Event Coverage   William James Bennett: Master of the Aquatint View at The New York Public Library By Melissa Minners               Beginning November 7, 2008 and lasting until January 25, 2009, a new exhibition will be showcased at The New York Public Library’s Humanities and Social Sciences Library, located at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.  The exhibit, William James Bennett: Master of the Aquatint View, will showcase selected works from William James Bennett, a British émigré who documented the urban centers and developing frontiers of America during the first half of the 19th century.              Born in England, William James Bennett received artistic training at the celebrated Royal Academy.  It was there that he gained a reputation as an accomplished watercolorist at a time when the medium had gained popularity with professional and amateur artists alike.  Before coming to America, Bennett displayed an exceptional talent for aquatint, a style of etching that uniquely simulates the delicate fluidity and transparency of watercolor.  Throughout his career Bennett produced many prints for some of the most lavish English plate books, but he is best known for his views of American cities and for helping to establish a compositional formula for topographical art in the United States.  William James Bennett: Master of the Aquatint focuses on the artist’s work from 1826, when he left Britain and settled in New York, until his death in 1844.  Examples of his work in Europe can be found at The New York Public Library’s Digital Gallery at www.nypl.org.              Widely regarded as the finest folio views of American cities created during the 19th century, the forty watercolors and prints chosen for the William James Bennett: Master of the Aquatint exhibit come entirely from the Library’s Print Collection.  Much of the artwork comes from The Phelps Stokes Collection of American Historical Prints, donated to the Library by I. N. Phelps Stokes in 1930.  Bennett’s celebration of the American cityscape includes such growing urban centers as Baltimore, Boston, Mobile, Richmond, Charleston, Detroit, Troy, Washington, West Point, and New Orleans, with a special focus on New York.             Highlighted in the exhibition are Broad Way from the Bowling Green, featuring such landmarks as Kennedy House at No. 1 Broadway, where George Washington lived during the early days of the Revolution, and the famed Bowling Green Park, among other significant locations; and two views of Niagara Falls, which received praise from The New-York Mirror, a popular newspaper during the time period, in a review stating “We have seldom met among the numerous delineators of this stupendous wonder of nature, any conveying a more forcible impression.”  In what is regarded as his greatest print, New York, From Brooklyn Heights, Bennett created an aquatint after a painting by John William Hill.  In this piece, Bennett’s aquatint bathes Hill’s 1836 rooftop view that encompasses the Heights, Manhattan and the distant shores of New Jersey in a golden glow.   Other images include an examination of the commercial prosperity of Fulton and Market Streets in the late 1820’s; a view of the New York quarantine on Staten Island; a number of works for the New York art and literary magazine, The New-York Mirror; and a watercolor of High Bridge and the Harlem River made during the last year of his life.             “Bennett has provided us with fascinating documents of 19th Century America’s growing cities and bustling maritime activity, and in the process, he also created remarkable and captivating works of art that expressed the optimism of the new nation,” said the exhibit’s curator Roberta Waddell.  William James Bennett: Master of the Aquatint View marks Waddell’s final project before her retirement as curator of the Library’s Prints Division.  It also marks the return of William James Bennett’s work to the Print Gallery, the previous version of the exhibition having been on display at the Library in 1988.             Admission for the William James Bennett: Master of the Aquatint View exhibition is free. An illustrated catalogue, Williams James Bennett: Master of the Aquatint View, by Gloria Deak, complete with an essay on the aquatint technique by Dale Roylance and a checklist of the exhibition, will be available in the Library Shop for $19.95.  Exhibition hours are Monday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.  The New York Public Library is closed on all federal holidays.  For more information, call (212) 592-7730 or visit www.nypl.org.                        For feedback, visit our message board or e-mail the author at talonkarrde@g-pop.net.