There’s one more month to catch “Thomas Moran Discovers the American West,” at the Moran Studio in East Hampton.
Flowers are still blooming in Mary Nimmo Moran’s English border garden. The East Hampton Garden Club re-created the purple, pink and yellow flowers that would have been there when the Moran family occupied the home beginning in 1884.
“People would have entered the home through the garden,” said East Hampton Historical Society's chief curator Richard Barons, standing in the turret overlooking Main Street and Town Pond.
Today, the restored home is a museum housing the exhibition “Thomas Moran Discovers the American West” until November 9. Sixty-three works, including oil paintings, watercolors, etchings, photographs, chromolithographs, maps, and personal items were borrowed, many from Yellowstone National Park.
The impetus behind the show is to introduce the public to Thomas Moran’s most important work. He certainly played a huge part in helping to establish Yellowstone National Park.
As one of the first artists to capture the wild and dramatic beauty of the west, he brought the landscapes to the world’s attention through magazine illustrations, and Victorian inventions such as the popular stereo cards, which turned a flat image into a three dimensional one, and cabinet cards, photographs mounted on cardboard, which were purchased at bookstores and traded among collectors.
“Some images are very detailed, others much freer,” said Barons.
Moran delivered the godliness of the new territory, after the Civil War, when the country was desperate for soothing images of nature.
Before actually boarding the Union Pacific Railroad, Scribner's Magazine hired the artist to interpret an engineer’s drawings to be sent to the engravers in order to illustrate the story, “Wonders of the Yellowstone.”
“He’s never seen anything like it in his life,” said Barons.
Moran was so enamored with the scenes he decided he had to see the landscapes for himself. Through Scribner’s, he contacted expedition leader F.V. Hayden who had already hired photographer William Henry Jackson and couldn’t afford to pay him.
Everyone, including the railroad which wanted to expand, was happy for the artist to join the expedition, if he could pay his own way. He used paintings as collateral and borrowed money from friends and family and hopped aboard the train in New Jersey, where he lived with his wife Mary and three children at the time. He was 33 years old.
The trip was well worth it. For the first time in his life, the immigrant from England slept under the stars. Upon his return, he became the star. His illustrations and artwork proved medicine for the ailing country and became the main exhibits when congress voted to forever preserve the land for all to enjoy.
A photograph of the artist at Jupiter Terrace is hung next to one of Jackson, the photographer, on horseback near a Native American stone memorial. It's a reminder that the two men became close confidants on their three month journey.
“The two men bonded and sort of helped one another,” said Barons. “Moran helped Jackson get better composition in his photographs.”
Rounding out the exhibition, is a map of all the railroads at the time as well as the first map printed of Yellowstone, 10 years after the Hayden expedition.
“The route lay through a magnificent forest of pines and firs all growing straight as a ship’s mast,” Moran wrote in his diary.
The exhibition illustrates his love of the gnarled trees with three works of art. One dated 1871, the year of the Hayden expedition, was borrowed from Yellowstone. Another dated 1874 is courtesy of the Parrish Art Museum and a third, dated 1917, came from Guild Hall.
Around the corner from the tree sketches, five simple watercolors depicting the geysers, or hot springs, in Yellowstone appeal to more modern sensibilities.
“Some see Hopper, some see Georgia O'Keeffe,” said Barons of the two watercolors, two chromo prints with color ink and one etching.
Another grouping depicts the “Lower Falls of the Yellowstone,” in photography and oil on canvas.
“You can see the wetness on the rocks below,” said Barons. “He often places people to show the scale.”
Most groupings are mounted on specially made walls in the middle of the main room, or studio space, but the exhibit takes over the entire first floor, including Mary’s flower cutting room and laundry room.
The Moran Studio, as the three-floor, Queen Anne-style house is called, was first given to Guild Hall by Mrs. Condie Lamb. In turn, Guild Hall gifted it to the Moran Trust. Funds were raised to restore the first artist summer home to its original, quirky glory.
Restoration, which started in 2013 and finished four years later, employed all original building techniques such as high gloss linseed oil paint, lath and plaster walls and many original details like the bathtub and sink. The dining room walls were covered in hand block printed Indian cotton fabric which has been replicated and will once again cover the walls on the first floor.
If all goes according to plan, the Moran Studio will soon fall into the hands of the current occupants, the East Hampton Historical Society.
After Mr. Moran’s death at the age of 89 in 1926, his youngest daughter Ruth, who stayed with him his entire life, sorted through all of the artist’s possessions and distributed them to various museums. She sent his pocket flask and black Stetson hat to Yellowstone, now on display in East Hampton, alongside his revolver.
“We know that he did shoot a rattlesnake and a cougar. Not for fun but because they were being bothersome,” said Barons. “These personal things begin to bring the exhibit alive.”
Thomas Moran himself, handsome in a well trimmed moustache and beard, lords over the studio in the form of a bust sculpted by Jonathan Hartley.
“It’s a pretty remarkable place,” said Barons. “You can get a sense of the painter’s creative energy.” Most remarkably, the exhibit showcases Moran’s very last painting, the unfinished “Lower Falls,” of 1924. It is the one piece that Yellowstone requested not be photographed.
“Thomas Moran Discovers the West,” is a rare opportunity to view the items that helped to make the career of the first artist to build his summer studio in East Hampton, and to see the paintings that led to the creation of our first National Park. “These are not on display at Yellowstone,” Barons said, but rather kept mostly in storage due to their delicate nature.
The National Gallery in Washington, D.C. had a large Moran retrospective in 1997 and the book published in celebration of that show is on display in “the laundry room,” where visitors can view the Moran family photo album flashing on a wall. The original is safely ensconced at the East Hampton Library.
“During the 40 days he spent in the area, Moran documented over 30 different sites,” according to National Parks Service. Moran’s name became so synonymous with Yellowstone that he was often referred to as Thomas "Yellowstone" Moran.
And that was just fine with him. He even incorporated a “Y” within his regular initials, as well as an arrow to represent the Native Americans and used the clever design to sign his full name, or used it alone as a monogram.
“He became a rock star,” said Barons. And he had his own symbol to prove it.