Summer rail art exhibition slated for New York City gallery

NEW YORK – Twenty-two railroad paintings from the Peter and Christine Mosse collection will be displayed at a New York City art gallery this summer in a collaboration with the Center for Railroad Photography & Art.

The “Art of Trains” exhibition will be held from July 11 to Aug. 23 at the Hirschl & Adler Galleries in the Fuller Building, 41 East 57th Street, 9th Floor. The gallery calls it “the first exhibition of railroad art in New York City in over 50 years, and very likely the first exhibition of such works from a single private collection.”

Last year, the Mosses announced that they will eventually donate their entire 250-piece collection to the Madison, Wis.-based CRP&A, of which he is a board member. (See “Collector to make landmark donation of railroad art,” Trains News Wire, April 26, 2023). The New York exhibition will include mostly oil paintings, with mixed-media, graphite, watercolor and gouache also represented.

Among the historic as well as contemporary names featured are Walter L. Greene (1870-1956), who gained fame in the 1920s by painting New York Central calendar scenes; Terence Cuneo (1907-1996), the dean of British railway artists; and Los Angeles-based realist artist Adam Normandin (b. 1965), who is represented by a 40-by-60-inch scene showing the nose of BNSF Railway AC4400CW diesel road unit No. 5668.

In addition to American and British artists, others represented are Canadian, French, Russian, Haitian, and Chinese.

Two paintings in the exhibition are among the most notable of the Mosse collection. One is a 24-by-60-inch oil-on-canvas piece titled Lostwithiel Crossing Signal Box, showing a steam train approaching an interlocking tower (signal box in British terminology), which Mosse commissioned from Cuneo in 1990.

Born and raised in Britain, Mosse later worked in the United States and relocated here. He was well acquainted with Cuneo’s work for a series of British Railways posters, and eventually worked up the nerve to approach him with an offer, and concept, for a commissioned painting.

Mosse proposed the idea of placing a modern diesel-powered British Rail Inter-City 125 passenger trainset in the setting of a Victorian-era manual-lever-operated interlocking plant. Cuneo preferred a steam-powered goods (freight) train, however, and talked Mosse into accepting that idea.

The other painting is Polishing, by Chinese artist Zhong Li Gong, (1984, oil on canvas, 55 x 45 inches). Its size, scale and color, Mosse says, make it the most-commented-on object among visitors to his Upper East Side apartment, where about 160 pieces are hung on the walls.

Eric Baumgartner, senior vice president of Hirschl & Adler, told News Wire, “It’s probably safe to say that his collection is the most comprehensive private collection in this country.”

The scenes in the complete collection are dated from 1843 to 2022 and represent 26 countries. In curating the exhibition, Baumgartner said, “One of the real takeaways is that it’s not the usual suspects, the Grif Tellers . . . I tried very hard, in selecting, to maintain that diversity. You’ve got artists who are not necessarily household names.”

Baumgartner, a lifelong railfan and a member of CRP&A and the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society, said the display “will look stunning here. We’re giving it breathing room in our largest gallery room.” Working on the project., he said, is “a fun thing to integrate Peter’s collection done in a professional gallery manner.”

The free exhibition will be open during regular business hours, Monday-Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., with one Saturday showing planned, Aug. 10 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.