High Museum fall '15 exhibit to link European, U.S. still life traditions

Joseph Biays Ord's "Still Life with Shells" (1840) will be included in the exhibit "“The Simple Pleasures of Still Life” opening at the High Museum of Art in Sept. 15.

Credit: hpousner

Credit: hpousner

Joseph Biays Ord's "Still Life with Shells" (1840) will be included in the exhibit "“The Simple Pleasures of Still Life” opening at the High Museum of Art in Sept. 15.

The High Museum of Art has announced the final installment in its series of "American Encounters" exhibition collaborations with the Louvre, Arkansas' Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Chicago and Paris-based Terra Foundation for American Art.

"The Simple Pleasures of Still Life, " the fourth exhibit in the four-year project, will run at the High from Sept. 26, 2015 to Jan. 31, 2016. The intimate show will focus on how late 18th- and early 19th-century American artists adapted European still-life tradition to the taste, character and experience of their younger country.

Among the artists represented will be De Scott Evans, Martin Johnson Heade, Joseph Biays Ord, William Sydney Mount and Raphaelle Peale, with trompe l’oeil paintings by John Haberle, William Michael Harnett and George Cope.

“Each individual painting, intimately scaled and packed with lush imagery rife with symbolic and historical meaning, invites close observation and tells the story of a young nation finding its voice," said High American art curator Stephanie Mayer Heydt, who curated this "American Encounters" installment.

The High will supplement the touring show with four paintings drawn from its American art collection, including works by William Mason Brown, Joseph Decker and John Frederick Peto.

Meanwhile, the series' third exhibit, "American Encounters: Anglo-American Portraiture in an Era of Revolution," featuring three George Washington portraits and more, continues at the High through Jan. 18. 1280 Peachtree St., Atlanta. www.high.org.