In 1930, Frida Kahlo first visited the United States, traveling to San Francisco with her husband, Diego Rivera. Ninety years later she returns to the de Young museum in the exhibition, Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving. Offering an intimate perspective on the iconic artist and examining how politics, gender, trauma, sexuality, and national identity influenced Kahlo’s diverse modes of creativity, the exhibition showcases a trove of the artist’s personal items from the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City, including photographs, clothing, jewelry and hand-painted orthopedic corsets, alongside about twenty of Kahlo’s paintings and drawings. The artist Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907–1954), is today an iconic figure, known as much for her intensely personal artwork as for her striking appearance. Kahlo began to paint while recovering from a nearly fatal bus accident in 1925, which left her unable to bear children. Kahlo famously married the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (1886–1957) in 1929. Their union was unconventional—they in fact divorced briefly in 1939—but they were both deeply interested in their art and revolutionary politics.
Nickolas Muray, “Frida with Olmeca Figurine, Coyoacán“, 1939.
Today, Kahlo is known for her unique personal style as much as for her extraordinary art practice. A celebrity during her life, now elevated to icon status, her image is instantly recognizable and widely reproduced. Memorialized in arresting self-portraits and myriad photographs, her image is as much an expression of her creativity as her paintings are. Both her art and style reflect her deeply held personal beliefs, which led to the creation of a magnetic and enduring icon.
“The gringas really like me a lot and take notice of all the dresses and rebozos that I brought with me, their jaws drop at the sight of my jade necklaces and all the painters want me to pose for them.” — Frida Kahlo, letter to her parents while visiting San Francisco, 1930
It looks as if it will be another banner year of thought-provoking and wide-ranging exhibitions during the coming year at The Whitney Museum of American Art. (And one should not expect any less.) Announcing the schedule for 2020 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Scott Rothkopf, Senior Deputy Director and Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator, noted: “In 2020 the Whitney will celebrate its ninetieth anniversary and fifth year downtown, so we’ve created a program that truly honors the spirit of artistic innovation both past and present. We remain focused on supporting emerging and mid-career artists, while finding fresh relevance in historical surveys from across the twentieth century. Also turning ninety, Jasper Johns closes out the year with an unprecedented retrospective that will reveal this American legend as never before to a new generation of audiences.”
On
February 17 the Museum opens Vida Americana: Mexican
Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945, a major
historical look at the transformative impact of Mexican artists on
the direction of American art from the mid-1920s until the end of
World War II. On October 28, in collaboration with thePhiladelphia Museum of Art,
a landmark retrospective of the work of Jasper Johns goes on
view simultaneously at both museums, paying tribute to the foremost
living American artist. In addition, the Whitney will devote
exhibitions to Julie Mehretu and Dawoud Bey, prominent
midcareer artists. The Mehretu exhibition, co-organized by the
Whitney with theLos Angeles
County Museum of Art, encompasses over two decades of the
artist’s work, presenting the most comprehensive overview of her
practice to date. In November, Dawoud Bey, one of the leading
photographers of his generation, will receive his first full-scale
retrospective, co-organized by the Whitney and the San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).
The Whitney Museum of American Art
The
Museum will also present Agnes Pelton: Desert
Transcendentalist—organized by the Phoenix
Art Museum—the first exhibition of work by the visionary
symbolist in nearly a quarter century; and Working Together:
The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop, an unprecedented
exhibition organized by the Virginia
Museum of Fine Arts, which chronicles the formative years of
this collective of Black photographers who lived and worked in New
York City. The year will also bring a range of focused exhibitions
dedicated to emerging and midcareer artists, including Darren
Bader, Jill Mulleady, Cauleen Smith, and Salman Toor, as
well as Dave McKenzie and My Barbarian, who continue
the Whitney’s commitment to performance and its many forms.
In
September the Museum will also unveil David Hammons’s
monumental public art installation Day’s End on Gansevoort
Peninsula, across the street from the Whitney. The debut of
this public artwork will be preceded by an exhibition entitled Around
Day’s End: Downtown New York, 1970–1986, which will
present a selection of works from the Museum’s collection related
to the seminal work that inspired Hammons’s sculpture: Gordon
Matta-Clark’s Day’s End (1975).
MAJOR
EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS
“Vida
Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945”,
February 17–May 17, 2020
The
cultural renaissance that emerged in Mexico in 1920 at the end of
that country’s revolution dramatically changed art not just in
Mexico but also in the United States. With approximately 200 works by
sixty American and Mexican artists, Vida Americana reorients
art history, acknowledging the wide-ranging and profound influence of
Mexico’s three leading muralists—José Clemente Orozco, David
Alfaro Siqueiros, and Diego Rivera—on the style, subject
matter, and ideology of art in the United States made between 1925
and 1945. By presenting the art of the Mexican muralists alongside
that of their American contemporaries, the exhibition reveals the
seismic impact of Mexican art, particularly on those looking for
inspiration and models beyond European modernism and the School of
Paris.
Works
by both well-known and underrecognized American artists will be
exhibited, including Thomas Hart Benton, Elizabeth Catlett, Aaron
Douglas, Marion Greenwood, Philip Guston, Eitarō Ishigaki, Jacob
Lawrence, Isamu Noguchi, Jackson Pollock, Ben Shahn, Thelma Johnson
Streat, Charles White, and Hale Woodruff. In addition to
Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros, other key Mexican artists in the
exhibition include Miguel Covarrubias, María Izquierdo, Frida
Kahlo, Mardonio Magaña, Alfredo Ramos Martínez, and Rufino
Tamayo.
Organized by Barbara Haskell, curator, with Marcela Guerrero, assistant curator; Sarah Humphreville, senior curatorial assistant; and Alana Hernandez, former curatorial project assistant. (See previously-posted article here.)
This mid-career survey of Julie Mehretu (b. 1970; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), co-organized by The Whitney with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), covers over two decades of the artist’s career and presents the most comprehensive overview of her practice to date. Featuring approximately forty works on paper and more than thirty paintings dating from 1996 to today, the exhibition includes works ranging from her early focus on drawing and mapping to her more recent introduction of bold gestures, saturated color, and figuration. The exhibition will showcase her commitment to interrogating the histories of art, architecture, and past civilizations alongside themes of migration, revolution, climate change, and global capitalism in the contemporary moment. Julie Mehretu is on view at LACMA November 3, 2019–March 22, 2020, and following its presentation at the Whitney from June 26 through September 20, 2020, the exhibition will travel to the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA (October 24, 2020–January 31, 2021); and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (March 13–July 11, 2021).
Jasper
Johns (b. 1930) is arguably the most influential living American
artist. Over the past sixty-five years, he has produced a radical and
varied body of work marked by constant reinvention. In an
unprecedented collaboration, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the
Whitney will stage a retrospective of Johns’s career simultaneously
across the two museums, featuring paintings, sculptures, drawings,
and prints, many shown publicly for the first time. Inspired by the
artist’s long-standing fascination with mirroring and doubles, the
two halves of the exhibition will act as reflections of one another,
spotlighting themes, methods, and images that echo across the two
venues. A visit to one museum or the other will provide a vivid
chronological survey; a visit to both will offer an innovative and
immersive exploration of the many phases, facets, and masterworks of
Johns’s still-evolving career.
The
cultural renaissance that emerged in Mexico in 1920 at the end of
that country’s revolution dramatically changed art not just in
Mexico but also in the United States. Vida Americana: Mexican
Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945 will explore the
profound influence Mexican artists had on the direction American art
would take. With approximately 200 works by sixty American and
Mexican artists, Vida Americana reorients art history,
acknowledging the wide-ranging and profound influence of Mexico’s
three leading muralists—José Clemente
Orozco, Diego
Rivera, and David Alfaro
Siqueiros—on the style, subject matter, and ideology of
art in the United States made between 1925 and 1945.
The
Whitney Museum’s own connection to the Mexican muralists dates back
to 1924 when the Museum’s founder Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
presented an exhibition of the work of three Mexican artists—José
Clemente Orozco, Luis Hidalgo,
and Miguel Covarrubias—at the
Whitney Studio Club, organized by artist Alexander Brook.
It was Orozco’s first exhibition in the United States. A few years
later, in 1926, Orozco also showed watercolors from his House of
Tears series at the Studio Club; and the following year Juliana
Force, Mrs. Whitney’s executive assistant and future director
of the Whitney Museum, provided critical support for Orozco at
a time when he desperately needed it by acquiring ten of his
drawings. The Mexican muralists had a profound influence on many
artists who were mainstays of the Studio Club, and eventually the
Whitney Museum, including several American artists featured in Vida
Americana, such as Thomas Hart
Benton, William Gropper, Isamu Noguchi, and
Ben Shahn.
Curated by Barbara Haskell, with Marcela Guerrero, assistant curator; Sarah Humphreville, senior curatorial assistant; and Alana Hernandez, former curatorial project assistant, Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945 will be on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art from February 17 through May 17, 2020 and will travel to the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, where it will be on display from June 25 through October 4, 2020. At the McNay Art Museum, the installation will be overseen by René Paul Barrilleaux.
“Vida
Americana is an enormously important undertaking for the Whitney and
could not be more timely given its entwined aesthetic and political
concerns,” said Scott Rothkopf, Senior Deputy
Director and Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator. “It
not only represents the culmination of nearly a decade of scholarly
research and generous international collaboration but also
demonstrates our commitment to presenting a more comprehensive and
inclusive view of twentieth-century and contemporary art in the
United States.”
Comprised
of paintings, portable frescoes, films, sculptures, prints,
photographs, and drawings, as well as reproductions of in-situ
murals, Vida Americana will be divided into nine thematic
sections and will occupy the entirety of the Whitney’s fifth-floor
Neil Bluhm Family Galleries. This unprecedented installation, and
the catalogue that accompanies it, will provide the first opportunity
to reconsider this cultural history, revealing the immense influence
of Mexican artists on their American counterparts between 1925 and
1945.
For centuries, women-identified artists have struggled to receive recognition for their accomplishments. Despite more than a century of feminist activism and great strides towards social, professional and political equality, women remain dramatically underrepresented and undervalued in the art world today. In response, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), has reinstalled the entire third floor of its Art of the Americas Wing with approximately 200 artworks made by women over the last 100 years—a “takeover” that aims to challenge the dominant history of art from 1920 to 2020 and shine a light on some of the many talented and determined women artists who deserve attention. The thematic exhibition coincides with the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, as well as the MFA’s 150th anniversary—a yearlong celebration focused on enhancing the power of art and artists, honoring the past and re-imagining the future.
Women
Take the Floor seeks to acknowledge and remedy the
systemic gender discrimination found in museums, galleries, the
academy and the marketplace, including the MFA’s inconsistent
history in supporting women artists. The exhibition also explores art
and suffrage—emphasizing that both could give women a voice in
their community and the world. At the same time, it recognizes that
past feminist movements, including the campaign for the right to
vote, were not inclusive or immune from systemic racism. By looking
at 20th-century American art through the lens of modern-day
feminism—which advocates for equity and intersectionality (the way
an individual’s race, class, gender and other identities combine
and overlap)—MFA curators hope to broaden the stories that are told
during the yearlong commemoration of women’s suffrage in 2020.
Primarily
drawn from the MFA’s collection, the works featured in Women
Take the Floor include paintings, sculpture, prints,
photographs, jewelry, textiles, ceramics and furniture. The central
gallery, dedicated to portraits of women created by women, provides a
large convening space where visitors are invited to share
perspectives and participate in a wide range of programs scheduled to
take place throughout the run of the exhibition. Women Take the
Floor is on view through May 3, 2021. Sponsored by
Bank of America. Generously supported by the Carl and Ruth
Shapiro Family Foundation. Additional support from the Jean S.
and Frederic A. Sharf Exhibition Fund, and the Eugenie
Prendergast Memorial Fund.
“Our
goals are to celebrate the strength and diversity of work by women
artists while also shining a light on the ongoing struggle that many
continue to face today. We see these efforts of recognition and
empowerment to mark a first step to redress the systematic
discrimination against women at the MFA, and within the art world,”
said Nonie Gadsden, Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator of American
Decorative Arts and Sculpture, who led a cross-departmental team of
curators in organizing Women Take the Floor.
Gadsden
coordinated a cross-departmental curatorial team for the exhibition,
including Reto Thüring, Beal Family Chair, Department of
Contemporary Art; Erica Hirshler, Croll Senior Curator of
American Paintings; Lauren Whitley, Senior Curator of Textiles
and Fashion Arts; Patrick Murphy, Lia and William Poorvu
Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings and Supervisor, Morse Study
Room; Karen Haas, Lane Senior Curator of Photographs; and
former MFA Curatorial Research Associates Caroline Kipp,
Emelie Gevalt and Zoë Samels.
To
ensure the exhibition represented a broad range of perspectives, the
MFA convened a roundtable discussion with local women community
leaders to inform interpretation and give feedback on the project,
particularly on the Women Depicting Women
gallery. As a result, outside voices are a key feature of
the central space, and informed interpretation throughout the
exhibition. Porsha Olayiwola, the current poet laureate for
the city of Boston, will write a new poem and perform it on video,
and the local feminist collective The
Cauldron has identified quotes from feminist voices, which
will be featured in the entry space.
The
core space of the exhibition focuses on Women
Depicting Women: Her Vision, Her Voice.
The works on view range across time and place, as well as social,
political and cultural contexts, yet all represent a highly
individual interpretation of female portraiture. Highlights
throughout the run of the exhibition will include celebrated
paintings by Frida Kahlo, Alice Neel and Loïs Mailou
Jones; photographs by Andrea Bowers, Maria Magdalena
Campos-Pons, Laura McPhee and Cindy Sherman; and the
recently acquired portrait of feminist activist Rosemary Mayer
by Sylvia Sleigh.
In
the decades following the campaign for women’s suffrage, a greater
number of women successfully pursued careers as professional artists
and designers. Yet the road was not easy—nor was it open to all.
Women on the Move: Art and Design in the
1920s and 30s in the John Axelrod Gallery considers
the contributions of pioneering artists like painters Georgia
O’Keeffe and Loïs Mailou Jones and ceramicists Maria
Martinez (San Ildefonso Pueblo) and Maija Grotell. At the
same time, the gallery highlights works by important women artists
who have garnered less recognition, including sculptor Meta
Warrick Fuller, painter Helen Torr and potter Nampeyo
(Hopi-Tewa).
No
Man’s Land, on view in the Melvin Blake
and Frank Purnell Gallery, is devoted to six artists who have
each reimagined the representation of landscape, creating personal
interpretations of the world around them. Working across decades,
geographies and media, Luchita Hurtado, Doris Lindo Lewis, Loren
MacIver, Georgia O’Keeffe, Beverly Pepper and Kay Sage
explored the metaphoric possibilities of both real and imagined
landscapes, often through the use of symbols that allude to female
experiences.
Presented in the Saundra B. and William H. Lane Galleries, Beyond the Loom: Fiber as Sculpture highlights pioneering artists who radically redefined textiles as modern art in the 1960s and 1970s: Anni Albers, Olga de Amaral, Ruth Asawa, Sheila Hicks, Kay Sekimachi and Lenore Tawney. Co-opting a medium traditionally associated with women’s work and domesticity, they boldly broke free from the constraints of the loom to create large-scale, sculptural weavings that engaged with contemporary art movements such as Minimalism. A second rotation in the same space, Subversive Threads, will open late spring 2020, focusing on contemporary artists who have used textiles to challenge notions of identity, gender and politics.
Women
of Action, on view in the Saundra B. and William H.
Lane Galleries, builds on recent scholarship and recognizes the
contributions of Joan Mitchell, Grace Hartigan, Helen
Frankenthaler, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner and ceramicist
Toshiko Takaezu to the formation and expansion of action
painting in the mid-20th century, a movement typically credited to
their male counterparts.
Women
Publish Women: The Print Boom celebrates three
entrepreneurs who founded printmaking workshops in the late 1950s and
1960s and played an underappreciated role in the revitalization of
American printmaking: Tatyana Grosman of Universal Limited
Art Editions (New York), June Wayne of Tamarind
Lithography (Los Angeles) and Kathan Brown of Crown
Point Press (San Francisco). These will be presented in two
rotations in the Robert and Jane Burke Gallery. The third
rotation, Personal to Political: Women Photographers,
1965–1985, will feature work by more than 35 photographers
active during these pivotal decades when women were making major
inroads into the fields of photojournalism, fashion, social
documentary and fine art photography.
Women
and Abstraction at Midcentury takes an expansive look at
abstraction, exploring how women artists reshaped the natural world
for expressive purposes in a wide range of media including paintings,
prints, textiles, ceramics, furniture and jewelry. Among the artists
featured in this space are painters Carmen Herrera, Esphyr
Slobodkina and Maud Morgan; designers Greta
Magnusson-Grossman and Olga Lee; and Clare Falkenstein,
Laura Andreson, Margaret de Patta and others who contributed
to the development of the studio craft movement.
The
exhibition will also include a space for reflection and feedback. In
addition to a video of Olayiwola performing her newly
commissioned poem, a curated bookshelf—including texts on
feminist history and women artists—and a seating area will be
available for visitors. Additionally, curators will select responses
left by the public in an open feedback area to add to the in-gallery
interpretation in Women Depicting Women—creating a
dynamic “living label” that will grow throughout the
installation’s 18-month run.
A
selection of speeches will be available in conjunction with Amalia
Pica’s Now Speak! (2011)—a cast concrete
lectern that encourages visitors to make spontaneous declarations or
deliver a performance of a historical speech. The texts were chosen
by C. Payal Sharma, an independent racial equity and justice
consultant based in Boston. A “living artwork,” Now Speak!
will also serve as the centerpiece of various public programs taking
place in the gallery.
Public
Programming
Public
programming in the space will include a Creative Residency
with ImprovBoston in October, as well as Artist
Demonstrations with painter Joann Rothschild (September
15), weaver Nathalie Miebach (October 13 and 16) and
printmaker Carolyn Muskat (November 10 and 13). On October
9, violinist Ceren Turkmenoglu will perform a program of
works by Ottoman-Turkish women composers of Turkish classical music,
spanning form past to recent times. Public tours of the exhibition
include an hour-long “Curated Conversation” with exhibition
curator Nonie Gadsden on September 29, and 15-minute Spotlight
Talks on October 9.
Feminist
Art Coalition
With
Women Take the Floor, the MFA is participating in the
Feminist Art Coalition (FAC), working collectively with
various art museums and nonprofit institutions across the U.S. to
present a series of concurrent events in the fall of 2020—during
the run-up to the next presidential election—that take feminist
thought and practice as their point of departure. Fellow participants
include Art21; CCA Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art;
Center for Curatorial Studies, Hessel Museum of Art,
Bard College; The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and
Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), RPI; Fine Arts Museums
of San Francisco; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; MIT
List Visual Arts Center; The Renaissance Society, Art
Institute of Chicago; UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film
Archive (BAMPFA); and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
(YBCA).
Art
of the Americas at the MFA
Since
the Museum’s founding in 1870, it has been committed to collecting
art of North, Central and South America from all time periods. Its
diverse holdings rank among the most significant in the nation and
feature masterpieces ranging from gold of the Ancient Americas, Maya
ceramics, and Native American (prehistoric to contemporary) objects,
to one of the finest collections of art of the United States from
colonial through modern times. Additionally, the MFA’s Art
the Americas collection contains more than 13,000 examples
of American decorative arts (furniture, silver, ceramics, glass and
metalwork) and sculpture made across the Americas from the 17th
century to the present––embracing masterworks of artisan and
artist alike. More than 5,000 objects from the Museum’s collection
of works from the Americas are on view in the 49 galleries of the Art
of the Americas Wing, as well as in the Sargent
Rotunda and Colonnade.
Also displayed in these galleries are works from the Americas drawn
from the Museum’s Prints and Drawings;
Photography; Textile and Fashion Arts; and Musical Instruments
collections.
May 1-11 Online Sale | May 8, 9 & 10 Saleroom Auctions
First look at complete collection of more than 1,000 items of decorative art and 550 works of fine art:
Two evening sales of European, American and Latin American masterpieces
Online sales of Fine and Decorative Arts across eight collecting themes
All estate proceeds to benefit philanthropy
Public highlights exhibitions continue around the globe
Los Angeles April 6 –12
Beijing April 6 – 7
Shanghai April 10 –11
New York April 28 – May 8
Christie’s announces final details of the most anticipated art world event of the spring season: the sale of the magnificentCollection of Peggy and David Rockefeller. All of the estate proceeds will be directed to a dozen philanthropies Peggy and David Rockefeller supported during their lifetimes, for the benefit of continuing scientific research, higher education, support for the arts, sustainable economic development, and land conservation initiatives, among others.
New confirmed details include the complete schedule of live and online sales, illustrated catalogs available online, remaining US and Asia highlights tours and locations, and ticket information to attend the special extended public exhibition of the Collection at Rockefeller Center in New York from April 28 – May 8. The global tour and exhibitions are presented in partnership with VistaJet. In total, the Collection is expected to realize in excess of $500 million.Before now, the most valuable collection ever previously offered at auction was the Collection of Yves Saint Laurent et Pierre Bergéin 2009 at Christie’s Paris, which achieved more than US$400 million.
The Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller comprises approximately 1,550 auction lots, including one of the largest and most important collections of decorative arts to come to market in decades. Christie’s will offer 900 lots via live saleroom auctions at its Rockefeller Center site on May 8, 9 and 10. A companion online sale – which opens for bidding worldwide on May 1– will feature an additional 650 lots organized across eight collecting themes, with estimates ranging from $100 to $10,000. Through this unique integration of sale channels, Christie’s brings traditional decorative arts to the forefront, leveraging a sophisticated digital marketing approach and ‘guest-stylist’ partnerships with top tastemakers, interior designers, and social media influencers.
Marc Porter, Christie’s Chairman, Americasstated: “This rich and diverse collection of fine and decorative art is unified by Peggy and David Rockefeller’s love of beauty and their unerring eye for exceptional quality and craftsmanship in design. The size and scope of this great collection has inspired us to innovate new approaches to our traditional sale model and leverage our world-class online sale platform as only Christie’s can. The result is a dynamic week of saleroom auctions, including not one but two Evening Sales of masterworks from European, American and Latin American artists and a stellar offering of Decorative Arts across a range of categories. Our online sale, which is organized along the themes and motifs that resonated most with Peggy and David Rockefeller, brings this Collection to life in a fresh and exciting way, and is designed to make it both easy and enjoyable for collectors from all around the world to participate in this singular philanthropic event.”
Following the main auction week, Christie’s will offer a selection of 19 lots of jewelry from the family collection as a highlight of its Magnificent Jewels sale in New York on June 12. The jewelry will be exhibited as part of the extended exhibition in New York and the highlights tour to Los Angeles.
In keeping with Peggy and David Rockefeller’s wishes, Estate proceeds from the Collection sales at Christie’s will be directed to the following philanthropies, which the Rockefellers supported throughout their lifetimes: American Farmland Trust, Americas Society/Council of the Americas, Council on Foreign Relations, the David Rockefeller Fund, Harvard University, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, Mount Desert Land and Garden Preserve, the Museum of Modern Art, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller University, and The Stone Barns Restoration Corporation – Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, among others.
LOS ANGELES TOUR
West Coast collectors and jewelry enthusiasts will get a first look at the Collection highlights between April 6 and 12 when Christie’s brings a selection of masterpieces and Rockefeller family jewels to its flagship West Coast gallery in Beverly Hills. The touring exhibition was curated with the tastes and interests of Christie’s clients in mind, with rare works by American artists Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Hopper, and Willem de Kooning exhibited alongside masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, and Paul Gauguin. In addition, Christie’s LA will unveil Diego Rivera’s rarely-exhibited large-scale masterwork, The Rivals, painted in 1931 aboard the ship carrying Rivera and Frida Kahlo to New York. A collection of jewelry owned by Peggy Rockefeller will be included in the Los Angeles previews, featuring signed pieces by Van Cleef & Arpels, Jean Schlumberger for Tiffany & Co., and Raymond Yard, among others.
Porter further added: “This rich and diverse collection of fine and decorative art is unified by Peggy and David Rockefeller’s love of beauty and their unerring eye for exceptional quality and craftsmanship in design. The size and scope of this great collection have inspired us to innovate new approaches to our traditional sale model and leverage our world-class online sale platform as only Christie’s can. The result is a dynamic week of saleroom auctions, including not one but two Evening Sales of masterworks from European, American and Latin American artists and a stellar offering of Decorative Arts across a range of categories. Our online sale, which is organized along the themes and motifs that resonated most with Peggy and David Rockefeller, brings this Collection to life in a fresh and exciting way,and is designed to make it both easy and enjoyable for collectors from all around the world to participate in this singular philanthropic event.”Continue reading →
All Images provided by The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Paint the Revolution Will Travel to the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, in 2017.
Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950 is co-organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art(2600 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy, Philadelphia, PA 19130, (215) 763-8100), in partnership with the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artesin Mexico City, will present a landmark exhibition that takes a new and long overdue look at an extraordinary moment in the history of Mexican art. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950 (October 25, 2016–January 6, 2017, Location: Dorrance Special Exhibition Galleries, Philadelphia Museum of Art) will explore the rich and fascinating story of a period of remarkable change. It will be the most comprehensive exhibition of Mexican modernism to be seen in the United States in more than seven decades and will feature an extraordinary range of images, from portable murals and large and small paintings to prints and photographs, books and broadsheets. In this country, Paint the Revolution, will be seen only in Philadelphia before traveling to Mexico City in 2017.
The Museum’s rich collections of Mexican art have served as the inspiration for Paint the Revolution.T he Museum’s holdings in this field are among the most important in the United States. They range from pre-Columbian sculptures to colonial-era paintings and ceramics and to such twentieth-century masterpieces as Self-Portrait with Popocatépetl (1928) by Dr. Atl, Three Nudes (1930) by Julio Castellanos, Bicycle Race (1938) by Antonio Ruiz, War (1939) by David Alfaro Siqueiros, The Mad Dog (1943) by Rufino Tamayo, and two portable frescoes – Liberation of the Peon and Sugar Cane (both from 1931) – by Diego Rivera. The Museum also houses a significant number of works on paper from this period, including drawings and photographs as well as an extensive collection of prints, many of which were featured in the 2006 exhibition Mexico and Modern Printmaking: A Revolution in the Graphic Arts, 1920 to 1950.
Homage to the Indian Race, 1952, by Rufino Tamayo (Acervo CONACULTA–INBA, Museo de Arte Moderno)
The exhibition takes its title from an essay called “Paint the Revolution” by the American novelist John Dos Passos who traveled to Mexico City in 1926-27 and witnessed the murals created by Diego Rivera that celebrate the ideals of the Mexican Revolution. In order to represent Mexican muralism and share with visitors masterpieces by Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros, the exhibition will present in digital form three important murals created by these three artists—often called los tres grandes (the three great ones)—in Mexico and the United States.
This exhibition is curated by a team of specialists including Matthew Affron, the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art; Mark A. Castro, Project Assistant Curator, European Painting, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Dafne Cruz Porchini, Postdoctoral Researcher, Colegio de México, Mexico City; and Renato González Mello, Director of the Institute for Aesthetic Investigation, National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Matthew Affron stated: “Paint the Revolution will touch on all aspects of modern art in Mexico. Though the mural painting tradition remains that country’s best-known contribution to modernism in the visual arts, it is part of a much broader story. Artists were innovating in every possible medium, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, and photography. Their work cut across all classifications, from the epic to the lyric. Visitors to the exhibition will find many surprises.”
Paint the Revolution spans four momentous decades. It will begin by surveying modern art in Mexico City during the revolutionary decade of the 1910s, clearly demonstrating that while many artists engaged with international avant-garde styles, such as Impressionism, Symbolism, and Cubism, they also infused their work with facets of ancient and modern Mexican culture. The exhibition will also explore the artistic experimentation and social idealism of the early post-Revolutionary period, when painters rallied to support the government’s program of national reconstruction and there was growing international recognition of Mexico’s cultural importance. It will also consider the principal avant-garde groups—such as the Stridentists and the Contemporaries—active in Mexico City during this period who pursued alternative directions in post-revolutionary culture, turning away from folkloric and historical subjects and focusing on themes of modern urban life.
In the 1920s and 1930s the development of a vibrant support network and a robust market for modern art in the United States drew Mexican artists northward. The exhibition will follow a number of Mexican painters during their American sojourns, highlighting images with both Mexican and U.S. themes, and focusing on works that dramatized the encounter between south and north, between Hispano- and Anglo-America. Paint the Revolution will conclude with the renewal of socially and politically oriented art in Mexico from the mid-1930s through the aftermath of the Second World War.Continue reading →
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