Works from Old Masters and contemporary artists explore diversity and range of American art from the past to the present
Images for all exhibitions available for download at http://www.taftmuseum.org/pages/images0910.php.
The 2009–10 exhibition season at the Taft Museum of Art offers the chance to view history and see the modern world through the eyes of American artists. The art works in these exhibitions celebrate the heroism of the Civil Rights movement, explore the rugged terrain of coastal New York and trace the rise of photography as a respected artistic discipline.
During the summer, the Taft debuts a new exhibition series, Keystone Contemporary. The inaugural exhibition features new works by painter Emil Robinson. A Cincinnati native, Robinson creates paintings that function as contemplations on daily life. This series carries on a tradition started by Anna and Charles Taft, who were champions of local working artists.
Other contemporary works will be seen in The Chemistry of Color: The Sorgenti Collection of Contemporary African American Art. Many African American artists made creative breakthroughs drawing inspiration from the courage of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. This exhibition traces these developments, with masterworks by Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence, leading to the emphasis on paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and mixed-media objects from the late 20th century that are vibrant, bold, optimistic and spectacularly colorful.
“At the Taft, we care deeply about continuing the tradition of Nicholas Longworth, who in the mid-19th century gave Robert S. Duncanson, a young, talented African American artist a chance to create and a place to speak,” said Lynne Ambrosini, the Museum’s chief curator.
A Cincinnati holiday favorite returns during Antique Christmas. Guests can celebrate the festive season with friends and loved ones, while they experience the wonder and joy of vintage decorations throughout the Tafts’ home.
The outstanding works included in Drawn by New York: Drawings and Watercolors from the New-York Historical Society, which range from the 1600s to the present, explore not only art but American history as well. “The works in this exhibition are some of the best-kept secrets of the New York art world,” said Ambrosini. “They have gone largely unseen for two centuries.”
The works in Drawn by New York express the ever-changing American self-image, as seen through the eyes of Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, John Frederick Kensett, Albert Bierstadt and Jasper Cropsey, among many others.
The tulips, windmills, peasant costumes and canals so characteristic of Holland were powerfully captured by a group of American artists who frequented or settled in the Netherlands in the decades around 1900. The artists included in Dutch Utopia: American Artists in Holland, 1880–1914 painted visions of Holland that alluded to the United States’ colonial Dutch heritage and displayed nostalgia for that more simple way of life.
“Americans of this period revered 17th-century Dutch painters such as Rembrandt and Vermeer,” Ambrosini said . “So many American artists made pilgrimages to Holland to rediscover in person the native soil of these painters, and in the process created their own luminous views of cloud-filled Dutch landscapes, intimate family interiors, and blustery seascapes.”
During Dutch Utopia, the Keystone Gallery will be home to the exhibition Elizabeth Nourse: Motherhood in Holland and France. This small selection of works from local private collections highlights Nourse's interest in depicting mothers and children. “I had not previously realized how many well-known American artists participated in the vogue for Holland—William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri, John Singer Sargent, John Twachtman, and—of particular interest to Cincinnatians—Elizabeth Nourse,” Ambrosini said.
The 2009–10 season ends with a look at Pictorialism—simultaneously a movement, a philosophy, an aesthetic and a style— which resulted in some of the most spectacular photographs ever taken.
“Today we have no problem recognizing photography as an art form,” said Ambrosini. “But in its early days in the mid-19th-century, before photography found acceptance, most photographers tried to make photos that looked like paintings, with romantic subjects staged in softly atmospheric settings, full of poetry or mystery.”
The exhibition TruthBeauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845–1945 shows the desire of artists in the late 19th century to elevate photography to an art form equal to painting drawing, and watercolor.
Throughout the year, exhibitions of small paintingand the Turner watercolors, works from the Taft’s permanent collection, will be shown in the Keystone Gallery.
Taft Exhibition Season 2009–10
July 31–October 18, 2009
Contemporary Keystone: Axis Mundi: Emil Robinson
Keystone Gallery
In this new body of work, Robinson has placed meticulously rendered figures against geometric backgrounds. This juxtaposition of realism and pure pattern reveals the magic of painting—we see what appear to be volumetric forms but are simultaneously reminded that a painting is a two-dimensional surface. Robinson graduated with a master of fine arts degree from the University of Cincinnati in 2006 and a bachelor of arts from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, in 2003. In 2007, he received a grant from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, a Canadian organization that supports emerging representational artists from around the world. His work is represented regionally, nationally, and internationally at Heike Pickett Gallery, Versailles, Kentucky; Gallery Henoch, New York; and Waterhouse & Dodd Contemporary, London, England.
August 21–November 1, 2009
The Chemistry of Color: The Sorgenti Collection of Contemporary African–American Art
Fifth Third Gallery
This exhibition traces developments in African American art throughout the 20th century, beginning with masterworks by Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence, and leading to paintings, sculptures, works on paper and mixed-media objects that are vibrant, bold, optimistic and spectacularly colorful. Artists represented include Benny Andrews, Sam Gilliam, Howardena Pindell, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar and Raymond Saunders. The 70 pieces express the new American ideals and identities forged in the period 1960 to 1990. Philadelphia collectors Harold and Ann Sorgenti assembled this collection, which they donated to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the organizer of this exhibition.
November 20, 2009–January 17, 2010
Drawn by New York: Drawings and Watercolors from the New-York Historical Society
Fifth Third Gallery
The works in this exhibition convey the many transitions of the United States, which began as a dependent colony but soon grew to become a frontier nation, then a burgeoning industrial giant and finally a world power. These rarely exhibited works come from the New-York Historical Society, a museum that began collecting drawings and watercolors before any other public institution in the United States. Founded in 1804, it is the oldest museum in New York and has a premier collection of American art.
November 27, 2009–January 10, 2010
Antique Christmas at the Taft Museum of Art
Baum-Longworth-Sinton-Taft House
Vintage Christmas decorations from area private collectors 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 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.
January 15–May 23, 2010
Small Paintings
Treasures can as often be found in small frames as in large ones. A group of diminutive oil paintings from the Taft Museum of Art and Cincinnati Art Museum offers an intimate experience of collecting tastes at the turn of the 20th century. Featured are tiny paintings by 18th- and 19th-century artists from France, Holland, Belgium and the United States.
February 5–May 2, 2010
Dutch Utopia: American Artists in Holland, 1880–1914
Fifth Third Gallery
Approximately 70 paintings and works on paper have been lent from collections throughout the United States and Europe for this exhibition, which has been organized by the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia. This exhibition features art by renowned American artists such as Gari Melchers, William Merritt Chase, John Singer Sargent and Robert Henri, as well as other painters, including Cincinnati-born artists John Twachtman and Elizabeth Nourse.
March 12 – May 23, 2010
Elizabeth Nourse: Motherhood in Holland and France
Keystone Gallery
The expatriate painter Elizabeth Nourse (American, 1859–1938) left Cincinnati in 1887 to study, live, and work in Europe for the rest of her life. This small selection of paintings and sketchbooks from local private collections highlights her interest in depicting mothers and children in France and Holland. Nourse’s paintings are also featured in the special exhibition Dutch Utopia, which will beon view in the Fifth Third Gallery.
May 21–August 8, 2010
TruthBeauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845–1945
Fifth Third Gallery
The 120 vintage photographs in this exhibition show the rise of Pictorialism in the late 19th century, which strove to elevate photography to an art form. Photographers include Alvin Langdon Coburn, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Gertrude Käsebier, Heinrich Kühn, Robert Demachy, Frederick Evans, F. Holland Day, Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham and Ansel Adams.
May 28–July 25, 2010
Turner Watercolors from the Taft Collections
Keystone Gallery
Along with two major oil paintings, one from early in his career and one late, the Taft Museum of Art holds ten watercolors by Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, 1775–1851). Spanning the first half of the 19th century, these watercolors depict landscapes of Switzerland, Germany, England, Scotland and Italy. Historically, they broke new ground in the artistic fields of book illustration, travel views and the watercolor medium itself.
