Precious Spaces: Masterpieces in Miniature

Through January 13, 2008

Lady Lilith Deborah Mackie		So the Treasure Was Divided Dana J. Pyle, Jr.

The Delaware Art Museum is pleased to present Precious Spaces: Masterpieces in Miniature, the Museum’s second annual miniatures exhibition, on view November 17, 2007 – January 13, 2008. For this year’s Precious Spaces, each vignette is a diminutive masterpiece in its own right as well as a showcase for the miniature artist’s interpretation of an original, full-scale work.  Artists from around the region have produced scaled-down versions of major paintings by luminaries such as Howard Pyle, N. C. Wyeth, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Claude Monet.  Each three-dimensional miniature uses a scale whereby one inch equals one foot, and five of the eight miniatures are based on works in the Museum’s collection.

Inspiration came to the miniature artists in a variety of ways. When Monica Graham saw C. Cole Phillips’ depiction of a woman repairing her stocking at the Delaware Art Museum, she was motivated to reproduce the painting’s subtle, muted tones.  Deborah Mackie’s purchase of a luxurious hide of curly red Tibetan lamb hair immediately brought to her mind the flowing locks of Rosetti’s Lady Lilith.  Dana J. Pyle, Jr., who is related to master illustrator Howard Pyle, has long been inspired by his ancestor’s imagination and illustrations.  He recreated Howard Pyle’s So the Treasure Was Divided, taking the time to fashion 32 individual pirates.

Visitors to the Delaware Art Museum will be able to vote for their favorite miniature until the evening of Friday, December 7, 2007, when the Museum will be open late as part of Wilmington’s Art on the Town program.  Beginning at 5:30 p.m., admission to the Museum will be free on this date, and the After Party, featuring DJs in Fusco Hall, will last from 8:00 p.m. to midnight.  Voting will end during the course of the evening, and the first-, second-, and third-place miniatures will be announced.  The miniature artists will attend this event so they can speak to visitors about their work.

Miniaturists and Their Masterpieces

Untitled, 1920, cover for Saturday Evening Post, October 2, 1920
Monica Graham 
C. Coles Phillips (1880-1927)
Watercolor, gouache, and pencil on illustration board, 20 x 16 inches
Delaware Art Museum, Acquisition Fund, 1988

Long Branch, New Jersey, 1869
Marnie King
Winslow Homer (1836-1910).  Oil on canvas, 16 x 21 3/4 inches
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Hayden Collection—Charles Henry Hayden Fund, 1941

Lady Lilith, 1866-68 (altered 1872-73)
Deborah Mackie       
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
Oil on canvas, 38 x 33 1/2 inches 
Delaware Art Museum, Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial, 1935

The Mermaid, 1910
Deborah Mackie         
Howard Pyle (1853-1911)
Oil on canvas, 57 7/8 x 40 1/8 inches
Delaware Art Museum, Gift of the children of Howard Pyle in memory of their mother,
Anne Poole Pyle, 1940

A Pathway in Monet’s Garden, Giverny, 1902 
Cheryl Miller & Betsy Johnson              
Claude Monet (1840-1926)  
Oil on canvas, 35 x  36 1/4 inches
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

So the Treasure Was Divided, 1905
Dana J. Pyle, Jr.                                   
Howard Pyle (1853-1911) 
Oil on canvas, 19 1/2 x 29 1/2 inches.  
Delaware Art Museum, Museum Purchase, 1912

Two Boys in a Punt, 1915, cover for Popular Magazine
Susan Ross & Bonnie Kincaid   
N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945) 
Oil on canvas, 37 1/2 x 26 1/2 inches
 Private collection.

Isabella and the Pot of Basil, 1867-68 
Wanda Simons                                     
William Holman Hunt (1827-1910)
Oil on canvas, 23 7/8 x 15 1/ 4 inches
Delaware Art Museum, Special Purchase Fund, 1947

In Delaware, this exhibition is made possible, in part, by grants from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.