's visions of Monadnock owe a debt to transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who also stood in awe at the sight of this particular mountain. He portrayed the mountain in its seasonal "personalities," but came to favor a view of the bright dawn's winter sun striking the peak.

</p>

</section></rescon>

</res>

</resgrp>

<title>Spring Hillside</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Rosse</rights>

<description>Mount Monadnock was a familiar sight to Thayer long before he moved to

Dublin, New Hampshire. He retained a memory of the majestic mountain

from a youth spent in Keene, New Hampshire. Spring Hillside,one of his

earliest views of Monadnock, is in striking contrast to the darker, brooding

images of the mountain that filled his later canvases.</description> </divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer33_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/landscape.jpg" title

="fig" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

<title>Winter Sunrise, Monadnock</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">The Metropolitan Museum of Art, George A. Hearn Fund, 1917.(17.180.1) @1987 by The Metropolitan Museum of Art</rights>

<description>Thayer's views of Mount Monadnock became unmistakably his own

interpretation of this grand source of spiritual power towering over the land.

Maria Oakey Dewing, an artist and close friend, remarked of this painting,

"None but one who had come face to face with nature for long periods of

study as Thayer had could have painted that landscape called

Monadnock."</description>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer36_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

<title>Mount Monadnock</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Corcoran Gallery of Art, Museum Purchase, Anna E. Clark Fund </rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer35_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

<title>Dublin Pond, New Hampshire</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William T. Evans</rights>

<description>Thayer described this view of a New Hampshire landmark to the

collector William T. Evans as "a very successful picture of the

sunshine striking down into the bottom of a summer lake." The vertical

format reflects Thayer's interest in Chinese and Japanese paintings, as

well as in the work of James McNeill Whistler.</description> </divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer42_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

<title>Cornish Headlands</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly</rights>

<description>Thayer described this dramatic view of the cliffs and sea at Cornwall, England, as "one of a very few things I've done that I love."</description> </divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer43_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

<title>Monadnock</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Jordan Fine Arts</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer32_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

<title>Monadnock</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

<physdesc type="medium">oil on panel</physdesc>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Jean Reasoner Plunket, granddaughter of the artist</rights>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer84_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

<title>Monadnock</title>

<agent type="creator" role="painter">Abbott Handerson Thayer</agent>

<mediatype type="image"><form>painting</form></mediatype>

</physdesc>

<rights type="credit">Mr. and Mrs. Willard G. Clark

</rights>

<description>This version of Mount Monadnock combines Thayer's expression of

the pure joy of paint on canvas with a careful rendering of the

mountain's luminous crest. Thayer remarked, "The outline of this

mountain against the sky is as sharp as steel. Many painters soften

such outlines for the sake of 'atmosphere' but I can't make this one

sharp enough."</description>

</divdesc>

<mediatype type="image"><form>digital image</form></mediatype>

<resptr href="http://www.nmaa.si.edu/collections/exhibits/thayer/images/Thayer30_1b.jpg" title

="full" targettype="image/jpg"/>

</resptrgrp>

</res>

</resgrp>

</div>

</gdms>