home>news & information>news release archive

NEWS RELEASE ARCHIVES

Collection Grows with Mowbray Arch Purchases

On December 6, the members of the Mowbray Arch Society gathered for their 13th annual art selection dinner. The outcome of that festive and colorful evening was the decision to add Emmanuel Lansyer’s striking Portrait of Gustave Godard to the Museum’s collection. Painted in Lansyer’s Paris studio in 1872, the portrait shows the young sculptor Godard seated in an elaborate brocade chair. He wears a brilliant red artist’s smock and displays a book of Japanese prints as he turns to gaze intently at the viewer. With the opening of Japan’s ports to the West in the mid-1850s, Europe was swept by Le Japonisme – a fascination with all things Japanese. Consequently, Japanese artistic techniques became one of the major building blocks of French modern art. As he displays his book of Japanese prints, Godard proclaims that he, too, is a disciple of the modern. This stunning
painting is currently displayed in the Museum’s Impressionist Gallery.

Emmanuel Lansyer (French, 1835-1893) Portrait of Gustave Godard, 1872 Gift of the Mowbray Arch Society, 2005 The new painting takes up residence in the Impressionist Gallery [at left]

Thomas and George Woodall (English, 1849-1926 and 1850-1925) Before the Race, ca. 1890 Museum purchase, with funds provided by James and Becky Summar, Sr. in honor of Mrs. Rebecca W. Hitt and Gary E. Baker, The Chrysler Museum Glass Associates, Leo Kaplan, Ltd., Mr. and Mrs. Richard Barry III, Mrs. Rebecca W. Hitt in honor of Kate Summar, Mr. and Mrs. John S. Shannon, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Waitzer, Mr. and Mrs. David M. Brashear, Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Jacobson, Mrs. George M. Kaufman, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred F. Ritter, Jr., Anonymous, The Evelyn & Cameron Munden Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. John O. Wynne, Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm Branch, Mrs. Richard C. Burroughs, Mr. and Mrs. Stuart E. Katz, Mrs. Eleanor Marshall, Susan R. O’Neal, and the Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. Glass Purchase Fund [below]

Through generous donations made by Mowbray Arch Society members and other committed individuals, two additional works presented at the December 6 selection dinner have been acquired by the Museum: Thomas and George Woodall’s tour-de-force of English cameo carving, Before the Race, and Chuck Close’s monumental and dramatic portrait of the composer Philip Glass, Phil III.
Chuck Close (American, b. 1940) Phil III, 1982 Museum purchase, with funds provided by the Chrysler Contemporaries, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Waitzer, Mr. and Mrs. Arnold McKinnon, Mrs. George Kaufman, Mr. and Mrs. David J. Benjack, Mr. and Mrs. James E. Johnson, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm Branch, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Fine, Mr. and Mrs. Matthew D. Fine, David and Susan Goode, Mr. and Mrs. Harry T. Lester, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Light, The Honorable and Mrs. Everett A. Martin, Dr. and Mrs. Robert Rubin, and the Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. Art Purchase Fund