Imagined Realism

Scott and Stuart Gentling

Introduction by Ed Ruscha; By Amon Carter Museum of American Art

Amon Carter Museum

This is the first major publication on the art and lives of twentieth-century Fort Worth artists Scott (1942–2011) and Stuart (1942–2006) Gentling. Prolific modern-day Renaissance men, the brothers created an extensive body of landscapes; portraits of regional and national luminaries; historical studies ranging from a visual reconstruction of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan to subjects drawn from the French and American Revolutions; and natural history illustrations of the flora and fauna of Texas. Realist painters, they drew inspiration from past masters such as Jacques-Louis David and John James Audubon, and they corresponded and collaborated with contemporaries such as Andrew Wyeth and Ed Ruscha. The Gentling brothers’ place within the canon of twentieth-century American art is established here. Along with 290 images, including 120 plates, the book includes five essays, two by scholars Erika Doss of the University of Notre Dame and Barbara Mundy of Fordham University; a trio of Carter museum curators provide deep analyses of the Gentlings’ artistic process, the output of their fifty-year career, and a chronology of their lives; plus several brief and incisive takes on specific aspects of the brothers’ multifaceted art and lives are featured throughout.

Editors

Scott Grant Barker is a Fort Worth historian and collector who celebrates the art history of the city in the exhibitions he curates, as well as in his lectures and writings. He has written for the Texas State Historical Association, the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, Texas Christian University Press, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Erika Doss is an award-winning art historian whose multiple books include Benton, Pollock, and the Politics of Modernism: From Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism (1991); Spirit Poles and Flying Pigs: Public Art and Cultural Democracy (1995); Looking at Life Magazine (2001); Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America (2010); and American Art of the 20th–21st Centuries (2017).

Jonathan Frembling is Gentling Curator and Head Museum Archivist at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. He received his MA in history from the University of Texas at Arlington. He promotes the study of the work of artists Scott and Stuart Gentling through the integration of primary material in both exhibitions and publications.

Janelle Montgomery is Gentling Curatorial Assistant at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. She received her MA in art history from Texas Christian University, has authored numerous essays on twentieth- and twenty-first-century art, and was awarded the Maclean Eltham Essay Prize in Romney Studies in 2016.

Barbara E. Mundy holds the Martha and Donald Robertson Chair in Latin American Art at Tulane University. She received her PhD in the history of art from Yale University. She studies the art and visual culture produced in Spain’s colonies, and her scholarship spans both digital and traditional formats.

Spencer Wigmore is Assistant Curator of Paintings, Sculpture, and Works on Paper at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. He received his PhD in art history from the University of Delaware. Before joining the Carter’s curatorial team, he was the Wyeth Foundation Predoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas, opened in January 1961 to house the collection of publisher and philanthropist Amon G. Carter Sr. (1879–1955). Since that time, the museum’s collection has expanded dramatically and today encompasses a broad range of American creativity, from the eighteenth century to the present day. The Carter also houses one of the country’s most important collections of photography. Located in the heart of the city’s Cultural District, the Carter is committed to building its collection and to serving an educational role through exhibitions, publications, and programs devoted to American art.

Related Titles