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Babar's Museum of Art
March
22
through
June
22, 2008
Babar was a popular children's fictional character created by Jean de Brunhoff and introduced in his book, L'Histoire de Babar, in 1931. Babar's Museum of Art includes 36 watercolors (the complete original illustrations) along with 16 drawings, sketches and studies for the book. Babar's Museum of Art is organized and loaned by Mary Ryan Gallery, New York.
Karsh: Portrait Photography of Yousuf Karsh
March
27
through
June
22, 2008
Yousuf Karsh built a worldwide reputation as a photographer of people of great accomplishment. This exhibition celebrates a career in which he endeavored to record the faces of those individuals he believed shaped and epitomized contemporary society, specifically in the scientific, political, and cultural arenas. Yousuf Karsh: A Centennial Celebration is organized by the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts.
Lynn Saville: Night Shift
April
5
through
August
3, 2008
Lynn Saville: Night Shift
Part 1: Color photographs
April 5 through June 1, 2008
Part 2: Black and white photographs
June 7 through August 3
It’s amazing how much light you can find at night in a big city—street lights, illuminated signs, light bleeding from interiors through windows, light bouncing off reflective surfaces like wet streets, light absorbed in fluffy snow flakes. The more you look, the more you see. But it takes time for one’s eyes to adjust to low light conditions. Most of us do not see, or do not notice, the interesting effects, the odd disparities, the eerie quiet of night light on deserted streets, parks and trees.
Fortunately, Lynn Saville, a native of North Carolina who now lives and works in New York City, has braved the mysterious darkness and captured oddly enchanted images for us to inspect and enjoy. Working with a large-format camera, she has produced both color and black and white prints that transport us vicariously into places where we might not feel safe to go in person, at night, alone. Beneath bridges, between buildings, down long, dark streets to empty urban vistas in New York, Paris, and other cities, the intrepid photographer leads the eyes of her viewers to sites too easily avoided, to sights too easily overlooked. She fixes images indelibly on photographic paper so that we may study the delicate effects of light cast into darkness: velvety shadows reminiscent of an eighteenth-century mezzotint, crisp contrasts of tree branches silhouetted against stadium lights, glowing orbs of light bulbs overexposed in an effort to illuminate the surroundings.
Saville’s photos have been shown in the U.S. and abroad, in galleries and museums, in group and in solo shows. They have been published in books as well. In 1997 she produced Acquainted with the Night in collaboration with her husband, Philip Fried, a poet. And they hang in public and private collections including George Eastman House, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California Museum of Art, Museum of the City of Paris, and Oxford University’s Bodleian Library.
This summer, Night Shift, will be on view in Montgomery—at a time when many of us will be strolling in the cool night air, observing the moonlight on Spanish moss, and perhaps contemplating nightlife in bigger cities. Thanks to Lynn Saville, we will have a clearer picture of light after dark.
American Impressionism from The Phillips Collection
July
4
through
October
19, 2008
Highlighting the "golden age" of American Impressionism, The Phillips Collection has organized its American Impressionist paintings into a traveling exhibition for the first time in nearly 25 years. The exhibition features work by the first generation of American painters who absorbed the aesthetics of French Impressionism. American Impressionism: Paintings from The Phillips Collection is organized by The Phillips Collection.
Sky and Water, Paintings from the Permanent Collection by Reynolds Beal
July
4
through
October
19, 2008
Born in New York to a well to do family, the artist Reynolds Beal grew up in Port Morris, New York on the East River. Beal spent much of his childhood in and on the water, and was fascinated with ships of all kinds, particularly the sailboats. The sea and its environs were Beal's major subjects and they dominated his career. An avid sailor, Beal painted many of his canvases directly from the deck of his boat, capturing the shimmering quality of the light on the water, and the brisk clarity of an atmosphere that was constantly evolving around him. This exhibition celebrates over a decade of gifts of watercolors and paintings by Reynolds Beal to our permanent collection from two donors, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Bressler and the Reyneveld Famiily. The 14 paintins in the exhibition reflect Beal's primary working mode--depicting the sea or landscape environment in a bright and sparkling Impressionist style.
Traveling the Trace: from Natchez to Nashville, Photographs by Kate Cleghorn
August
9
through
October
5, 2008
These black and white images printed on watercolor paper with archival carbon inks were made with a medium-format film camera, then drum-scanned to create a digital image. They document the Spanish moss, trees, leaves, lazy rivers and creeks of the Natchez Trace in Nashville, Tennessee.
Jun Kaneko
August
30
through
November
9, 2008
The artist Jun Kaneko is best known for his large-scale ceramic works, but today experiments with many media, including glass, textile, bronze, paper and canvas. Born in Nagoya, Japan, he came to the United States in 1963 to study at the Chouinard Institute of Art in California. In the 1970s he was a teacher at some of the nation’s most prestigious art schools including Cranbrook Academy of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design.
This exhibition is a compilation of forty one examples of Kaneko’s work over the past twenty years, and includes ceramic sculpture, drawing and painting. He currently lives in a converted warehouse space in Omaha, Nebraska where he produces monumental ceramic forms known as Dangos, in addition to large scale paintings and glazed two-dimensional wall installations.
The Art of the Theatre
November
1
through
January
25, 2009
The Alabama Shakespeare Festival's production of the War of the Roses Trilogy will be the source for this intriguing exhibition of art and artifacts interpreting contemporary stagecraft. The installation will illustrate and manifest the creative design and construction processes that transform the Bard's written word into a 21st century theatrical production in the Elizabethan style.
Ancestry and Innovation: African American Art from the American Folk Art Museum
February
7
through
April
12, 2009
The collection of the American Folk Art Museum in New York is the source for 39 works created by self-taught African-American artists in the rural South and urban North. This exhibition surveys the Museum's rich holdings of this material, demonstrating the ongoing contribution of these artists to the kaleidoscope of American culture and visual experience. A number of the artists represented in the exhibition are Alabama natives, including quilters Leola Pettway, Lureca Outland, Mozell Benson and Mary Maxtion.
Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women
February
7
through
May
10, 2009
"Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women" is the first scholarly examination (and the first exhibition since 1930) dedicated to the work of one of the most widely respected American artists of the turn of the twentieth century. The exhibition features 35 sculptures that span Vonnoh's most productive period, from about 1895 to 1930. It also includes portraits of the artist by her husband, the painter Robert Vonnoh, and several photographs which provide an intimate view into the life and work of this accomplished artist. A short video on the lost-wax method of casting bronze illuminates the complex process employed by the sculptor to capture the fluid modeling and delicate details that characterize her popular, naturalistic portrayals of women and children.
Patrick Dougherty Sculpture Installation
March
1
through
March
1, 2010
During March of 2009, North Carolina artist Patrick Dougherty will build a site-specific sculpture on the lawn by the main entrance to the Museum. He will use saplings gathered around East Montgomery to create a structure ten to twenty feet tall and thirty to fifty feet square. The sculpture will probably echo the shape of the brick "port cochere" that flanks the Museum's entrance. The artist will use volunteers to gather and weave the truckloads of sticks that are needed to create his signature sculptures. The art is expected to last a year or two before nature takes its course, at which time the sculpture will be destroyed per agreement with the artist.
38th Montgomery Art Guild Museum Exhibition
May
23
through
July
19, 2009
The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts is proud to sponsor this biennial series of exhibitions in cooperation with the Montgomery Art Guild in order to give the community to survey the achievements of area artists. Traditionally, the Art Guild Museum exhibitions are filled with contemporary works in a variety of media, demonstrating significant dedication and creativity by a myriad of artists in the Montgomery area, as well as the State of Alabama.
Since the late 1950s, the Museum has been partnering with the Montgomery Art Guild to produce exhibitions focusing on the works of artists in Central Alabama. While names have changed, the intent of the show has always been to encourage the production and appreciation of art within the community. Today the two organizations partner not just to produce the exhibitions, but also to provide instructional and enrichment experiences for artists of all ages.
Mia Pearlman MAELSTROM
July
25
through
September
27, 2009
Sculptor Mia Pearlman creates the ineffable from the ephemeral--her massive works of art are fashioned from paper, and they suggest the transitory nature of life on planet Earth. Featured in this exhibition will be MAELSTROM, a giant multilevel mobile, 12 feet in diameter with a 360-degree rotation. Consisting of six circular layers of cut paper hanging from an aluminum armature, it hovers just above the heads of its viewers. Swirling cut-paper clouds evoke nature's duality both perfectly sublime and supremely destructive.
Contemporary African-American Quilts from Alabama
July
25
through
September
27, 2009
Throughout history quilts have held lan important and often cherished place in our culture, society and family traditions. Created in domestic settings, quilts serve both decorative and practical purposes. The creator is typically a woman and is not professionally trained, but has learned the essential skills of quilting in the home from her mother or relatives. The quilts quickly become treasured by the owners and often are passed on through the family to become prized heirloomss. Though the materials and techniques may be common, quilts, as process, as art, as image, reflect the very fabric of our history and democracy.
In 2004, the Museum acquired a collection of 48 quilts, most of which were created in West Alabama between 1945 and 2001. The collector, Kempf Hogan, assembled the collection in concert with folk art dealer Robert Cargo and their mutual dedication insured that the collection is of both historical as well as artistic significance. Featured artists include Yvonne Wells, Mozell Benson, and Nora Ezell--all of whom now enjoy national renown. The designs of these textiles range from the traditional to the most contemporary forms of expression.
The Museum will exhibit selections from this outstanding collection, including all 10 works the Museum now holds by Tuscaloosa quilt maker Yvonne Wells.
Fantasies and Fairy Tales Maxfield Parrish and the Art of the Print
October
30
through
January
9, 2010
Maxfield Parrish was one of the early 20th century's most popular and well-known artists. He trained as an illustrator with famed Howard Pyle, and soon, his distinctive compositions were being reproduced as illustrations and advertisements. Committed to the popularization of American art, his works were both inherently beautiful and inspiring to millions.
In many cases Parrish's original paintings were a direct result of his commercial enterprises. Before abandoning figurative work in the 1950s, Parrish undertook hundreds of commissions for book illustrations, magazine covers, advertisements and lithographs that reveal both his sense of humor and his eye for graphic design. Taking advantage of the refinements of color processing that allowed for meticulously detailed and brilliantly illuminated mass reproductions, the works Parrish created for translation into lithographs would become some of his most popular and enduring imagery.
This exhibition presents a comprehensive sampling of Parrish's printed works, including a book and magazine illustrations, as well as commercial prints designed for advertising.
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