In 1880, a collapsing roof damaged a monumental painting entitledThe New Jerusalem by American painter George Inness. The artist recovered the mutilated masterpiece from the rubble and cut its remnants into separate paintings that now belong to different museums. Krannert Art Museum exhibited its fragment, Evening Landscape, reunited with two counterparts from the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, A Visionary Landscape and The Valley of the Olives, to recompose The New Jerusalem once again.
Sponsored by Illinois Arts Council, a State Agency; Krannert Art Museum Director's Circle; and Krannert Art Museum Council.
This exhibition shared the story of the rediscovery, conservation, and reconstruction of the painting by art historian Michael Quick and conservator Eric Gordon. It also introduced the contributions of scholars Sally Promey and former University of Illinois professor Rachael Z. DeLue to the interpretation of the painting's spiritual and scientific content.
Curator: Robert G. La France
