20. The HIGH MUSEUM OF ART

(open weekdays 9-5; Mon., Wed., Fri., 7-9 p.m.; Sun. 2-5), 1262 Peachtree St., NE., is housed in a two-story brick and stucco building, the former residence of Mrs. Joseph Madison High who, in 1926, presented it to the city for use as an art gallery. The lower floor is occupied by the offices of the Atlanta Art Association, chartered in 1905 and by the museum's large permanent exhibition of paintings, sculpture, and furniture, on the upper floors are the classrooms of the High Museum School of Art, which provides instruction in commercial and fine arts to approximately 175 pupils. The school was formed in 1925 by the Atlanta Art Association.

At frequent intervals the museum arranges for a display of loan collections both from local artists and from well-known galleries in other cities. The permanent collection, which is constantly growing, now covers a broad range of periods and techniques. The early Italian painters are well represented. A large canvas, Lucretia and Tarquinius, remarkable for its dynamic action and for the rich red color characteristic of the Venetian School, has been identified as being probably the work of the famous Luca Giordano. This painting contrasts with the equally large Offerings of the Matronali by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, with its cooler tones and majestic figures. Other Italian pictures of note are the Madonna and Child of Cristoforo Caselli and a landscape of Salvatore Rosa.

The paintings by French and English artists are few but excellent. Maxine E.L. Maufra's Chateau Gaillard is a fresh, vivid example of French post-impressionism, while Catherine Lusurier's Portrait of a Little Girl with a White Cat skillfully demonstrates the manner of a later French school. Je Vous Salue, Marie by Oliver Merson, after being first exhibited in Atlanta at the Cotton States Exposition in 1895, was purchased by the Piedmont Driving Club and presented years later to High Museum. The two most famous of the English portrait painters whose work is on exhibition here are Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Henry Raeburn.

The work of distinguished American painters, both past and contemporary, forms a large part of the collection. The Portrait of the Reverend George Houston Woodrough by Thomas Sully is the earliest representative of the American school, and A Glass with the Squire by Eastman Johnson is a good example of early nineteenth-century painting. Prominent in the modern group are portraits by Wilford S. Conrow, N.R. Brewer, and Frank Duveneck; etchings, lithographs, and the painting Isle of Shoals by Childe Hassam, a noted exponent of French impressionism; the fanciful Moon Magic by Ralph Blakelock; and two works of striking contrast in subject and method by Thomas Moran, Fingals Cave and Pueblo of Acoma, New Mexico. John McCrady's Woman Mounting a Horse has caused much discussion by its vigorous modernistic departure from realism in treatment. Other pictures showing a strong modern trend in color and execution are Ernest Lawson's Harlem River at Highbridge, Robert Brockman's The Bathers, and Frederick Carl Frieseke's Girl in Blue Arranging Flowers. In the Dressing Room by Louis Kronberg shows the influence of the French painter Degas. Portrait of Scarlett O'Hara by Helen Carleton is of particular interest to Atlanta citizens because it was presented to the museum by the Hollywood producer David Selznick after the Atlanta premiere of the motion picture Gone With the Wind.

In addition to its many paintings the museum contains sculpture, antique furniture, sketches by Rembrandt and Whistler, and water colors by the Hindu philosopher and poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Memory Lane, a gallery constructed on the south side of the museum building in 1941 was the gift of Mrs. Thomas K. Glenn and contains only pictures given as memorials. A biographical plaque of the individual is placed beneath each picture. A number of pieces of fine furniture have also been given to Memory Lane. 

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