Intimate Views:
Still life Selections from the Glenn C. Janss Collection of American Realism

Statement from Glenn C. Janss, 1991

For a period of 30 years, I have been slowly acquiring works on paper by American artists. Most recently, the last five years, I have concentrated on completing a collection called American Realists, composed of 20th century realist drawings and watercolors. This collection opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in November of 1985. Currently it is traveling throughout the United States for a two-year period. Ultimately, the collection will be on long term loan for a ten year period to the Boise Museum of Art which is building a new wing to exhibit this collection as well as its other collections.

Exhibition Statement

This exhibition featured 50 contemporary still life works from the Glenn C. Janss collection of American Realism. The works depict objects from our everyday environment in the realist stylistic tradition. They also explore the artists’ for­mal concerns by masterfully manipulating line, shape, color, pattern, and space. Some of the works challenge our notion of reality, while others comment on the banal commercialism of contemporary culture.

The Glenn C. Janss Collection of American Realism consisted of more than three hundred works on paper and has been nationally celebrated.

Contemporary Still Life was the second in a series of exhibitions proposed from this collection of drawings and watercolors. The still lifes range from very casual arrangements to formal settings. While the more traditional still lifes reflect the beauty and character of the composition, many other contemporary works depict utilitarian subjects as they are seen in the studio or as they appear in natural settings. Some works reflect a modernist attitude with concern for brilliant color and flattened surface while others focus on the effects of light and reflection. Altogether, the collection contains a variety of attitudes which gave an overview of contemporary still life work.

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