Enfilade

From the press release for the exhibition:

Good Impressions: Portraits across Three Centuries from Reynolda and Wake Forest
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, 20 October 2023 — 27 October 2024

John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Elizabeth Gorham Rogers (wife of Daniel Rogers), 1762, oil on linen, 50 × 40 inches (Winston-Salem: Wake Forest University, Hanes Collection, Gift of Philip and Charlotte Hanes, HC1991.1.1). More information is available here.

Portraits are often taken at face value—as accurate representations of a person’s appearance, sometimes removed by decades or centuries. But portraits are often the products of delicate negotiations between artist and subject. Sometimes they flatter, exaggerating the sitter’s beauty or rich attire. Sometimes they capture the subject engaged in his or her occupation, whether pausing during study or painting in his or her studio. Sometimes they celebrate an auspicious occasion, such as a recent engagement or the imminent birth of a child. This exhibition features three centuries of portraits of men and women, Black and White, solitary and companionate, classic and modern.

“The museum and university are both strengthened by collaborations like this small yet glorious presentation of portraits,” said Allison Perkins, executive director, Reynolda House and Wake Forest University associate provost for Reynolda House & Reynolda Gardens. “More importantly, Wake Forest’s students and Winston-Salem’s community have the privilege of seeing extraordinary works in conversation on our walls.”

Good Impressions was mounted to mark the recent conservation treatment of John Singleton Copley’s 1762 Portrait of Elizabeth Gorham Rogers (Mrs. Daniel Rogers) in the collection of Wake Forest University and Reynolda House’s recent acquisition of the 1973 photograph Changing Times by Kwame Brathwaite (1938–2023).

Kwame Brathwaite, Changing Times, 1973, archival pigment print, 30 × 30 inches (Winston-Salem: Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Museum purchase, 2022.3.2).

Reynolda is set on 170 acres in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and comprises Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Reynolda Gardens and Reynolda Village Shops and Restaurants. The Museum presents a renowned art collection in a historic and incomparable setting: the original 1917 interiors of Katharine and R. J. Reynolds’s 34,000-square-foot home. Its collection is a chronology of American art and featured exhibitions are offered in the Museum’s Babcock Wing Gallery and historic house bedrooms. The Gardens serve as a 134-acre outdoor horticultural oasis open to the public year-round, complete with colorful formal gardens, nature trails and a greenhouse. In the Village, the estate’s historic buildings are now home to a vibrant mix of boutiques, restaurants, shops and services.