The Ringling Magazine | October – December 2023

5401 Bay Shore Road

Sarasota, FL 34243

941.359.5700

ringling.org

Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

Richard D. McCullough President

James J. Clark Provost

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Steven High

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Warren R. Colbert, Sr., Chair

Margaret D. Hausberg, Vice Chair

H. Michael Bush, Treasurer

Mercedes Soler-Martinez, Secretary

Jasleen “Ritu” Anand

Dennis W. Archer

Adele Fleet Bacow

David W. Benfer

Amy D. Berk

Francine B. Birbragher

Larry J. Cuervo, Jr.

Rebecca Donelson

Andrew M. Economos

Leon R. Ellin

Elma Felix

Ronald A. Johnson

E. Marie McKee

Janice Tibbals Mobley

Howard D. Noble, Jr.

Cynthia L. Peterson

Frederic D. Pfening, III

Kelly A. Romanoff

Mayra N. Schmidt

Debra J. Short

James B. Stewart

Keebler J. Straz

Marla Vickers

Kirk Ke Wang

EX-OFFICIO BOARD MEMBER

Joan Uranga, Chair Volunteer Services Advisory Council

ISSN 2165-4085

Dear Members,

It’s been another busy and engaging summer at The Ringling! We hosted undergraduate and graduate summer interns from FSU, USF, New College, Trinity College Dublin, Illinois State, University of Delaware, and University of Minnesota. They worked in the Registration, Education, Performance, Admissions, Archives, and Conservation departments. In addition to departmental projects, the interns received weekly professional development and cultural enrichment opportunities, including career advising, curator-led talks, behind-the-scenes tours, a field trip, and opportunities to hear from museum staff about how their professional paths led them to The Ringling. This fall, we are thrilled to welcome the inaugural recipient of the Eleanor Merritt Fellowship, Jevon Brown. Brown, a Rhode Island School of Design graduate, will spend a year working across The Ringling, gaining valuable experience from each department and having the opportunity to produce projects of his own.

We are looking forward to an exciting season of innovative programs and exhibitions. In August, we opened Mountains of the Mind in the Chao Center for Asian Art, organized by Rhiannon Paget, Curator of Asian Art. The first exhibition to feature the collection of scholars’ rocks recently donated by Stan and Nancy Kaplan, it also includes works on paper and a recently-acquired painting by contemporary artist Howie Tsui. In October, we will open Guercino’s Friar with a Gold Earring: Fra Bonaventura Bisi, Painter and Art Dealer, curated by David Stone, Professor Emeritus at the University of Delaware, and Sarah Cartwright, Ulla R. Searing Curator of Collections. The Ringling’s portrait of Bisi by Guercino (acquired at auction in 2015) is the starting point of this exhibition that explores Bisi’s fascinating life as an artist, connoisseur-adviser, and art dealer.

The Art of Performance 2023-24 season kicks off on October 20 with a performance by the neo-Latin vocal sensation Yaite Ramos Rodriguez, aka La Dame Blanche. Born and raised in Cuba, the singer, flautist, and percussionist now lives in Paris, where she challenges genres and expectations with her impressive musical vision. Following will be a season of acclaimed performances in the HAT (Historic Asolo Theater) so please review the schedule on ringling.org and purchase your tickets online or at the HAT Box Office.

I hope you enjoy reading about our upcoming activities this fall. On behalf of our board and staff, thank you for your membership and support for The Ringling.

Steven High Executive Director

RIGHT:

Lingbi Stone, 20 1/16 × 15 3/8 × 8 11/16 in. Gift of Stan and Nancy Kaplan, 2019, SN11681.24

COVER:

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri; Italian, 1591–1666), Portrait of Fra Bonaventura Bisi (detail), ca. 1658-59. Oil on canvas, Museum purchase, 2015. SN11531

SHINIQUE SMITH: PARADE

By Shinique Smith and Sarah Cartwright, PhD

Ulla R. Searing Curator of Collections

Beginning in December, visitors to the Museum of Art will have the extraordinary opportunity to experience the work of contemporary artist Shinique Smith (b. 1971) in conversation with The Ringling’s collection of European art. Well known for her monumental sculptures created from an array of materials including luxurious textiles, personal clothing, dyed fabrics, ribbon, and wood, and for her abstract paintings of calligraphy and collage, Smith’s work has been exhibited and collected by many institutions, including the Baltimore Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, California African American Museum, LACMA, Minneapolis Institute of Art, MoMA PS1, MFA Boston, and the Guggenheim.

Shinique Smith: Parade is the first exhibition of Smith’s work at The Ringling, and the first time she has presented her work in direct dialogue with a museum collection of historic

European art. The show, which includes several recent largescale sculptures as well as smaller works including drawings, sculpture, family photos, and found objects, creates a series of unique stories told in various galleries of the Museum of Art, which together form an abstract narrative of the “parade” as a metaphor for life. Smith’s work speaks to various facets of the European artistic tradition, such as classical drapery and Christian iconography, while foregrounding notions of Black femininity and the history of the circus. Through explorations of color, pattern, gesture, and the body, Smith comments on environmental and social concerns and expresses her own spirituality and worldview.

An installation of small bundled sculptures, vessels of jewelry, and drawings in Gallery 6 introduces the visitor to Smith’s work. Inspired by her admiration for the beauty that her grandmother

and mother created in times of “making do” and building magic from everything they had on hand, this installation will also display a collection of photographs of the women in her family dressed to the nines, along with some of their personal treasures, to form a venerated visual poem. Moving through the Museum of Art galleries, visitors will find several examples of Smith’s acclaimed large-scale fabric sculptures. In works such as Inflamed by Golden Hues of Love and Mitumba Deity II, Smith explores her reverence for the curves and resilience of Black women, conveyed through shapely forms bejeweled and draped in gold. Notions of divinity, light, death, renewal, and rebirth pervade works like Grace Stands Beside and Stargazer, a sculpture inspired by the imagined path of an enslaved woman following the stars and counting the days to her freedom.

Smith also relates to the symbolism embedded within illustrations of mystical experiences and mythologies found in religious paintings. In her work, certain fabric patterns, drapery, and other items symbolize her own past and honor specific people. Bale Variant No. 0025 (Etta Parthenia’s Treasure) is a portrait containing one beloved woman’s garments and accessories, while Bale Variant No. 0027 (Charm city girl stele) is a self-portrait celebrating Smith’s teenage years as a young artist writing graffiti in Baltimore. In keeping with Smith’s

conception of bales and tethered sculptures as odes to figures from the past, the exhibition will also pay homage to the painful and complicated history experienced by Black people in the circus, some of whom were held against their will and displayed as freaks. Circus performers like the albino African American brothers Willie and George Muse are inspirations for two new sculptures, while a new installation of sound and printed silk banners celebrates aerialists like Alice Clark Brown.

Smith notes, “My hope for this show is to draw a balance between opposing depictions of people and the art histories that inform my hand, while celebrating the beauty found in

OPPOSITE PAGE: Mock-up of Inflamed by Golden Hues of Love, 2019, in Gallery 19. THIS PAGE, LEFT TO RIGHT: Mitumba Deity II, 2018–2023; Grace Stands Beside, 2020. Images courtesy of Shinique Smith, Monique Meloche Gallery, and David Castillo Gallery.

WORKING CONDITIONS

Exploring Labor through The Ringling’s Photography Collection

By Christopher Jones

Stanton B. and Nancy W. Kaplan Curator of Photography and Media Arts

The Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries profoundly reorganized the nature of human labor. That era is defined by a global shift from producing goods by hand to manufacturing by machines and technologies that emphasize efficiency. Photography, a product of the Industrial Revolution, was itself introduced to the public in 1839 as a time- and labor-saving technology to record images from the

visible world more accurately than painting or drawing. The subsequent development of photographic media has thus been intertwined with the culture of labor ever since. In addition to the camera’s technical use by working photographers as an instrument to record, photographers have also created images of labor over the decades that have shaped how we think about work. This exhibition explores the myriad ways in which photographs have communicated ideas about labor since the nineteenth century through examples from The Ringling’s photography permanent collection.

In the early twentieth century, a new style of documentary photography emerged that sought to depict social problems with the intent to sway public sentiment to the need for reform. One of the progenitors of this genre, Lewis W. Hine (American, 1874-1940), is famous for the indelible images of exploitative child labor that he created. A sociologist by training, Hine was hired by the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) in 1908 to document the exploitation of underage laborers around the US. He created a trove of over 5,000 photographs, images that were used in public lectures and published in pamphlets that the NCLC used to fight child labor. One such image (fig. 1), a group photo of breaker boys—children who worked sorting coal by hand as it passed through chutes—demonstrates how young the children employed in these mines were and the dire conditions they worked in. To obtain access to worksites, Hine often had to use subterfuge and wear disguises, making his job akin to detective work. The NCLC’s campaign was instrumental in enacting federal legislation that restricted child labor, and Hine’s photos demonstrated the camera’s power as a witness and advocate.

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975) further refined documentary photography to create his own distinctive style. Evans is best known for his work documenting the effects of the Great Depression, much of which was done as a photographer for the US government’s Farm Security Administration (FSA). Before joining the FSA, Evans was commissioned to photograph in Cuba for the book The Crime of Cuba by Carleton Beals. Fascinated by a group of dockworkers shoveling coal at the docks in Havana, Evans captured several images of the ragged, dust-covered men, including this portrait (fig. 2). Rather than showing us an image of the man at work, we see the traces of

OPPOSITE PAGE:

FIG. 1 Lewis W. Hine (American, 1874-1940), Breaker Boys in a Coal Chute, South Pittston, Pennsylvania, 1911, printed later. Gelatin silver print, 10 9/16 x 13 1/2 in. Gift of Warren J. and Margot Coville, 2012. SN11310.135

ABOVE:

FIG. 2 Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975), Coal Dock Worker, 1933, printed later. Gelatin silver print, 7 11/16 x 6 1/8 in, Gift of Stanton B. and Nancy W. Kaplan, 2019, © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. SN11678.2

hard labor on his weathered face, dust-covered tattered clothing, and the two shovels propped on his shoulder. This was one of the earliest examples of Evans using a large format camera in the field to make a portrait, allowing him to capture textures in detail and scrutinize the subject closely. Unlike Hine, Evans was less interested in persuading his viewers to take a particular position. Instead, he focused on capturing the essence of an individual and promoting a democratic sensibility that insists even the most menial workers deserve representation.

In contrast to the examples above that frame labor within social concerns, Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971) frequently depicted a harmonious integration of workers into industry. BourkeWhite is celebrated for her trailblazing career as the first female photojournalist for Life magazine and the first woman to work as a war correspondent during World War II. Her style is characterized by bold, modernist compositions, and she excelled at capturing grand engineering and industrial projects. In this image (fig. 3) from an assignment at the new Industrial Rayon Corporation factory, she presents nearly endless rows of identical Rayon spools handled by female workers. Rayon was the first synthetic fiber, and the Painesville factory was the most significant operation to manufacture it on an industrial scale. Although the workers appear almost incidental in this photograph, which focuses on the marvels of industrial production, they do provide evidence of the increasing number of women entering the workforce in the 1930s and the types of labor they performed.

The exhibition also features many photographs from Bill Owens (American, born 1938) from his iconic photobook Working: I Do It for the Money (1977). From 1967, Owens worked full-time as the staff photographer for the local newspaper in Livermore, California, but during his free time, he pursued his own personal photography projects. For his Working series (fig. 4), he photographed people while they were on the job, aiming to explore their feelings about their occupations and how work contributed to their sense of identity. Owens drew inspiration from the documentary photographers of the 1930s, but his compositions and clever captions also contain a touch of irony. Despite this irreverence, Owens sought to document people at work across various professions and social classes, resulting in a valuable project that provides a humanistic cross-section of American work from the 1970s.

Additionally, the exhibition includes images by other notables such as Eugène Atget, Lewis Baltz, Dmitri Baltermants, Endia Beal, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Danny Lyon, and Arthur Rothstein. These photographs offer a variety of perspectives and evolving interpretations of labor throughout the past century.

ABOVE, TOP TO BOTTOM:

FIG. 3 Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971), Industrial Rayon Corporation, Painesville, Ohio, 1939. Gelatin silver print, 13 9/16 x 10 1/4 in. Gift of Warren J. and Margot Coville, 2020, 2020.1.30. © Estate of Margaret Bourke-White.

FIG. 4 Bill Owens (American, born 1938), Industrial burger maker, Tri-Valley Area, Northern California, from the series Working, 1974-1976. Gelatin silver print, 6 7/16 x 9 1/16 in. Gift of John Chatzky and Debbie Mullin, 2021, 2021.51.31. © Bill Owens

NEW WORKS BY WOMEN ARTISTS

On view in the Kotler-Coville Glass Pavilion

By Marissa Hershon Curator of Ca’ d’Zan and Decorative Arts

Each rotation of the permanent collection in the Kotler-Coville Glass Pavilion presents an opportunity to install twentieth- and twenty-first-century studio glass, often with a unifying theme in mind. Topics explored in the past have ranged from an array of aesthetic impulses and experimental techniques of the 1980s to the inspiration that artists have found in nature. In addition to the June 2023 installation of new acquisitions, like Tiffany Print II by Hanna Hansdotter and Selene by Joanna Manousis, the most recent selection of works shown together creates a dialogue between influential women in the field.

Throughout the international studio glass movement, an impressive number of female artists have made significant contributions through collaborations, innovative conceptual approaches, and technical mastery of glassmaking. During the 1970s, cross-cultural exchanges saw a revitalized energy for teaching centuries-old Italian glassmaking traditions, which Americans infused with fresh ingenuity. For instance, Sonja Blomdahl is best known for making vessels using the challenging incalmo technique. Long practiced in Murano, Italy, incalmo requires the precise joining of two molten glass bubbles that must have the same diameter. Blomdahl has dedicated her career to an exploration of form and color, and the recent gift of Rose/Chartreuse epitomizes her balanced

shapes and contrasting color combinations. Likewise, Ginny Ruffner stimulated a revival of flameworking with her narrative works, like Where I’ve Been, and by teaching students to use a torch to sculpt borosilicate glass. Arguably the most celebrated internationally from this group, Mary Ann “Toots” Zynsky developed a new technique for producing glass threads, known as filet de verre, and a career-defining aesthetic fusing them into sculpture. Garden Chaos is representative of the multicolored and animated forms she made in the 1990s.

Additionally, two works by glass pioneer Edris Eckhardt, generously loaned by Edris Weis, show the artist’s talent across media with Blue Reverie, cast in glass, and A Head of a Young Woman, cast in bronze. At a time when early practitioners primarily focused on glassblowing, and the hot shop was widely perceived as a male-centered space, Eckhardt delved into casting glass in molds, even making glass batches by combining raw materials at her home studio. Eckhardt’s figural work is exceedingly rare today, and it’s a delight to view these works together. As trailblazers in the world of glass, these artists paved the way for future generations of women in glass. Every new rotation in the Kotler-Coville Glass Pavilion allows us to continue presenting a more balanced view of artistry in glass.

Case on the 2nd floor of the Kotler-Coville Glass Pavilion, left to right: Edris Eckhardt, Blue Reverie, 1976, on loan from the Collection of Edris Weis; Ginny Ruffner, Where I’ve Been, 1995, Gift of Philip and Nancy Kotler, 2017, SN11582.13; Sonja Blomdahl, Rose/Chartreuse, 2002, Gift of Sharon Karmazin, 2023; Toots Zynsky, Garden Chaos, Gift of Warren and Margot Coville; Edris Eckhardt, Head of a Young Woman, 1967, on loan from the Collection of Edris Weis.

MOUNTAINS OF THE MIND Scholars’ Rocks from China and Beyond

By Rhiannon Paget, PhD Curator of Asian Art

Curious rocks have been venerated in China since ancient times. Wealthy elites of the Tang dynasty (618–907) sought out magnificent limestone boulders for their gardens. During the Song dynasty (960–1279), scholars began collecting smaller rocks with sculptural shapes, interesting surface textures, and striking colors. These became known as gonshi, meaning “spirit stones.” Because of their association with literati culture across East Asia, they are called “scholars’ rocks” in English.

Suitable stones are harvested from lakes, riverbeds, mountains, and other remote locations, where they have been sculpted by the elements over millions of years. In the process of becoming scholars’ rocks, they may be cut from bedrock, trimmed, carved, polished, inscribed, and finally mounted in a custommade stand at an angle that enhances their visual appeal. As such, scholars’ rocks are both natural objects and products of human creativity.

Historically, connoisseurs displayed their stones in their studios alongside paintings, antique inkstones, archaic bronzes, and other treasures. They were admired for their abstract sculptural qualities, or alternatively, for their resemblance to human figures, animals, trees, or coiling clouds.

Stones that suggest mountain peaks and powerful natural forces are especially revered among East Asian petraphiles. As objects of imaginative contemplation, these landscapes in miniature invite the mind to wander. For Daoists, mountains are the meeting place between heaven and earth. Ascending them brings one closer to the gods, while concealed beneath are great subterranean caverns inhabited by immortals. Even a small desktop rock could be a portal to another realm.

Paintings of remarkable stones produced from the

eighth century to the present reflect and reinforce the significance of rocks in East Asian culture. Their fantastic shapes invite the brush to play, and a skillful artist can animate their subjects or lend them magical qualities, such as the ability to shapeshift or generate their own weather.

Petraphila is by no means unique to China, but the rich culture of appreciating scholars’ rocks that developed there has diffused across East Asia and beyond. As well as objects from China, this exhibition includes objects from Japan, Korea, Canada, and Italy. On view for the first time at The Ringling are scholars’ rocks recently donated from the extensive collection of Nancy and Stan Kaplan. These are joined by works on paper, including a group of nineteenthand twentieth-century Chinese and Korean paintings loaned from the Dongguan Lou Collection. We also are delighted to share a new acquisition, Avatars of Entombment #1 (Calcify), by Howie Tsui (Canadian, born 1978), which employs the classical motif of the scholars’ rock to comment on contemporary social, political, and personal concerns. Tsui’s painting is generously funded by longtime Ringling supporters Lucia and Steven Almquist.

OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP TO BOTTOM, LEFT TO RIGHT: White Taihu Stone, 21 1/16 × 9 7/16 × 7 1/2 in. Gift of Stan and Nancy Kaplan, 2019, SN11681.41

Ying Stone, 12 5/8 × 5 7/8 × 4 1/8 in. Gift of Stan and Nancy Kaplan, 2019, SN11681.60

Howie Tsui (Canadian, born in Hong Kong, 1978), Avatars of Entombment #1 (Calcify), 2021.

Paint and ink on mulberry paper mounted on silk. Museum purchase with funds given by Lucia and Steven Almquist. © Howie Tsui, 2021

ARCHIVES

IN SEARCH OF PROOF

By Heidi Connor Chief Archivist

Responding to research requests is one of the primary activities of The Ringling Archives. A recent request sought authentication on a bottle of whiskey purported to have belonged to John Ringling. Amit Stern wrote he had purchased a bottle of whiskey with a label that reads, “Rye Straight Whiskey over 20 years in wood private stock Burns & Co., 48th Street, New York, N.Y. This whiskey was obtained from one of the celebrated private cellars in New York and is sold by us by special permission from New York State Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.” A typed note glued to the bottle reads, “A Straight Rye Whiskey, “Olden Tymes Rye,” purchased by John Ringling the famous circus owner, in 1896, kept in the wood until 1926 when bottled.” Stern’s request presented an opportunity to discover information on John Ringling’s liquor collection.

In 1926, when the whiskey was bottled, the Ringlings were enjoying their wealth with an active business and social life in Sarasota. Their calendar was filled with engagements hosting personalities such as E. W. Sinclair, chairman of the board of Sinclair Consolidated Oil; Mayor Jimmy Walker of New York City; Mayor Frank Hague of Jersey City; and J. P. Maguire, president of the Textile Bank of New York and director of Madison Square Garden. Having a bottle of reserve stock rye on hand for guests would not be out of the realm of possibility, especially considering the Ringlings also kept a reserve stock of bourbon at Ca’ d’Zan.

The Archives contacted Cass Anderson, chief editor of the website BroBible, to learn more. Anderson shared that Burns & Co. was founded by Samuel F. Burns on December 7, 1895. He suggested that the address on Stern’s bottle may have been for an aging warehouse a few streets away. Anderson then referred us to spirits experts Maggie Kimberl, Suzannah Skiver Barton, and Josh Peters to continue our investigation.

During Prohibition (1920-1933), it wasn’t illegal to own whiskey acquired prior to Prohibition. The typed label on Stern’s bottle of rye implies Ringling owned it before January 1, 1920.

Peters suggested that Ringling may have bought it from Burns & Co. and used them for cellaring services, or, alternatively, that he bought the barrel elsewhere and that it is perhaps a nineteenth-century Canadian blended rye. A Time magazine article from July 9, 1928 points to another possible Canadian connection, describing how federal inspectors confiscated 30,000 bottles of Canadian whiskey and spirits from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus after they left Montreal and crossed into New York.

The note on the bottom of Stern’s bottle implies that Burns & Co. purchased the barrel from a “celebrated individual” and is selling it with special permission from the New York Beverage Coalition. Why is Ringling’s name not on the label as the celebrated individual? Peters confirmed that there is no way Ringling could have gotten this rye bottled or imported into the US legally, because if it was bottled in 1926, it would be illicit and Canadian. He suggested the New York City information could be false, while using the name of a real liquor store. Regardless, this is not what legal, Prohibition-era whiskey looked like.

Our investigation could not answer Amit Stern’s provenance question or add more information about the collection of liquor in Ca’ d’Zan, but it provided insight into how John might have obtained spirits during the Prohibition era. It also raised the question whether John Ringling preferred bourbon or rye whiskey…a question we invite you to ponder the next time you visit Ca’ d’Zan and stop by the Tap Room.

Greetings from

A VIBRANT INVESTMENT The

Ringling's Audacious Embrace of Time-Based Arts

By Elizabeth Doud, PhD Currie–Kohlmann Curator of Performance

Museums that house and integrate performing arts programs are a rare breed. Thanks to eclectic savvy and curatorial daring over the decades, The Ringling has long been committed to embedding performance of all disciplines, including live circus, into the offerings available at our unique cultural institution. Based on the belief that a museum is a place for time-based and ephemeral arts, The Ringling has invested in not only an historic Italian opera house of its own (viva the HAT!), but also an annual live performance season which excites and provokes audiences alongside the museum’s visual arts collection and exhibitions, magnificent architecture, and awe-inspiring circus legacy.

Each Art of Performance season promises cultural immersion and exposure to hybrid forms and previously unknown voices and stories. The Ringling’s performance department presents both emerging and established artists who take risks with work that isn’t mainstream entertainment. We take pride in keeping ticket prices affordable and offering audiences experiences with transnational projects that would not otherwise be presented in the Gulf Coast region.

The upcoming 2023–2024 Art of Performance season includes shows by twelve distinct artist companies. It also supports the creative development and premiere of one new performance work and multiple artist residencies by

boundary-pushing performance makers. Working with youth and new audiences is central to visiting artists’ engagements. In addition to offering masterclasses, artist talks, and off-site workshops, we specifically schedule matinees to be available, for free, for students from local schools and other community partners. Another exciting component of our program has been supporting the development of young technical theater and arts administration professionals through internships at the HAT.

Besides the recurrent themes of artistic voices from Latin America and the Caribbean, masters of the jazz idiom, and circus-adjacent performance, the 2023-24 season possesses a strong Francophone thread, weaving together a suite of contrasting works of various disciplines that reflect noteworthy performance from the Francophone world.

HAT patrons who have become loyal subscribers often comment that they can’t find performance like this anywhere else in the area, and we strive for that distinction with every beautiful, high quality, and emotionally impactful performance we select. Join us as we celebrate the best of our common humanity and artistic brilliance while elevating unique cultural identities in the HAT and beyond.

Explore performances and purchase tickets at ringling.org

Guercino’s Friar with a Gold Earring: Fra Bonaventura Bisi,

Painter and Art Dealer

By Sarah Cartwright, PhD Ulla R. Searing Curator of Collections

Nearly eight years ago, The Ringling acquired an extraordinary painting by one of the celebrities of Italian Baroque art: the Portrait of Fra Bonaventura Bisi (1658–59) by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591–1666), better known by his nickname, Il Guercino. This portrait is now the subject of a special focus exhibition which explores the life of Guercino’s sitter, the fascinating Fra Bonaventura Bisi (16011659). Immortalized to history wearing his Franciscan robes and a gold hoop earring, Fra Bisi was a Minor Conventual friar from Bologna who was also active as an artist, art dealer, and connoisseur-adviser. This Ringling-generated international loan exhibition—more than four years in the making—sheds light on Fra Bisi’s extensive artistic activity through paintings, drawings, prints, and rare books from museums, libraries, and private collections in both Italy and the United States, together with selections from The Ringling’s permanent collection of Italian Baroque art.

Nicknamed “Il Pittorino” (“little painter” in Italian), Fra Bisi was celebrated for his miniatures painted in tempera on parchment, in which he often reproduced, at tiny scale, famous compositions by Italian masters such as Parmigianino, Guido Reni, Pordenone, Correggio, and Raphael. Bisi’s fame as a miniature painter during his lifetime was significant, as demonstrated by his inclusion in Carlo Cesare Malvasia’s Felsina pittrice (Lives of the Bolognese Painters) of 1678. Queen Christina of Sweden visited Bisi and requested one of his works, and the Bolognese writer Luigi Manzini composed a lengthy poem about Bisi’s pointillist technique, Il Punto, published in 1654. Three of Bisi’s exceptional miniatures are featured in the exhibition, on loan from the Galleria Estense in Modena, Italy.

Of even greater consequence for the history of art was Fra Bisi’s work as an art dealer and adviser. He successfully procured sought-after drawings for some of the most important collectors of his day: two successive Dukes of Modena, Francesco I d’Este and his son, Alfonso IV; and Prince (later Cardinal) Leopoldo de’

Medici in Florence. A selection of drawings Bisi acquired for these princely patrons—including examples by Pordenone, Primaticcio, Parmigianino, and the School of Bartolomeo Passerotti—are included in the exhibition, lent by the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe of the Gallerie degli Uffizi in Florence and the Galleria Estense in Modena. Bisi’s own passion for drawings motivated him to find the highest quality works for his patrons, contributing to the appreciation of drawings as works of art worthy of being collected at the highest levels.

Other sections of the exhibition explore Bisi’s early artistic formation in Bologna as a pupil of the painter Lucio Massari; Bisi’s work as a printmaker; his relationships with Guercino and other Bolognese artists including Giovanni Andrea Sirani and Elisabetta Sirani; and his fame within Bolognese artistic and literary circles. Important loans illustrating these aspects of Bisi’s life include the meditative St. Jerome in Prayer by Lucio Massari (Museo Civico, Modena), the extraordinary Self-

Portrait by Guercino (National Gallery of Art, Washington), an exquisitely preserved Madonna and Child by Guido Reni (North Carolina Museum of Art), two paintings by Elisabetta Sirani (private collection), and a number of rare prints and publications (Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio, Bologna).

The exhibition, based on extensive research, was organized by Dr. David M. Stone, Guest Curator and Professor Emeritus, University of Delaware, and Dr. Sarah Cartwright, Ulla. R. Searing Curator of Collections, The Ringling. To accompany it, the museum has produced a 144-page, richly illustrated scholarly book (Scala Arts Publishers) presenting new research on Guercino and Fra Bisi. Two chapters by Stone focus on Guercino’s portrait and Bisi’s career as an artist and agent. Cartwright’s first chapter provides an account of the fashion of men wearing earrings in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and a second chapter puts Bisi’s miniature painting into a broader historical context.

OPPOSITE PAGE, LEFT TO RIGHT:

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri; Italian, 1591–1666), Portrait of Fra Bonaventura Bisi (detail), ca. 1658-59. Oil on canvas, Museum purchase, 2015. SN11531 School of Bartolomeo Passarotti (Italian, 1529–1592), Galba, ca. 1600-1610 (?). Pen and brown ink; squared in white chalk, Galleria Estense, Modena, Italy; inv. 850, Courtesy of the Ministry of Culture - Photographic Archive of the Gallerie Estensi

ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT:

Fra Bonaventura Bisi (Italian, 1601–1659), Angel Appearing to St. Jerome, after 1645 (?). Tempera on parchment, Galleria Estense, Modena, Italy; inv. R.C.G.E. 1372, Courtesy of the Ministry of Culture - Photographic Archive of the Gallerie Estensi

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri; Italian, 1591–1666), Self-Portrait before a Painting of “Amor Fedele”, 1655. Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Patrons’ Permanent Fund, 2005.13.1

Guido Reni (Italian, 1575–1642), The Virgin Nursing the Christ Child, ca. 1628-30. Oil on canvas, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Lee Humber in memory of their daughter, Eileen Genevieve, G.55.12.1

500 YEARS OF ITALIAN DRAWINGS

from the Princeton University

Art Museum

By Sarah Cartwright, PhD

Ulla R. Searing Curator of Collections

Nearly one hundred rarely displayed highlights from the Princeton University Art Museum’s world-renowned collection of Italian drawings will be on view at The Ringling beginning October 14. 500 Years of Italian Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum, curated by Laura M. Giles, Heather and Paul G. Haaga Jr., Class of 1970, Curator of Prints and Drawings, explores how drawing (disegno in Italian) became the backbone of training and imagination in European art during the Renaissance, a status it holds to this day. Among the many drawings on view are exceptional examples by such leading artists as Michelangelo, Parmigianino, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and Amadeo Modigliani.

Arranged thematically, 500 Years of Italian Drawings chronicles the techniques, training, and experiments of a wide variety of painters, sculptors, and architects, each of whom developed a signature style grounded in developing ideas through drawing on paper. The exhibition devotes special attention to three artists who are particularly well represented in the Princeton University Art Museum’s collection: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770), Guercino (1591–1666), and Luca Cambiaso (1527–1585). Of special note are the twelve drawings by Guercino, including an important pen-and-ink study for a painting of the legendary Assyrian queen Semiramis receiving news of a revolt in Babylon, as well as numerous caricature drawings by this creative and prolific Italian Baroque master.

This exhibition of drawings is an excellent complement to the concurrent exhibition in the Searing Wing, Guercino’s Friar with a Gold Earring: Fra Bonaventura Bisi, Painter and Art Dealer, which features not only paintings by Guercino, but also a selection of drawings by Italian Renaissance and Baroque artists on loan from Italian museum collections. With these two exhibitions, museum visitors have an opportunity to learn more about how Italian artists used drawing in their practice, and why these works have been sought after by collectors for centuries.

OPPOSITE PAGE:

Gaetano Previati (1852–1920; born Ferrara; died Lavagna), The Monatti, illustration to Alessandro Manzoni’s I Promessi Sposi, ca. 1895–99. Watercolor, heightened with white gouache, on light brown wove paper; 23.2 × 32.2 cm. Princeton University Art Museum. Museum purchase, Felton Gibbons Fund (2007-16)

THIS PAGE, LEFT TO RIGHT:

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) (1591–1666, born Cento; died Bologna), Study for Queen Semiramis Receiving News of the Revolt of Babylon, 1624. Pen and brown ink on cream laid paper, 19 × 26.1 cm. Princeton University Art Museum. Bequest of Dan Fellows Platt, Class of 1895 (x1948-727)

Federico Barocci (1535–1612; born and died Urbino), Studies for Saint Sebastian, ca. 1592–96. Black chalk and charcoal, heightened with white chalk, with stumping and touches of red chalk, on tan laid paper prepared with a medium brown wash, squared in black chalk; 42.5 × 26.3 cm. Princeton University Art Museum. Bequest of Dan Fellows Platt, Class of 1895 (x1948-598)

In early 2021, The Ringling began planning a career pipeline fellowship to recruit talented, arts-minded candidates who might not otherwise seek careers within museums and cultural heritage. After an intensive national search, The Ringling welcomed Jevon Brown as its inaugural Eleanor Merritt Fellow in August 2023. In the conversation below, Jay Boda, Associate Director of Academic Affairs + Collections, introduces Jevon to The Ringling community.

Jay Boda: Welcome to The Ringling, Jevon. Please share a little about yourself with The Ringling’s members.

Jevon Brown: Thank you. I was born and raised in Miami, Florida. After graduating from the Visual and Performing Arts program at Coral Reef Senior High, I attended the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). I majored in Textiles and graduated in Spring 2023. I was a design intern at fashion brands like Converse and Gucci. Some of my artistic influences include Kerry James Marshall, Romare Bearden, Kehinde Whiley, and now Eleanor Merritt.

Jay: During your fellowship interview, you discussed how the arts have created opportunities for you. Please share some of your story.

Jevon: One of my first recollections includes being in art class during third grade. My art teacher, Ms. Kohn, was an excellent instructor. She nurtured my talents and was the person who told me about magnet art programs in Miami. She made sure I was prepared to apply and that’s where I cultivated my love for art and developed my early skills. Art provided access to better-funded schools and complemented my high-achieving academics, making it the perfect balance.

Jay: Your application was stellar. I’m sure you considered other opportunities after graduating from RISD. Why did you apply for The Ringling’s Eleanor Merritt Fellowship?

Jevon: I saw this as a great opportunity to learn and engage with the cultural arts sector. Institutions like The Ringling played

THE ELEANOR MERRITT FELLOWSHIP

A Legacy Building the Future of Museums

a big role in kids’ lives like me while growing up. The fellowship is a great way for me to help further the legacy of mentorship and service to the communities The Ringling serves. I’m excited to be learning from Ringling professionals while working together to advance the Sarasota arts community and positively impact lives while spreading love and compassion for one another.

Jay: The one-year fellowship includes training across almost all museum departments, while also completing projects supporting our strategic plan. Please share some of your ideas about what you want to accomplish as The Ringling’s first Merritt Fellow.

Jevon: I hope to inspire younger people who attend our programs and exhibitions. Learning about museum operations will give me the skills to give back and impart my wisdom as an artist to young people—and show careers in the arts are viable. I also want to make that work more accessible through artist talks, gallery talks, and possibly create art-making workshops.

Jay: Finally, the fellowship is meant to develop a broad range of skills and set up the fellow for onward success in the arts. Understanding you’re keeping an open mind about your future, can you share some of your intentions in the arts?

Jevon: After completing this fellowship, I want to pursue an MFA as a working artist. There is so much knowledge to attain and explore. I feel like I’m just scratching the surface. I’m never satisfied with what I know and there’s always more information to gather and disseminate as a creative person.

The fellowship is named for Eleanor Merritt (1933–2019), a prolific and celebrated artist and art educator, and The Ringling’s first African American docent and board member. The Ringling showed Merritt’s work as a pioneering artist and educator during the 2022 exhibition Eleanor Merritt: Remembrance

To learn more about the Eleanor Merritt Fellowship, visit ringling.org/college-programs/#internfellow.

In January 2023, The Ringling received a $109,900 grant from E.A. Michelson Philanthropy to launch a series of handson workshops for older adults. These workshops, which are taught by highly skilled artists, use the creative aging model and build sequentially so that participants develop their own skills throughout the duration of the program. Participants work in the Education Center’s recently renovated MakerSpace and have behind-the-scenes access to artworks and exhibitions across The Ringling’s campus. Workshops also provide participants the opportunity to make connections with their classmates and form new friendships.

The first workshop series, Aquarelle After Hours, was held in September with renowned artist Keith Crowley teaching watercolor. While that workshop took place at the museum, The Ringling also sponsored a parallel watercolor workshop at the Senior Friendship Centers, led by artist Bianca Clyburn. Outreach workshops for older adults are an important component of the Lifelong Arts Initiative at The Ringling and are offered at no cost to our non-profit partners.

Want to take part in the fun? Join our next cohort of curious older adults exploring a new art form at The Ringling. Each workshop series will culminate in an event to celebrate the participants' accomplishments.

LIFELONG ARTS INITIATIVE at The Ringling

The cost to participate in the workshops is $450 for members and $550 for non-members. This fee includes all workshop materials and supplies, as well as Museum Admission for the duration of the workshop series. It also allows The Ringling to cover the costs for the aligned outreach workshops at a nonprofit site.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS

Waiting for Icarus: Ekphrastic Poetry Bootcamp with Dr. Emily Carr

OCT 9 – 12, 16 – 19

10:00 AM – NOON

Drawing From Basic to Best with Artist Craig Carl

NOV 6, 8, 13, 15, 27, 29

DEC 4, 6

1:00 – 4:00 PM

For more information or to register, visit ringling.org/event/lifelong-arts-workshops

DIGITAL MEMBERSHIP CARDS

In August, The Ringling launched digital membership cards for all currently active members. These cards can be downloaded directly to the wallet app on your smartphone.

If you have not received an email about your digital membership card, need to register to continue to receive a hard-copy card, or have other membership-related questions or concerns, email us at membership@ringling.org.

To learn more, scan this QR code or visit ringling.org/membership

THE GIFT OF ART

ART OF PERFORMANCE SEASON KICK-OFF PARTY

La Dame Blanche

White Hot Fête

OCT 20, 7:30 PM

Museum of Art Courtyard

Neo-Latin vocal sensation La Dame Blanche’s expansive mix of hip-hop, female empowerment, and dancehall delivers a powerful sound that summons the spirits. Singer, flautist, and percussionist Yaite Ramos Rodriguez triumphantly fuses her Cuban musical ancestry with fearless innovation.

Members can make an extraordinary impact at The Ringling through the critical support of art acquisitions. By making philanthropic contributions, you can contribute to the enrichment of The Ringling’s collections, enabling the acquisition of significant artworks that might otherwise remain inaccessible to the public. In April, long-time members Steven and Lucia Almquist made an incredible donation to The Ringling that supported the acquisition of Howie Tsui’s Avatars of Entombment #1 (Calcify)

Tsui is a rising international artist of Canadian Chinese heritage who works in a variety of media to construct tense, fictive environments that subvert canonized art forms and narrative genres. You can see this new acquisition in Mountains of the Mind: Scholars’ Rocks from China and Beyond, currently on view in the Chao Center for Asian Art through June 23.

If you are interested in supporting art acquisitions at The Ringling, please contact The Ringling’s Office of Advancement at advancement@ringling.org.

SAVE THE DATES

Additional information and invitations for these member-only events will be shared closer to the event dates.

ALL MEMBERSHIP LEVELS

All members are invited to view exhibitions before they open to the public. Appetizers and a cash bar will be available. Exhibition Previews are free to attend, registration is required.

OCTOBER

• MEMBER EXHIBITION PREVIEW

Guercino’s Friar with a Gold Earring : Fra Bonaventura Bisi, Painter and Art Dealer and 500 Years of Italian Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum

DECEMBER

• MEMBER EXHIBITION PREVIEW

Shinique Smith: Parade

CIRCLE LEVELS

Circle Level events are not accessible to all members. If you are interested in learning about these upper levels of membership and their benefits, please contact Emily Joslin at 941.358.2605.

OCTOBER

• CIRCLE EXHIBITION PREVIEW + RECEPTION

Guercino’s Friar with a Gold Earring: Fra Bonaventura Bisi, Painter and Art Dealer and 500 Years of Italian Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum

• VIEWPOINT LECTURE

Two Artists in Dialogue: Guercino’s Portrait of Bisi in Context with David M. Stone, co-curator of Guercino

NOVEMBER

• VIEWPOINT LECTURE, CIRCLE EXHIBITION PREVIEW + RECEPTION

Michele Oka Doner

DECEMBER

• VIEWPOINT LECTURE + CIRCLE LUNCH with Laura Giles, curator, 500 Years of Italian Drawings

• CIRCLE VIP AT HOLIDAY SPLENDOR

Fra Bonaventura Bisi, Bolognese, 1601 – 1659, Holy Family with the Infant St. John the Baptist (detail), 1634, Engraving with etching, Collection of Jonathan Bober.

SELF PORTRAIT OF SARAH BIFFIN

By Jennifer Lemmer Posey Tibbals Curator of Circus

Sarah Biffin gained fame as a miniature painter in early nineteenth-century England. Biffin was born with no arms and underdeveloped legs because of a congenital disorder known as phocomelia. Raised on a farm in Somerset, Biffin was apprenticed at the age of thirteen to Emmanuel Dukes, who exhibited her in fairs and sideshows across England. As part of the show, Biffin would use her mouth and shoulder to paint and write.

Impressed by Biffin’s artistic talent, the Earl of Morton sponsored her to receive painting lessons from William Craig, a Royal Academy of Arts painter, in 1808. By 1816, Biffin was working as an independent artist and taking commissions from nobility and royalty. In 1824, Biffin married William S. Wright, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, but little additional information exists about their relationship. Charles Dickens and other contemporaries reference Biffin in their writing, and the royal family granted the artist a small pension that was paid until her death in 1850.

This self-portrait was painted by Biffin around 1823. The artist included her paintbrush, neatly pinned to her right sleeve. The delicate brushwork around her features and hair, combined with the skillful application of the watercolor medium in rendering the shape of the bow and bodice, demonstrate her remarkable artistic skills.

The Circus collections are rich with images of individuals whose bodies were considered a spectacle, whether due to the physical feats they could perform or because their anatomy differed from what was considered normal. In this way, the collections offer a unique perspective on the range of human experience and our cultural fascination with difference. Biffin’s skillful self-portrait is a reminder of that spectrum of experience, and also proof of her extraordinary talent.

Sarah Biffin (British, 1784–1850), Self Portrait, circa 1823. Watercolor on paper, 9 x 7 in. Tibbals Circus Collection, ht8000276