A Bennington Museum exhibit includes portraits recently discovered in Texas of two members of a prominent 19th century Springfield family.
Also see: this family's history.
http://www.benningtonbanner.com/ci_17553152
Bringing a Vermont family back home
Bennington Museum exhibit includes 1830s family paintings
K.D. Norris (photo by Peter Crabtree)
Posted: 03/06/2011 11:02:00 PM EST
POWNAL - Kathy Gaffney may be a transplanted Vermonter - having moved here from Catskill, N.Y., with her husband, Frank Giorandino, eight years ago - but she has a connection with an old Green Mountain family that few can boast.
A father and daughter of the early 19th century Griswold family, from Springfield, Vt., were literally brought back home by Gaffney. About a year ago, Gaffney, who is not only a collector of American folk art but also has experience as an antique dealer, found paintings of the pair up for sale by a Texas antique dealer and - quite simply - she just had to bring them back to Vermont.
"I always sense they feel right at home back here, with me now in Pownal - a town not all that far away from their original home town of Springfield," said Gaffney, pointing out the two paintings on the wall of her home. "I found them on the dealer's website ... They have history; they have Vermont history. I had to bring them home."
Exhibition opens March 12
The two paintings will be part of the upcoming "Bennington Collects" exhibit at the Bennington Museum. The exhibition will open March 12. Jamie Franklin, Bennington Museum curator and curator of the "Bennington Collects" exhibition, said the Gaffney's two paintings fit perfectly in with the theme of this year's show - a theme that features more focused collections by a few collectors rather than the more wide-ranging collector shows of the past.
According to Franklin, the pair of portraits are
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by the well-regarded 19th-century Vermont itinerant painter Asahel Powers, and are of the rather staunch, 73-year-old, Daniel Griswold and his youngest daughter, Louisa, (possibly in her wedding dress) who lived in Springfield. The paintings, dated from the early 1830s, were exhibited at the prestigious Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum in Virginia in 1973 and the original exhibition catalog of that show came with them and was important in terms of the "provenance" - proof of history - of the paintings.
"Collections are very personal. Collections are almost like a portrait of a collector. The best collection is very personal," said Franklin. "All the objects shown (from Gaffney's collection), despite being all intrinsically different from one another in terms of media, fall under the broad spectrum of American folk art." said Franklin. "This genre runs the gamut from early, now battered trade signs that advertised a proprietor's work or goods to portraits of dour early New Englanders."
The Powers' paintings may fall under the heading of "portraits of dour early New Englanders," but that doesn't prevent Gaffney from having a special affection for the works. "I love primitive paintings, I love folk art," said Gaffney. "It is interesting how early American itinerant artists went around the country side, primarily in the Northeast."
And how did she come to lend the paintings to the museum for this show?
"I had a previous relationship with Jamie, from our relationship with the museum," she said. "When I purchased them, I e-mailed and said I had them and he came over and looked. He was familiar with what I had." Gaffney also has several folk art pieces in the exhibit, including a Pennsylvania Amish "signature" quilt that Franklin was clearly excited about, as well as a barn wind vane.
Unlike previous Bennington Collects exhibitions - which included a large number of disparate, diverse items ranging from early Tibetan bronzes to NASCAR-related Cheerios memorabilia - this installation has only seven collections, chosen by Franklin, based on their perceived artistic, historic or cultural value. Gaffney's American folk art collection was one that attracted Franklin's attention immediately, and the Power's paintings were a huge reason. Other collections include African wood pillows, Japanese folk ceramics, and paintings by Carl Ruggles, best known as an avant-garde composer, who lived most of his life in Arlington, Vt.
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