Naturalist painter’s 1700s home a draw for tourists

Fredericksburg is so bucolic and pastoral, it is no wonder it serves as home to artists and art collections.

The University of Mary Washington has three art destinations alone.

Perhaps the most prominent of these -- and the only one with its own gift shop -- is the Gari Melchers Home and Studio, just across the Rappahannock River in Stafford County.

Who was Gari Melchers? Many of the National Historic Landmark site's 15,000 annual visitors have to ask that, too.

Melchers (1860-1932) was a greatly praised, nationally renowned and highly successful artist in his day. One of the leading American Naturalist painters, his work hangs in more than 80 public and private institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery -- and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

But he fell out of favor after his death, and now he is largely unknown. Melchers Home and Studio Curator Joanna Catron said the reason is that Melchers took a conservative approach to art and remained an academic painter throughout his career.

"He was not an innovator. Scholars, dealers and critics look for innovation," she said.

The home and studio owns the largest collection of Melchers' paintings and drawings in the world, many of which are on display, from his impressive earliest sketches as a child to the work he was creating at the end of his life. In addition, the museum brings in a Melchers masterpiece or two every year, loaned from other institutions.

"The Sermon," which is part of the Smithsonian Institution's collection, is being displayed, along with "Mother and Child," which belongs to the Art Institute of Chicago.

"Everyone knows that painting, but nobody knows who painted it," Catron said of "Mother and Child."

The paintings are displayed in Melchers' studio, which is preserved with its original furniture, and even his paints and tools. It is one of the few artists' studios that is being maintained in such an original state, and one of fewer still that also has the artist's' house with its original furnishings.

The house, known as Belmont, is a major draw. Built in the late 1700s and subsequently enlarged, it is furnished entirely with Melchers' furniture and art collection, including paintings by Berthe Morisot, George Hitchcock and the studio of Frans Snyder.

Two galleries are on the University of Mary Washington campus. The Ridderhof Martin Gallery holds a permanent collection of more than 6,000 works of art, primarily by surrealist Margaret Sutton, California modernist Phyllis Ridderhof Martin and modernist Alfred Levitt, plus a large amount of Asian art.

In addition, the gallery owns works by Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dali, Milton Avery, John Twachtman, Arshile Gorky and others.

"We're kind of a well-kept secret and we're trying to change that," said director Anne Timpano.

One exhibit sure to bring attention to the Ridderhof gallery is Andy Warhol's "Athletes: Portraits from the Richard Weisman Collection," which will be on display for two weeks only, Feb. 11-26.

The gallery offers five temporary exhibits a year, and does not have a permanent display of work from its collection. Parts of the collection are sometimes featured in temporary exhibits. The current exhibits of photography and modern Japanese prints both end Oct. 26. The next exhibit, a portfolio of prints from the Corcoran College of Art and Design, opens Nov. 14.

The other gallery on the UMW campus is the duPont Gallery. It, too, presents five temporary exhibits a year, but its focus is on contemporary artists, said assistant curator Laura Tenekjian.

Often, the duPont Gallery's artists come from Virginia or Washington, although the current display of mosaic art is a national juried exhibition. The duPont Gallery also is where the university's art students and faculty have exhibitions of their work.

In the recent past, the gallery has had exhibits of photography, prints and sculpture. Two years ago, a display of art from Berlin was its first international exhibition.