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Sylvia Sleigh: Invitation to a Voyage YONKERS, NY. August 8, 2006 — Noted painter Sylvia Sleigh recently donated her monumental work Invitation to a Voyage: the Hudson River at Fishkill, 1979-99 to the Hudson River Museum. It is one of the most significant gifts of art ever made to the museum and will be on view from September 30, 2006. Set along the scenic banks of the Hudson River, the work, painted over two decades, depicts a summer gathering of friends similar to scenes of pastoral gatherings by the eighteenth-century French painter Jean Antoine Watteau. Composed of 14 separate canvases, each panel 8 x 5 feet, the work forms a massive panorama of Hudson River banks peopled with art-world figures and individuals important to Sleigh’s life. Holland Cotter, reviewing Invitation to a Voyage in the New York Times called it “a perfect, discreet, unsentimental punctuation to a portrait of yesterday.” Invitation to a Voyage was inspired by a train trip to Albany, when Sleigh was struck by the beauty of the river and Bannerman’s Castle on Pollopel Island. She painted the panorama’s figures in specific settings and divided the work in two: the “ Riverside” panels, painted first, which represent the ambition of Sleigh, a seminal figure in the feminist art movement; and, the “Woodside” panels that represent the culmination of her career, painted after the death of her husband. Sleigh credits her husband Lawrence Alloway, an art critic, for giving her the emotional support to further her career. His support is charmingly illustrated in the panels that show the critic literally helping the artist to her feet. The panels of Invitation to a Voyage like Sleigh’s early paintings show her desire to connect to the grand-history painting of the art historical tradition as she rebelled against the constraints of modernism. In her large-scale portraits of nude young men painted in traditionally feminine poses, she attempted to reverse the male gaze and create a new erotic perspective for women. Her work was championed by noted art historian Linda Nochlin and critic John Perreault. Sleigh followed an artistic path to representational painting, popular with feminist artists such as Alice Neel. The exhibition will be accompanied by a display of photographs, drawings, and preliminary sketches, and a brochure. A brochure accompanies the exhibition. The Hudson River Museum is located at 511 Warburton Avenue, Yonkers NY. minutes from the Saw Mill River Parkway, exit 9, north or southbound. |
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