The Blanton Museum in Texas Shows "About Face ~ Portraiture as Subject"

Written by Peggy Travers Friday, 23 September 2011 00:57

Austin, Texas - From April 30 through September 4, "About Face: Portraiture as Subject" will be on view at the Blantom Museum of Art at the University of Texas in Austin. "About Face: Portraiture as Subject" is a unique exhibition organized by The Blanton, featuring 35 portraits in diverse mediums from antiquity to today. Drawn mostly from The Blanton’s notable collection, along with several choice loaned objects, the exhibition includes works by artists known for their probing investigations of the genre, such as Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, John Singer Sargent, Diego Rivera, Sir Jacob Epstein, Antonio Berni, Alice Neel, Chuck Close, Robert Henri, Andy Warhol, Yasumasa Morimura, Oscar Muñoz, and Kehinde Wiley.

Annette DiMeo Carlozzzi, Blanton deputy director for Art and Programs remarks, ”Just as we are fascinated with faces, so too have artists explored portraits as subject matter since ancient times. From a Roman bust to a contemporary video portrait, from allegorical attributes of rank and privilege to penetrating psychological studies, About Face examines how personality and aspects of character are portrayed in art. The variations in approach are considerable and invite visitors to ask: Who are these people? What does the artist want us to know about them? How does this portrait disclose insights about both its subject and its maker?”


Historical and contemporary notions of portraiture are considered throughout several intimate groupings in the exhibition. Two galleries offer a traditional overview of the subject, with works in multiple mediums and styles ranging from bronze and oil (Sir Jacob Epstein’s unaffected sculptural bust of entertainer Daisy Dunn and John Singer Sargent’s painted portrayal of the patrician Madame Belleroche) to two paintings based on photographs: Andy Warhol’s iconic Pop image of the late Farrah Fawcett and Jim Torok’s meticulous likeness of fellow artist Michael Smith. Another section highlights self-portraits and the ways in which artists reveal themselves. A diminutive Rembrandt etching and an expressive lithograph by Diego Rivera offer straightforward yet emotionally resonant representations of the artists’ faces, while lush photographs by Nicola Constantino and Yasumasa Morimura exemplify the contemporary performative practice of role-playing. A grouping of recent works by Chuck Close, Byron Kim, Oscar Muñoz and others explores how facets of character, rendered abstractly, complicate individuality, sometimes questioning the facts of appearance and identity. Oliver Herring’s Patrick, for example, a favorite work of Blanton visitors though rarely on public view, comprises many hundreds of studied photographic details reassembled to form a pensive, fully three-dimensional figure. A fourth section of the exhibition examines portraits such as Dürer’s Erasmus of Rotterdam and Antonio Berni’s Retrato de Ramona, in which sitters are identified and characteriz

The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin is one of the foremost university art museums in the country, and has the largest and most comprehensive collection of art in Central Texas. The Blanton’s collection comprises over 17,000 works of art in a variety of mediums, with particular depth in Western European art from the fourteenth through twentieth centuries and modern and contemporary art of the Americas. Through the collecting of art, preserving it in optimal condition, and creatively displaying and interpreting these objects, The Blanton serves as an intellectual and social portal connecting the university and the rest of the world through visual art and culture. The art museum of The University of Texas at Austin was born of a generous gift from an unexpected source. In 1927 Archer M. Huntington, a New Yorker and the son of railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington, donated four thousand acres of land in Galveston, Texas, to the university with instructions that it "be dedicated to the support of an art museum." The proceeds from the eventual sale of that land created an endowment for museum operations and provided a portion of the cost for the construction in 1963 of a new building for the art department of the university, including some gallery space that was formally named the University Art Museum.

All told, the Blanton collection today numbers more than 17,000 works. the museum takes enormous pride in the great depth they have achieved by concentrating their collecting efforts on works from specific periods, movements, and artists. The long-held vision of a new museum building became a reality with the groundbreaking for a new facility in October 2003. The new complex, designed by Kallmann McKinnell & Wood Architects, is comprised of the Mari and James A. Michener Gallery Building, a 124,000-square-foot space that houses the permanent collection and temporary exhibitions; the 56,000-square-foot Edgar A. Smith Building features a café, museum shop, classrooms, auditorium, and offices; and a 145,000-square-foot public plaza and garden designed by Peter Walker and Partners. As the only art museum in Austin with a permanent collection of substantial range and depth, the Blanton has embraced a mission of serving as a "cultural gateway" between the university and the community. Visit the museum's website at ... http://blantonmuseum.org

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