H A RVA R D U N I V E R SIT Y A RT M USEU MS
FUTURE Arthur M. Sackler Museum | Busch-Reisinger Museum | Fogg Art Museum | Straus Center for Conservation
VOL. VII, NO. 2
SUMMER 2013
BUILDING OUR
Tiziano Vecellio, called Titian, Trees Near a Pool of Water, c. 1530. Brown ink over charcoal on cream antique laid paper. Fogg Art Museum, Bequest of John and Alice Steiner, 2004.67.
E X H I B I T IO N
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Sackler to Offer Rare Look at Modern Chinese Painting Beginning November 3, the Arthur M. Sackler Museum will offer a rare look at the ways in which Chinese artists in the second half of the 20th century interpreted and transformed the traditional art of ink painting. A Tradition Redefined: Modern and Contemporary Chinese Ink Paintings from the Chu-tsing Li Collection, 1950–2000 will feature more than 60 works by artists based in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and abroad—a comprehensive survey that includes many paintings not previously exhibited in the West. Chu-tsing Li, a native of China who emigrated to the United States in 1947, is distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Kansas at Lawrence and one of the first art historians to establish modern and contemporary Chinese art as a field of study. “Professor Li has assembled the most comprehensive collection of modern and contemporary Chinese ink painting in the West,” said Robert Mowry, Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art at the Sackler and one of Li’s former graduate students. “This exhibition will be one of the first in the United States to survey Chinese and expatriate art created
during the five decades beginning in 1950; the exhibition’s geographical range will allow for easy comparisons among the different schools and trends.” TRANSFORMING THE LANDSCAPE
Thirty-five artists will be represented, including Liu Guosong (b. 1932) of Taiwan, a founder of the contemporary Chinese ink painting movement and one of the most technically innovative such painters working today. The 63 works on view are an outgrowth and transformation of the classical landscape tradition established during the Northern Song period (960– 1127) and made more abstract by scholar–amateur painters known as literati during the succeeding Yuan (1279–1368) and Ming (1368–1644) dynasties. By the early 20th century, traditional landscape painting held little allure, as its practice was bound by strict rules governing composition and brushwork. Young Chinese artists were attracted to Western styles, and many traveled and studied abroad. With the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, “art for art’s sake” became unacceptable, and Taiwan became the nexus of creativity
Funding for the exhibition and its publications was provided by Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, and from Joel and Lisa Alvord, Winnie and Michael Feng, Dorothy Tapper Goldman, the family of Earle Jen-Shyong Ho, James M. Kemper, Jr., Marilyn J. Stokstad, Jacqueline B. and Alan L. Stuart, Martha Sutherland and Barnaby Conrad III, and Gilbert and Stephanie Zuellig.
A Tradition Redefined can be seen at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway, Cambridge, from June 3, 2011, through September 1, 2013. u Yanshao, Electric Power Station in a Mountain Village, 1976. Hanging scroll; L ink and color on paper. tl40379.40. Digital photography by Ken Howie.
HOURS: Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; Sunday, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.
3 | BUILDING OUR FUTUR E | EXHIBITION
and experimentation. While their mainland counterparts found themselves locked into a rigid socialist realism, painters working in Taiwan experimented with ways to remain connected to their Chinese roots while embracing aspects of the abstract expressionism popularized in the Western world in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Li trained many curators and scholars, including the three organizers of A Tradition Redefined: Mowry; Janet Baker, curator of Asian art at Phoenix Art Museum; and Claudia Brown, professor of art history at the Herberger College of the Arts, Arizona State University at Tempe and research curator of Asian art at Phoenix Art Museum. The exhibition is co-organized by Phoenix Art Museum and the Harvard University Art Museums. After it closes in Cambridge, the show will travel to Phoenix and then to West Palm Beach, Florida, and Lawrence, Kansas. â–Ş
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BUSCH-REISINGER MUSEUM Max Beckmann, Woman with Mandolin in Yellow and Red, 1950. Oil on canvas. Bayerische Staatsgem채ldesammlungen, Collection Modern Art at the Pinakothek der Moderne Munich, tl40320.2. Photo courtesy of the Pinakothek der Moderne.
B U S C H-R E I S I N G E R M U S E U M
Light Display Machines: Two Works by László Moholy-Nagy Through June 4
Making Myth Modern: Primordial Themes in German 20th-Century Sculpture Through May 6
Paintings by Max Beckmann from the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich Through August 23 FOGG A RT MUSEUM
5 | BUILDING OUR FUTUR E | ON VIEW
Kara Walker: Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated) in honor of President Drew Gilpin Faust May 6–June 11
Contemporary Art from the Harvard University Art Museums Collections Through August 10 A R T H U R M . S AC K L E R M U S E U M
A Tradition Redefined: Modern and Contemporary Chinese Ink Paintings from the Chu-tsing Li Collection, 1950–2000 June 3–September 1
The Harvard University Art Museums are open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; Sunday, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.
BUSCH-REISINGER MUSEUM László Moholy-Nagy, Light Prop for an Electric Stage, 1929–30. Exhibition replica, constructed in 2006, through the courtesy of Hattula Moholy-Nagy. Metal, plastics, glass, paint, and wood, with electric motor. Busch-Reisinger Museum, Hildegard von Gontard Bequest Fund, 2007.105.
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ARTHUR M. SACKLER MUSEUM, above: Wan Qingli, Clearing after Snow, 1983. Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper. tl40379.51. Digital photography by Ken Howie. FOGG ART MUSEUM, right: Kara Walker, Confederate Prisoners Being Conducted from Jonesborough to Atlanta, from the portfolio Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated), 2005. Offset lithograph and screen print. Photo courtesy of Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston.
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G I F T S & AC Q U I S I T IO N S
Donors Give $18.4 Million for Art Endowment The O’Keeffe work is a 1925 canvas, Red and Pink; the Stella is a small oil sketch made circa 1914 titled Dog in Motion; and the De Kooning is one of his most important early works, Untitled (The Cow Jumps over the Moon), from about 1938. In addition, the Fogg purchased eight prints by Mary Cassatt that were part of the artist’s own “studio collection” of hundreds of experimental proofs and unpublished prints. The Cassatt prints, made in 1890–91, are various proof states and an exquisite final impression of The Bath, which depicts a woman holding her naked baby beside a bathtub. The collection has been greatly enriched by these and other purchases. ▪ Left: Attributed to Tiziano Vecellio, called Titian, An Idyll: A Woman Seated under a Tree with a Child and a Standing Halberdier in a Landscape, 1505–10. Oil on panel. Fogg Art Museum. Kate, Maurice R., and Melvin Seiden Special Purchase Fund in honor of Konrad Oberhuber and Sydney Freedberg; Richard Norton Memorial Fund; and Richard Norton Fund, 2007.106.
9 | BUILDING OUR FUTUR E | GIFTS & ACQUISITIONS
The Art Museums are close to their goal of raising $10 million to fund the operations of the Department of Painting, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts. Some $18.4 million has been raised so far to endow the department and its curatorial staff, research, publications, and internships. Major donors to the endowment are: the Bolton Fund for American Art; Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence J. Lasser; Catherine Coolidge Lastavica, MD; Mr. and Mrs. Herbert C. Lee and their son, Thomas H. Lee; Mr. and Mrs. Michael Maher; Elizabeth Gosnell Miller; Mr. and Mrs. Daniel A. Pollack; Mr. and Mrs. Charles O. Wood III; the Henry Luce Foundation; and several anonymous donors. Donor Mildred “Micki” Lee said recently that she supported the campaign for one reason: the students. “It’s important for students to see original works of art. You can’t tell from a photograph what a painting is, or a drawing, or a print. With the original, you have a better idea of what the artist is doing.” The holdings were enhanced in 2006 and 2007 when Harry Cooper, curator of modern art, acquired the Fogg’s first paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe, Joseph Stella, and Willem De Kooning.
Joseph Stella, Dog in Motion, circa 1914. Oil on canvas. Fogg Art Museum, Gift of Dr. Ernest G. Stillman, Class of 1907, by exchange, 2006.19.
Opposite page, top: Aert van der Neer, Moonlit Estuary, 1650s. Oil on panel. Fogg Art Museum, Promised gift of Anne and Peter Brooke. Photo courtesy of Johnny Van Haeften Ltd, London. Left: Prince Sh¯otoku at Age Two, Kamakura period, c. 1292. Japanese cypress; assembled woodblock construction with polychromy and rock-crystal inlaid eyes. Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Promised gift of Walter C. Sedgwick in memory of Ellery Sedgwick Sr. and Ellery Sedgwick Jr. Bottom: Georgia O’Keeffe, Red and Pink, 1925. Oil on canvas. Fogg Art Museum, Gift of Dr. Ernest G. Stillman, Class of 1907, by exchange, 2006.49.
11 | BUILDING OUR FUTUR E | GIFTS & ACQUISITIONS
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The next few months will bring a number of exciting programs for Members and Fellows. Here’s a sampling:
FE L LOWS E V E N TS May 15
International and Fogg Fellows visit private collections in New York.
May 16–17
Junior Fellows Spring Weekend, coinciding with the Benefit Gala. May 29
Darkness at Noon: Fellows revisit Harvard’s legendary Fine Arts 13 course. June 6
Prelude: Toasting a New Century at the Harvard University Art Museums, a benefit gala, 7 p.m.–midnight. Tickets are limited and must be purchased in advance.
June 17
Junior Fellows visit the Gropius House in Lincoln, Massachusetts, with Peter Nisbet, Daimler-Benz Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum. July 20
Fellows brunch at a private collection in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts. August Fellows events in Maine, to be announced.
M E M BE R S E V E N TS
PU BLIC E V E N TS
May 15
May 1–4
July 17
May 17–18
A Day on Bellevue Avenue: The Art and Architecture of Newport, Rhode Island, 8 a.m.–6 p.m.
Community Open House, complimentary admission.
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Save the Date for a summer day trip. Invitations with details will be mailed to all Members.
Arts First weekend at the Fogg, Adolphus Busch Hall, and around campus. Open to all and free to the Harvard Community.
June 30
Fogg and BuschReisinger museums at 32 Quincy Street will close for renovations. Highlights of the collections will be on view at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum beginning in September.
Painting on back cover: Max Beckmann, Woman with Mandolin in Yellow and Red, 1950. Oil on canvas. Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Collection Modern Art at the Pinakothek der Moderne Munich, tl40320.2. Photo courtesy of the Pinakothek der Moderne.
BUILDING OUR FUTURE
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