Great Lakes Muse: American Scene Painting in the Upper Midwest, 1910-1960: The Inlander Collection in the Flint Institute of Arts

Great Lakes Muse: American Scene Painting from the Upper Midwest, 1910 - 1960 The Flint Institute of Arts (FIA) is extremely pleased to present the special exhibition Great Lakes Muse: American Scene Painting from the Upper Midwest, 1910- 1960 from November 16, 2003 through February 1, 2004 to celebrate the museum's seventy-fifth anniversary and the acquisition of this significant collection of 105 paintings. The majority of works in the collection will come to the FIA on permanent loan from the Isabel Foundation, and the remaining portion as a donation from Michael Hall and Patricia Glascock, the collectors who assembled the outstanding group of regional paintings. This collection represents an important national and regional movement that took place in the first half of the twentieth century, one that has been somewhat overlooked until recently. Collectively, the paintings capture the changing face of American life through a period of urban industrialization and the expansion of rural communities. The quality of these works is consistent with the FIA's strong American collection and greatly increases the depth of works made between 1910 and 1960. Artists from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin are represented. A fully illustrated, 160-page catalogue will accompany the collection and exhibition. The catalogue essay for the exhibition follows: Inlanders and the American Scene: Modern Great Lakes Painting I will always be an inlander in spirit. The ocean. . . does not lure my imagination. Without discounting its awe-inspiring grandeur, it is not for me, and surely it has a worthy rival in a hay or wheat field on a bright windy day. -Charles Burchfield, journal entry, July 12, 1954