Maya Art @ The Met, NYC & Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth - Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art

Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

November 21, 2022 - April 2, 2023

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth 

May 7 – September 3, 2023.

Maya artist. Whistle with the Maize God emerging from a flower (detail), 

Mexico, Late Classic period (A.D. 600–900). Ceramic, pigment. 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 

The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, 

Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979 (1979.206.728)

Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

In Maya art—one of the greatest artistic traditions of the ancient Americas—the gods are depicted in all stages of life: as infants, as adults at the peak of their maturity and influence, and finally, as they age. The gods could perish, and some were born anew, providing a model of regeneration and resilience. The exhibition Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art brings together nearly 100 rarely seen masterpieces and recent discoveries in diverse media—from the monumental to the miniature—that depict episodes in the life cycle of the gods, from the moment of their birth to resplendent transformations as blossoming flowers or fearsome creatures of the night. Created by masters of the Classic period (A.D. 250–900) in the spectacular royal cities in the tropical forests of what is now Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, these landmark works evoke a world in which the divine, human, and natural realms are interrelated and intertwined. Lenders include major museum collections in Europe, Latin America, and the United States, and many of these works have never been exhibited in the U.S., including new discoveries from Palenque (Mexico) and El Zotz (Guatemala).

“Lives of the Gods invites us to experience the exhilarating and profound power of Maya visual artistry,” said Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director of The Met. “This stunning exhibition presents spectacular works of art—many rarely seen, especially in New York—and compelling reflections on depictions of the divine; the importance of ancestral knowledge; and new understandings of Maya creative practices and the artist’s role in court society. This is sure to be a memorable show for our visitors.”  

Recent advances in the study of Maya hieroglyphs have made it possible to identify the names of dozens of artists from the Classic period, and for the first time in a major exhibition their names will be identified on labels. While artist signatures are scarce on ancient art across the world before the 19th century, Maya sculptors and painters did sign their works, occasionally prominently, on beautifully carved stone monuments and delicately ornamented vessels. Lives of the Gods includes four works by named individuals—including Panel with Royal Woman (c. 795) by K'in Lakam Chahk and Jun Nat Omootz, and Stela 51 of King Yuknoom Took’ K’awiil (731) by Sak[...] Yuk[...] Took’ and Sak [...] Yib'ah Tzak B’ahlam—as well as several examples that can be attributed to known Maya painters.

“These Maya artists gave form to the gods in inspired ways, through remarkable works of visual complexity and aesthetic refinement,” said Joanne Pillsbury, Andrall E. Pearson Curator of Ancient American Art, The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing at The Met. “As archaeologists continue to make major discoveries, our knowledge of Classic Maya visual culture becomes enriched, and exhibitions—like this one—reveal new understandings of the relationships between ancient communities and the sacred.”

Exquisitely carved sculptures were believed to embody divine power and presence; ornaments of jadeite, shell, and obsidian once adorned kings and queens, symbolically connecting them to supernatural forces; and finely painted ceramics reveal the eventful lives of the gods in rich detail.

Exhibition Overview

The exhibition is organized thematically, following the arc of the lives of the gods and their place within a cosmological framework.

The first section of the exhibition, “Creations,” presents mythical episodes related to the origin of the world. On August 11, 3114 B.C., before the advent of cities and writing in this part of the world, inscriptions tell us that the deities “were set in order,” and the gods placed stones in mythical locations. Maya kings replicated these divine actions at celebrations marking the ends of calendrical periods, each calculated at regular intervals from 3114 B.C. Sculptures and ceramic objects highlight the aged god Itzamnaaj (the name of a major deity in colonial Yucatán) and its avian avatar, who played important roles in primordial myths. A monumental limestone throne back—from the Usumacinta River area— introduces visitors to the Classic-period city-states of the Maya and creation stories expressed through sculpture and painting.

“Day” explores the balance between the gods of the day, such as the Sun God K’inich, and the nocturnal gods like the Jaguar God in the section “Night,” to follow. The sun was associated with life-giving forces, and rulers who identified closely with this power would often add the title K’inich to their name. Many deceased kings were portrayed as glorious new suns rising in the sky, overseeing their successors’ performance of royal duties. Equally imposing and dignified, Maya artists created imaginative and terrifying images of nocturnal deities. Jaguars—who figure prominently in imagery of the night gods—are powerful nighttime hunters in the Maya area, and therefore jaguar gods and goddesses all displayed an aggressive, warlike personality. There were also beautiful and often suggestive nocturnal deities such as the Moon Goddess, who was sometimes identified in texts as the sun’s wife or mother, represented in various narratives on vessels throughout this section.

The “Rain” section features depictions of two important and interrelated gods—the powerful rain god, Chahk, and the god of lightning, fertility, and abundance, K’awiil. Rain gods were venerated throughout the Maya region, and acts of appeasement to them were, and still are, critical for the well-being of communities. A highlight will be a tripod plate (7th–8th century), in The Met’s collection, that depicts Chahk waist high in water, with the Maize God emerging from a waterlily in the depths below and celestial beings hovering above him.

The section on “Maize” chronicles this god’s life, death, and rebirth through an assemblage of stunning and inventive masterpieces. The Maize God represented the beauty of the Maya staple crop, and is often depicted by Maya artists as an eternally youthful, graceful being. The Maize God was also associated with two of the most valuable items in ancient Maya economies—jade and cacao. Episodes from the Maize God’s mythical saga appear on some of the ancient Americas’ finest ceramic vessels.

 “Knowledge” will delve into the work of the scribes, who spent long years learning the intricacies of Maya writing and employed hundreds of signs in varied combinations, which can be seen throughout the exhibition. Only four of the books created in the pre-Hispanic period have endured to the present day, but texts that survive on relief sculptures and delicately painted ceramics provide a resource for understanding Classic Maya alliances, conquests, and spiritual beliefs.

The final section, on “Patron Gods,” includes a striking series of works depicting kings and queens taking on various aspects and attributes of the gods. Maya artists created monumental sculptures to celebrate events and depict the perceived connection between rulers and the gods. Freestanding slabs known as stelae stood in the large plazas of Maya cities, and some of these sculptures bear the signatures of sculptors. Also on display will be a remarkable lintel—a horizontal support spanning a doorway—made of zapote wood. There are few Maya works carved in wood in antiquity that survive to the present day, and this lintel represents a celebration in the wake of the victory of Tikal (and its king Yihk’in Chan K’awiil) over rival Naranjo. Sculptures and vessels in the exhibition demonstrate the intimate relationship between Maya royalty and the gods and underscore the role of religion in the establishment and maintenance of Maya political authority.

Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art is one of a series of special exhibitions and installations that will present art of the ancient Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, and Oceania while the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing is closed for a renovation project that will reenvision these collections for a new generation of visitors. This exhibition is an opportunity to see several extraordinary works from the Museum’s collection of ancient American art alongside exceptional loans that deepen our understanding and appreciation of Classic Maya art, and spotlight the significant collaboration between The Met and colleagues across the world. An important thematic component of the new galleries will be to highlight the artistic virtuosity of this region of the world through foregrounding authorship, also a key subject in this exhibition. 

Additionally, two massive stelae—both long-term loans from the Republic of Guatemala—will remain on view in The Met’s Great Hall. Installed in September 2021, the stelae feature representations of influential Indigenous American rulers: a king, K’inich Yo’nal Ahk II (ca. A.D. 664–729), and queen, Ix Wak Jalam Chan (Lady Six Sky) (ca. A.D. 670s–741), one of the most powerful women known by name from the ancient Americas.

The exhibition was organized by Joanne Pillsbury, Andrall E. Pearson Curator of Ancient American Art, The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, with Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Yale University, and Laura Filloy Nadal, Associate Curator, also at The Met in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing. The exhibition was initially conceived with James Doyle, Director the Matson Museum, Associate Research Professor, Pennsylvania State University, and is organized at the Kimbell by Jennifer Casler Price, Curator of Asian, African, and Ancient American Art.

A lavishly illustrated catalogue, published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press, will accompany the exhibition.

The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Kimbell Art Museum. After its showing at The Met, the exhibition will travel to the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, May 7–September 3, 2023.

THE MET 

FIFTH AVENUE

1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028

www.metmuseum.org

Turner's Modern World @ Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

Turner's Modern World 

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth 

October 17, 2021 – February 6, 2022 

J. M. W. TURNER

Glaucus and Scylla, 1841

Oil on panel, 36 13/16 x 301/2 in.

Kimbell Art Museum, AP 1966.11

J. M. W. TURNER

Peace – Burial at Sea, Exhibited 1842

Oil on canvas, 34 1/4 x 34 1/8 in.

Tate Britain, London

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, D00528 

Photo © Tate, London, 2020

J. M. W. TURNER

War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet, Exhibited 1842

Oil on canvas, 31 1/4 x 31 1/4

Tate Britain, London

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, D00529 

Photo © Tate, London, 2020

The Kimbell Art Museum presents the U.S. premiere of Turner’s Modern World, a showcase of paintings by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), one of Britain’s greatest artists. Drawn from the collections of Tate Britain, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Yale Center for British Art and others, the exhibition features more than 100 key works that explore how Britain’s preeminent landscape painter found new, modern ways to interpret the extraordinary events of his time. 

“The Kimbell is thrilled to host such major paintings and watercolors by J.M.W. Turner, a towering figure in the history of European art,” said Eric M. Lee, director of the Kimbell Art Museum. “He is renowned as a landscape painter with an astonishing range of mood and atmosphere. In his work, Turner often drew from history, but he was also fully engaged with modernity and a keen observer of current events—from the Napoleonic Wars to the Industrial Revolution—which provided the subject matter for some of his most dramatic compositions.”

Born in the early years of the Industrial Revolution, William Turner witnessed spectacular technological innovations and the mechanization of modern life. As the advances of industry and commerce brought Britain to world power, Turner immortalized these rapid changes in vivid and dramatic compositions.

From the 1790s to the end of William Turner’s life, Britain’s economic and political fabric underwent continual and far-reaching alterations. Industrial development brought machines to the workplace, made possible the spread of steam power and resulted in a massive redistribution of the rapidly growing population from the country to newly industrialized cities. The speed of change was dizzying.

J. M. W. TURNER

The Interior of a Tilt Forge (Swans Sketchbook), c. 1798

Graphite on paper 6 9/10 x 9 9/10 in.

Tate Britain, London

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, D01735 and D01736

Photo © Tate, London, 2020

J. M. W. TURNER

The Interior of a Cannon Foundry, 1797-1798

Graphite and watercolor on paper 9 3/4 x 13 3/5 in.

Tate Britain, London

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, D00873

Photo © Tate, London, 2020

Turner’s Modern World explores British life—beginning with the artist’s earliest works, such as The Interior of a Tilt Forge from one of his pocket sketchbooks—and British politics, in such works as The Northampton Election, during the first half of the century. The great land and sea battles of the Napoleonic Wars—Trafalgar and Waterloo—are marked with monumental canvases, meant to bring modern history home to the public.

The advances of industry and commerce that brought Britain to world power—and the limitations of that power—were pictured by Turner in such paintings as Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth and Peace – Burial at Sea. Both works were completed in 1842, at a time when William Turner had developed a new and radical style of painting, his sweeping compositions achieved with his trademark brushwork—skillful handling of the paint that gave the impression of being wild and uncontrolled.

In his last years, he surpassed his contemporaries by melding his modern-day subjects with this highly innovative style—an accomplishment that established him as one of the founders of modern art. For a painting by William Turner to be “modern,” it did not have to depict a contemporary subject: the great painting from the Kimbell’s permanent collection Glaucus and Scylla, for example, tells the ancient myth of a nymph who flees her lover as a vengeful witch transforms him from a sea-god to a monster. The painting’s subject is taken from Ovid; its modernity lies in the way it is painted.

Though William Turner began his career as a topographical watercolorist and painter of beautiful scenery, he grew to be one of the greatest innovators of his century—and left behind him dynamic, inspired and comprehensive testament to his own era. He was not only a witness to modernity, but an interpreter and champion for his generation.

J. M. W. TURNER

Ship and Cutter, c. 1825

Watercolor and graphite pencil on paper, 9 3/8 x 11 3/8 in.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, gift of William Norton Bullard, 23.1240

J. M. W. TURNER

Staffa, Fingal's Cave, c.1831-32

Oil on canvas, 35 3/4 x 47 3/4 in.

Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut,

Paul Mellon Collection, B1978.43.14

J. M. W. TURNER

The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October, 1834 c. 1834-35

Oil on canvas, 36 1/4 x 48 1/2 in.

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of John L. Severance, 1942.647

J. M. W. TURNER

Rockets and Blue Lights (Close at Hand) to Warn Stearm Boats of Shoal Water, 1840

Oil on canvas, 36 1/4 x 48 1/8 in.

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1955.37

“Turner’s Modern World reveals an artist who was determined—to use a phrase we hear often now—‘to be relevant.’ As we look at art from two centuries ago, it is important to remember, as one artist put it, that ‘all art has been contemporary,’” notes George T.M. Shackelford, deputy director and curator for the exhibition at the Kimbell. “Turner’s concern for and depiction of the issues facing British society in his lifetime should strike contemporary audiences as profoundly modern—and profoundly relevant.”

This exhibition is organized by Tate Britain in association with the Kimbell Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The curator for the exhibition at the Kimbell Art Museum is George T.M. Shackelford, deputy director.

CATALOGUE

In the beautifully illustrated exhibition catalogue (Tate Publishing), Turner expert David Blayney Brown, curator Amy Concannon and art historian Sam Smiles reveal how Turner updated the language of art and transformed his style and practice to produce revelatory, definitive interpretations of modern subjects.

Upcoming Exhibitions at Kimbell Art Museum:

The Language of Beauty in African Art

April 3 – July 31, 2022 

Murillo: From Heaven to Earth 

September 18, 2022 – January 29, 2023 

KIMBELL ART MUSEUM

3333 Camp Bowie Boulevard, Fort Worth, Texas 76107

www.kimbellart.org

An-My Lê @ The Carter, Fort Worth - On Contested Terrain

An-My Lê: On Contested Terrain

Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth

April 18 - August 8, 2021

The Amon Carter Museum of American Art (the Carter) will present the first comprehensive survey of the work of Vietnamese-American photographer AN-MY LÊ (b. 1960). Featuring photographs from a selection of the artist’s five major bodies of work, the nationally touring An-My Lê: On Contested Terrain draws connections across Lê’s career and provides unprecedented insight into her subtle, evocative images that draw on the classical landscape tradition to explore the complexity of American history and conflict.

Celebrated photographer Lê has spent nearly 25 years exploring the edges of war and recording these landscapes of conflict in beautiful, classically composed photographs. Born in Saigon in the midst of the Vietnam War, Lê vividly remembers the sights, sounds, and smells of growing up in a warzone. She and her family were eventually evacuated by the U.S. military in 1975. It would take another 20 years for Lê to return to her homeland, this time with a large-format camera in tow.

“We are proud to bring An-My Lê: On Contested Terrain to our North Texas community,” said Andrew J. Walker, Executive Director. “Lê’s photographs bring history into conversation with the present, confronting head-on, complicated questions that remain relevant today. It feels especially important that we are spotlighting her work during our anniversary year, as it draws on the traditions reflected in our historical photography collection and underlines our 60-year commitment to exhibiting the best American photographers at the Carter.”

Lê follows in the tradition of nineteenth-century photographers like Timothy O’Sullivan and Mathew Brady, whose images of the Civil War brought the realities of combat to everyday Americans. Crafting sweeping views that emphasize the size and breadth of the theater of war, Lê captures the complexity of conflict and the full scope of military life, avoiding the sensationalism often seen in newspapers and movies. On Contested Terrain highlights the artist’s technical strengths, used to compose beautiful images that draw the viewer into deeper consideration of complex themes of history and power.

The exhibition presents selections from five of Lê’s major series:

- Viêt Nam (1994–98)

Almost 20 years after her family was evacuated, Lê returned to Vietnam with her large-format camera. The resulting series is a meditation on her homeland, addressing both her memories of it and the country’s reality decades later. It depicts the landscape as a backdrop for human history, a theme Lê would return to again and again.

- Small Wars (1999–2002)

Back in the United States, Lê photographed Vietnam War reenactors in North Carolina and Virginia, often participating as a North Vietnamese soldier or Viet Cong rebel. Working with the reenactors, many of whom had not fought in the war, to achieve “authenticity” whenever possible, Lê made images that explore the legacy and mythology of the Vietnam War for contemporary Americans.

- 29 Palms (2003–04)

Unable to secure credentials to embed on the front lines of the Iraq War, Lê traveled to a California military base to photograph troops training in a landscape similar to the environment in which they would soon be deployed. In addition to the desert training exercises, Lê photographed the debriefings and downtime that filled the soldiers’ days.

- Events Ashore (2005–14)

This series, the artist’s first foray into color photography, was created over nine years that Lê spent photographing the crews of U.S. naval vessels around the world. An extensive exploration of the global reach of the American military, Events Ashore includes scenes of everyday life on an aircraft carrier alongside diplomatic, humanitarian, military, and political activities.

- Silent General (2015–ongoing)

In her current series, Lê grapples with the legacy of America’s Civil War and responds to the complexities of the current socio-political moment. Her poetic photographs of polarized landscapes confront issues of our time that are rooted in our history, from the fate of Confederate monuments to immigration debates around agricultural laborers.

“An-My Lê has spent decades investigating conflicted terrains, both physical and metaphorical” stated Kristen Gaylord, Assistant Curator of Photographs. “Her photographs consider questions that we are all thinking about now: What does it mean to be an American citizen? How does our country’s history shape our contemporary lives? What should be the role of the U.S. in the world? These questions are especially salient for the City of Fort Worth, which includes a major defense contractor, the first Joint Reserve Base in the country, and residents and refugees from around the world, including Vietnam, Somalia, Guatemala, and Afghanistan. The generosity and incisiveness of Lê’s vision are a model for how we can navigate these complexities together.”

An-My Lê: On Contested Terrain is organized by Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. The exhibition debuted at Carnegie Museum of Art (March 2020 - January 18, 2021). Following the presentation at the Carter, the exhibition will travel to the Milwaukee Art Museum in fall 2021. An-My Lê: On Contested Terrain is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring many images never-before-published.

AN-MY LÊ was born in Saigon in 1960. She and her family fled Vietnam in 1975, living for a short period of time in Paris, France, before settling in the United States as a political refugee. Lê received her BAS (1981) and MS (1985) degrees in biology from Stanford University and an MFA from Yale University in 1993. While Lê is represented in many major museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Dallas Museum of Art — An-My Lê: On Contested Terrain is the first survey of her work in an American museum. Currently, a professor of photography at Bard, Lê has received many awards, including the MacArthur Foundation Fellow (2012), the Tiffany Comfort Foundation Fellowship (2010), the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program Award (2007), and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1997). Her work has been exhibited at museums and galleries across the world, including the Baltimore Museum of Art; Dia Beacon, Beacon, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; MoMA PS1, New York; and more, and her photography was featured in the 2017 Whitney Biennial.

AMON CARTER MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

3501 Camp Bowie Blvd., Fort Worth, TX 76107

www.cartermuseum.org

_____________________

Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey, Exhibition at the Amon Carter Museum, Texas

Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey
The Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, USA
Through August 11, 2013

On May 18, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art opened Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey, an exhibition of nearly 50 artworks by ROMARE BEARDEN (1911-1988), one of the most powerful and original artists of the 20th century. The collages, watercolors and prints in the exhibition are based on Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey,” the ancient story of the Greek hero Odysseus’s journey home to Ithaca after fighting in the Trojan War. The exhibition is the first full-scale presentation of these works outside of New York City and is organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey is on view at the Amon Carter through August 11, and admission is free.

In the Black Odyssey series, Romare Bearden establishes an artistic bridge between Homer’s poem—arguably the definitive work of classical mythology—and African-American culture by depicting Homeric characters as black players on the timeless stage of antiquity. As Bearden once said, “All of us are on a kind of odyssey. And I think this is what makes the story so lasting, so classic, and applicable to everyone.”

Robert G. O’Meally, the Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and curator of the exhibition, suggests a still broader context to Bearden’s series, which assures us that the search for home, family and a sense of belonging is central to self-discovery for all modern-day Americans regardless of race. “In creating the Black Odyssey series,” O’Meally says, “Bearden not only staked a claim to the tales of ancient Greece as having modern relevance, he also made the claim of global cultural collage—that as humans, we are all collages of our unique experiences. Indeed, Bearden does not merely illustrate Homer—he is Homer’s true collaborator, and he invites us as viewers to inherit Homer’s tale and interpret it as our own.”

Amon Carter director Andrew J. Walker concurs. “Bearden’s reinterpretation of ‘The Odyssey’ has a universal appeal that will perhaps allow us all to reflect on our own personal journeys,” he says. “The artworks are beautiful and filled with vivid, saturated colors and geometric images that captivate the imagination. Because Bearden’s work is not in our collection, the exhibition offers an introduction of this important American artist to our visitors.”

The exhibition provides visitors with many ways to learn about Bearden’s life and work. A multimedia tour is available as a free app on web-compatible devices, including smartphones and tablets, and works with Android and Apple operating systems. Visitors may also access the tour on one of the museum’s handheld devices, available for free check out during their visit. Visitors can create works of art by remixing Bearden’s collages in a free iPad app titled “Romare Bearden: Black Odyssey Remixes.” With this app, visitors can layer shapes and forms, and add written words and sound to a variety of Bearden backdrops. (This app is only accessible on visitors’ iPads; devices are not available at the museum.)

Within the exhibition visitors can discover Bearden’s influences, inspiration and techniques through a 15-minute film. It features rarely seen interviews and footage of Bearden at work in his studio; poignant insight and analysis from O’Meally and Diedra Harris-Kelley, the artist’s niece; and commentary from his close friend and personal photographer, Frank Stewart.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the museum will display the work of local artist Sedrick Huckaby (b. 1975), who credits Bearden as an important influence. Huckaby’s 18-by-14-foot oil painting Hidden in Plain Site (2011) will be displayed in the museum’s atrium through October.

Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey is organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service in cooperation with the Romare Bearden Foundation and Estate and DC Moore Gallery. The exhibition and its related educational resources are supported by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. The Fort Worth presentation is supported in part by Bates Container, the Garvey Texas Foundation and AZZ incorporated.

A fully illustrated companion book of the same name (DC Moore Gallery, 2008), written by O’Meally, complements the exhibition. The hardcover book features full-color images of Bearden’s work and an essay by O’Meally, and retails for $45 in the Amon Carter’s Museum Store + Café.

After the exhibition closes in Fort Worth, it continues on its seven-city national tour through 2014 with stops in Madison, Wis., Atlanta, Manchester, N.H. and New York.

Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX
Museum's website: www.cartermuseum.org

Marie Cosindas: Instant Color at Amon Carter Museum, Texas

Marie Cosindas: Instant Color
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX
Through May 26, 2013

MARIE COSINDAS (b. 1925) did not intend to be a photographer. The eighth of ten children in a modestly situated Greek family living in Boston, she studied dressmaking in school and took up a career designing textiles and children’s shoes, also acting as a color coordinator for a company that made museum reproductions in stone. On the side, she created abstract paintings filled with atmospheric color.

Marie Cosindas initially thought of the camera as a means for making design notes. But as so often happens, several photographs she took on a visit to Greece convinced her that such prints could stand on their own as finished works. In 1961, she participated in one of Ansel Adams’s photography workshops in Yosemite Valley. The following year, when Polaroid sought photographers to test its new instant color film before bringing it to market, Adams recommended her.

Marie Cosindas immediately took to the process of instant-developing color film and, in so doing, proved instrumental in revealing the artistic potential of color photography. She made such exquisite still lifes and portraits that even Polaroid’s founder, Edwin Land, was astounded. This exhibition includes 40 of Marie Cosindas’s one-of-a-kind Polaroid photographs and is the artist’s first major show in decades.

Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX
Museum's website: www.cartermuseum.org

Picasso and Braque: The cubist experiment, 1919-1912. Kimbell Art Museum, Texas, and Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910-1912
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth
Through August 21, 2011 

Santa Barbara Museum of Art 
September 17, 2011 - January 8, 2012

PICASSO AND BRAQUE: THE CUBIST EXPERIMENT, 1910-1912  is the first exhibition to unite many of the paintings and nearly all of the prints created by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque during these two exhilarating years of their artistic dialogue, is now on view at the Kimbell Art Museum . “This small-scale exhibition examines a brief moment with huge implications for the history of art,” commented Eric M. Lee, director of the Kimbell Art Museum. “This show is the first to focus exclusively on this landmark period of intense productivity and adventure for Picasso and Braque.” This international loan exhibition is organized by the SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF ART and the KIMBELL ART MUSEUM and has its debut in Fort Worth. 

During the years 1910 through 1912, these two great masters invented a new style that took the basics of traditional European art—modeling in light and shade to suggest roundedness, perspective lines to suggest space, indeed the very idea of making a recognizable description of the real world—and toyed with them irreverently. 

“These are beautiful, enigmatic, playful works of art. They’re like conversations in the artist’s studio or favorite café, not to be hurried,” remarked Malcolm Warner, deputy director at the Kimbell Art Museum. “We hope our visitors will take the time to savor them.” Following up on hints they found in the work of Paul Cézanne, and brimming with youthful bravado, Picasso and Braque created pictorial puzzles, comprehensible to a point but full of false leads and contradictions. Viewers pick up a few clues—a figure, a pipe, a moustache, a bottle, a glass, a musical instrument, a newspaper, a playing card—and these start to suggest a reality in three dimensions. The impression is that of a fast, modern world, with glimpses of models, friends, and the paraphernalia of drinking and smoking. But things never fully add up, either in detail or as a whole—and deliberately so. Teasingly elusive, the image is a construction of forms and signs that the artist has put together in a spirit of parody and play. The pleasure for the viewer is to let go of all normal expectations and enter into the game, which is an endlessly intriguing one. 

More than any avant-garde artists before them, Picasso and Braque called into question conventional ideas about art as the imitation of reality. They collaborated so closely and like-mindedly (“roped together like mountain climbers,” in Braque’s own phrase) that their works of this period are sometimes difficult to tell apart. Their radical experiment in picture-making, which came to be known as Analytic Cubism, has been as far-reaching in its implications for art as the theories of Einstein for science.

This choice, intimately scaled exhibition, featuring 16 paintings and 20 etchings and drypoints, was conceived and organized by Eik Kahng, chief curator at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, in partnership with the Kimbell and Mr. Warner. The Kimbell is a natural collaborator on the project since the Museum’s collection includes an outstanding example of the work of each artist from the Analytic Cubist period, Picasso’s Man with a Pipe and Braque’s Girl with a Cross, both painted in 1911. 

In the exhibition these appear among paintings from a number of other distinguished collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Menil Collection and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Tate in London, the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, and the Robert B. and Mercedes H. Eichholz Collection. The etchings and drypoints are selected from several sources, most notably the extraordinary holdings of Cubist prints in the Melamed Family Collection.

Not surprisingly in light of its importance in the history of art, Cubism has been the subject of numerous museum exhibitions. Some of them have been dauntingly large, especially given the amount of time each of these highly complicated works demands of the viewer. The guiding principle of the present exhibition is that less can be more. It offers the kind of small, carefully calibrated selection that invites the viewer to spend time exploring each work in detail. 

The inclusion of a good number of etchings and drypoints ensures that printmaking emerges with a proper sense of its importance to Picasso and Braque at this moment in their careers. Other themes suggested by the exhibition and discussed in the accompanying catalogue include the role of format, especially the use of oval-shaped canvases. What part does this play in the Cubists’ pictorial game? How do the visual push and pull of the oval format differ from those of the rectangle or square? How did the artists intend their oval compositions to be framed? 

This last question is especially relevant to the Kimbell’s Picasso, an oval canvas that has been lined and framed as a rectangle. In an essay in the catalogue, Kimbell conservators Claire Barry and Bart Devolder present the discovery that this painting appears in an early photograph of the artist’s studio—as a work in progress, much different from its final form, but clearly on an oval stretcher. This, along with results of their research into the materials and techniques of the Cubists, will also be presented in a special section of the exhibition. 

For the past year, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art has been working with California-based MegaVision to capture spectral images of select works in the exhibition. The quality of spectral imaging surpasses that of normal professional photography. Thanks to recent advances in the technology of LEDs (light-emitting diodes), RGB (red, green, and blue) filters have been removed from behind the lens and replaced with LED-produced RGB light, which is aimed directly onto the object that is being photographed. Beyond the visible spectrum, spectral imaging allows options for ultraviolet and infrared, which can reveal features invisible to the human eye. The elimination of the filters in the optical path allows for a higher-quality image, greater accuracy of color, and, especially important in the art world, a huge reduction of harmful light.

The spectral imaging created by MegaVision will be incorporated into interactive software that will allow visitors and online users to manipulate and study works with a level of detail and precision never before possible for museum audiences.  Produced in partnership with the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the Kimbell Art Museum, this cutting-edge visual technology introduces new ways to look at and understand the processes, relationships, and stylistic developments of this important movement. Hand-held, touch-screen computers will provide mobility and interactive media content to exhibition visitors.  For the first time in a museum setting, every visitor will have the opportunity to sit in front of an actual painting by Picasso or Braque and independently zoom in on the smallest brush strokes and specks of color. This is just an example of the many explorations that this program will make available to visitors.

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE

The exhibition catalogue includes essays by some of today’s most talented scholars in the field: Eik Kahng, Charles Palermo, Harry Cooper, Annie Bourneuf, Christine Poggi, Claire Barry, and Bart Devolder. It is distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven and London, and is available in the Museum Shop in hardcover ($30).

Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910–1912 is on view at the Kimbell Art Museum since May 29 through August 21, 2011, and at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art from September 17, 2011, through January 8, 2012. It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. 

Kimbell Art Museum

3333 Camp Bowie Boulevard, Fort Worth, TX 76107

Kimbellmuseum.org

iCubist: iPad application to delve more deeply into Cubism

Visitors to the upcoming Kimbell Art Museum exhibition Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910-1912 will be able to use a specially created iPad application to delve more deeply into Cubism.

"Advances in digital imaging and the convenience of an iPad provide new ways to look at and understand the processes, relationships, and stylistic developments of the revolutionary art form now known as Analytic Cubism," commented Eric M. Lee, director of the Kimbell Art Museum. "I'm thrilled that the Kimbell is able to provide this unique opportunity to Museum visitors."

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the Kimbell have been working with MegaVision, a digital-imaging company based in California, to capture spectral images of select pieces in the exhibition. The quality of spectral imaging surpasses that of normal professional photography, and it allows options for ultraviolet and infrared, which can reveal features invisible to the human eye.

Affectionately titled iCubist, the app was designed specifically for the Picasso and Braque exhibition. It will showcase the spectral images along with three other original activities and will be made available exclusively to exhibition visitors, free of charge, on 40 preloaded iPads.

The iCubist activities allow users to:

View and study works with a level of detail and precision never before possible for museum audiences. Users will have the ability to manipulate a succession of digitized spectral images that show the artworks at different light frequencies (ultraviolet and infrared), revealing the most minute details. Such fascinating views of the paintings uncover important decisions made by the artists in developing their compositions.

Deconstruct a Cubist composition and attempt to put it back together. By rebuilding these composite reproductions, visitors learn first-hand about the intellectual and creative processes employed by Picasso and Braque in their paintings. The physical act of moving visual elements emphasizes compositional choices made by the artists to create, for example, a sense of balance or movement. It also highlights recognizable elements and describes their significance.

Compare digital reproductions of paintings by the featured artists, Picasso and Braque, by clicking on markers that pop up to explain key aspects of their individual styles. This interactive activity will help visitors exercise connoisseurship to distinguish between the artists' hands, despite their close similarity during the Cubist years.

Explore the history of Cubism by means of an illustrated timeline that includes vintage photography of the artists and their friends and reproductions of key works of art.

The iCubist app was designed and produced by REZA ALI for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the Kimbell Art Museum. 

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas 

www.kimbellart.org

Lifting the Veil: Robert S. Duncanson and the Emergence of the African-American Artist at Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth

Lifting the Veil: Robert S. Duncanson and the Emergence of the African-American Artist
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth
April 20 - June 16, 1996

Lifting the Veil: Robert S. Duncanson and the Emergence of the African-American Artist is the first national touring exhibition of paintings by African-American painter Robert S. Duncanson (1821-1872), freeborn artist of color who rose from house painter to accomplished landscape painter in the years preceding the Civil War. Best known for his views of nature, Robert S. Duncanson created a distinctive pastoral style of romantic landscape painting and became the principal artist of the Ohio River Valley tradition at midcentury.

Lifting the Veil contains more than fifty oil paintings, including Land of the Lotus Eaters (1861), from the collection of His Royal Majesty the King of Sweden; Uncle Tom and Little Eva (1853), Detroit Institute of Arts; and Blue Hole, Flood Waters, Little Miami River (1851), Cincinnati Art Museum. Also represented are manuscripts, newspapers, books, and drawings.

Robert S. Duncanson's career spans a time of tremendous racial upheaval, from the antebellum era through emancipation and Reconstruction. Some scholars interpret Robert S. Duncanson's paintings as thinly veiled messages that were understood by his African-American community. Just as slave songs held double significance, Robert S. Duncanson's paintings contained references to the evils of slavery. By closely examining his landscape painting in the light of contemporary historical and social events, one can "lift the veil" and expose their underlying content--the experience of an African-American living in the antebellum United States.

Joseph D. Ketner, Director of the Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis, curated the exhibition Lifting the Veil and authored the accompanying publication. The Emergence of the African-American Artist: Robert S. Duncanson, 1821-1872 (235 pages, 144 black and white illustrations, 20 color plates) is available in the Museum Bookstore for $27.50.

The Amon Carter Museum is the third venue on a national tour which opened last fall in Duncanson's hometown of Cincinnati, with a major collaborative showing at the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Taft Museum. Lifting the Veil was seen at the Washington University Gallery of Art this winter, and following its showing at the Carter, will travel to the Clark-Atlanta University Art Gallery and Hammonds House Galleries in Atlanta, July 19-September 15, 1996, as one of the chief cultural attractions of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.

The national tour of Lifting the Veil is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funds for the exhibition were provided by the Hortense Lewin Art Fund and the St. Louis Printmarket Fund of Washington University. The exhibition is organized by the Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis. 

AMON CARTER MUSEUM
Fort Worth, Texas
cartermuseum.org

Updated 23.06.2019