AFA Summer 2020

2020 Antiques & Fine Art 95 Chanler, it is understandable that he is not a household name. The current exhibition is a reintroduction to an artist the world knew very well one hundred years ago, a bon vivant whose life was as colorful as his art. 3 A Chanler retrospective in 1926 at the Grand Central Galleries featured nearly sixty works of art, including screens, panels, and portra its. The current exhibition, in addition to the two integral works at Planting Fields, includes seven folding screens, a decorative artform that became synonymous with Chanler’s oeuvre. It was while the artist was studying in Paris in the 1890s that he happened upon a shop selling a Chinese lacquer screen at the Place St. Georges. This moment is credited as the beginning of his fascination with the mobile artform. According to Ivan Narodny, author of a 1922 Chanler monograph, “He had found at last his pays de rêve , the richly lacquered surface awakening countless aesthetic atavisms, and suggesting fascinating possibilities for future development.” 4 Unlike many of Chanler’s screens that have both sides painted, often presenting two opposing scenes or narratives, the two sides of Porcupines and Foxes (Fig. 5) are suggestive of a continuing narrative and reflect a consistent aesthetic treatment. Chanler returned to the subject matter of porcupines throughout his career. Another work depicting the creatures, Porcupines and Nightmare, was donated to The Metropolitan Museum in 1927 by Chanler’s sister Elizabeth Astor Winthrop Chanler, who married writer John Jay Chapman. The Chapmans were the owners of Before the Wind (Fig. 6), on view in the exhibition, which was also featured in the 1926 retrospective at the Grand Central Galleries. This two-sided screen is equally full of movement on both sides (Fig. 7). Chanler’s baroque-like interest in capturing a heightened sense of a moment is evident in Fighting Zebras (Fig. 8), Fig. 6: Robert Winthrop Chanler (1872–1930), Before the Wind, 1919. Screen, Oil on panel. Chapman Family Collection, Virginia. Photograph by Matt Flynn. Fig. 7: Robert Winthrop Chanler (1872–1930), Untitled, 1919. Screen, Oil on panel. Chapman Family Collection, Virginia. Photograph by Matt Flynn.