1 November 2014 - 1 February 2015

Mint Museum Uptown

at Levine Center for the Arts

To mark the centennial opening of the Panama Canal, Connecting the World: The Panama Canal at 100 gathers the work of American artists Joseph Pennell, Alson Skinner Clark, and Jonas Lie to consider their individual interpretations of their travels to Panama and the canal site.  Works by other artists who visited South America such as Frederic Church, Martin Johnson Heade, and Louis Remy Mignot will be on display as well along with artists like Ernest Lawson and George Bellows who depicted American life and industry.  To accompany the exhibition and gain modern perspectives on the canal's legacy, the Mint has commissioned a new short story by award-winning author Anthony Doerr as well as a new work of art by artist Mel Chin.  

History and representations of the Panama Canal 

• Watch Panama Canal, the entire episode from the PBS series The American Experience illustrating the struggles and achievements in the canal's creation.
• Read the book Sibert, William L. and John F. Stevens, The Construction of the Panama Canal  
• Read the article Theodore Roosevelt and the Panama Canal, also from PBS including videos and animation of the canal experience
• Milestones: Building the Panama Canal, 1903-1914 from the U.S Department of State
• Website for The Panama-Pacific International Exposition, officially a celebration of the opening of the Panama Canal, with links to various online books about the art of the fair.
• Check out resources from the Panama and the Canal website - a joint project of the University of Florida Smithers Libraries and the Panama Canal Museum. 
• To view live cameras, read more articles about the canal, and watch various videos, visit 100yearspanamacanal.com  
• See photos from the Panama Canal expansion going on now! 

"Through the Canal Bottom," 1912. Film footage of the Panama Canal under construction and "Experience Panama" 2012. From the BBC series "Seven Wonders of the Industrial World"

 Alson Skinner Clark

• Biography 
• An example of one of Clark's murals preserved by the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles 
• View high definition pictures of Clark paintings from the Vallejo Gallery along with a short biography  
• Watch an appraisal of a Clark oil painting from the Antiques Roadshow 

Jonas Lie

• Biography from the Caldwell Gallery
• Seeing America: Jonas Lie's Morning on the River, ca. 1911-12
• Participated in the San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exhibition 1915
• New York Armory Show, 1913 - description of an exhibition in which he participated along with a link to Lie's artwork from the show 

Joseph Pennell 

• Elizabeth Robins Pennell, The Life and Letters of Joseph Pennell (1929)- the complete book online.
• Joseph Pennell's Pictures of the Panama Canal - Pennell's drawings of the Panama Canal along with personal notes on his experience and work 
• Frederick Keppel, Mr. Pennell's Etchings of New York "Skyscrapers"  
• Joseph Pennell's Pictures of War Work in America - an artistic documentary of the factories and military yards in America, along with personal notes 
• Book containing drawings and personal notes on his travels from America, Italy, England, France, Belgium, Germany, and The Netherlands. Joseph Pennell's Pictures of the Wonder of the Work  

Mel Chin

• Official artist website 
• Watch Art 21 segment "Mel Chin in 'Consumption'" 
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Paydirt: Art 21 Exclusive

Anthony Doerr 

• Anthony Doerr website
• Read "Procreate, Generate" by Doerr at granta.com 

Doerr reading "Butterflies" at Pop Tech

Other Featured Artists  

• George Bellows
• George Bellows website containing biography and extensive pictures of his work 
• Tim Tower, "The feverish pulse of the early 20th century: George Bellows, American modernist" 
• The Paintings of George Bellows, 1929  
• Frederic Church
• Biography at Met Museum's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History 
• "Church's Niagra and Heart of the Andes," a smARThistory article by Dr. Bryan Zygmon 
• Exhibition catalogue for Frederic Edwin Church at the National Collection of Fine Arts, 1966
• Watch "'El Rio de Luz (The River of Light),' 1877, Frederic Edwin Church" at artbabble.org (Geared for kids, but a great look at one painting)
• Martin Johnson Heade
• Official Martin Johnson Heade website 
• Biography and work at National Gallery of Art 
• The Athenaeum collection of Heade's work 
• Max Kuehne 
• Biography from Questroyal Fine Art, LLC 
• Article on his paintings from International Studio, v.68 (1919)
• Edward Laning
• Brief bio from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
• Excerpt from New Deal Art in North Carolina: the Murals, Sculptures, Reliefs, Paintings, Oils and Frescos and Their Creators  on Laning 
• Listen to the 1972 interview with Laning from Ruth Bowman's Views on Art program on WNYC
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• Ernest Lawson
• Biography from the Phillips Collection 
• New York Realists, a 1937 Whitney Museum exhibition 
• Ernest Lawson, Guy Pen Du Bois, 1932 
• Louis Remy Mignot
• Biography from Questroyal Fine Art, LLC 
• The Athenaeum collection of Mignot's work 
• Julian Alden Weir
• Biography from National Gallery of Art 
• National Park Service site for Weir Farm, the artist's summer home and creative refuge 
• American Impressionism, Weir's painting style, at Heilbrunn Timeline 
• "J. Alden Weir," Duncan Phillips from The Art Bulletin vol. 2

Selected Print Resources from the Mint Museum Library

Check MARCO for all the Mint resources available

• Abbot, Willis J. Panama and the canal in picture and prose, 1913
• Avery and Garrison. A Trip, Panama Canal..., 1911
• Bolger, Doreen. J. Alden Weir: an American Impressionist, 1983. 
• Gerdts, William H. Jonas Lie (1880-1940), 2005
• Manthorne, Katherine. The Landscapes of Louis Remy Mignot: a Southern Painter Abroad, 1996. 
• Moore, Sarah J.  Empire on display : San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915, 2013
• Pennell, Joseph. The adventures of an illustrator, mostly in following his authors in America & Europe, 1925
• Pennell, Joseph. Etchers and etching : chapters in the history of the art, together with technical explanations of modern artistic methods, 1936
• Pennell, Joseph. Joseph Pennell's pictures of the Panama canal: reproductions of a series of lithographs made by him on the isthmus of Panama, January-March, 1912, 1912
• Solon, Deborah Epstein, The Life and Work of Alson Skinner Clark, 2004
• Stebbins, Theodore E. Martin Johnson Heade, 1999.

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Created by Rachel Dressel, Intern for Mint Museum Library