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Deer on East Bank

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Deer on East Bank

1980
oil on canvas
96 in. x 96 in. (243.84 cm x 243.84 cm)
Gift of Roselyn and Richard Swig, 1993.35

Neil G. Welliver
American
1929–2005

ON VIEW

Neil Welliver's large landscape paintings epitomize the fragile beauty of wild New England. A native of Pennsylvania, Welliver attended the Philadelphia Museum College of Art and was a student of Josef Albers (q.v.) at Yale University. After graduating from the latter in 1955, the artist returned to serve on the Yale faculty. Later he held teaching positions at Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania.

Welliver's early work alternated between abstract compositions and quasi surreal fantasy images involving figures and landscape elements. During the 1960s the artist painted in a Realist style that invoked the flatness and gestural brushwork of Abstract Expressionism. Others such as Alex Katz (b. 1927) and Fairfield Porter (1907-1975) were painting in a similar manner, and as the decade progressed, Welliver drew increasing critical attention. By the early 1970s he had largely abandoned figure painting for landscape, the genre with which he is now most closely identified. Welliver has since gained national recognition for his cool and expansive images of forests and bogs.

Typical of Welliver's landscapes, Deer on East Bank is a large image depicting an unspoiled forest interior. Two deer make their way through thick stands of lichen-covered trees, fallen branches, and mossy boulders. One of the animals appears frozen and alert, as if it has detected the presence of the viewer. In the distance, the second deer gazes in another direction, scanning the trees for potential enemies.

As a dedicated conservationist, Welliver creates images of the natural landscape that challenge old myths about the wilderness as a space to be transformed and "improved" by human hands. Whether depicting swampy bogs or tangled and boulder-strewn forests, Welliver presents the wild landscape as a place that cannot be harmoniously cohabited by man. Imposing in its vastness and impenetrability, the forest Welliver depicts is nonetheless vulnerable: while it cannot be cohabited, it can be destroyed in the name of "improvement." In Deer on East Bank, it seems difficult for humans to traverse the densely wooded hillside, yet one can easily imagine the trees cut down and the rocks and branches hauled away to clear space for development. While the deer themselves serve as sentinels of a sort, ever alert to encroachment, they are ultimately defenseless. Lacking even the voice to communicate the plight of their environment, they can only run away.

Deer on East Bank was presented to the Currier Museum of Art in 1993 by Roselyn and Richard Swig. Other works by Welliver in the Currier collection include the oil on canvas Blue Pool of 1980 and the serigraph Brook, dating to 1973.

VSD

REFERENCES

Robert M. Doty, John Bernard Myers, and Edwin Denby. Neil Welliver: Paintings, 1966-1980. Ex cat. Currier Gallery of Art, 1981.

Donald B. Kuspit. "Terrestrial Truth: Neil Welliver." Art in America 71, no. 4 (April 1983): 138-143.

Welliver. Ex. cat. William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, Rockland, ME, 1986.


Exhibition
1982 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "Neil Welliver: Paintings 1966-1980." May 22 - July 4, cat. no. 31.

1994 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "New Directions: Contemporary Art from the Currier." Jan. 23 - April 24.

1997 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "What's New At The Currier: Recent Acquisitions to the Permanent Collection." Feb. 7 - March 31.

2001 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "From Wyeth to Welliver: American Realism of the 20th Century." June 30 - Sept. 3.


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