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Art History

Viva Woman! at Brooklyn Museum’s March 6

February 15, 2010 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Brooklyn Museum’s First Saturdays events attract thousands of visitors to free programs of art and entertainment each month. March’s First Saturday celebrates the talent and power of women throughout history. Highlights include the new exhibition Kiki Smith: Sojourn on view in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art; a special performance by renowned Haitian vocalist Emeline Michel; a screening of Deepa Mehta’s Water; a discussion by author Staceyann Chin of her new book The Other Side of Paradise; and a dance party hosted by DJ Mary Mac.

SCHEDULE OF PROGRAMS

5 p.m. Gallery Tour
Join a Museum Guide for a tour of the exhibition To Live Forever: Art and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt.

5-11 p.m. Object of the Month
Spend some time with the sculpture Mother with Child in the African galleries. A special activity takes place in front of the artwork at 8 p.m.

6-8 p.m. Music
Emeline Michel blends Haitian compas, twoubadou, and rara with jazz and other types of world music. Part of the Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concert Series.

6-8:30 p.m. Film
Water (Deepa Mehta, 2005, 117 min., PG-13) examines the plight of a group of widows forced into poverty at a temple in the holy city of Varanasi, India, in 1938. A question-and-answer session with Gayatri Gopinath, Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at New York University, follows the screening. Free timed tickets are available at the Visitor Center at 5:30 p.m.

6:30-8:30 p.m. Hands-On Art
Create a clay figure inspired by one of history’s powerful women. Free timed tickets are available at the Visitor Center at 5:30 p.m.

7 p.m. Curator Talk
Yekaterina Barbash, Assistant Curator of Egyptian Art, highlights images of women and goddesses in the exhibition Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments and Amulets. Free timed tickets are available at the Visitor Center at 6 p.m.

7-8 p.m. Discussion
Filmmaker Barbara Hammer talks about her new book Hammer! and her involvement in the feminist movement. Free timed tickets are available at the Visitor Center at 6 p.m.

8 p.m. Curator Talk
Catherine Morris, Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, discusses Kiki Smith and her work. Sign Language-interpreted. Free timed tickets are available at the Visitor Center at 7 p.m.

8:30 p.m. Young Voices Gallery Talk
Student Guides on female figures throughout the ancient Egyptian collection.

9 p.m. Book Club
Jamaican performance artist Staceyann Chin discusses her memoir, The Other Side of Paradise.

9-11 p.m. Dance Party
DJ Mary Mac hosts a dance party highlighting the queens of hip-hop and soul.

Throughout the evening, a cash bar will offer beer and wine, and the Museum Café will serve a wide variety of sandwiches, salads, and beverages. The Museum Shop will remain open until 11 p.m.

Some First Saturday programs have limited space and must be ticketed; lines for free tickets often form 30 minutes in advance. Programs are subject to change without notice. Museum admission is free after 5 p.m. Museum galleries are open until 11 p.m. Parking is a flat rate of $4 from 5 to 11 p.m.

For more information, visit www.brooklynmuseum.org.

Photo: Staceyann Chin. Photo Courtesy of the Artist

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Art History, Brooklyn Museum, Gender History

Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region Call For Entries

January 31, 2010 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Hyde Collection announces the call for entries associated with the 2010 Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region Juried Exhibition, which will be on view at the Museum from October 1 through December 12, 2010. [Read more…] about Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region Call For Entries

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Art History, Hudson River, Hyde Collection, Mohawk River, Museums-Archives-Historic Sites, Warren County

Brooklyn Museum To Host Major Andy Warhol Exhibit

January 28, 2010 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is the title of a major touring exhibition that will run June 18 to September 12, 2010 at the Brooklyn Museum (Robert E. Blum Gallery, 1st floor, and Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 5th floor). The exhibit is the first U.S. museum survey to examine the late works of American artist Andy Warhol (1928–1987). With nearly fifty works, the exhibition reveals the artist’s vitality, energy, and renewed spirit of experimentation. During this time Warhol produced more works, in a considerable number of series and on a vastly larger scale, than at any other point in his forty-year career.

It was a decade of great artistic development for Warhol, during which a dramatic transformation of his style took place alongside the introduction of new techniques. He continued to create his screen-printed portraits, but he also reengaged with
painting. In the late 1970s, Warhol developed a new interest in abstraction, first with his Oxidations and Shadows series, and later with his Yarn, Rorschach, and Camouflage paintings. His return to the hand-painted image in the 1980s was inspired by collaborations with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente, and Keith Haring.
The exhibition concludes with Warhol’s variations on Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, one of the largest series of his career. Andy Warhol: The Last Decade provides an important framework for understanding Warhol’s work by looking at how he simultaneously incorporated the screened image and pursued a reinvention of
painting.

The exhibit is being organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum. The exhibition was
curated by Joseph D. Ketner II, Henry and Lois Foster Chair of Contemporary Art, Emerson College, Boston. The Brooklyn Museum presentation is organized by Sharon Matt Atkins, Associate Curator of Exhibitions, Brooklyn Museum.

A catalogue published by Prestel accompanies this exhibition.

Tour: Milwaukee Art Museum, September 26, 2009–January 3, 2010; Museum of Modern Art, Fort Worth, February 14–May 16, 2010; Baltimore Museum of Art, October 17, 2010–January 9, 2011.

Photo: Andy Warhol at the Jimmy Carter White House during a reception for inaugural portfolio artists in 1977. Courtesy the National Archives.

Filed Under: New Exhibits Tagged With: Art History, Brooklyn Museum, New York City

Hyde Collection Announces 2010 Exhibition Schedule

January 23, 2010 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls has announced its 2010 Exhibition Schedule. This year’s schedule includes American Impressionist landscape paintings, twentieth-century Modern art, a regional juried high school art show, a major exhibition of the work of Andrew Wyeth, and the museum will also play host for the first time to the long-running Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region, an annual juried show founded in 1936. The complete schedule from the Hyde Collection announcement is below. [Read more…] about Hyde Collection Announces 2010 Exhibition Schedule

Filed Under: New Exhibits Tagged With: Art History, Hyde Collection, Museums-Archives-Historic Sites, Warren County

Hyde Collection Announces New Board Members

January 11, 2010 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, Warren County, has announced new members and 2010 officers of its board of trustees. New to the Museum board are Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy; Joseph F. Raccuia, president and CEO of Finch Paper, LLC; and Leo A. Rigby, CPA, Partner in Ross Rigby & Patten LLP. [Read more…] about Hyde Collection Announces New Board Members

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Art History, Hyde Collection, Museums-Archives-Historic Sites, Public History, Warren County

Thomas Cole House Hosts Sunday Salons

January 9, 2010 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Sunday Salons are gatherings at the home of Thomas Cole, with guest speakers leading discussions on topics relating to the Hudson River School, America’s first major art movement. The public is invited for wine, cheese, and lively conversation once per month at Cedar Grove, the birthplace of American landscape painting. Sundays at 2pm. Tickets are $8 per person or $6 for members. Admission is first-come-first-served. [Read more…] about Thomas Cole House Hosts Sunday Salons

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Art History, Thomas Cole National Historic Site

Folk Art: New Joseph Hidley Painting Comes to Light?

December 8, 2009 by Editorial Staff 6 Comments

A newly discovered piece of folk art appears to be the early work of Rensselaer County artist Joseph H. Hidley. The work, a small graphite drawing signed “Drawn by Joseph Hidley, 1841, age 11,” was purchased at a Massachusetts auction by Halsey Munson, a Decatur, Illinois a dealer in early American furniture, accessories and folk art. Although the authenticity of the piece has not yet been definitely established, it is an early townscape of the Hudson River village of Saugerties, similar in style and composition to Hidley’s other work.

Joseph Hidley’s short career is well represented in regional, state, and national museum collections. If authenticated, “Saugerties” would be the earliest known work of Hidley who painted genre scenes, religious allegories, and land and townscapes while also working as a taxidermist and house, sign, and wagon painter.

The work is remarkably similar to a portion of William Wade and William Croome’s Panorama of the Hudson River from New York To Albany, which was published in 1846. The finding suggests that Hidley may have known William Croome, and copied his work before it was published.

The first step, according to Munson, is authenticating the work. “In all of this, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time studying the published Hidley works and comparing them with the piece I have,” Munson told me via e-mail. “Even allowing for my understandable desire for this piece to be right, I’ve found enough solid points of similarity to give me quite a bit of confidence that this could easily be by Joseph Hidley.”

The image shows the first lighthouse at the mouth of the Esopus Creek at Saugerties, built in 1838 with funds appropriated from Congress, to guide ships away from nearby shallows and into the Esopus Creek when Saugerties was a major port. The light used five whale oil lamps with parabolic reflectors and was replaced in 1869, by a lighthouse that still stands. The foundation for the original lighthouse can still be seen adjacent to the existing lighthouse.

Photo provided by Halsey Munson.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Art History, Hudson River, Maritime History, Rensselaer County, Saugerties, Ulster County

Rarely Seen Tissot Watercolors On View

December 2, 2009 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Many of the iconic watercolors illustrating the New Testament by 19th-century French painter James Tissot, including many images related to the Nativity are on view at the Brooklyn Museum only through January 17, 2010. James Tissot: The Life of Christ includes 124 watercolors, selected from a complete set of 350 in the Museum’s collection. It marks the first time in over twenty years that any of these images have been on public view, in large part because of the extreme fragility of watercolors.

Among the scenes related to the birth of Christ that are included in the exhibition are The Annunciation, Saint Joseph Seeks a Lodging in Bethlehem, The Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, The Magi Journeying, and The Adoration of the Shepherds.

Born in France, James Tissot (1836-1902) enjoyed a successful career as a society painter in London and in Paris before experiencing a religious vision, after which he began the ambitious project of illustrating the life of Christ, an undertaking that took a decade. It resulted in carefully researched, detailed images that were widely exhibited before rapt audiences in Europe and the United States.

In 1900, at the urging of John Singer Sargent, the entire series was acquired by the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, the precursor of the Brooklyn Museum, for the then huge sum of $60,000. The significant acquisition increased by several times, the then small art collection of the fledging museum.

A selection of images from the exhibition, including several of the Nativity-related watercolors, is available for press use.

Photo: James Tissot (French, 1836-1902) The Adoration of the Shepherds, 1886-94, Brooklyn Museum

Filed Under: New Exhibits Tagged With: Art History, Brooklyn Museum, Religion

Hyde Exhibition of Modern Art to Open November 28

November 25, 2009 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

This Saturday, November 28, The Hyde Collection will open “Divided by a common language? British and American Works from The Murray Collection.” The exhibition of approximately twenty works of Modern art from the twentieth century are part of a larger collection donated to the Museum by the late Jane Murray. [Read more…] about Hyde Exhibition of Modern Art to Open November 28

Filed Under: New Exhibits Tagged With: Art History, Hyde Collection, Warren County

James Tissot’s Life of Christ Watercolors Exhibit

October 21, 2009 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The exhibition James Tissot: “The Life of Christ” will include 124 watercolors selected from a set of 350 that depict detailed scenes from the New Testament, from before the birth of Jesus through the Resurrection, in a chronological narrative. On view from October 23, 2009, through January 17, 2010, it marks the first time in more than twenty years that any of the Tissot watercolors, a pivotal acquisition that entered the collection in 1900, have been on view at the Brooklyn Museum.

The exhibition has been organized by Judith F. Dolkart, Associate Curator, European Art, and will travel to venues to be announced. It will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue of the complete set of 350 images, to be published by the Museum in association with Merrell Publishers Ltd, London.

Born in France, James Tissot (1836-1902) had a successful artistic career in Paris before going to London in the 1870s, where he established himself as a renowned painter of London society, before returning to Paris in 1882. He then began work on a set of fifteen paintings depicting the costumes and manners of fashionable Parisian society women. While visiting the Church of St. Sulpice in the course of his research, he experienced a religious vision, after which he embarked on an ambitious project to illustrate the New Testament.

With the same meticulous attention to detail that he had applied to painting high society, he now created these precisely rendered watercolors. In preparation, he made expeditions to the Middle East to record the landscape, architecture, costumes, and customs of the Holy Land and its people, which he recorded in photographs, notes, and sketches, convinced that the region had remained unchanged since Jesus’s time. When he returned to his Paris studio he drew upon his research materials to execute the watercolors, concentrating on this project to the exclusion of his previous subject matter.

Unlike earlier artists, who often depicted biblical figures anachronistically, Tissot painted the many figures in costumes he believed to be historically authentic. In addition to the archaeological exactitude of many of the watercolors, the series presents other, highly dramatic and often mystical images, such as Jesus Ministered to by Angels and The Grotto of the Agony.

Tissot began the monumental task of illustrating the New Testament in 1886 and first presented selections at the Paris Salon in 1894 (before the series’ completion), where they were received with great enthusiasm. Press accounts on both sides of the Atlantic reported emotional reactions among the visitors: some women wept or kneeled before the works, crawling from picture to picture, while men removed their hats in reverence.

In May 1901 the 350 watercolors, newly mounted in gold mats and reframed, went on view for the first time on Eastern Parkway; records seem to indicate they remained on nearly continuous display until the 1930s. Since then, in part because of conservation concerns, they have only rarely been shown, and then only small portions of the series, most recently in late 1989 through early 1990.

Photo: James Tissot. Jesus Goes Up Alone onto a Mountain to Pray, 1886-94. Brooklyn Museum

Filed Under: New Exhibits Tagged With: Art History, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum, Religion

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