The Addison's collection numbers over 20,000 objects. While the galleries can only accommodate a fraction of the collection, virtually the entire collection is accessible through the Museum Learning Center.

Placeholder Text

Click here to download Museum Learning Center Portfolio Guides.

Collection

Themes: MLC Portfolio: Houses and Homes

<<first <previous
next> last>>


View larger image
Bookmark and Share
Artist(s): John Koch (Toledo, Ohio, 1909 - 1978, New York )
Title: The Toast
Date: 1964
Dimensions: 10 in. x 15 in. (25.4 cm x 38.1 cm)
Medium: oil on canvas
Credit Line: Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, purchased as the gift of Londa Weisman in honor of the 80th birthday of her husband, Sidney R. Knafel (PA 1948), 2011.38

This object is a member of the following groups (click any group name to view all objects in that group):

Themes: MLC Portfolio: Houses and Homes

Object Information

<SPAN><SPAN STYLE="color:#878888">Gallery label for </SPAN><SPAN STYLE="font-style:italic;color:#878888">Walls and Beams, Rooms and Dreams</SPAN><SPAN STYLE="color:#878888">, January 23 - July 31, 2016<BR/></SPAN><BR/>In the absence of perspectival exactitude, Koch imbues his elegantly staged interior scenes with nuanced psychological subtext. In this work, he captures his sitters—Dora, the artist’s wife and a music teacher, and a young man, possibly one of her privately tutored students—in a moment of celebration, as indicated by the title. In the vein of his artistic heroes, ranging from Vermeer to Eakins, Koch usually posed his sitters individually, a practice that may explain the psychological disengagement that can be felt between the two, with the young man facing Dora directly and raising his glass in her direction, and Dora gazing enigmatically into the distance, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. At the same time, the informality of the furniture arrangement also signals a familiarity between sitters and domestic environment; despite occupying a small, less central area of the composition, Dora’s position nonetheless demonstrates her purview over her domestic domain.<BR/><BR/>Kelley Tialiou <BR/>Charles H. Sawyer Curatorial Assistant | Librarian | Archivist</SPAN>

Exhibition History

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

80 @ 80 , Addison Gallery of American Art, 10/15/2011 - 12/31/2011
Eye on the Collection, Addison Gallery of American Art, 4/27/2013 - 7/31/2013
Walls and Beams, Rooms and Dreams: Images of Home, Addison Gallery of American Art, 1/23/2016 - 7/31/2016

Your current search criteria is: Portfolio is "Themes: MLC Portfolio: Houses and Homes"