THE MAJOR Rembrandt etchings show closing Sunday at the Chrysler Museum of Art has a tasty accompaniment: 20th century prints from the collection of David and Susan Goode of Norfolk.
The show of 20 prints features big-name artists not primarily known as printmakers. Andy Warhol, Edward Hopper, Robert Motherwell, Alex Katz, Roy Lichtenstein, Elizabeth Catlett, Jasper Johns and David Hockney are among those included.
The works are installed in one room adjacent to the museum's permanent galleries of art from that era. The show was selected by Brooks Johnson, curator of photography and 21st century art.
The Goodes began buying prints as a young couple and are still adding to their 100-plus collection, Johnson said. The first print they purchased is on display - Will Barnett's 1971 "The Young Couple," made using the aquatint technique, which creates tone. In the image, the woman's eyes convey warmth and optimism while the man looks pensive, his left arm protectively around her.
That print, both in terms of technique and image, looks simple next to many others. Neil Welliver cut 27 woodblocks to make "Stump." Made in 2000, the show's most recent work details a tree stump in the Maine woods, suggesting all the branches, leaves, ferns, moss and trees that make up such a closely observed slice of nature. The image gyrates with life force.
A Romare Bearden lithograph from 1976 pairs a vivid, colorful scene of the artist's one-time home on the island of St. Martin with pale-gray images that represent his fading memories of the North Carolina farm where he grew up.
Numerous styles and print methods are featured, from an Andy Warhol Pop-style screen print to a technically amazing, three-dimensional, abstract print by Frank Stella that mixes intaglio, etching and collage.
Train imagery is featured here and there - not surprising, since David Goode is the retired chairman and chief executive officer of Norfolk Southern Corp. A 1923 Hopper etching, "The Locomotive," shows two railroad workers dwarfed by a steam engine. In the Bearden, a train passes in the distance.
Lichtenstein's Pop art-style "Industry and the Arts II" of 1969 pairs the two worlds of the title in an effective way. A squarish image is diagonally split, like two halves of a whole. At the center is a circle that is a cog on the industry side, and a flower on the arts side.
After the show closes here, it will travel to the Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
The Goodes have been involved with the Chrysler Museum since they became members in 1991. Susan Goode served on the board of trustees from 1994 to 2002. David Goode is a trustee.
Last week the Goodes were named among 10 recipients of the Governor's Awards for the Arts 2008. They will be honored in Richmond on Sept. 17.
Teresa Annas, (757) 446-2485, teresa.annas@pilotonline.com
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