January 26 – April 17, 2016
Free with Museum admission
www.flaglermuseum.us

Beauty’s Legacy: Gilded Age Portraits in America explores the critical and popular resurgence of portraiture in the United States during the period bounded by the close of the Civil War and the beginning of World War I. As great fortunes were amassed in America, so too came the drive to document the wealthy with great portraiture. A brilliant generation of American and European artists rose to meet that demand. This exhibition features fifty eight portraits selected from New-York Historical Society’s outstanding holdings. The sitters — ranging from famous society beauties to powerful titans of business and industry — left lasting legacies that have contributed to the cultural and economic growth of the Nation.

Beauty’s Legacy includes portraits of prominent Americans painted and sculpted by noted American artists such as James Carroll Beckwith, George Peter Alexander Healy, Daniel Huntington, John Singer Sargent, and John Quincy Adams Ward. But the exhibition also reveals the highly competitive nature of the portrait market, as these American portraitists found themselves in fierce rivalry for American patronage with their European counterparts, such as Léon Bonnat, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Alexandre Cabanel, Théobald Chartran, and Anders Zorn. The exhibition also includes a selection of twenty-four exquisite portraits from Peter Marié’s vast collection of miniatures, known by his contemporaries as his “Gallery of Beauty,” underscoring the intersection of beauty, celebrity, and social prestige.

This exhibition has been organized by the New-York Historical Society.

 

With additional paintings from:

Flagler College, St. Augustine, Florida
Henry Morrison Flagler Museum
Lyndhurst, Tarrytown, New York
George G. Matthews

Beauty’s Legacy: Gilded Age Portraits in America is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue published by the New-York Historical Society in association with D Giles Limited, London.

 

Gallery Talk

Tuesday, February 16, 2016
2:45 pm in the Exhibition Gallery
Free with Museum admission
Space is limited, reservations are recommended
Please call (561) 655-2833 to R.s.v.p.

Join Dr. Margaret Laster, of the New-York Historical Society, for a tour of the Winter Exhibition, Beauty’s Legacy on February 16th at 2:45 p.m..  Dr. Laster will tell the stories of the important sitters and artists represented in the exhibition, within the context of the American portrait tradition.