Ferrin Gallery’s exhibition Covet, will feature contemporary artists creating new works in response to museum collections. The group exhibition of works in all media, will be presented at the gallery in Pittsfield, MA opening May 26 and running through September 2.

My work for this exhibition responds to Ernst Meissonier’s painting 1807, Friedland.  Meissonier was considered to be the most prominent painter in Paris during his lifetime and yet was largely forgotten by art history. His painting of Napoleon’s greatest victory was certainly the magnum opus of his forays into the history painting genre. This painting, his largest and perhaps most ambitious, resides at the Met in NYC. I was particularly interested in the visual enshrinement of Napoleon and his segregation from the cavalry in the foreground.

Joshua Field, The Clothed Emperor, 2012. 61″x25″

Ernst Meissonier, 1807, Friedland, Meissonier.