Francis Cortland Tucker: May 2014

Monday, May 19, 2014

Francis C Tucker Prize for Innovation in Materials & Techniques

The Francis C Tucker Prize for Innovation in Materials & Techniques has been established this year at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pa in Tucker's name for a Junior in the Painting/Drawing Concentration, Interdisciplinary Fine Arts Major at UArts.

This prize is awarded to a hard working student who has demonstrated curiosity, investigation and experimentation of painting materials.

2014, Taylor Stefanovicz
2015, Demetria Jorge
2016, Matthew Wittig
2017, Sebastian Powley
2018, Sabrina Martin
2019, Jared Rush Jackson
2020, Dacota Messer
2021, Mukhtar Stones
2022, Keshawna Logan

Bio

Francis Tucker has been a practicing painter since finishing his formal education in 1954. He painted full time and doing research in methods and materials, until finances pressed him to seek employment in 1957. At that time, he came under the employment of Carl Laughlin of Laughlin Frames, learning carving, gilding and preparation of museum mounts and care of artwork. He remained in this career for 20 years.

In 1967, he joined the faculty of the Philadelphia College of Art, Evening Division, under the Directorship of Jane Flory. Francis was instrumental in turning a painting class of 7 students into a full painting department, which employed 3 painting and drawing instructors. He created a formal curriculum for fine art students in materials and methods. He remained at this institution until 1978.

In 1977, he took employment with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Francis and Terrence Fisher were able to upgrade the quality and expertise of installing works of art, which are still employed. In 1980, he moved into the Frame Shop of the Museum until 1982, when it merged with the Conservation Department. He then transferred to the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, taking the position of building supervisor and instructor.

Francis retains a studio and frame shop at 835 Morris Street. Currently working with egg tempera, size and watercolor, his expertise in these fields help him to search out the hidden places of the poetic muse. Artist and students seek out his help with aesthetic and technical problems.

The Brooklyn Museum of Art - Billy Collins

I will now step over the soft velvet rope
and walk directly into this massive Hudson River
painting and pick my way along the Palisades
with this stick I snapped off a dead tree.

I will skirt the smoky, nestled towns
and seek the path that leads always outward
until I become lost, without a hope
of ever finding the way back to the museum.

I will stand on the bluffs in nineteenth-century
clothes, a dwarf among rock, hills and flowing water,
and I will fish fro the banks in a straw hat,
which will feel like a brushstroke on my head.

And I will hide in the green covers of forests,
so no appreciator of Frederick Edwin Church,
leaning over the soft velvet rope,
'will spot my tiny figure moving in the stillness
and cry out, pointing for others to see,

and be thought mad and led away to a cell
where there is no vaulting landscape to explore,
none of this bird song that halts me in my tracks,
and no wide curving of this river that draws
my steps toward the misty vanishing point.

Francis Cortland Tucker

Senior Artist Initiative

Monday, May 19, 2014

Francis C Tucker Prize for Innovation in Materials & Techniques

Tucker painting

Bio

F C Tucker

The Brooklyn Museum of Art - Billy Collins

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