Featuring prints from Harper's Weekly magazine

NEW YORK 7th INFANTRY REGIMENT This regiment was accepted by the State of New York on April 26, 1861.   Company I was recruited at Brooklyn, the others in New York City.

PREACHING TO THE TROOPS (New York 7th Infantry Regiment) Sanford Robinson Gifford

71st REGIMENT, NEW YORK STATE MILITIA

On April 16, 1861, 380 men mustered under Colonel Vosburgh at the New York State Arsenal, in response to President Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops.  On April 21, the 71st paraded down Broadway and headed to the front. The Regiment took part in the occupation of Alexandria, Virginia in May 1861, accompanying the New York Fire Zouaves and Colonel Ephraim E. Ellsworth. A detachment of the 71st, with two howitzers, fought at Acquia Creek and Port Tobacco in May and June 1861. On July 21, 1861, the 71st Infantry took part in the First Battle of Bull Run.

FIRST BLOOD--THE SIXTH MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENT FIGHTING THEIR WAY THROUGH BALTIMORE APRIL 19, 1861

While the first shots of the Civil War had been fired a few days earlier at Fort Sumter, this was the first battle resulting in casualties.  The print shows an intense street battle in which union troops are being attacked by armed men and rock throwers. Several men can be seen falling to the ground, succumbing to their wounds.  The men shown falling to the ground would be the first of millions to follow over the next several years.

ROCK GARDEN

BLACK BEARS, PIG FAMILY, GNOME WITH MICE AND MUSHROOMS

CLOSEUP OF THE GNOME

CLOSEUP OF THE PIG FAMILY COMING THROUGH THE GAP

MAMA BEAR AND CUB

Albert Namatjira is one of Australia's great artists, and perhaps the best known Aboriginal painter.  His western style landscapes--so different to traditional Aboriginal art, made him famous.  Fame led to Albert and his wife becoming the first Aborigines to be granted Australian citizenship.  It was a significant achievement, because at this time Aborigines had few rights.

MOUNT SONDER--THE MOUNTAIN THAT ALBERT NAMATJIRA MADE FAMOUS

Albert Namatjira was a man of great strength and dignity.  He was a loving father and husband, and was proud, ambitious, resourceful and intelligent.  As an artist, he was innately skillful, and this is evident in his ability to absorb after only two months tuition under Rex Battarbee, the basics of European watercolor painting.

Anthewerre

When studying his works one needs to take into consideration two important factors.  The first of these was that Albert Namatjira was the first of his tribe to paint watercolors in the European manner, and had no help with tuition or direction from others of his tribe.  The second important factor was that he produced works in a wide range of colors and from a 'new' perspective that was a considerable break away from the traditional native art of his people, the Western Aranda.

Wildlife near the Gosse Range - 1939 watercolor over pencil on paper

Albert Namatjira's reputation rests on his landscapes.  His paintings of other subjects are not so well known.  Recent discoveries reveal that, particularly during the early years of his career, he produced portraits, scenes of daily life, animals and buildings, all of which are either integrated into, or juxtaposed against, the land.  However, this type of imagery never became a major interest but enabled him to experiment and explore different mediums, techniques and forms.  Their naive charm lies in keen observation and expressive power.  In these works, we sense Namatjira discovering ways to depict the world around him.

In his lifetime, Albert Namatjira had great popular and commercial success as an artist and is still regarded by many Aboriginal people as a role model for achievement.  After his death in 1959, the reputation of his paintings went through a period of neglect, and his work has at times been viewed as owing more to cultural assimilation than to his own artistic vision.  More recently his reputation has recovered from this criticism and he, and associated artists such as his own older sons and the Pareroultja brothers, are recognized as making a distinctive and important contribution to Australian art.

Ghost Gum, Glen Helen

In many of Namatjira's paintings the tree ceases to be the sole focus and the painting combines multiple subjects into a single entity.  Namatjira's familiarity with the use of a camera's viewfinder to look at landscape was undoubtedly one of the key factors in the development of the paintings that explore boundaries to vision, particularly where distant vistas are contained by geological forms or framed by trees.

Albert was a celebrity, but not always a comfortable one.  It was always a relief for him to leave the "big smoke" and return to his desert home.  Success brought money, and Albert planned to use it to secure a future for his family. He wanted to lease a cattle station, but as an Aborigine he wasn't allowed.  Next he tried to build a house in Alice Springs.  Once again the law prevented him, just because he was Aboriginal. It was a strange situation.

The Western MacDonnell Range, Central Australia

MacDonnell Ranges After the Rains

Here was a man, heralded as a top artist, treated like a celebrity and yet not even allowed to own land.  He was definitely the beginning of a recognition of Aboriginal people by white Australia.  Public outrage at Albert's predicament pushed the government to grant him and his wife full citizenship in 1957.  This meant they could vote, enter a hotel and build a house anywhere they chose. It took ten years for the government to grant similar rights to the rest of the Aboriginal population.  As a citizen Albert could now also buy alcohol.  In keeping with Aboriginal custom, Albert's friends expected him to share any alcohol he bought.  But in doing this he broke white man's laws. In 1958, police charged Albert with supplying alcohol to Aboriginal people.  He denied the charge, but the court didn't believe him.  After two months in prison, Albert emerged a free, but broken man. He had lost his will to paint, and to live. Albert Namatjira died in 1959. He was just fifty-seven years old. Albert's life and work have inspired other Aboriginal people to paint.  Among them have been his children and grandchildren.  This great painter captured Australia's heart in artwork and was praised around the world.  His life showed white Australians the injustice of racist laws, and contributed to long overdue changes for his people.

In 2002 the Australia Post released four new stamps depicting the watercolors of Central Australian artist Albert Namatjira to honor the centenary of his birth.  It is the third time his work has featured on Australian stamps.  The stamps also celebrate the Year of the Outback. Albert Namatjira produced approximately 2000 pictures and first held an exhibition in Melbourne in 1938.

Paeonia come in a variety colors and many have a strong perfume.  This one was photographed in a suburban garden in Glasgow.

Wild Rose

This mecanopsis, a variety of blue poppy, originated in the Himalayas.  It was photographed in the newly re-opened Crarae Gardens in Argyll, south of Inveraray.

MOUNT RAINIER BAY OF TACOMA SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD

Sanford Robinson Gifford (July 10, 1823--August 29, 1880) was an American landscape painter and one of the leading members of the Hudson River School. Gifford's landscapes are known for their emphasis on light and soft atmospheric effects, and he is regarded as a practitioner of Luminism, an offshoot style of the Hudson River School. Returning to his studio in New York City, Gifford painted numerous major landscapes from scenes he recorded on his travels.  Gifford's method of creating a work of art was similar to other Hudson River School artists.  He would first sketch rough, small works in oil paint from his sketchbook pencil drawings.  Those scenes he most favored he then developed into small, finished paintings, then into larger, finished paintings.

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