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“Memorable Madonna: The Art Institute of Chicago’s Mother and Child”
March 5 through Sunday, June 1

To download print quality images, visit http://www.umw.edu/news/?a=833

This is the third of an ongoing series of Spotlight Exhibitions intended to highlight significant individual paintings or small groups of special interest paintings.

Visitors can view Melchers’ most beloved and widely recognized mother and child painting, the Art Institute of Chicago’s "Mother and Child," in the Pavilion Gallery as well as six related canvases and prepatory works drawn from the Gari Melchers Home and Studio’s collection. Among them, Melchers’ two pastels "Mother and Child" and "Woman and Child" are particularly notable for their expressive power.

“For quite a long while the "Mother and Child" was one of the best loved images at the Art Institute,” elaborates curator Joanna Catron. “It was reproduced as a framed print and on calendars and day books. Judging by the frequency of the inquiries I receive, dusty old reproductions are uncovered in someone’s granny’s attic at least once a week! Melchers’ iconic image has such a timelessness about it that these “attic miners” often mistake it for an old world masterpiece. Wouldn’t that tickle Melchers?”

MELCHERS MASTERPIECE

Read The Free Lance-Star article on The Sermon.

The Sermon, considered the most critically acclaimed painting by American artist Gari Melchers (1860-1932), has been placed on extended loan to Gari Melchers Home and Studio at Belmont.

The owner, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., has agreed to lend the painting to Belmont for up to two years, where it will join other major Melchers works on exhibit in his stone studio.

Visitors can view The Sermon in the Studio Room, along with studies from the Belmont collection, in a special “spotlight” exhibition. View the Family Activity Guide (PDF) for The Sermon.

Free Monthly Woodland Walks

Gari Melchers Home and Studio at Belmont will offer free guided nature tours every last Sunday of the month starting on Sunday, March 30.  Tours will start at the Visitor Center promptly at 2 pm.

Members of the Central Rappahannock Chapter of the Virginia Master Naturalist program will lead tours of the woods and fields at Belmont. The walk will cover about one mile of trails and will touch on the historic ruins that illustrate Belmont’s past.  Volunteer guides will also discuss the progress of the woods from pasture land to impenetrable wilderness to the maturing woodlands seen today.

Belmont’s trails cover steep and rough terrain and may be muddy at times, so sturdy footwear is recommended. Tours will take place in rain, snow or shine. No reservations are necessary. For more information contact Beate Jensen at 540-654-1839.

Beginning Adult Landscape Sketching Class
Sunday, June 8, 1 - 3 pm

Back By Popular Demand!

Artist MJ Bradley will teach an adult beginners sketching class in the Studio Pavilion. Using the Belmont landscape, students will learn about perspective, shading, proportions, values, and training the eye to sketch.

Cost of class is $30. Friend of Belmont $20. All supplies included. Class Flyer

Contact Education Coordinator Michelle Dolby at 540-654-1851 to register.

image above: Redford, River Rouge, Gari Melchers, age 15

Family-Friendly Tours
Daily, June 16 through Labor Day, September 1st

These special guided tours of Gari Melchers’ art studio and the 1790s Georgian house he and his wife Corinne shared are geared towards school-age children and their families.   They will run approximately 45 minutes long, not including optional sketching in the restored gardens and grounds. 

Family Fun & Learning Tours will take place Monday through Sunday at 10:30 am and 3:00 pm.  Regular admission prices, $10 per adult and $5 per children 6 and older, apply. Registration is not necessary.  Each child will receive a souvenir to remember their visit by.

First Saturday in the Garden
Saturday, August 2, 9 - 12 noon

Free admission.

For more information, contact Grounds Preservation Specialist Beate Jensen at 540-654-1839.

Summer Art Camps
Belmont Gates 4 Ways

Artist MJ Bradley will teach two, 4-day summer art camps.

August 12-15, 10 - 12 noon
Grades 2-5 THIS CAMP IS FULL

August 25-28, 10 - 12 noon
Grades 6-10

Using Belmont's garden gates as inspiration, students will create four finished art works using sketching, black and white scratch boards, watercolor, and acrylic paint on canvas.

Register early; small class size; $60/members; $70/nonmembers; all supplies included.

Contact Education Coordinator Michelle Dolby at 540-654-1851 to register.

Class Flyer and Parental Consent and Release Form

“Holidays with the Melchers” Specialty Tours
Daily, December 1st through January 2, 2009
Tours run on the hour, starting at 10:30 am

Using excerpts from American artist Gari Melchers and his wife Corinne’s diaries and letters, archival photographs, Corinne’s personal recipes, oral histories, and other research material, docents will recount how the Melchers spent the holiday season at Belmont in the 1920s and 30s.  Interior house decorations and exterior fresh decorations by a local garden club will set the holiday scene. 

In a 1921 letter to her mother, Corinne recounts a grand New Year’s Day afternoon tea and dance she and Gari hosted at Belmont where she wore a blue velvet dress.  Eighty guests ranging in age from 7 to 78 enjoyed music by three uniformed members of Quantico’s Marine Corps band.  Fredericksburg’s Daily Star newspaper described the event as “one of the most delightful informal social functions held in this section in recent years, and worthy of the best and oldest days of ‘Ole Virginia’”

“Holidays with the Melchers” tours are included in the regular admission price of $10/adults, $9/seniors, and $5/students. The museum is open daily from 10 am to 5 pm.

For more information, contact Education Coordinator Michelle Dolby at 540-654-1851.

Holiday Open House
Sunday, December 14, 1-4 pm

Free admission. For more information, contact Special Events Coordinator Betsy Labar at 540-654-1848.

News

February 10 Master Naturalists help blaze trails at Belmont in The Free Lance-Star

January 18 Get to Know the 'King of Illustrators' in The Free Lance-Star

December 15 Free Lance-Star's Town & County article: An Artistic Holiday

Gari Melchers Home and Studio featured in December 2007 Fifth Anniversary issue of Virginia Living

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