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Description: Samuel F. B. Morse’s Gallery of the Louvre and the Art of Invention
~KNOWN TODAY primarily for his role in the development of the electromagnetic telegraph and Morse code, Samuel F. B. Morse began his career as a painter. His monumental Gallery of the Louvre was the culmination of an extended period of study in Europe. Upon his return to the United States, Morse exhibited the work only twice, in New York and New...
PublisherTerra Foundation for American Art
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Director’s Foreword
Known today primarily for his role in the development of the electromagnetic telegraph and Morse code, Samuel F. B. Morse began his career as a painter. His monumental Gallery of the Louvre was the culmination of an extended period of study in Europe. Upon his return to the United States, Morse exhibited the work only twice, in New York and New Haven, where it was praised by critics and connoisseurs but rejected by the public. Crushed by the response, Morse soon ceased painting altogether, moving on to his more successful experiments in communications technology. It would take nearly 150 years for the painting to assume its place as an icon of early American art.
Chicago businessman Daniel J. Terra made his fortune in printing inks and photographic chemicals. He began collecting art as early as 1937, then turned his focus to collecting the art of the United States around 1976, inspired in part by the bicentennial of the nation’s independence. In 1982 Terra grabbed the attention of the art world when he purchased Samuel F. B. Morse’s Gallery of the Louvre for $3.25 million, at the time a record for an American painting. To Mr. Terra, Gallery of the Louvre epitomized the American spirit of vitality, initiative, and drive for self-improvement. He immediately sent it on an extended tour of museums across the United States, attracting widespread acclaim that helped reestablish the importance of Morse’s painting for the study of early American art history. In that spirit, the Terra Foundation for American Art has continued to research and exhibit the painting, which serves as a cornerstone of the Foundation’s renowned collection of historical art of the United States, dating from the colonial period to 1950.
The painting underwent an extensive conservation treatment in 2010–11, a process documented in the award-winning documentary A New Look: Samuel F. B. Morse’s “Gallery of the Louvre,” produced by Sandpail Productions. Following the treatment, the painting went back on tour for a series of extended exhibitions at the Yale University Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where it was the subject of an extensive array of public lectures, teacher programs, copying classes for practicing artists, and scholarly study days and symposia.
We thank our colleagues at these institutions for their collaboration in the exhibition of the painting and especially for their work in developing the innovative and engaging programs that generated the essays included in this book. Texts by scholars of American and European art shed new light on Morse’s painting as well as his complex persona as an erudite artist, scientist, inventor, deeply spiritual Calvinist, and political xenophobe. We are also extremely pleased that two essays by international scholars of historical American art appear alongside texts by their U.S. counterparts. The inclusion of their essays exemplifies the international exchange of ideas and perspectives that is integral to our mission. Indeed, the institutional collaboration, deep research, and international dialogue that animate the exhibition of Morse’s painting and the essays in this book reflect the Foundation’s belief that art has the power to distinguish cultures as well as to unite them.
As the painting embarks on another extended tour of museums across the United States and beyond, we look forward to sharing the new scholarship included in this volume and the dialogue and exchange that it inspires.
ELIZABETH GLASSMAN
President and Chief Executive Officer
Terra Foundation for American Art
Director’s Foreword
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