The museum’s new acquisition — a 19th-century Church painting desired by bigger museums in Cleveland and Columbus — is the ultimate complement to a major work of folk-art.
And now it resides here.
“This could be a game-changer for a small museum like us,” said Mark Chepp, chairman of the museum’s curatorial affairs committee.
The painting, “Still Life,” dates to the 1880s and depicts the Victorian table setting sans monkeys.
It’s been shown at such institutions as the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, but the local museum was able to convince the Church family to part with the painting after more than a century.
Church, a self-taught artist from northeast Ohio, later painted “The Monkey Picture” in 1895. It resides in a museum in Virginia.
Despite budget worries in recent years, the museum bought the work by selling two pieces of its own, Chepp said.
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