One of the foremost artists of our day, Ellsworth Kelly may be best known for his rigorous abstract painting. However, Kelly has made figurative drawings throughout his career, and has created an extraordinary body of work that now spans six decades. Opening next month at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is the first major exhibit to focus exclusively on Kelly’s drawings of plants.
Tag Archives: Metropolitan Museum of Art
American Wing at Met Re-Opens Today
It’s Monday and the Met is open. Not only that, it’s debuting the renovated galleries of American painting and sculpture. I wasn’t able to make the press preview, so am crediting Holland Cotter’s excellent New York Times review with the following….
Image of Madam X, from the New York Times article by Hollland Cotter
“How do the updated galleries look? Sensational, which is news, because the old ones didn’t. They had a warehouse atmosphere, with pictures stacked up on the walls, sculpture plunked down wherever and narrative logic disrupted because the collection was split between two floors. Now all the galleries are on one floor, the second. And, thanks to an addition of 3,300 feet of repurposed space, there are more of them, 26 in all.
“More space wouldn’t mean much if it weren’t well used, but it is. The architects, Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, have devised a wrap-around format with a few long-vista galleries cutting through a maze of smaller ones. The art placement is roughly chronological, but also coalesces into themes, and leaves choice of direction mostly up to the visitor. If you see something beckoning from another gallery, go for it. There are no wrong turns here.”
And what’s in the galleries? Nothing less than stunning paintings and works of art, including eight works by John Singleton Copley. Works by Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull. And so much more that I’m going to re-direct you to Mr. Cotter’s fine coverage. (Just click through the link.)
This is American culture as recorded by artists and craftsmen. It’s at the Met, and just in time for visitors to Americana Week.
New American Wing Galleries at the Met to be Open for Americana Week
The Metropolitan Museum’s collection of American art returns to view in expanded and dramatic new galleries on January 16, 2012, when the Museum inaugurates the New American Wing Galleries for Paintings,
Sculpture, and Decorative Arts. The new installation will provide visitors with a rich and captivating experience of the history of American art from the 18th through the early 20th century.
Twenty-one of the new galleries—including the 18 sky-lit Joan Whitney Payson Galleries—have been created for museum’s extraordinary collection of paintings. Its origins date back to the 1870s, thanks to the strong support of founding Trustee-painters Frederic Edwin Church and John Frederick Kensett. The Museum’s holdings are particularly rich in the works of the great masters, including John Singleton Copley, GilbertStuart, Thomas Cole, Church, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and John Singer Sargent.
The centerpiece of the new installation is Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s 1851 painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware.” The gallery will also showcase Church’s “Heart of the Andes” and Albert Bierstadt’s “Rocky Mountains”—just as they were displayed at the famous 1864 Metropolitan Sanitary Fair.
The opening of the New American Wing Galleries for Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts in January 2012 represents the third and final phase of a major, multi-part renovation project.
For more information, please visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art website.
Why American Art Pottery is Cool: Experts Talk at the Met
The Appraisers Association of America does a very good job of keeping its members informed. On October 26, they are sponsoring a talk on American Art Pottery: 1876 – 1930.
If you’ve got the time and a buck or two to spend on finding out why so many make a fuss about Rookwood, Newcomb, Greuby, Marblehead, Saturday Evening Girls, Dedham and Ohr pottery – this is one great way to find out.
One of the featured speakers is Dr. Martin Eidelberg, author and specialist in Tiffany glass, ceramics and lamps. I had an
Tiffany Cabbage Pitcher
opportunity to interview him last year on Tiffany Favrille Ceramics. He is knowledgeable and personable. So, I’m anticipating a great presentation.
Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, is another of the speakers. She is a recent recipient of an award from the Decorative Arts Society.
Adrienne Spinozza, from the Met, will also be there, talking about the three items she recommended the Met purchase.
If you go, you’ll be treated to The Robert A. Ellison, Jr. Collection of American art pottery from all regions of e nation. That’s more than 250 examples of artisanal work produced on a limited basis, and now very desirable.
From clay, to glaze to firing – the answers about approache, importance, the whys and wherefores will all be revealed.
For more information, contact the Appraisers Association of America at 212-889-5404 or email erhuff@appraisersassoc.org.
Carnation Bowl with Mums
With the New York Ceramics Show kicking off Americana Week, the information you gain at the Met event will serve you well when it comes to seeing the finest examples dealers have to offer.
Duncan Phyfe Exhibit On at Met, Open During Americana Week
The long-awaited Met exhibit on the legendary American furniture maker Duncan Phyfe is on again at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and will be open during Americana Week.
A poor immigrant when he arrived in America from his native Scotland, Phyfe acquired wealth and fame through hard work and exceptional talent. Throughout the first half of the 19th century he made neoclassical furniture for the social and mercantile elite of New York, Philadelphia, and the American South. His personal style, characterized by superior proportions, balance, symmetry, and restraint, became the New York local style. Many apprentices and journeymen exposed to this distinctive style by serving a stint in the Phyfe shop or by copying the master cabinetmaker’s designs helped to create and sustain this local school of cabinetmaking. Demand for Phyfe’s work reached its peak between 1805 and 1820, and he remained a dominant figure in the trade until 1847, when he retired at the age of 77. Within the short span of a single generation, however, the work of the master cabinetmaker was all but forgotten.
Duncan Phyfe (1770 - 1854) Side chair ca. 1805-1810 Gift of Goodhue Livingston New-York Historical Society
Because Phyfe’s furniture was seldom signed, yet widely imitated, it is sometimes difficult to determine with accuracy which works he actually made. The exhibition breaks new ground by matching rare bills of sale and similar documents with furniture whose history of ownership is known, thereby codifying his style over time.
In the early 1800s, furniture from the workshop of New York City cabinetmaker Duncan Phyfe (1770–1854) was in such demand that he was referred to as the “United States Rage.” Opening December 20 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibition Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker in New York—the first retrospective on Phyfe in 90 years—will serve to re-introduce this artistic and influential master
Sofa. United States, New York, ca. 1810-15. Attributed to the workshop of Duncan Phyfe Mahogany, cherry, pine, gilt brass, and modern upholstery. On loan to the Cincinnati Art Museum from the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Ohio.
cabinetmaker to a contemporary audience. The full chronological sweep of Phyfe’s distinguished career will be featured, including examples of his best-known furniture based on the English Regency designs of Thomas Sheraton, work from the middle and later stages of his career when he adopted the richer “archaeological” antique style of the 1820s, and a highly refined, plain Grecian style based on French Restauration prototypes. The exhibition brings together nearly 100 works from private and public collections throughout the United States. Highlights of the exhibition include some never-before-seen documented masterpieces and furniture descended directly in the Phyfe family as well as the cabinetmaker’s own tool chest.
Following its presentation at the Metropolitan Museum, the exhibition will be shown at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker in New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art) will be released on October 25, 2011.
