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Refining the Region: The
Landscapes of Bayard T. Berndt
November 1, 2013 - February 23,
2014
Bayard Taylor Berndt
was a 20th century Brandywine Valley artist who studied under such recognizable
figures as Frank Schoonover, N.C. Wyeth and Gayle Hoskins. Refining the
Region: the Landscapes of Bayard T. Berndt, on view at the Biggs Museum
of American Art November 1, 2013 through February 23, 2014, is an exhibition
of paintings produced over the course of a sixty-year career. American and
local history was a passion and often was a subject of his paintings. He
was especially enamored with the beauty and heritage of the Brandywine Valley
and often focused on his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. Some of his most
recognizable scenes highlight commerce on the local waterways, industrialization,
urban street views and covered bridges.
Wall panel texts from the exhibition
- "Painting is the study of our lives and environment,
and the American who is useful as an artist is one who studies his own
life and records his experiences." - Bayard T. Berndt
-
- Many artists were preoccupied with their usefulness during
the economic and political turmoil of early 20th century America. Bayard
Taylor "B.T." Berndt (1908-1987) applied his artistic talents
to many useful applications to support his family and to advance the cultural
life of his beloved Delaware Valley. Painting may have been the largest
contribution to his legacy but Berndt was also a gallery owner, patron,
local historian, mentor, community organizer, philanthropist as well as
a literal and metaphorical "framer" of the Delaware Arts Scene.
-
- Berndt was born and raised in the Brandywine Village
of Wilmington. He married a fellow art student, Rita Blatz, and had four
children. He helped run Wilmington's first professional fine-art academy
and was part owner of the iconic Hardcastle Gallery for over thirty years.
A few of his civic accomplishments included fund raising for the building
of the Delaware Art Center (now Delaware Art Museum) and the co-founding
of the Brandywine Arts Festival. His art is rare, but he exhibited in many
of the preeminent regional exhibitions and galleries of the 20th century.
- Bayard Berndt's art displays his advocacy of the Regionalist
movement that dominated the American art scene for much of the mid-1900s.
Artists became useful to their communities by glorifying the subjects of
the common person to the level of fine art. Perhaps to distinguish himself
from the local importance of the illustration artists that influenced his
own art education, he chose landscape as his principal subject. However,
he never lost the illustrator's ability to tell good stories.
-
-
- "Tradition is one of the worst enemies of creative
thought today -- for a creator it is one continuous struggle to overcome
it." - Bayard T. Berndt
-
- Bayard Berndt grew up in a time when Wilmington was awash
with the talented graduates of its famous school of illustration begun
by the "Father of American Illustration," Howard Pyle. What has
become known as the Brandywine School is the result of Pyle's rigorous
education in storytelling with pictures. Many of his students went on to
become famous illustrators, muralists and fine artists. Berndt began his
professional art education at the Philadelphia Museum School after graduating
from Wilmington High School in 1927. Initially, he studied with Thornton
Oakley, an illustrator who attended the Pyle school.
-
- After a short while in Philadelphia, Berndt transferred
to the Wilmington Academy of Art in 1929. There, he pursued fine-art painting
instruction from many other Pyle graduates, such as N.C. Wyeth and Frank
Schoonover, as well as American Impressionists and followers of William
Merritt Chase, Academy founder Henryette Stadelman Whiteside and her guest
teacher Charles Hawthorne. From this versatile artistic background, Berndt
emerged as a trained muralist with the research skills of a world-class
illustrator and the painterly bravado of an Impressionist at his disposal.
According to the artist, his early influences included a variety of artistic
styles such as the muralist Diego Rivera, the Regionalist painter Thomas
Hart Benton and the plein-air painters of the New Hope School.
-
-
- "The man that believes that money is the thing is
cheating himself. True art strikes deeper than the surface." - Bayard
T. Berndt
-
- Bayard Berndt finished art school during the Depression.
Many of the most successful and influential artists of this period created
work that intentionally appealed to a wide number of Americans. Artworks
that reflected the American Scene, realistic images of familiar
subjects, were considered worth buying by cash-strapped consumers. Berndt
embraced this populist point of view and his earliest professional works
dramatize the vistas and experiences near his home of Wilmington, Delaware.
-
- After a year's scholarship to paint in Europe, Berndt
found regular work as the Executive Secretary and Instructor of the Wilmington
Academy of Art, the only full-time staff member. Starting in 1936, he also
worked as an illustrator within the Works Progress Administration Index
of American Design project for about four months. With no free spaces open
within the Mural Arts Project, Berndt soon transferred to the Drama Project
creating set designs for weekly performances at the Robin Hood Theater
in Arden and the Brandywiner's headquarters in Breck's Mill.
-
-
- "We as creators can never attain such perfection
and Beauty but can sense the spirit of nature and her varied moods... We
can portray the Spirit and we can base it on truths." - Bayard T.
Berndt
-
- Bayard Berndt's mature style encompassed a dramatic use
of often bright, colorful paints emphasizing recognizable landscapes throughout
Southeast Pennsylvania and the Delmarva Peninsula. He was repeatedly drawn
to a few locations and would depict them from several vantage points and
in a variety of media.
-
- The artist seems to have surveyed a location through
a variety of quick, small-scale thumb nail sketches. Some initial designs
were then developed into detailed drawings and watercolor paintings. Finally,
Berndt advanced to large-scale oil paintings of his subject. He worked
outdoors, in front of his subject en plein air, as well as from
his artist studio.
-
- In 1939, Berndt received more intensive training in plein-air
painting techniques at the Ogonquit Summer School of Drawing and Painting
under Charles Herbert Woodbury. This training in academic Impressionism
was reinforced the next year with summer classes at the Rhode Island School
of Design.
-
-
- "The idea that art is a refined pastime, the product
of a carefully prepared romantic background, is a modern invention."
- Bayard T. Berndt
-
- World War II rations and the poor art school attendance
that resulted from the draft and War Effort forced the Wilmington Academy
of Art to shrink into the education department of the Delaware Arts Center
(now the Delaware Art Museum). Bayard Berndt joined the War Effort by inspecting
welds at the Pusey & Jones shipyard from 1944-46.
-
- ?Berndt left the shipyard to become part owner of George
Hardcastle and Sons, Inc., a cabinetmaking and picture framing store in
business on Shipley Street, Wilmington since 1888. From 1946-79, Berndt
transformed Hardcastles into an art supply shop and fine-art framing gallery,
a hub of regional artists and patrons. The shop employed many talented
local artists, such as frame makers Frances (Frank) Coll and Eugene Cane
as well as future Delaware State Poet Laureate and painter E. Jean Lanyon.
Hardcastle Gallery expanded and moved several times: to Delaware Avenue,
Newark, Hockessin and eventually Centreville, Delaware. The stores were
sold to Berndt's son, David, in 1979 and are currently owned by the family
of local painter Michael Brock.
-
-
- "I just get up early, set up my easel, and wait
for the sun." - Bayard T. Berndt as recalled by David Berndt
-
- Bayard Berndt had a reputation for taking off from Hardcastle
Gallery on Tuesdays to paint. By the time he became a gallery owner, Berndt's
family was living in a house on the Pennsylvania and Delaware border near
Centreville. His studio was also on this property but he spent a great
deal of time painting aspects of local landscapes, espousing the Regionalist
ideal, literally in his own backyard.
-
- Despite Bayard Berndt's responsibilities at the gallery,
his family, his many civic responsibilities, philanthropy to area causes,
and the lasting financial crisis of the second quarter of the 20th century,
the artist found time to paint. It has been estimated that there are approximately
500 works by Bayard Berndt currently in private and public hands. The artist's
personal records allude to only about 200 oil paintings. This talented
painter sold or gifted almost everything he ever made which accounts for
his intense local popularity. Berndt's relatively low level of production
in comparison to some of his contemporaries, Frank Schoonover counted over
2500 finished paintings and drawings during his own career, may account
for his obscurity upon a national stage.
-
-
- "Our chief concern is in the art of our own time
whether we like it or not." - Bayard T. Berndt
-
- Henry Clay Village, framing the banks of the Brandywine
River in Wilmington, was within easy walking distance of Bayard Berndt's
childhood home and became one of the most iconic subjects of artist's oeuvre.
Now bordered roughly by Rockford Park and Hagley Museum, Henry Clay is
an early American industrial village from the period of about 1812-1924.
The village is made up of several textile and grist mills, houses built
for mill workers, mansions built for mill owners, churches, taverns and
general stores.
-
- The mills within Henry Clay Village were owned by the
E.I. du Pont de Nemours Company by the mid-1800s. They were still being
leased to textile companies during Berndt's childhood so he would have
witnessed firsthand the final days of the village's industrial production.
Perhaps the artist's personal observation of this important economic transition
within Wilmington led to his exploration of history painting.
-
-
- "In April 1776 eight companies of one hundred men
each from Delaware, under Colonel John Haslet, marched through Wilmington
to join General Washington in Philadelphia." - Bayard T. Berndt
-
- As early as 1934, Bayard Berndt placed historic landmarks,
such as mills and covered bridges, within his landscape paintings. In 1938,
the artist recorded the historically significant tercentenary celebration
of the local Swedish colonization. In addition, his few documented mural
studies of the 1950s are populated with commercial sailing vessels, horse-drawn
wagons and figures dressed in historic costume.
-
- Berndt's depictions of local landscapes through the lens
of history finally married his two interests in painting: the historical
research of his illustration and mural education with the colorful and
gestural application of paint he learned from the Impressionists. The artist
modernized the influence of the Brandywine School to create landscapes
that refine notions of local history. Many of Berndt's history paintings
date to the 1960s and 70s and are considered to be among the artist's most
memorable canvases.
Object labels from the exhibition
- Chester County Landscape 2,
ca. 1935
- Oil on canvas
- Illustration no. 104
- Courtesy of Richard S. Cobb
-
-
- Chester County Landscape I,
ca. 1935
- Oil on canvas
- Illustration no. 103
- Courtesy of Les and Ginger Tronzo
- Colonial Gentleman, 1929
- Oil on board
- Illustration no. 30
- Courtesy of Charles and Frances Allmond
-
- Written on back: "Colonial Gentleman Painted in
Costume Model Class. At the Old Wilmington Academy of Art. 3rd Floor 8th
& Market St. Wilmington 3rd Floor. In Mr. Schoonover's Class. Model
- Allen Pierce Who Painted Ship Paintings By Bayard T. Berndt 1929"
-
-
- Pont Neuf Paris, 1930
- Watercolor on paper
- Courtesy of Nancy B. Scribner
-
-
- Chartres Cathedral, 1931
- Watercolor on paper
- Illustration no. 32
- Courtesy of the Delaware Art Museum
-
-
- Untitled (Church Interior),
1931
- Watercolor on paper
- Courtesy of Nancy B. Scribner
-
-
- Untitled (English Cottage),
1930 or 31
- Watercolor on paper
- Courtesy of David Berndt
-
- Bayard Berndt was the second student of the Wilmington
Academy of Art to win the coveted European study fellowship. Berndt spent
one year, from 1930-31, travelling England, France, Italy and perhaps further.
In that time he claimed to have painted a watercolor a day. Years later,
this large archive of works was stolen from his art supply store. Only
a few works are known to have survived.
-
-
- Launching Liberty Ship in the
- Christiana River, circa 1944
- Oil on canvas
- Illustration no. 70
- Courtesy of Charles and Frances Allmond
-
- While Bayard Berndt designed and carved some of his own
frames during the 1940s and 50s, he also leased space above Hardcastle
Gallery to artisan famer Francis "Frank" Coll. This hand-carved
frame is a rare example of Coll's work. Coll was influenced by arts and
crafts framers of Bucks County and Philadelphia and his skills were employed
to enhance paintings by local celebrities such as N.C. Wyeth.
-
-
-
- New Castle Delaware, n.d.
- Oil on canvas
- Illustration no. 144
- Courtesy of Donald Dewees
-
- Frank Coll and Bayard Berndt also collaborated on the
design, carving and surface decoration of some frames as evidenced by this
signed example.
-
-
- Brandywine, 1962
- Oil on canvas
- Illustration no. 149
- Courtesy of Nancy B. Scribner
-
- In addition to commercially available frames, Bayard
Berndt also designed, carved and gilded his own frames his artwork and
the work of other area artists. He left notes on the several types of frame
profiles he produced and even ascribed these designs to specific paints,
see below:
-
Untitled (Snow Scene, Brandywine), n.d.
- Oil on canvas
- Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. A.J. Obara, Jr.
-
-
- Landing of the Swedes, 1983
- Oil on canvas
- Illustration no. 58
- Courtesy of David Berndt
-
- This historic recreation marks the March 29, 1638 landing
of the Fogel Grip and Kalmar Nyckel exploration vessels from
Sweden. These colonists established New Sweden, now Wilmington, and built
Fort Christina at this spot. Like the fort, the colonists named the river
shown The Christina after their reigning monarch.
-
-
- Fort Christina 1690, 1963
- Oil on canvas
- Courtesy of Delaware Historical Society
-
-
- Christina River 1802, 1963
- Oil on canvas
- Courtesy of Delaware Historical Society
-
-
- Christina River-Wilmington, Del-
- 1920-Old Swedes Church, 1963
- Oil on canvas
- Courtesy of an anonymous lender
-
- These paintings seemed to have been painted and framed
together to show the 230-year evolution of the landscape around Old Swedes
Church. The church began being built by Swedish colonists in 1698 although
the artist dated the first scene, displaying the church, as 1690. Berndt
may have been referring to an earlier 1677 "block house" that
was used near this site for the colonists' church.
-
-
- Brandywine 1776, 1970
- Oil on canvas
- Illustration no. 59
- Courtesy of Les and Ginger Tronzo
-
-
- 1776, n.d.
- Oil on canvas
- Courtesy of Nancy B. Scribner
-
- America's Centennial celebration of 1976 was an influential
subject of many artists, including Bayard Berndt. These two compositions,
displaying what the artist described as, "April 1776 eight companies
of one hundred men each from Delaware, under Colonel John Haslet, marched
through Wilmington to join General Washington in Philadelphia." The
artist celebrated this Wilmington, Delaware scene in paintings and used
it as a rallying point for an exhibition proposal to the News Journal in
1974. Berndt proposed to organize an exhibition of the work of Howard Pyle
and his students interpreting this period. In the proposal, he stated that,
"His (Pyle's) paintings of early American historical scenes are the
finest ever done."
-
- Brandywine 1776 was first
featured at the Brandywine Arts Festival and was "painted to commemorate
the coming bicentennial."
-
-
- 300th Anniversary of the
Landing of the Swedes - 1938
- Rodney Square -- Parade -- with rain
- Crown prince of Sweden + family present. Picture made
from sketches made at the scene
- James Burns -- Sec. of State made speech -- Roosevelt
was present by Bayard Berndt
- Float showing Landing of the Swedes presented by the
Wilmington Dry Goods store
- Oil on canvas
- Courtesy of the Old Swedes Foundation
-
- Although rare, Berndt created a few compositions of history-making
events including this depiction of the 300th anniversary of the Swedish
colonization celebration in downtown Wilmington.
-
-
- Hill & Dale Rd. Fall
- (Mendenhall Farm), 1982
- Oil on canvas
- Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. A.J. Obara, Jr.
-
- Among the latest paintings within the show, this work
represents some of the last works created by the artist. The work is displayed
on one of the artist's easels and surrounded by other materials found within
his studio.
-
- Studio contents have been supplied by the Berndt family.
-
-
- The Hunt, 1976
- Oil on canvas
- Illustration no. 137
- Courtesy of Les and Ginger Tronzo
-
-
- Untitled (Mendenhall Farm
- Panorama), 1982
- Oil on canvas
- Illustration no. 118
- Courtesy of Robert B. Berndt
-
- Bayard Berndt painted this farm in Chester County, Pennsylvania
several times over a period of approximately 40 years. The artist's repeated
depictions of the same scene, such as Henry Clay Village, demonstrate his
evolution as an artist. These later examples show Berndt at his most abstract.
-
-
- Centreville, Del., ca. 1964
- Oil on canvas
- Illustration no. 133
- Courtesy of private collection
-
-
- Untitled (Our Home from
- the Barn), 1972
- Oil on canvas
- Illustration no. 112
- Courtesy of David Berndt
-
- The growing Berndt family moved to this house on Burned
Mill Road in the 1940s and it has become a heavily repeated subject in
the artist's later works of the 1970s and 80s.
-
-
- Untitled (Center Mill), ca.
1944
- Oil on canvas
- Illustration no. 53
- Courtesy of private collection
-
-
- Untitled (Covered Bridge, Winter Scene), probably 1950s
- Oil on canvas
- Frame by Frank Coll
- Courtesy of an anonymous lender
-
-
- Sassafras at Georgetown, Md.,
n.d.
- Oil on canvas
- Courtesy of an anonymous lender
-
- Bayard Berndt is remembered by his family as a lover
of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. His long-time friends and fellow Wilmington
Academy alums, Edward Grant and John Moll, both lived in the region. Contemporary
views and historic recreations of the waterways of Georgetown, Chestertown,
Easton, Oxford, St. Michael's and other notable towns have often been celebrated
within Berndt's paintings.
-
-
- St. Michael's Harbor, 1972
- Oil on canvas
- Illustration no. 146
- Courtesy of Donald Dewees
-
-
- Cape May-Lewes Ferry, 1967
- Oil on canvas
- Illustration no. 154
- Courtesy of a private collector
-
-
- Untitled (Ocean City), 1940
- Oil on canvas
- Illustration no. 152
- Courtesy of Linda Berndt
-
-
- Rockford Tower, Wilmington,
n.d.
- Oil on canvas
- Courtesy of the University Museums, University of Delaware,
Gift of Alfred E. Bissell, 1960
-
-
- Christina River Tug, ca.
1960
- Oil on canvas
- Courtesy of John R. Schoonover
-
- According to a 1958 Hardcastle Gallery receipt, Bayard
Berndt was hired by Pusey and Jones Corporation, for whom he had worked
from 1944-46, to paint the "PRR Tug." It is possible that this
is the painting recorded in that commission.
-
-
- Painted in the Snow-on the Scene,
1968
- Oil on canvas
- Courtesy of the Hotel DuPont
-
- Bayard Berndt often discussed his esteem for the works
by Bucks County Impressionists such as Edward Redfield. Known, in part,
for their large-scale winter compositions, painted in the freezing outdoors
en plein air, Berndt seems to have been challenged to follow this
grueling technique for this painting.
-
-
- Court House, Rodney Square, Wilmington, 1933
- Watercolor on paper
- Courtesy of the Delaware Art Museum
-
- Among the many subjects preserved by Bayard Berndt were
his depictions of the urbanization of downtown Wilmington in the early
1900s. Rodney Square, once the site of a reservoir, and the buildings surrounding
it, such as the Court House and the DuPont Building, were established in
the 1920s and 30s.
-
-
- Untitled (Delaware Street and Court House), ca. 1959
- Untitled (New Castle Harbor),
ca. 1959
- Oil on canvas
- Courtesy of Mr. Daniel F. Wolcott, Jr.
-
- Bayard Berndt described that he was educated to become
a muralist. Although no known murals by him exist, there is evidence that
he planned to paint several within Delaware. The two works above are described
in a 1959 correspondence between the artists and Daniel F. Wolcott, Sr.
as "designs" for a series of murals for the New Castle Courthouse.
Due to budget restrictions that year, the designs were never executed but
Judge Wolcott and his wife purchased the designs for $100 each.
-
- According to a 1938 Delaware magazine article the artist
kept in his archive, Berndt may have painted a small-scale mural for a
home in Westover Hills but this has not been confirmed.
-
- Berndt is believed to have executed only two large-scale
murals during his lifetime. The works, each 9' x 72', were pictured in
an Every Evening Delaware article as decorations for the Salesianum
Harvest Festival and are described as being painted by Berndt with his
friends Joseph Casalane and Daniel Caimi.
-
-
- Untitled (screen), ca. 1935
- Painted by Bayard and Rita Berndt
- Oil on canvas
- Courtesy of David Berndt
-
- Although he never became well known for his mural designs,
an article entitled "WPA Artists Painting Decorative Panels"
(undated), describes that Bayard Berndt and Caroline Martin Smith were
executing moveable mural panels leading to the auditorium of the Federal
Theater and Music Projects on the second floor of the professional building
at 909 West Street. The mural panels depicted scenes of Old Town Hall in
Wilmington, the State House in Dover, the Old Court House in New Castle,
the old covered bridge over the Brandywine River as well as Old Swede's
Church. The painted screen shown was made at the same time and displays
the modernist aesthetic the artist may have executed for the WPA panels.
-
-
- Untitled (Red Mill), n.d.
- Oil on paper
- Courtesy of an anonymous lender
-
-