Bored At Home? Recreate A Famous Painting With Davenport’s Figge Museum
Inspired by similar artistic re-creations around the world, the Figge Art Museum is inviting area residents to offer their own brush with fame during the current Covid quarantine.
Rosa Bonheur. French, 1822-1899. Study of a Cow, 1870s. Oil on canvas mounted on wood. City of Davenport Art Collection, Gift of C.A. Ficke, 1925.28
The closed museum (at 225 W. 2nd St., Davenport) on Monday announced the “Getting Figge With It” challenge, for community members of all ages. Participants are asked to re-create artworks from the museum’s permanent collection using everyday items, people, or pets in their home.
To participate, choose a favorite work from the permanent collection list of works and then re-create it at home using ordinary objects. Find inspiration from the museum’s collection at http://ow.ly/M6ju50ze0ta.
“Art lover or not, this challenge is something anyone can do and it’s a way for people to continue connecting with the art during the museum’s temporary closure,” Tessa Pozzi, Figge membership and database manager, said in a museum release.
E-mail your re-creation and your inspiration, along with your name, email address, and home address to submissions@figgeartmuseum.org by Thursday, April 24.
Once the re-creations are published on the Figge Art Museum Facebook page, the one with the most “likes” by May 1, 2020 will win a prize. Participants are asked to limit their entries to two re-creations each.
The popular global trend to make current lookalikes of artworks launched in mid-March, by a bored Dutch woman, featuring do-it-at-home photographic recreations of some of the greatest works of art in history.
The Instagram account (named @tussenkunstenquarantaine, which means “between art and quarantine” in Dutch) started when Anneloes Officier and her roommates, stuck at home due to social-distancing measures, decided to recreate Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” using a towel, a placemat, and a clove of garlic, according to an April 2 article at artnet.com.
The Instagram site, established March 14, has attracted creative posts from around the world and now has 223,000 followers. The simple instructions on the page say: Pick your artwork, use three items in your home, and share the photo to @tussenkunstenquarantaine.
The Getty Museum in Los Angeles issued a similar challenge in late March using its online collection, and has been similarly impressed with the results.
“You’ve re-created Jeff Koons using a pile of socks, restaged Jacques-Louis David with a fleece blanket and duct tape, and MacGyvered costumes out of towels, pillows, scarves, shower caps, coffee filters, bubble wrap, and—of course—toilet paper and toilet rolls,” according to the Getty’s blog at blogs.getty.edu/iris/getty-artworks-recreated-with-household-items-by-creative-geniuses-the-world-over/.
“Cézanne and Vermeer have been a popular source of inspiration, especially Still Life with Apples (done to perfection with household pottery and gin) and Girl with a Pearl Earring (restaged with selfies and grandma, pug, or lab). Grant Wood’s American Gothic seems to capture the current socially distant mood…,” the museum wrote.
The Figge drew over 500 submissions for its online “Community Curated” exhibit, of art made by community members and posted on social media. For more ways to get engaged with the Figge, visit figgeartmuseum.org — to check out the virtual museum offerings, including art and tours, kids and family activities, ways to learn and relax, and Museum Store items.
