“Consider the Source? at Cahoon Museum of American Art

Thursday, 17 August 2006 10:56

COTUIT, MA - One of the most famous Currier & Ives lithographs is “The Road – Winter,” featuring a couple riding in a horse-drawn sleigh.  When the Cape’s premier primitive artist, Ralph Cahoon, painted a spoof for a collector of Currier & Ives prints in 1973, he of course replaced the female figure with one of his signature mermaids.  Her fishtail and bare breasts are incongruities in the snowy landscape.

That Ralph and his wife, Martha, regularly looked back to 19th-century images for inspiration is clear from “Consider the Source: Influences on Ralph and Martha Cahoon’s Early Paintings.”  On view through Oct. 1, the show is the first Cahoon exhibition at the Cahoon Museum of American Art in two years.  Essentially a follow-up to 2004’s “In the Beginning: The Decorated Furniture of Ralph and Martha Cahoon,” it sheds new light on how the artists developed their styles as they made their highly successful transition from furniture decorators to primitive artists, starting in the early 1950s.

Read more: [[“Consider the Source? at Cahoon Museum of American Art]]

One Million Visitors Yearly at National Art Museum of China

Friday, 18 August 2006 09:42

National Art Museum of China is visited by over one million peple each year.  It is a national level art museum focused on displaying, collecting and researching the works of the artists in China modern times.  Chairman Mao Zedong wrote the name of the museum.

National Art Museum of China covers an area of 30,000 square meters with its construction acreage of 17,051 square meters.  And its exhibition halls are 6,000 square meters.  The construction was started in 1958 and finished in 1962.  It is one of the Great Ten Constructions to mark the occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China and also the largest art museum in China.  After over one year's decoration, it was reopened on July 23, 2003.

Read more: [[One Million Visitors Yearly at National Art Museum of China]]

Sculptor Steve Tobin Bronze ~ ' Trinity Root ' 9-11 Memorial

Friday, 18 August 2006 10:18

NEW YORK CITY - (PRNewswire) - The Trinity Root 9/11 Memorial has been quietly embraced by the approximately 1.5 million visitors from both the city and around the world that visit the site.  The sculpture came about as an inspiration by Quakertown, Pennsylvania sculptor Steve Tobin after seeing the uplifting story of the 70-year-old sycamore tree that was felled by the intense impact of the collapsing towers across the street from the World Trade Center.  The tree absorbed the shockwaves, which a physicist has compared to those of a small nuclear bomb, and was laying in such a way as to shield historic St. Paul's Chapel at Trinity Church and its ancient tombstones from falling debris.  The tree, which even took a hit from an I-beam, seemed the only positive story that came out of the tragic events that day.

As the five-year anniversary milestone of the infamous attacks on the World Trade Center approaches and proposals for a Ground Zero memorial continue to be mired in political controversy, only one art memorial has been permanently installed in the vicinity of Ground Zero.

Read more: [[Sculptor Steve Tobin Bronze ~ ' Trinity Root ' 9-11 Memorial]]

Oklahoma City Museum of Art Hosted ' Monet to de Kooning '

Friday, 18 August 2006 10:31

Oklahoma City, OK — The Oklahoma City Museum of Art hosted 32 exceptional works in five galleries through August 13, 2006.  Monet to de Kooning: Selections from the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, were integrated into three galleries on the second and third floor in addition to two complete galleries on the second floor.  The exhibition included paintings by Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, Willem de Kooning, and Lee Krasner as well as sculptures by Auguste Rodin, Andy Warhol, and Claes Oldenburg.

Monet to de Kooning followed a visit by David Mickenburg, the Davis Museum and Cultural Center director and a former director of the Oklahoma Museum of Art in the mid-1980s.

Read more: [[Oklahoma City Museum of Art Hosted ' Monet to de Kooning ']]

Sue Packer Pet Photos at Royal Albert Memorial Museum

Friday, 18 August 2006 10:59

Exeter, UK - A fascinating exhibition of photographs exploring the relationships between pets and their owners opens at Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum this September.

The 56 beautifully studied portraits, taken by photographer Sue Packer, feature people with the extraordinary catalogue of species commonly kept as companions, from the popular furry, four legged creatures to the more unusual.

The images capture Sue’s fascination with the dedication and enthusiasm people show for their pets, as well as the particular and sometimes peculiar relationships between animals and people.

Pets opens on September 1^st and runs until 31^st October.  Pets is a Harley Gallery and Aberystwyth Arts Centre Touring Exhibition.

Read more: [[Sue Packer Pet Photos at Royal Albert Memorial Museum]]

Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from 1920s at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Written by Joseph Kindle Saturday, 31 December 2011 21:43

New York City - Political, economic, and social turmoil shaped Germany’s short-lived Weimar Republic (1919–1933).  These pivotal years also became a most creative period of 20th-century German culture, generating innovation in literature, music, film, theater, and architecture.  In painting, a trend of matter-of-fact realism took hold in Germany like nowhere else in Europe.  Disillusioned by the cataclysm of World War I, the most vital German artists moved towards a Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), in particular its branch known as Verism.  These artists looked soberly, cynically, and even ferociously at their fellow citizens and found their true métier in portraiture, as seen in the 40 paintings and 60 works on paper featured in Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s.  The presentation, which opens at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on November 14, 2006, features gripping portraits by ten renowned artists: Max Beckmann, Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Karl Hubbuch, Ludwig Meidner, Christian Schad, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz, and Gert H. Wollheim.

The exhibition is supported by The Isaacson-Draper Foundation.  Additional support is provided by the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation.  Exhibition dates November 14, 2006 – February 18, 2007.

“This landmark presentation is the first anywhere to focus on the portraiture of the Weimar period,” said Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Metropolitan Museum.  “In these gripping images, the rootless society that flourished or floundered during these years in metropolises such as Berlin, Düsseldorf, and Dresden jolts back to life.”

Although memorialized in song and story for the escapist thrills of erotic cabaret shows, wild dancing, frenzied jazz, and sexual licentiousness, German cities of the 1920s were in the throes of rampant unemployment, hyperinflation, and social panic.  After the initial patriotic fervor, followed by the crippling devastation of World War I, the Verists questioned their own involvement in this war and focused on the country’s quickly changing social landscape and uncertain political future. 

Forgoing new modes of abstraction, the artists found worthy subjects in urban denizens of all walks of life, from the war wounded to the art dealer.  With a marked abhorrence of idealization, the Verists’ portraits captured the stark existence of a populace through an incisive and often satiric form of realism.  Their psychological portraits do not attempt to reproduce likenesses, as in the conservative painting styles popular at the time.  Rather, with savage distortions of the face and the figure, the artist turns the sitter into an exaggerated type that reflects the extremes of a turbulent era: wealth and poverty, glamour and violence, decadence and banality.

People of vastly different backgrounds came together in the common pursuit of pleasure as Germany’s traditional class structure and moral strictures collapsed.  Christian Schad’s portraits depict the modern individual caught between debauchery and ennui.  In Count St. Genois d'Anneaucourt (1927), Schad places the jaded and aging Count between the cold profile of a mannish woman and the willowy figure of her rival, a transvestite. 

Many of the artists suffered from the lingering trauma of the war, and their portraits convey a pervasive malaise.  In Max Beckmann’s Dance in Baden-Baden (1923), stylishly dressed couples go through the motions of living the high life, their expressions indifferent and weary.  Even the artists themselves seem be to role-playing, as seen in Beckmann’s forced pose as a bon vivant in Self-Portrait with Champagne Glass (1919).

Social criticism also took more pointedly political forms, when artists filled with anger and distrust satirized corrupt individuals in scathing portraits.  George Grosz’s The Pillars of Society (1926) mocks politicians, military men, and priests, who grit their teeth and puff their cheeks while violence and destruction loom in the background.

Although their subjects were purely contemporary, artists such as Otto Dix and Christian Schad were inspired by 16th-century German masters, such as Cranach, Dürer, Holbein, and Grünewald. Otto Dix adhered most closely to their painting techniques, while exploring the particular vices of the Weimar era.  Dix sought out a brutal truth by looking unflinchingly at the most grotesque, violent, and debased aspects of society.  Typical of his subject matter is The Salon I (1921), which portrays four elderly prostitutes in cheap finery that fails to hide their decrepitude.  Dix’s 1925 portrait of Anita Berber immortalizes the infamous dancer, nude performer, actress, seductress of men and women, and cocaine addict, who, in her brief career (1916-28), distilled the excesses, glamour, and misery of the Weimar Republic.  With more than 50 works by Otto Dix, this exhibition will be the first major presentation of the artist’s work in the U.S.

With harsh candor and biting humor, the portraits in the exhibition dissect a Weimar demimonde of prostitutes and profiteers, war veterans and war widows, performers and poets.  The Verists themselves were part of this shattered world, mingling in the crowd with former aristocrats, middle-class doctors, and businessmen.  Their powerful images serve as mirrors to a glittering yet doomed society.  With Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 and the end of the Weimar Republic, artists lost their teaching positions, their work was banned, and many of them went into exile.

The exhibition has been organized by Sabine Rewald, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Curator in the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art.  She is also the author of the exhibition catalogue, to be published by the Metropolitan Museum and distributed by Yale University Press.  The publication will include essays by Ian Buruma and Matthias Eberle and will be available in the Museum’s bookshops.

The exhibition will also be featured on the Museum’s Web site at www.metmuseum.org.

Akio Takamori: The Laughing Monks at the Henry Museum

Written by Vernon Bollman Monday, 03 January 2011 20:52

Seattle, WA - One central aspect of a museum’s programs is the continual exploration and reassessment of its collections.  As a university art museum, the Henry has grown primarily through gifts over its nearly 80-year existence.

As part of the ongoing project to explore the museum’s collections creatively, the Henry has invited professor of art Akio Takamori to design an installation responding to these holdings.  Associate professor of ceramics at the University of Washington, Takamori has developed a practice of figural sculpture built out of clay that juxtaposes elements of several distinct traditions, including functional ceramics, traditional Asian calligraphy, Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints, and contemporary photography. On exhibition until 22 October, 2006.

Read more: [[Akio Takamori: The Laughing Monks at the Henry Museum]]

Portland Art Museum Hosts Great Painters in Brescia

Saturday, 19 August 2006 09:45

PORTLAND, OR - The Portland Art Museum engages in a major international cultural exchange with the museums of Brescia, Italy and the international exhibition company Linea d'ombra, to present Great Painters in Brescia from the Renaissance to the 18^th Century.  The Portland Art Museum is the exclusive North American venue for this special exhibition, bringing for the first time treasures of Italian art from the 16^th to 18^th century to the city of Portland.  The exhibition showcases 35 works from Brescia's museums, presented in a broad chronological survey that outlines the trajectory of the art of painting as it developed in this Italian city.  Subjects ranging from awe-inspiring religious scenes to portraits of riveting psychological intensity introduce the viewer to the essence of Italy's finest artistic achievements.  Great Painters in Brescia from the Renaissance to the 18^th Century on view until September 17, 2006.

Read more: [[Portland Art Museum Hosts Great Painters in Brescia]]

Japan in Jacksonville ~ The Cummer Collection of Japanese Prints

Written by George Montalvo Saturday, 20 November 2010 16:50

Jacksonville, FL – The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens presents a collection of 19^th century Japanese woodblock prints that showcases many aspects of this uniquely expressive art form.  Japan in Jacksonville: The Cummer Collection of Japanese Prints, on view from September 14 through November 12, highlights the museum’s Asian art collection, and provides a wide-ranging view of the styles and themes encompassed by this vibrant genre.  All of the prints featured in this exhibition, whether landscape, warrior, actor, or courtesan-themed, are considered to be images of this pleasure-filled world.  Each in its own way illuminates an understanding of 19^th century Japanese culture.

“The Cummer has an extensive collection of Asian art and this exhibition is a way for us to enlighten our visitors to other cultures and art forms,” said Museum Director Maarten van de Guchte.  “This exhibition allows us to provide programs and experiences that deepen our visitors understanding of this special collection.”

Read more: [[Japan in Jacksonville ~ The Cummer Collection of Japanese Prints]]

Henri Rousseau Retrospective at National Gallery of Art

Saturday, 19 August 2006 10:44

WASHINGTON, DC – The late-blooming career of Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), a self-taught French artist and savvy connoisseur of popular culture in the late 19th century, will be showcased in the first major American retrospective of the artist’s work in 20 years.  Henri Rousseau: Jungles in Paris, on view at the National Gallery of Art, East Building, through October 15, 2006—the only U.S. venue—celebrates the broad range of his work: landscapes of Paris and environs, allegories, portraits, as well as the largest grouping ever assembled of his iconic jungle paintings.  An extensive display of more than 100 documents, popular ephemera, and other source material will shed light on Rousseau’s artistic ambitions, working method, and the world he inhabited.

Read more: [[Henri Rousseau Retrospective at National Gallery of Art]]

Rare British Masterworks at Memphis Brooks Museum of Art

Monday, 21 August 2006 09:49

Memphis, TN - Memphis Brooks Museum of Art will host an exhibition of masterpieces from a private British collection this fall.  Masterpieces from an English Country House: The Fitzwilliam Collection will be on view at the Brooks Museum from September 16 through December 3, 2006.  The show includes spectacular paintings by Anthony van Dyck, Joshua Reynolds, Claude Lorraine, Salomon van Ruysdael, and other noted artists.

Read more: [[Rare British Masterworks at Memphis Brooks Museum of Art]]

Vinyl Records and Covers by Artists at MACBA-Spain

Written by Dorothy Thomson Monday, 13 June 2011 20:41

Barcelona, Spain - Historiography has overlooked the meetings between art and the world of sound, but these days they have taken on an undeniable centrality.  Artistic and musical practices have produced works which mark out the very history of the avant-garde.  Along with the huge growth in digital technology, crossovers between sound and vision have multiplied exponentially and this has created a whole new universe of experimentation, invention, categories and classifications.  In 2002, the MACBA looked at music culture in the digital age with the exhibition Sonic Process.  Now Vinyl traces the phenomenon’s genealogy, from its roots in the evolution of the art in the 1960s and 70s, right up to our own time, by means of an object which has always been deeply rooted in our everyday life: the LP record.  On exhibition until 3 September, 2006 at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA).

Read more: [[Vinyl Records and Covers by Artists at MACBA-Spain]]

The Hartman Collection of Chinese Jades at Christie's Hong Kong

Sunday, 20 August 2006 11:19

London / Hong Kong - Christie’s is delighted to announce the sale of Important Chinese Jades from the Personal Collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, to be held in Hong Kong on 28 November 2006 (Part I) and in Autumn 2007 (Part II).  This exquisite collection garners some of the very best Imperial and magnificent Chinese jade carvings on the market, and is the finest private collection of jades to have come up for auction.

The Hartman collection, which has been meticulously accumulated over a period of more than half a century, spans the history of jade carving in China.  The wide selection of jade pieces come from the Neolithic period through to the Song and Ming dynasties, culminating in those from the golden age of jade carving - the high Qing dynasty of the 17^th/18^th century - with an impressive array of superb flawless white and spinach-green vessels.  The entire collection pays tribute to the wealth of knowledge that the Hartmans have accumulated over the years.

Read more: [[The Hartman Collection of Chinese Jades at Christie's Hong Kong]]

Hildegard Spielhofer Solos at Kunsthaus Baselland

Sunday, 20 August 2006 12:19

Basel, Switzerland - Hildegard Spielhofer was born in 1966 in Lucerne and lives and works in Basel.  She made a name for herself as an artist by interacting with new media, and in her first solo show mounted in Kunsthaus Baselland she presents very recent works in which she expresses herself for the first time by means of screen prints and ink drawings.  Museum Kunsthaus Baselland presents Something has slipped away - Hildegard Spielhofer 1 2 3, on view through October 1, 2006.

The nine-part series of screen prints entitled “The New York Times, Sunday, September 16, 2001” contains obituaries dedicated to the victims of 9/11 in New York, published by various companies.

Read more: [[Hildegard Spielhofer Solos at Kunsthaus Baselland]]

Valley House Gallery Hosts John Stone Collection

Sunday, 20 August 2006 13:19

Dallas, TX - Valley House Gallery presents an exhibition of 50 paintings by Texas artists from the collection of native Texan, John Stone.  Stone was introduced to Texas art by Dallas legends Velma and Otis Dozier in the early 1980’s.  Otis Dozier gave Stone a signed print he had made of Indian corn.  Both Stone and the Doziers enjoyed a close affinity for the land and the flora that sprang forth from it, both common subjects of Dozier’s paintings.  Stone’s first purchase was the Otis Dozier painting Dallas Farmers Market.  This began Stone’s quest for paintings by Texas artists’ whose work reflected his love of the land.  “The Dallas Farmers Market currently hangs in my office and is one of my favorite paintings,” says Stone, ”I could never let it go.  It set the course for the rest of my Texas collection.”

Read more: [[Valley House Gallery Hosts John Stone Collection]]

MANET TO PICASSO: From The National Gallery

Tuesday, 22 August 2006 15:47

London - The National Gallery’s Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Early Modern works are amongst its most popular paintings.  The rooms in which they currently hang are always full of visitors for whom Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières and Van Gogh’s Sunflowers are ‘destination’ pictures.  These are works of such fame and importance that art lovers from around the world make their way to Trafalgar Square to stand in front of them.  On exhibition 22 September 2006 – 20 May 2007.

The National Gallery’s 19^th - century collection, while not large, shows the whole span of the era through works of exceptionally high quality.  Now there is a unique opportunity to re-examine this collection of about one hundred works, when the late 19th- and early 20th- century paintings are displayed afresh in a new Sainsbury Wing installation: Manet to Picasso.

Read more: [[MANET TO PICASSO: From The National Gallery]]