Oct 28, 2014 Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art offers an array of temporary exhibitions in 2015. Highlights include works from one of the finest collections of 20th-century art in the country, an exploration of landscape painting in the Americas, and works by acclaimed American artists Jamie Wyeth and Andy Warhol. Van Gogh to Rothko: Masterworks from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery February 21 through June 1, 2015 Van Gogh to Rothko brings together 75 artworks by more than 39 influential artists from the late 19th century to the present. The exhibition features masterpieces by some of the most prominent names in art history including Vincent van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, Joán Miró, Andy Warhol, and Mark Rothko. The works were selected from the collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, one of the finest collections of twentieth-century art in the country, located in Buffalo, NY. Van Gogh to Rothko traces the story of avant-garde art from late19th-century Modernism through Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art in the late 1950s and early 60s. Beginning with works from the late 1800s, the exhibition includes stellar examples of Post-Impressionism by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin, which inspired artists on both sides of the Atlantic, as can be seen in later works throughout the exhibition. Van Gogh to Rothko also considers ideas that contributed to the development of art movements such as Cubism, Surrealism, Pop Art, and Minimalism. The largest grouping in the exhibition features approximately 20 mid-century American artists, many of whom identified as Abstract Expressionists, including Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Robert Motherwell. The exhibition marks the first time many of these works have toured in decades. Crystal Bridges is one of only four venues, besides the Albright-Knox, that will host this remarkable exhibition, offering Museum guests a rare opportunity to view paintings and sculptures by some of the most well-known and respected names in the art world. This exhibition is organized by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, and is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art presentation has been made possible by Rich Family Foundation and Art Agency, Partners, and Stout Executive Search. “It is with great pleasure that the Rich Family Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Rich Products Corporation, supports the Crystal Bridges Exhibition of ‘Van Gogh to Rothko: Modern Masterworks from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’ in Buffalo, New York,” said Mindy Rich, President, Rich Family Foundation. “This sponsorship speaks directly to our ongoing passion for and commitment to the arts.” Fish Stories: Early Images of American Game Fish April 4 through September 21, 2015 Game Fishes of the United States, one of the largest and most spectacular of American sporting books, was printed in 1879 -1880 at the zenith of late 19th-century American chromolithography. The work, which is included in the Crystal Bridges Library collection, features 20 color plates based on the original watercolor paintings by well-known sporting artist Samuel Kilbourne, with text written by ichthyologist George Brown Goode, head of the fish research programs of the US Fish Commission and the Smithsonian. The color plates capture a number of distinctly American fishes in their natural surroundings, including the striped bass, sheepshead, bluefish, weakfish, red snapper, pompano, and brook trout. Each fish’s shimmering colors and delicate scales are amazingly vivid. This classic collection elegantly conveys the drama of sport fishing and highlights the exploration and celebration of nature in American art—one of the major themes in Crystal Bridges’ permanent collection. Warhol’s Nature July 4 through October 5, 2015 Drawn from the extensive collections of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, this exhibition will explore the artist’s surprising, lifelong engagement with nature as subject matter. View works from every decade of the Pop icon’s long career, from his earliest drawings as a commercial illustrator through his later paintings of flowers and wildlife. Organized by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Curator Chad Alligood Jamie Wyeth July 25 through October 5, 2015 This exhibition examines Jamie Wyeth’s distinctive approach to realism over the course of six decades, from his precocious childhood drawings through recurring themes inspired by the people, places, and objects that populate his world. Wyeth’s career offers new insight into contemporary realism and surrealism with an emphasis on the American context for these styles. Wyeth comes from a family of artists, including his grandfather, Newel Convers Wyeth (1992-1945); his father, Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009); and his aunt, Caroline Wyeth Hurd (1909-1994). The exhibition features Wyeth’s portraits of subjects such as his wife, Phyllis Wyeth; John F. Kennedy (commissioned by family members after his death); Rudolf Nureyev; and Andy Warhol; which will be shown alongside a selection of preparatory drawings that offer a window into the artist’s immersive approach to portraiture. Jamie Wyeth explores the artist’s process and development, as well as his intense connections to specific places—such as the Brandywine River Valley in Pennsylvania and Tenants Harbor on Southern Island, Maine—and gift for imbuing his portraits with a deep sense of empathy for the subject. This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Alfred Maurer: Art on the Edge October 10, 2015 through January 4, 2016 Considered one of the first American Modernists and one of the most versatile American artists, Alfred H. Maurer (1868–1932) tirelessly pushed the boundaries of artistic expression throughout his career. This exhibition features more than 70 of Maurer’s most accomplished works, highlighting the artist’s singular contributions to American painting in the early 20th century. Maurer was one of the first American painters to travel to Paris to study avant-garde art. His long career spans a wide range of stylistic approaches, but he maintained a steady interest in certain themes, such as the female figure, as well as formal experimentation with color, form, and abstraction. The exhibition surveys Maurer’s career, and is organized into seven chronological groupings: fin-de-siècle figure paintings, scenes of contemporary leisure, Fauvist works, landscapes and florals, heads and figures, still lifes, and late abstractions. The diversity and virtuosity of the works illustrate the extent to which Maurer was a formidable creative force in expanding the potential for artistic expression in American art. Alfred Maurer: Art on the Edge/i> was organized by the Addison Gallery and co-curated by independent scholar Dr. Stacey Epstein and Addison curator Susan Faxon. Picturing the Americas: Landscape Painting from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic November 7, 2015, through January 18, 2016 Artistic representation of human interaction with the land has a long history in the Americas. During the early years of the 19th century, as nations in the Americas gained and asserted their independence, pictorial representations of the landscape forged visions of the whole hemisphere. Landscape imagery of the period shows how we are connected by a shared Pan-American history, but also underscores the differences between our respective national identities based on our relationships to the land. The exhibition features approximately 120 oil paintings, watercolors, photographs, prints, maps, books, and three-dimensional objects, including works by well-known American landscape painters Albert Bierstadt, Frederic E. Church, Thomas Cole, Martin Johnson Heade, and Georgia O’Keeffe, as well as masters of the genre from both north and south of the United States, such as Jose Maria Velasco (Mexico), Francisco Oller (Puerto Rico), and Juan Manuel Blanes (Uruguay), among others. Picturing the Americas: Landscape Painting from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic is a collaboration between three organizing institutions: Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada; and the Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, USA. It will open at the Art Gallery of Ontario during the Pan American Games in Toronto before traveling to Crystal Bridges, and then to the Pinacoteca in São Paulo, Brazil. ###
