January 20 – April 5, 2009 —
Art has always had the power to move us, bring issues to light, create change, and provide insight. No Conservative Measures: Art and Nature Collide focuses on artwork that forces us to pause and consider our relationship with nature and our impact on it. Some of the works that seem incidental to this premise still serve to document society’s attitudes regarding the land; other pieces are outright banners for an awareness of what we need to value and conserve. The 25 artists represented by these paintings, photographs, and sculptures, drawn mainly from the permanent collection of the Museum of Nebraska Art (MONA), all portray a love or interest in nature, particularly Nebraska’s land and the animals that inhabit it. The exhibition reflects the on-going effort to bring attention to the plight of our land through the visual arts and to show the power that art can have to bring about change.
At first glance, some of the works in this exhibition seem to be out of place when we think of conservation, such as the decoys created by Cy Black, John Albert Lundgren, and Walter C. Wood. While we know that decoys are utilized by hunters to attract geese and ducks, their genesis came about through efforts to conserve dwindling waterfowl populations in the first part of the 20th century. Prior to the 1930s, hunters utilized tethered live duck or geese to draw in game. This was such a successful technique that hunters were often able to amass large numbers of birds in one outing. Plummeting waterfowl populations resulted and, in 1935, a federal ban on the use of live call birds was enacted. Since the major manufacturers of wooden decoys went out of business in the late 1800s and early 1900s, hunters were left to fend for themselves and responded by fashioning their own means of luring game. Hunters Black, Lundgren, and Wood became masters of this craft, and their decoys are wonderful examples of folk art – works created by self-taught artists for utilitarian purposes.
John Albert Lundgren also created two-dimensional pieces, and two of his paintings chronicle this changing era. The Good Old Days is an example of the great quantity of harvested birds. In Memory of the Passed shows hunters successfully utilizing decoys. While both works were painted around 1960, they are accounts of hunting expeditions from before and after the ban went into effect.
More traditional works in this exhibition, including Thomas Moran’s lithograph of Grand Canyon of Hermit Rim Road and William Henry Jackson’s photographs of Yellowstone, also have had an impact on nature conservation in our country. As one of America’s most prominent landscape painters of the 19th century, Moran along with renowned photographer Jackson, played a major role in convincing Congress to designate the Yellowstone region a national park in 1872. Moran’s dramatic and romantic depictions of sweeping vistas, evident in Grand Canyon of Arizona from Hermit Rim Road, introduced individuals to the yet undiscovered beauty of the American landscape. Jackson’s photographs helped legitimize the colorful, idealized paintings of Moran. Together, they served as a force to preserve some of the most beautiful lands for future generations.
MONA is proud to offer an exhibition that emphasizes the ability and far-reaching influence that art can have. The exhibition’s varied works provide an opportunity to see the natural world around us in a new and more focused light.
