UKIAH >> On Jan. 11 from 2 to 4 p.m., the Grace Hudson Museum will host an opening reception and program for its new exhibit, “Jules Tavernier—Artist and Adventurer: The Illustrations.”
The exhibit was selected from a broad retrospective of Tavernier”s work mounted at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. Grace Hudson”s display highlights 40 wood engravings and three paintings made by the French artist as he traveled from the East Coast to California in 1873-74 with his friend and fellow artist, Paul Frenzeny. Claudine Chalmers, one of the exhibit curators, will give an illustrated talk titled “Coast to Coast with Frenzeny and Tavernier.” Refreshments will be served after the talk. The event is free with Museum admission.
Tavernier (1844-1889) led a brief yet productive, perhaps even charmed, life. A temperamental yet engaging figure, he managed to come into contact with some of the most notable events of his day, all the while staying one step ahead of his debtors. His artistic talent was evident at an early age. One contemporary noted, “He could do anything with a brush His brain worked like lightning.”
After exhibiting in the Paris Salon, he immigrated to America late in 1871. Several successful artworks caught the attention of the flagship American magazine “Harper”s Weekly,” which invited him to travel west to California in 1873 in order to document the West”s rapidly changing human and natural landscape for its readers.
Accepting the invitation opened up frontiers both for Harper”s Weekly readers and for Tavernier himself, who never stopped moving westward. The intrepid artist was accompanied by fellow Frenchman Paul Frenzeny (1840-1902) who shared Tavernier”s open-mindedness and sense of adventure. Traveling by rail, with occasional forays made via wagon train and cattle drives, Tavernier and Frenzeny were able to capture the unfolding drama of the westward move of white settlers; their various encounters, both peaceful and hostile, with the native tribes who lived in these territories and the terrain of the Western United States itself with its plentiful herds of wild animals. About 100 drawings were conveyed to the audience back east in an elaborate process: Tavernier would paint the picture and Frenzeny would draw it in reverse on wood blocks and ship them to Harper”s, after which the staff would engrave and print them. Several works in the exhibit document life before and after the yearlong journey, demonstrating Tavernier”s surpassing ability to capture both large and small events with warmth, wit and vision.
In an era when news traveled slowly and photography was still a new art, Tavernier was able to capture events “on the ground” the way a reporter on location would do today. Indians gathered at an annual sun dance or trading with whites in town, pioneers battening down a wagon against a forceful windstorm, miners halted in a treacherous pass in the Rocky Mountains—all are portrayed on a scale that neither dwarfs their significance nor magnifies their importance. The enormous and largely unspoiled western landscape instead surrounds these vivid tableaux, infusing them with a more-than-human beauty. Tavernier disdained the style of the Hudson River School, which favored grand, sweeping vistas. Rather, human and animal figures are framed at medium range in the pictorial field; their range of expression while under duress is captured realistically and sympathetically as they are enclosed in a natural world amidst the drama of survival.
Tavernier”s genius lay in his ability to marry his visionary propensity with the realistic parameters of the assignment he had been given. His and Frenzeny”s journey brought them face to face with situations that were indeed larger than life to their viewers back on the East Coast. Yet Tavernier didn”t exploit or sensationalize his subjects; rather, he employed his painterly skill so that their inherent life force shines through. This is seen clearly in “A Bear Hunt in the Rocky Mountains,” in which a bear cornered in a forest turns to face a hunter pointing a long rifle at it, clearly about to take its life. At this pivotal moment, the vitality of the bear is depicted in the whorling pattern of its brown fur and the solidity with which its limbs rest on the ground, creating a sense of primal tragedy at its imminent demise.
After completing his momentous trip in 1874, Tavernier settled in San Francisco, where he became the consummate bohemian and one of the founders of the city”s developing artistic circles. He later moved to the Monterey Peninsula, where his paintings and presence helped foster that area”s reputation as a colony for artists. Tavernier moved on to Hawaii in 1884, where he was enthralled, much like Grace Hudson two decades later, with the natural splendor of the islands. His paintings of the eerily glowing panoramas released by lava flows developed his visionary capacity further and established him as the founder of the Volcano School of painting. He died in the islands in 1889, at the age of 45.
“Jules Tavernier—Artist and Adventurer: The Illustrations” will be on display at Grace Hudson until March 8. A catalogue of the original exhibit at the Crocker Art Museum, “Jules Tavernier: Artist and Adventurer,” featuring essays by Chalmers and other notable scholars and a historical overview of the times, is on sale at the Museum Gift Shop. Local funding of this exhibition was made possible by the Sun House Guild.
The Grace Hudson Museum is located at 431 S. Main St. in Ukiah and is a division of the city of Ukiah”s Community Services Department. The museum is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4:30 p.m. General admission costs $4; $10 per family; $3 for students and seniors; free to all on the first Friday of the month and always free to members. For information on the museum, visit www.gracehudsonmuseum.org or call 467-2836.
