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I went to Tacoma Art Museum last week to see the exhibition <Promoting the West : Abby Williams Hill and the Railroads>. The exhibition was not only displaying the artworks but also talking about the American history related with the railroad industry. I like this kind of exhibition integrated with art and history, which was the reason I had to go to see that exhibition. Sometimes art exhibition could be a great source to talk about the history, as well as this can go for the opposite way too.  Mount Rainier from Eunice Lake, 1904 Abby Williams Hill(1861-1943) was hired as a painter of Great Northern Railway company to paint landscapes in the Pacific Northwest, which was for a kind of promotion of railroad company encouraging people to travel. From 1904 to 1906, she conducted the job as travelling West by the railroads and drawing the scenery. She was like a tour painter/writer to advertise tourism in term of nowadays job. The pamphlets that printed Hill’s paintings were distributed by the railroad company. Their works stimulated people who were interested in West wilderness tourism and settlement, the exhibition introduction referred it as ‘the interplay of artists and industry’, having influences on the West development and artist's career.
The railroads brought enormous impacts on the 19th and early 20th century’s society. The country’s large territory and travel time had been shortened, and it had extended to growth of cities and increasing of population. In cultural fields, building railroads had caused increasing of travelers, the formation of national parks surrounding railroads and trends/fashions fast spreading etc. To get sidetracked, in this week History class I’ve learned that the railroad industry had affected the overthrow of Reconstruction in 1880s because of the South economic issues. The topic reminded me of this exhibition. Anyway, the effects of building railroads took place not only in the U.S. In Korean history, building railroads is referred to as one of symbol event of 19th century’s Enlightenment time, which brought the change of people’s daily lives, the concept of time, the city’s structure and the economic development etc. Actually, I don’t have an eye for enjoying the landscape paintings. So I couldn’t feel something special to Hill’s works seemingly blurry and rough. And I thought there were paintings drawing railroads or locomotives obviously. But oddly, all of her works had a viewpoint toward outside of the railroads. Why didn’t she draw the railroads or locomotives? If she drew running locomotive on the railroads, paintings could have stimulated more people.  William Merritt Chase, 'May I come in?', 1883 Hill studied paintings in Art Students League in New York. Her teacher was William Merritt Chase, who was an exponent of American impressionism. She was taught to paint by seeing the actual world with naked eyes, which was her teacher William Merritt Chase’s art principle rule. I remembered seeing his work before in Seattle Art Museum. Probably, he didn’t mean to draw this work for fun, but I felt very fun. The composition of the drawing, the posture of woman coming into the room carefully, and the title of painting seemed very unusual and fun to me, which made me remember the artist’s name. Anyway, was nice to meet him again in this exhibition. By the way, Tacoma art museum was so cozy and beautiful. The architecture was unique and experimental, although the museum was not that big. The exhibition rooms were connected openly each other, and it had spiral space with inclined hallway and lots of entrance/exit. And I was impressed by Tacoma’s distinct city scenery for my first visit. Heavy volume of red-brown bricks buildings and big size of letter font written on the buildings were attractive. With these, the area located with various museums, classic architecture of station and university radiated calm and elegant appeal.
Korean version blog.naver.com/jnlee89z/221110949066
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