This exhibition of approximately 50 antiquities, dating from the sixth century B.C. to the fourth century A.D., celebrates the theater tradition in Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art and culture. The artworks recreate a theatrical experience that was communal, often celebratory, and sometimes erotic. Found here are not only large-scale vases with finely executed paintings, but also objects used in daily life such as oil lamps, loom weights, and a theater ticket. Highlights include the Calyx Krater—depicting Orestes, his sister Electra, and Apollo, the god of Delphi—and two vessels by the Darius Painter, considered the most erudite and important artist of Apulian pottery (present-day southern Italy). These holdings, on extended loan to the Museum by trustee William Knight Zewadski, comprise one of the most comprehensive American collections of its kind and rival similar groupings in the Getty Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In celebration of Black History Month, and recent donations to the collection, the Museum presents a selection of remarkable artworks by African American folk artists. The grouping was given to the Museum by several collectors who were involved with the Museum’s 2007 exhibition Compelling Visions: Florida Collects Folk Art, but includes objects not in that exhibition. Many of the most talented and respected self-taught African American artists—represented by paintings, sculpture, assemblage, and drawings—are included in this inspiring exhibition: Purvis Young, Bill Traylor, Clementine Hunter, Nellie Mae Rowe, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Mose and Annie Tolliver, Missionary Mary Proctor, Lonnie Holley, Ruby Williams, Roger Rice, Dilmus Hall, and Robert Howell.
Unveiled, with nearly 300 works, is the largest exhibition ever assembled by the Museum. These rarely seen objects reveal the vast richness of the Museum’s collection, as many of them have never before been on view to the public. This illuminating exhibition spotlights art from antiquity to the present day: paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, prints, drawings, watercolors, photographs, and ancient ceramics. Selected by Chief Curator Jennifer Hardin, this exhibition features works by such noted artists as Ferdinand Léger, Edouard Manet, Camille Pissarro, Ernest Fiene, Max Beckmann, Jim Dine, Robert Rauschenberg, and James Rosenquist, as well as relatively unknown artists like Joseph Bail, Alexander Loemans, and W. Seaman. Unveiled is the inaugural exhibition in the new Hazel Hough Wing.
With the premiere of the Hazel Hough Wing, the Museum not only looks forward, but also back in time. Mrs. Stuart’s Legacy offers a fascinating overview of the MFA’s early history. No previous exhibition has examined the works that Museum founder Margaret Acheson Stuart and her family, friends, and supporters donated to launch the MFA, as well as some of the Museum’s first purchases. It creates a vivid picture of the vision the founders had for the nascent Museum, and reveals how the institution has greatly and purposely broadened its scope in the following years. Director Dr. John E. Schloder has curated this exhibition.
Ansel Adams and the American West celebrates the American master Ansel Adams (1902-1984) and his contributions to the progress of photography as an art form. It also honors his activities that helped to preserve the beauty of the American landscape and our national parks. Thirty of the nearly 60 photographs are by Adams, including several large-scale images.
Benjamin Gollay, a New Yorker and an attorney, befriended many of the artists of the New York School in the era after World War II, including one of the most important, Robert Motherwell. Gollay was introduced to many of the artists by his friend, the noted art critic Harold Rosenberg, and soon began to advise them both formally and informally. He gave them valuable legal advice, and, in exchange, they often left art on his doorstep or would invite him to select pieces from their studios. Over the course of a few decades, he assembled a collection of about 150 artworks, which he displayed in his office and homes in New York and East Hampton.
Approximately forty paintings, sculptures, and works on paper will form an exhibition in the Museum’s new wing. While the Museum presently has half the collection on extended loan from Mr. Gollay’s daughter Elinor (many of which were shown in the summer of 2001 and only two of which are now on view in the Museum’s newly installed gallery of post 1950 art), it will reunite this part of the collection with selections from Ms. Gollay’s stepmother Jean Gollay. Artists represented include both major figures of the New York School as well as those who are coming into their own: William de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Hedda Stern, Wilfred Zogbaum, Milton Resnick, Norman Bluhm, Robert deNiro, Sr., Michael Goldberg, Dorothy Dehner, Angelo Ippolito, and Bob Thompson. This exhibition offers special insights into the New York School of the 1950s and 1960s. It present us with an opportunity to comprehend the powerful ties that sustain patrons and artists through their creative productions and one particular individual, Benjamin Gollay, who admired them and their independent spirit immensely.
When Gold Blossoms celebrates the dazzling beauty and awe-inspiring technical craftsmanship of Indian jewelry with more than 150 pieces dating from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, primarily from South India. The exhibition underscores the significance of ornamentation in Indian culture, and presents exquisite examples of rings, anklets, earrings, hair pendants, jeweled crowns, and ivory combs crafted from precious stones. Spectacular highlights include an elaborate cobra-head braid ornament comprised of rubies, emeralds, diamonds and pearls set in gold, and an enameled, gold crown for the image of a deity set with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds.
The exhibition is organized by the Asia Society and Museum, New York. The national tour is organized by the American Federation of Arts. Molly Emma Aitken, an independent curator and art historian, curated the exhibition. The national tour of this exhibition is made possible, in part, by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, with additional support from the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation Fund for Collection-Based Exhibitions at the American Federation of Arts.
This important exhibition features superb examples of pottery from the American Arts and Crafts movement by such esteemed potteries as Rookwood, Grueby, Newcomb College, Marblehead, Teco, Saturday Evening Girls, and Overbeck. The works are on loan from the Two Red Roses Foundation, one of this country’s most important private collections of Arts and Crafts objects. Reacting against the crassness of industrial production and seeking to elevate the decorative arts to the level of the fine arts, fervent Arts and Crafts reformers advocated the reintegration of art into everyday life. The implications were both social and aesthetic, and touched upon critical issues such as the role of women in society and the search for a modern style. This exhibition is curated by Martin Eidelberg, Professor Emeritus in Art History at Rutgers University, and Dr. Jonathan Clancy, independent scholar.
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue which documents all the works exhibited and whose text sheds new light on the origin and meaning of “Arts and Crafts,” and explores the origins of early twentieth- century design.
Dürer is considered the greatest German artist of the Renaissance era. This magnificent exhibition offers an exclusive look at the artist’s innovative interpretations of sixteenth century Christianity and his position as a critical figure between Gothic naturalism and Italian humanism. The collection is drawn from the renowned Hessisches Landesmuseum (Hessian State Museum), Darmstadt, Germany, and is comprised of 100 examples of Dürer’s woodcuts, etchings, and engravings. This exhibition is organized by the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, and toured by International Arts & Artists, Washington, D.C. The exhibition is curated by Dr. Mechthild Haas, graphics curator at the Hessisches Landesmuseum.
In an age of email and instant messaging, More Than Words reconnects us to the wonders of handmade communications. The exhibition consists of 58 original, hand-illustrated letters from such celebrated artists as Alexander Calder, Thomas Eakins, Andy Warhol, and Andrew Wyeth. Their communications offer an intimate view of the artists’ worlds—their families, friends, business relations, travels, and personal observations—each in the sender’s own distinctive style. This exhibition is organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. The exhibition is curated by Liza Kirwin, Curator of Manuscripts at the Archives of American Art.
For the last twenty years, Lesley Dill has consistently explored the human form, sensory experience, language, and their interactions. Her work can be both ephemeral and spiritual. She uses bronze, photography, poetry, thread, wire, and paper to sculpt her figures and build her tapestries, giving visual form to poetic texts by Salvador Espriu, Franz Kafka, and Emily Dickinson. Recurring motifs, such as leaves, hands, and text, flow through the pieces, bringing together the artist’s explorations of the last decade. This exhibition includes roughly 30 works that highlight Dill’s dramatic, sculptural installations. This exhibition is organized by the Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee, in conjunction with George Adams Gallery, NY. Nandini Makrandi, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Hunter Museum, curated this exhibition.