Past Exhibitions, 2006–2008
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Antique Christmas Celebrate the holidays with friends and family by visiting the Taft Museum of Art for Antique Christmas. You will find the historic house adorned with dazzling ornaments and delicate paper decorations. A variety of rarely displayed decorations and toys created during the years that the former house was inhabited (1820–1931) will grace its halls and rooms. Notably, German feather trees made of wire and goose feathers will be trimmed with ornaments that were made in America or imported here from around the world. Festive greenery will deck the halls and exterior of the house, and the Dining Room will be set for the holidays with sparkling china, crystal, and silver. |
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"A Right Jolly Old Elf": Thomas Nast's Christmas Illustrations |
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Brush/Clay/Wood: The Nancy & Ed Rosenthal Collection of Chinese Art Organized by the Taft Museum of Art, this exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see a selection of the treasures that fill the home of these local collectors. Explore developments in Chinese art, with outstanding pieces of Ming furniture—chairs, tables, desks, and chests—carved from gleaming dark woods presented alongside ceramic objects spanning the history of Chinese pottery, ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the relatively modern Qing dynasty. The exhibition also includes contemporary paintings by artists trained just after the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). The Rosenthals, who travel periodically in China, have met several of the painters whose canvases they own. Among the artists represented in the collection are Chen Yifei, Mao Yan, Xue Song, Pang Maokun, He Datian, and Zhand Hongtu. Altogether, the collection provides a fascinating window into Chinese art and culture as encountered by a pair of discerning collectors. |
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Views from the Uffizi: Painting the Italian Landscape Tranquil, stormy, or epic, landscapes can take on many moods. A selection of 40 paintings fromt he famed Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, surveys the evolution of landscape painting in Italy over three centuries, from the Renaissance through the 18th century. Included are works by such great painters as Botticelli, Guercino, Poussin, Claude, and Canaletto. The earliest paintings are from the late 15th century, when landscape often served as a backdrop for sacred or historical subjects. In the next century, Venetian painters in particular expanded the role of landscape in art. The 17th century witnessed a great blossoming of pure landscape, when Northern European artists such as Paul Bril, Cornelis van Poelenburgh, and especially Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain helped stimulate the new form. Italian artists contributed to this evoluation, too: Salvator Rosa, Filippo Napoletano, Alessandro Magnasco, and Canaletto introduced original and influential new styles of landscape during the 17th and 18th centuries. Altogether, the landscapes painted in Italy formed the basis of the European landscape tradition, as seen in the Taft Museum of Art's own collection. The exhibition curator, Antonio Natali, is the director of the Uffizi Gallery. The exhibition organizers are Contemporanea Progetti in Florence and the Trust for Museum Exhibitions, Washington, D.C. |
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From Winslow Homer to Edward Hopper: American Watercolor Masterpieces from the Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum holds one of the oldest public collections of American art in the United States. Among its holdings is an extensive collection of watercolors, and 70 of the best have been lent to the Taft Museum of Art. Ranging in date from the late 18th century to 1945, the works represent all the major movements in American art, with an emphasis on landscape and scenes of daily life: late 18th-century picturesque view-paintings, the Hudson River school's ideal landscapes, post-Civil War realism, American Impressionism, early 20th-century modernist abstractions, and American Scene painting of the 1920s and 1930s, also known as Regionalism. Among the featured artists are some of the greatest American practitioners of the watercolor medium, including Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent, Maurice Prendergast, John Marin, and Edward Hopper. This selection constitutes a rich and informative survey of the development of landscape art and watercolor practice in the United States over the course of 200 years. Three distinct but interconnected stories in the history of American art and culture can be traced in this exhibition: the rise of landscape painting and its link to the national identity, the development of the watercolor medium over two centuries, and the actual techniques used by artists employing this luminous medium. The arts of landscape and watercolor debuted and matured in tandem in the United States. In the 19th century, American landscape imagery changed from the documentary to the evocative, and in the 20th century it became abstract and newly realistic. Watercolor practice also evolved as artists mastered and moved beyond painstakingly detailed execution toward the freedom of Impressionist-inspired styles and modernist innovation. The status of watercolor simultaneously shifted from being a medium associated with illustrators and amateurs to one fully embraced by leading artists. The watercolors on display are intimate works that draw us close by means of their transparent washes, the vivid clarity of their colors, and the light that seems to emanate from within them. |
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Jewels of Time: Watches from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute Museum exhibitions dedicated to any aspect of watchmaking come along rarely. This one will complement the Taft’s own historic watch collection and can be seen against the background of the watchmaking industry that flourished in the Tristate area during the 19th and 20th centuries. The installation will be divided into eleven different categories that demonstrate distinct types of watches, each with its own opulent masterpieces. This exhibition is the first to explore watches within the history of decorative arts and jewelry as opposed to the history of their engineering. This exhibition presents 80 of the most visually appealing, finely worked, and technically sophisticated European and American watches from the collection formed around 1900 by brothers Thomas and Frederick Proctor, collectors from Utica, New York. Spanning the period of the Renaissance to the early 20th century, the collection is one of the largest and most important ever formed in the United States. |
Exhibition Sponsors Fine Arts Fund Partner |
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An Antique Christmas at the Taft Museum of Art Old-fashioned Christmas decorations will adorn the galleries of the Taft Museum of Art over the holidays. A variety of rarely displayed objects and toys created during the years that the former house was inhabited (1820-1931) will grace its halls and rooms. Notably, German feather trees made of wire and goose feathers will be trimmed with sparkling ornaments that were made in American or imported here from around the world, such as glass icicles, end-of-day ornaments, Czechoslovakian beaded glass ornaments, Japanese Santa candy containers, American paper scrap and tinsel ornaments, Pennsylvania Dutch cotton batting ornaments, and a range of glass ornaments. Among the antique objects on display will be the porcelain snowbabies popular after World War I; Belsnickles, or Father Christmas figures; and other early toys. Festive greenery will deck the halls and exterior of the house, and the Dining Room will be set for the holidays with antique silver. |
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Romanticism to Post-Impressionism: 19th-Century German Art from the Milwaukee Art Museum The exhibition Romanticism to Post-Impressionism: 19th-Century German Art from the Milwaukee Art Museum looks at the course of German art during a time of great national change. Gothic architecture, contemporary writing, and the beauty of the landscape became new sources of inspiration for Romantic artists such as Schinkel, Olivier, and Friedrich. German immigration and German-American cross-cultural exchange influenced the culture of Cincinnati during the 19th century. In recognition of this fact, the Taft Museum of Art is presenting an exhibition of German fine arts from that formative century. It traces the development of German art by featuring 71 outstanding prints, drawings, watercolors, and paintings from the Milwaukee Art Museum, which holds one of the premier collections of this material in the United States. During the century of Germany's political unification, many German artists sought to create a national art by using elements of German identity in their work. Romantic artists active during the first half of the century included Gothic cathedrals, pine forests, and scenes from German literature in their images, for example. Even after unity was achieved in 1871, and German art opened more widely to European influences, it remained distinctive. German painters and printmakers produced unique variants of the international movements Impressionism, Naturalism, and Post-Impressionism. |
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Johann Wilhelm Schirmer: Etchings from the Milwaukee Art Museum In conjunction with Romanticism to Post-Impressionism: 19th-Century German Art from the Milwaukee Art Museum in the Fifth Third Gallery, this small display in the Keystone Gallery highlights the graphic work of German artists Johann Wilhelm Schirmer (1807–1863), co-founder of the Association for Landscape Composition in 1827 and influential teacher at the Düsseldorf and Karlsruhe academies. Schirmer often combined highly realistic nature studies into large-scale landscape paintings that included historical, biblical, or literary references. He also crafted meticulous etchings, prime examples of which can be seen in this intimate exhibition. |
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Hiram Powers: Genius in Marble |
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Around Town: 19th-Century Books on Cincinnati |
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Luminist Horizons: The Art and Collection of James A. Suydam |
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An Antique Christmas at the Taft Museum of Art Visit the Tafts' home for the holidays, when the halls and galleries of the Museum will be adorned with antique Christmas decorations and festive greenery, and the Dining Room table will be set for the holiday party with sparkling china, crystal, and silver. Traditional German feather trees made of wire and dyed goose feathers are trimmed with ornaments from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and surrounded by toys, figures, and dolls. These festive ornaments and decorations would have been popular during the time the Tafts called the Baum-Longworth-Sinton-Taft House their home. Featured are Belsnickles (papier-mâché Santas), Kugels (blown-glass ornaments with decorative metal tops), Dresdens (embossed paper ornaments), paper dolls, and many other beautiful and rare ornaments on loan from private collections. |
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A Western View: Five Paintings by Henry Farny |
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Michael Scott: Farny Fables |
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Turner Watercolors from the Taft Collections |
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Dark Jewels: Chinese Black and Brown Ceramics from the Shatzman Collection |
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Italian Renaissance Prints From the Cincinnati Art Museum |
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Marvels of Maiolica: Italian Renaissance Ceramics from the Corcoran Gallery of Art Collection One of the most celebrated and collected traditions in the history of ceramics will be on display this spring. This exhibition will showcase 32 brightly colored and exquisitely designed objects including plates, dishes, apothecary jars, and devotional objects. Viewers can compare and contrast the Corcoran Gallery's maiolica with that in the Taft's own collection. It possesses a small, choice group of ornate and elaborate ceramics. |
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