Clark Art curator Richard Rand explains some of the details of 'Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast,' on display at the Clark through July 19 because of a Super Bowl bet.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Malcolm Butler's Super Bowl interception had the feeling of the fantastical so it's appropriate that the Clark Art Institute's winning payout would be just as dramatic.
"Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast," the prize of the #MuseumBowl between the Seattle Art Museum and the Clark was described Friday by Richard Rand, the institute's Robert and Martha Berman Lipp Senior Curator of Paintings and Sculpture, as "extremely theatrical and mostly imaginary."
In the spirit of cheerful cross-state posturing in such contests, the Clark had found a willing a partner in the Seattle museum for a gamble of fine art against the prowess of their regions' football teams.
SAM staked Albert Bierstadt's expansive and detailed "Puget Sound" on the Seattle Seahawks' taking the Super Bowl; the Clark, the smaller but no less dramatic and sweeping "West Point, Prout's Neck" by Winslow Homer, set on a turbulent Maine coast.
Needless to say, the Clark walked away the winner of the #MuseumBowl and on Friday unveiled the nearly 4 1/2 by 7 foot masterpiece with the swinging of the main museum's new entry doors.
"We decided we'd put up a great painting representative of our museum and our part of the country," Rand said, before taking down a Patriots flag on the glass doors that blocked the view of the painting. "Whoever was the Super Bowl winner would receive it with all the expenses paid by the museum or institution."
"Puget Sound" will stay at the Clark through July 19; on Monday, Patriots Day, football fans showing their affiliation for the Patriots (or even the Seahawks) will be admitted for free.
Bierstadt, a German native, wasn't a stranger to Massachusetts, having grown up in New Bedford. He joined a number of expeditions to the West Coast and was entranced with the majesty of its landscapes. Stylistically part of the Hudson River School movement, he used sketches and photographs he had made out West to paint large landscapes from his studio in New York.
"It really transformed his life and his art," said Rand of Bierstadt's first western journey in 1859. "He returned to New York and really began to develop a reputation as really the foremost painter of the American Western landscape."
His paintings are intricately detailed but not necessarily accurate. It was not so much the incredible landscape, Rand said, but "to introduce more or less accurate depictions of local inhabitants and customs."
"It's kind of a big Cecile B. DeMille cinematic performance," he said.
The painting was purchased by a New York collector with shipping interests in the Northwest and traveled to the West Coast.
On either side of the Bierstadt hang Homers, including "Prout's Neck" that the curators were already mentally packing up for a trip to Seattle before Russell Wilson's pass unexpectedly resulted in a Patriot's victory.
"It's smaller in scale but no less powerful in its way," Rand said. "You can see it's equally dramatic ... the rocky shore and this spectacular sunset, we felt it was in every way an equivalent painting to the Bierstadt."
Where the highly detailed "Puget Sound" was painted miles and years away from Bierstadt's western sojourn, "Prout's Neck" and "Eastern Point Prout's Neck" were created with broad strokes by Homer along the Maine coastline where he spent his final year.
The Clarks liked Homer and Frederic Remington's Westerns, but there is nothing quite like the Bierstadt in the permanent collection, Rand said.
"We really felt it was a great opportunity to attract a wide audience to the Clark who might not ordinarily come every day," he said. "This is a special outreach program. I'm sure there's a lot of connections we can make between fine art and football, I'm sure you agree."
pittsfield.com welcomes critical, respectful dialogue. Name-calling, personal attacks, libel, slander or foul language is not allowed. All comments are reviewed before posting and will be deleted or edited as necessary.
MEMBER SIGN IN
Clark Art curator Richard Rand explains some of the details of 'Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast,' on display at the Clark through July 19 because of a Super Bowl bet.
