YONKERS, NY.- The Hudson River Museum presents Sylvia Sleigh’s masterwork Invitation to a Voyage, The Hudson River at Fishkill, 1979 - 1999, a 70-foot panorama painting set along the banks of the Hudson River, which depicts a summer gathering of friends and art-world figures.
The work, composed of 14 panels (each 8 x 5 feet), is on view June 3 - September 17, 2017, accompanied by new interpretation, including identification of all of the people depicted in the paintings as well as a selection of photographs taken during Sleigh’s trips to the site.
A train trip to Albany in 1961 inspired Invitation to a Voyage. Sleigh, impressed by the beauty of the river and Bannerman’s Castle Arsenal on Pollepel Island, began the work, which ultimately took her 20 years to complete. The Arsenal, built at the turn of the century to house part of the military surplus business of New Yorker Frank Bannerman, has made famous this small stretch of the east bank of the Hudson near Fishkill, New York. Sleigh divided the panorama into the “Riverside” panels, which she painted first, and then, the “Woodside” panels. On the Riverside panel, Sleigh and her husband, art critic and curator Lawrence Alloway, stand alone and with other small groups, posing against the bright river and a distant Bannerman’s Castle. The Woodside panels show individuals grouped among trees─with a sumptuous picnic spread out before them.
Sylvia Sleigh (American (born Wales), 1916-2010) immigrated to the United States with Alloway in 1961. She became part of the feminist art movement in the 1970s and was well known for her large-scale portraits of nude men. Influenced by paintings of women by Ingres, Velásquez, and Titian, Sleigh attempted to reverse the male gaze to create a female erotic perspective.
The composition of Invitation to a Voyage is similar to scenes of pastoral gatherings by 18th-century painter Jean Antoine Watteau, and shows Sleigh’s desire to connect to the tradition of grand-history painting, even as she rebelled against the constraints of Modernism and assumptions about the scale and subjects of women’s art. The painting also reflects themes that continually appear in Sleigh’s work, which art historian Annie Shaver-Crandell enumerates: “The use of the self-portrait to explore different roles, the use of close associates as models, the placing of groups of figures in a landscape, interest in costume, and a running commentary on art history.”
“It is an enveloping experience to stand in the gallery surrounded by the entire panorama,” says Laura Vookles, Chair of the Museum’s Curatorial Department. “Every time I see it installed, I am struck by the boldness of Sleigh’s ambition. She wanted to paint monumental canvases like her male contemporaries, reach back through centuries of art historical subject matter and make a statement about our relationship to the scenic Hudson River. We are so fortunate that she wanted Invitation to A Voyage to have a permanent home here.”
A binder in the gallery with additional information about Sylvia Sleigh’s artistic sources for Invitation to a Voyage and examples of her decades-long correspondence with her husband Lawrence Alloway provides context for further exploration.The 14 paintings were given to the Hudson River Museum by the artist in 2006.
