Welcome to the Buchanan Museum of Fine Art, Southwestern Michigan's largest public art museum focused exclusively upon the conservation, preservation and exhibition of historic works of American and European art.
The Museum's summer exhibitions features a wide variety of works spanning over two hundred years of American and European history. Selected highlights include a historic work from the Federalist art movement created by Gilbert Stuart (December 3, 1755 – July 9, 1828). This exceptional original oil painting protrays former United States President George Washington, together with Martha Washington and children on the premises of Washington's Valley Forge home. Particularily noteworthy within this fine work is the presence of Gilbert Stuart within the painting, engaged in his painting activities, artist palate in hand.
The presence of Gilbert Stuart's work in the Museum collection is also noteworthy, owing to his encouragement and frequent communications with leading members of the Hudson River School movement, then the emerging artists of this important era in American art history.
Hudson River School ~ The Sublime Artists
The Museum's Hudson River School exhibit includes many fine works from the Hudson River School movement, including fine oil paintings by Jasper Cropsey. Included within the collection is an especially rare painting created by Cropsey ("Stokes Poge") while studying abroad in the United Kingdom. The Hudson River School exhibit also works by Sanford Robinson Gifford, Frederic Church, Thomas Doughty, Thomas Moran, John Ferguson Weir, and other painters of the Hudson River Valley movement, which preceded the emergence of the American Impressionist art movement.
Francis Focer Brown ~ The American Impressionist
Moving further along in terms of time line, the Museum has focused considerable resources on amassing what is reportedly the largest public collections of the works of Francis Focer Brown (1891 - 1971), a widely known and quite prolific American Impressionist artist who communicated in colorful landscapes. Brown is well known for utilizing varied styles, with his earliest work bordering on the Abstract, as well as Fauve. Brown's use of color and range of accomplishments includes remarkable atmospherics and lighting often reminisent of Frederic Church, with many paintings rendered with an impasto like application finish. Of note, the Museum's Francis Focer Brown Retrospective also features the only known oil painting of Brown, created by famous Hoosier Salon exhibitor, Wayman Elbridge Adams (1883 - 1959).
Modern Expressionist Exhibit
Finally, the Museum is pleased to share selected Expressionist works from the Museum collection. Indeed, we are especially proud to share a historic oil painting created by Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966), a German-born American Abstract Expressionist painter, together with multiple works by the rising American Figurative Expressionist painter David Padworny, and Neo-Expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988), together with a number of complimentary expressionist works from within the Museum collection.
We look forward to your forthcoming visit!