March 28, 2024
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Plein air painters at the Peale Museum

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CITYSCAPE 2015, Contemporary Plein Air Views of the Urban Landscape opens Friday, October 23 at the Peale Museum building, 225 N. Holliday Street. Sale of the artworks will benefit the active capital campaign of the Peale Center for Baltimore History and Architecture, which is renovating and restoring the building.

plein airThe walls of Baltimore’s venerable Peale Museum can’t talk, but they can still tell a story! For the first time since it closed in 1997, the nation’s oldest museum building will welcome the public to view a major art exhibit: CITYSCAPE 2015.

The exhibition, organized by the Mid-Atlantic Plein Air Painters Association (MAPAPA), features new works by about 50 artists painted en plein air (“in the open air”) in seven major northeast corridor cities from New York to Richmond, including Newark, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, and Washington, DC.

Artists have been painting scenes in cities almost since they began: Panini and Piranesi in Rome, Canaletto in Venice, Vermeer in Holland, Corot and Monet in France, the American Ashcan School painters. From this grand tradition came the inspiration for interpreting life in the city in the 21st century, and the exhibition CITYSCAPE 2015.

Plein Air artists paint what they see outdoors in the atmospheric conditions that exist, as opposed to working in the studio. The Mid-Atlantic Plein Air Painters Association has 300 members. Over the past year, MAPAPA artists set up their easels on the street to create hundreds of urban scenes, the best of which form the heart of this juried exhibition.

The Peale Museum, a National Historic Landmark, has been many things in its 200 years: one of the earliest American natural history and art museums, our first City Hall, the Male and Female Colored School No. 1, and Baltimore’s Municipal Museum. It also has a distinguished history of showcasing local and regional artists. It is now embarking on a new life as a history and architecture center—and a place to learn about, discuss, and plan a renewed Baltimore.

CITYSCAPE 2015, Contemporary Plein Air Views of the Urban Landscape opens Friday, October 23,7–10 pm. The first hour is a ticketed reception for participating artists and patrons; from 8–10 pm the exhibit is free and open to the public. (Valet parking, music.) CITYSCAPE 2015 continues, free and open to the public, Saturday and Sunday, October 24 and 25, and October 31 and November 1, 10 am–5 pm. For more information: www.thepealecenter.org

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