Christina Cox Art BlogThe Anthony Van Dyck, Betrayal of Christ was exhibited in our museum? We had the pleasure of exhibiting the painting for 16 years and thousands of people have seen on display. The museum is closed and we plans to relocate soon. The Van Dyck was on loan to us is not owned by the National Museum of Catholic Art and History but by one private collector. As we have cared for and loved this painting the owner has taken it back for a short time until we relocate. We hope to have it back when we can announce our new headquarters. We want to thank this private collector for loaning it to us for such a long time. We plan to update that information shortly.
Archive for the ‘Art Exhibitions’ Category
Anthony Van Dyck, Betrayal of Christ
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010GEORGIA O’KEEFFE AT THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION IN DC
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction
(February 6-May 9, 2010)
Although painter Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), a central figure in 20th-century art, is best known for simplified images of recognizable objects, her contributions to American abstraction over the course of her long career were radical. Her approach-in paintings, drawings, and watercolors-was determined in 1915, when she decided that her art would record her feelings, rather than the appearance of things. For the remainder of her career, she looked to art, whether abstract or objective, to express emotions for which words seemed inadequate.In her first abstractions, a series of non-objective charcoal drawings, O’Keeffe reduced her palette to black and white. She filled her compositions with fluid, curvilinear forms reminiscent of Art Nouveau. In 1916, responding to the elemental landscape of western Texas, O’Keeffe reintroduced color into her watercolors. By magnifying and tightly cropping her images, a framing device used by photographers, she found the means to express simultaneously the vastness of nature, the immensity of her own response to it, and a powerful sense of being one with it. Two years later, seeking recognition as a painter in the circle of modern art dealer and photographer Alfred Stieglitz, she moved to New York and took up oils again.
Unwelcome critical interpretations of her work as expressive of her sexuality and a limited market for abstraction led O’Keeffe to turn away from pure abstraction in the 1920s and 1930s. After 1923, she rarely showed her early abstractions. Indeed, between 1935 and 1941, she produced no abstractions at all. Beginning in 1929, O’Keeffe spent long stretches of time in New Mexico, finally moving there in 1949. It proved to be an inexhaustible source of subjects for her mature works. She approached these as she had her most abstract works, through her feelings, using many of the same stylistic means. As she said, “I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at-not copy it.”Likely stung when critic Clement Greenberg trounced her in 1940 for having chosen representation over abstraction, O’Keeffe returned to it in1942, painting forms she found in the natural world that corresponded to abstract forms in her imagination. With the market more receptive to abstract art, she began to exhibit her abstractions again. By the late 1950s and 1960s she was working almost exclusively in an abstract style, in mural-sized aerial views of clouds and a minimalist, geometric series of patio door paintings. The fields of color of her radical late works set a precedent for a younger generation of abstract artists in the 1960s.
Included in the exhibition are more than 100 paintings, drawings, and watercolors by O’Keeffe, dating from 1915 to the late 1970s, and 12 photographic portraits of her by her husband, Alfred Stieglitz.
Georgia O’Keeffe, Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. IV, 1930. Image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Georgia O’Keeffe, Music, Pink and Blue No. 2, 1918. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York Photograph by Sheldan C. Collins
SACRED ART MADE REAL FROM SPAIN AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
LANDMARK EXHIBITION TO EXPLORE IMPACT OF LIFELIKE RELIGIOUS SCULPTURES ON PAINTINGS FROM BAROQUE SPAIN, ON VIEW AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
FEBRUARY 28-MAY 31, 2010
Attributed to Juan Martinez Montañés
Immaculate Conception (la Purisma), about 1628
polychromed wood
University of Seville
(Updated December 11, 2009) Washington, DC— Arrestingly real sculptures and paintings of the saints, the Immaculate Conception, and the Passion of Christ are among some 20 Spanish masterpieces of the 17th century on view in a landmark exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, from February 28 through May 31, 2010.The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture, 1600-1700 will showcase major paintings by Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Zurbarán, and Francisco Pacheco, with painted and gilded sculptures carved by Gregorio Fernández, Juan Martínez Montañés, and Pedro de Mena, among others.
The exhibition will also reveal the dynamic and intricate relationship between two-dimensional pictures on canvas and painted sculptures that has long been noted by scholars but little known by the general public. Many of the sculptures have never been exhibited away from the Spanish churches, convents, and monasteries where they continue to be venerated and to inspire the faithful.
“We hope that this exhibition will convey the artistic excellence and spiritual profundity of Spanish art to our visitors,” said Earl A. Powell III. “We are grateful to the museums and Spanish ecclesiastical institutions that have agreed to lend these exceptional works of art, which together provide an illuminating and powerful experience.”
The Sacred Made Real is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and National Gallery, London, where it will be on view from October 21, 2009, through January 24, 2010.
History Remembers Father Damien
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
AMBASSADOR SPEECHES
History Remembers Father Damien
Ambassador Howard W. Gutman
Tremelo, October 4, 2009
Your Majesties. Excellencies, Ministers, Members of the Clergy, Fellow Belgians, Fellow Americans and Fellow Citizens of the World:
I am honored and humbled to participate today after a Mass as glorious as the one we just witnessed in the unveiling of this statue to Father Damien.
To represent a country I have long loved . . . in a country I am growing to love. . . in a city and in a honoring a man that even the angels love . . . and on behalf of a President in whom I believe to my core.
I have recently arrived from my 27 year home in Washington, D.C,. We share so much in common. We in fact share statues of Father Damien. For I have visited the beautiful bronze statue of Father Damien that sits in Statuary Hall in the Capital Building of the United States of America.
But more important than even bronze and molds, we share the legacy of Father Damien and the values represented by that legend.
You see, Statues are one way that men and women remember history . . . and that history remembers great men and women.
History remembers all sorts of men and women and we build statues for all sorts. History remembers and we build statues to the truly brave – explorers, war heros, great leaders and yes priests, who set out without full knowledge of where they are going, but rooted in the belief that the justice of their cause will protect them whenever the path leads. History remembers the truly righteous – men and women who understand that the rewards can never be measured by what someone has collected, but by what they have given back. And history remembers and we build statues for the truly wise – inventors, scientists, leaders and priests, who see a little further down the road and recognize that building a better tomorrow is the most important contribution to mankind today.
Father Damien of course was all three and far more: a brave explorer; an ambassador from your then fledgling new country to what would someday be a part of my country; a healer; a righteous man, a hero and a saint.
But Father Damien was first and foremost a teacher . . . a teacher for us all,. . . and for our children.
You see, history remembers such men and women and we build statues not simply to honor the past. Statues are also about the present and even more importantly about the future. By reminding us from where we have come, they remind us who we are and where we need to be going. By honoring the past, we pledge to try to replicate such action, such bravery, such righteousness to build a better future.
The righteousness of Father Damien:
By crossing the water, when a beautiful farm awaited him here in wonderful Tremolo,
By choosing poverty, when relative wealth awaited,
By reaching out endlessly to his fellow man in a different land,
By insisting, despite pressure on burying all who died, regardless of faith, nationality or religion,
By dying to do the right thing,
Damien has taught us all.
He has taught kings and ministers, presidents and ambassadors, mothers and fathers, grandparetns and children,
He his has taught Americans and Belgians, Catholics, Protestants and Jews,
He has taught people living in Hawaii, and New York, in Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia,
He has taught us that we are all in this together . . . .
That to get it right . . . that to sail rather than to sink,
We have to get it right together. That we will all find health, safety and prosperity, or none of us can.
That what happens in Washington or Paris or Honolulu, in Africa, Afghanistan or Pakistan, in Mechelen or in Bree, where I travelled in my first two week, or in Charleroi where I travelled this past Wednesday, or in Molenbeek, where I visited a community center yesterday,
Affects us all whether we live in Tremelo, or in Washington, in Brussels or New York, in Africa, Flanders or in Wallonia, in Tel Aviv, Rabat, or Ankara.
That this time, we have to get it right. . . and we have to get it right together.
Father Damien taught us that we all must become and remain better listeners, better learners and better partners.
And not because it is politically expedient, not because of what we get, but because it is the right thing to do.
We share the problems . . . we must work together on the solutions.
Father Damien taught us that the problems that we face that unite us are far greater than the differences and prejudices that have previously divided us. That as our world gets flatter, we must become better neighbors. That given our mutual respect and mutual interest, no voice of opposition, no extremism, no economic hardship, and no threat to our health, or to the climate of our soul or of our planet can be allowed to separate us. That there are no zero sum games – we all rise together – or none of us can truly prosper. That the world we will leave to our children must be safer and more harmonious than the one we were left by our parents. And that we can never even appear to compromise the principles that we believe in for short term gains.
So what would be Father Damien’s leprosy colony today if he were alive. For what mission would he leave that idyllic farm in Tremolo?
Would he be championing the cause of AIDS? Of drug addiction? Of poverty in third world countries? Or even in cities where half of our youth cannot find a job?
A champion for our safety and security whether challenged by health or by extremism?
Father Damien would be a champion for them all…for a better planet tomorrow than the one we found yesterday.
He is and will remain an inspiration. To Belgians and Americans. To us all.
And particularly a special inspiration to those who grew up in Tremelo and in Hawaii,
And so, when I called my White House to see if, because he grew up in Hawaii, our President knew about and had thoughts about Father Damien, I learned that in fact, even from his days as a little boy, President Obama had learned of the feats of Father Damien and that he was long admired and been inspired by him.
So from Hawaii to Washington, from the White House and our Embassy, we thank the citizens of Tremelo and of Belgium for your son Damien in 1840, and for your friendship and your partnership for the 170 years since.
Thanks so much.
Women and Spirit Exhibit at the Smithsonian
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
January 12, 2010
“Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America” Opens Jan. 15 in Smithsonian’s International Gallery
Exhibition reveals the role of Catholic sisters in shaping American history.
In 1727, 12 Catholic sisters arrived in New Orleans eager to begin their work in the New World. Throughout the nearly 300 years that have followed, Catholic sisters have established hospitals, schools, universities, homeless shelters and orphanages, while providing countless other social services to millions of people in the United States.
“Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America” will be on view in the International Gallery of the S. Dillon Ripley Center from Jan. 15, 2010, through April 25, 2010.
Through rare artifacts, compelling photographs and videos, and vivid first-person narratives, the exhibition explores the contributions Catholic sisters made—and continue to make—in shaping the nation’s social and cultural landscape.
Artifacts and stories featured in the exhibition include:
- A letter from President Thomas Jefferson to Marie Thérèse Farjon of St. Xavier, written in 1804, assuring her that her community would still be able to govern itself following the Louisiana Purchase
- A nurse’s bag used by Sister Anthony O’Connell, Sisters of Charity, who pressured Army doctors to allow sisters to tend to soldiers on the front lines during the Civil War. Her lobbying succeeded, earning her the title “Angel of the Battlefield”
- A gavel and sound block belonging to Carolyn Farrell a Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who became the mayor of Dubuque, Iowa, in 1980—the first woman religious to be elected mayor of an American city
- The story of Mother Alfred Moes who, after witnessing the destruction of Rochester, Minn., from a violent tornado in 1883, proposed to William Mayo and his sons that she would build and staff a hospital if they would agree to provide the medical care. This collaboration was a significant milestone in the development of what is now known as Mayo Clinic
“Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America” is a project of The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, in association with the Cincinnati Museum Center. The exhibition’s Web site is www.womenandspirit.org.
Michelangelo Exhibit In the Seattle Art Museum
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
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For Immediate Release Contact: Nicole Griffin, SAM Public Relations Seattle Art Museum is the only U.S. Venue for Michelangelo Drawings from FlorenceExhibition reveals a side of the master artist that he never wanted the public to see.Michelangelo Public and Private: Drawings for the Sistine Chapel and Other Treasures from the Casa Buonarroti
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Boticelli Exhibit in Frankfurt
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
With a selection of portraits, mythological allegories and depictions of the Virgin – altogether some eighty works by Botticelli, his workshop and his contemporaries – the Städel Museum is presenting the first exhibition ever to be devoted to the oeuvre of this great Italian Renaissance master in German-speaking lands.
Sandro Botticelli’s painting has become a landmark of Italian Renaissance, and his monumental Idealized Portrait of a Lady (c. 1480) numbers among the Städel Museum’s main works. The ideal beauty of his mythological figures and the elegant grace of his Virgin figures make his creations the epitome of Florentine painting in the Golden Age under Lorenzo the Magnificent’s rule. It is less his masterful translation of Renaissance ideals which is the reason for the much-praised magic of his pictorial solutions, but rather the exceptional expressiveness of his figurative creations presenting their classically refined beauty in a solemn manner and with an often melancholy note. Initially trained as a goldsmith and then apprenticed to Fra Filippo Lippi, Sandro Botticelli, next to Verrocchio, Ghirlandaio, and the Pollaiuolo brothers, ranks among the most successful painters in Florence in the second half of the quattrocento. From 1470 on, he received prestigious public commissions and made a name for himself as a painter of large altarpieces. Throughout his life, Botticelli was in the ruling Medici family’s and their supporters’ good graces. Fulfilling their wishes for innovative decorative paintings, the master could not only rely on his knowledge of Florentine traditions and of ancient art, but also on definite suggestions and concepts from the circle of humanists gathered around Lorenzo de’ Medici. Held in equally high esteem as both a panel and a fresco painter, Botticelli enjoyed a high standing beyond his native Florence and was thus one of the artists summoned to decorate the walls of the Sistine Chapel in Rome by Pope Sixtus IV in 1481. It was particularly his much-discussed late work that brought out the characteristic features of his original style in an extreme manner. Guided by the art of drawing, Botticelli followed his penchant for rendering his figures with sharp contours, strong movements, and abundant gestures, grounding his compositions rather on textures of lines and surfaces than on spaces and volumes. In this respect, his painting had stood out against his competitors’ work and current theoretical demands since his early years. This is one of the reasons why art-historical research, which has devoted a vast number of major monographs and innumer-able work studies to Botticelli, still assigns a special position to the artist without fail even 500 years after his death on 17 May 1510.
All in all, it will be possible to show more than 80 works by Botticelli, his workshop, and some of his contemporaries like Filippino Lippi or Andrea del Verrocchio. The most important collections in Europe and the USA support the show with central works by the Florentine Renaissance artist. The exhibition focuses on precious creations from all phases of Botticelli’s oeuvre, confronts them with thematically related works by his colleagues, and examines them in the historical context of their making. Organized in three parts, it explores the painter’s various tasks and thematic fields. The portraits and allegorical paintings of the first section illustrate the degree of sophistication with which Botticelli drew on this highly developed genre and enriched it through new impulses. While the second chapter centers on his famous mythological representations of goddesses and heroines of virtue, the third part is dedicated to his abundant religious oeuvre.
Curator: Dr. Andreas Schumacher (Städel Museum)
Michelangelo’s Madonna Della Pieta
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
Growing up Michelangelo was my favorite artist of the Italian Renaissance period. His beautiful sculptures and fresco paintings in the Sistine Chapel are breathtaking. The most beloved piece of art and greatest sculptures ever is the Pieta in St Peter’s Basilica who brings millions every year. We are fortunate to have in our museums collection Michelangelo’s Madonna Della Pieta.
“My eyes longing for beautiful things together with my soul longing for salvation have no other power to ascend to heaven than the contemplation of beautiful things”
Michelangelo Buonarroti
Written by Christina Cox