Learn - Around the galleries - Brian Ferriso

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Frank Vincent DuMond
Sketch of Table Rock near Medford, 1911

Third floor, Main Building, Hoffman wing

Homer Dodge Martin
Upper Ausable Lake, 1897

Second Floor, Main Building

Childe Hassam
Mount Hood, 1908

Second Floor, Main Building

With Brian Ferriso
The Marilyn H. and Dr. Robert B.
Pamplin, Jr. Director

Escaping to the Landscape

Prior to becoming a museum director, I spent a number of years as a painter studying with artist Frank Mason (1921-2009) of the Arts Students League in New York. During the summer, when I was not working on figurative studies, I was a plein air painter working in rural Vermont and New Jersey, capturing the sunrises, interiors, and sunsets of an idealized landscape defined by the lyrical rhythms and diverse colors of the geography. Time stood still during the uninterrupted hours I spent outdoors. In addition to the smell of oil paint, turpentine, and varnish, there was always a strong visceral sense of an incoming or passing storm, and the scent of grass, wheat, trees, animals, and soil, implanting a vivid and long-lasting memory of the moment. These indelible moments continue to resonate with me today whenever I enter a museum, drawing me immediately toward the landscape paintings in the galleries.

For this issue of Portal, I am pleased to highlight several of the Museum’s iconic paintings that trigger my senses and affirm my inherent love of art and the landscape. I hope you enjoy this visual journey through pastoral France, Italy, upstate New York, and Oregon as much as I do.