Collection Spotlights Archives - The Heckscher Museum of Art

ADOPT A WORK OF ART: Ira Jean Belmont Painting Adopted by Winifred F. Baim

Care and preservation of the collection is one of the principal responsibilities of a museum. Even in controlled museum environments, objects age. Exposure to light and atmospheric debris can discolor…

COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT: George Romney’s “Portrait of Mrs. St. George and Child”

By Karli Wurzelbacher, Curator

After a delay of five months, Portrait of Mrs. St. George and Child (1791) has come home to The Heckscher Museum of Art. The George Romney (1734–1802) painting was on…

COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT: Emma Stebbins’s “Industry” and “Commerce”

By Karli Wurzelbacher, Curator

She finally resolved on an exclusive consecration of her talents to art, making it the sole business of her life. She determined to go to Rome … It is probably…

COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT: Hans Hokanson’s “Little Gull”

By Emily A. Finan, Curatorial Intern

I am influenced by the volume and the availability of the wood … The wood itself kicks me off, encourages me, speaks back to me. I am in direct confrontation…

COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT: Howardena Pindell’s “Relationships (Kandinsky #1)”

By Karli Wurzelbacher, Curator

In Relationships (Kandinsky #1) (1996), Howardena Pindell blends varied artistic languages to create a multimedia work bursting with energy and meaning. The diamond-shaped acrylic on canvas painting will be a…

COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT: Thomas Moran’s “The Woods in Autumn”

By Michael W. Schantz, Ph.D., Executive Director & CEO

The Woods in Autumn (1864) by Thomas Moran (1837-1926) was an instant favorite of mine when I first arrived at the Museum in the Fall of 2010. Indeed, at first…

COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT: Fairfield Porter’s “Elizabeth in a Red Chair”

By Karli Wurzelbacher, Curator

As the wholeness of life eludes control, so the wholeness of art eludes the control of the artist. The realist thinks he knows ahead of time what reality is, and…

COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT: Photographs by Joe Constantino

By Karli Wurzelbacher, Curator
and Kerrilyn Blee, Assistant Curator

The Museum’s Curatorial Department is always working to preserve, research, and share our collection. This week, Assistant Curator Kerrilyn Blee recorded an oral history interview with photographer Joe Constantino (b.…

COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT: Alice Rahon’s “La Conjuration des Antilopes”

By Karli Wurzelbacher, Curator
and Emily A. Finan, Curatorial Intern

In earliest times painting was magical; it was a key to the invisible. In those days the value of a work lay in its power of conjuration, a power that…

COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT: George Grosz and “Eclipse of the Sun”

October 2019

George Grosz’s Eclipse of the Sun is among the most significant paintings in a public collection on Long Island and one of the masterpieces of 20th-century art. The Heckscher Museum…

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